Mel Gibson as Max

The Road Warrior (1981) directed by George Miller

In this still, photographer Carolyn Johns captures the anarchic, post-apocalyptic world of the second Mad Max film. After training with world-renowned photographers’ collective Magnum Photos in the mid 1970s, Johns returned home to Australia to take her first production stills on George Miller’s set. ‘It was fifteen weeks in the desert with some incredibly talented, creative people’, she recalls. ‘You were up before sunrise six days a week. My documentary photographer friends were writing to me, saying, “What are you doing on that film set? You should be photographing a war!’’’