It is argued by some that Australia lacks a coastal mythology comparable with bush mythology, maybe because the beach has not been regarded as a place where one can learn the Protestant values of hard work and fortitude--the settler pioneer ethic. For those who do not live on the coast, part of the pleasure of going to the seaside is the sense of escaping the city and suburbs and all the responsibilities that go with one's ordinary working life.

Narelle Autio’s images of Australian coastal life in her coastal dwellers series from have won her acclaim since they were first exhibited at Stills Gallery in 2000. The images below are from her Watercolour series:

Apart from the rainbow this image expresses the coastal summer mood on my evening walk after I'd finished the day painting the weekender. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to take my camera. Maybe because I've always found the beach a hard place to photograph, primarily because of the harsh summer light.

These pictures of coastal dwellers were taken in the last rays of the sun. Hence the saturated colour. From what I can gather Narelle Autio and her partner in life and work, Trent Parke, completed a 16-month journey around Australia's coastline. The two set out to document the culture of Australian coastal dwellers with an exhibition lined up at the Australian Centre for Photography.

Autio was the first Australian winner of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award for her series Coastal Dwellers. Her more recent body of work – New Colour Works – builds on her interest in Australian beach culture. Autio has also produced a book, The Seventh Wave: Photographs of Australian Beaches, in collaboration with Trent Parke. Images from this book were featured in the 1999 Leica Documentary Exhibition and the 2000 World Press Photo Award. Autio is considered to be one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists.

Fiona Capp in Solace by the sea in The Age says:

In the visual arts, it has been the "low" art of photography rather than the "high" art of painting that has responded to and captured this immersion in the moment. Max Dupain's iconic photograph Sunbaker, featuring a man's head and shoulders resting on the sand, the skin still wet and shimmering from the surf, is perhaps the most famous. Here is the moment of repose after exertion. But the moment of anticipation before immersion is also an exquisite part of the beach experience....No photographs I have seen better capture the ecstasy of that moment of literal immersion than the underwater shots of Trente Parke and Narelle Autio [in The Seventh Wave ]in which swimmers merge into great explosions of light that could be bubbles or clouds in the sky....These are photographs that capture the ethereal, otherworldliness of the sea.