Rusting cars and abandoned machinery dot Coober Pedy’s backstreets and ridge tops. This detritus serves as history on show and is all part of the town’s makeshift, unvarnished charm.

Beloved by feature filmmakers for its other-worldly spectacle, The Breakaways lure photographers of all stripes to capture the vibrant ochre hues exposed in bands of weathered Cretaceous-era claystone.

In the noodling process, small mountains of previously mined material are sifted and sorted in the hope of recovering overlooked gems. Here, at the end of a noodling machine, Shirley Wreford uses ultraviolet light to help spot the tell-tale gleam of opal among the shards of rock whizzing along the conveyer belt.

Under bright shop lights the allure of opal really shines. It’s array of hues is the product of the silica spheres diffracting white light into a variety of colours in the spectrum.

Sunrise over Hutchison Street, Coober Pedy’s dusty main drag. Though unprepossessing on the surface, the town offers visitors the chance to fossick for shops, restaurants, underground motels and opal dealers.

Radial cloud ridges overhang Hutchison Street as evening settles on Coober Pedy.

John Dunstan’s father started opal mining in Andamooka in 1946 before moving to Coober Pedy in 1968. John continues the mining tradition and, together with wife Yoka, runs a main street opal outlet overseen by Yoka’s West Highland Terrier.

Almost encircled by mine diggings, Coober Pedy sprawls along the flat-topped edge of the Stuart Range. In this arid, dust-coated township the hallowed turf of the local footy ground shines opal-green.

Katrina Williams – one of four talented Williams sisters who live and paint in Coober Pedy – at her kitchen table with her latest work, “Women’s Gathering – Bush Tucker”.

From a heyday throng of 3000, barely 20 active miners remain in the world’s opal capital. Yet, for all the faded glory of gem mining, below the surface, a resilient community still shines.

The gaping open cut pit of Cairn Hill reveals the dark magnetite-copper ore lurking below the surface. Located, 55km south-east of Coober Pedy this site is part of mining revolution that is transforming life in South Australia’s northern outback.

Subterranean suburbia. Markus Hammermeister’s smart dug-out abode on German Gully Road is as well-appointed as any big-city home. Though cave-like on the inside, Markus’s front-verandah views stretch into the desert vastness.

As well as running a local motel the Clee family are also the mainstays of Coober Pedy’s Revival Fellowship church which occupies an adjacent dugout.

While congregations may be dwindling, the vaulted spaces of Coober Pedy’s underground churches remain a popular tourist attraction.

Coober Pedy’s opal fields form a vast sprawl of drill holes and shapely mullock heaps of material excavated from deep underground. From the air this highly worked terrain is an artefact akin to abstract art, or a beach where sand bubbler crabs have riddled the surface with holes.

With so much discarded machinery Coober Pedy is heaven for anyone who wants to try their hand at ‘found object’ sculpture – and out here quirkiness and humour.

In a now anonymous former cafe, retired miners gather upstairs for their nightly session of cards and conversation.

One of many families recently arrived in Coober Pedy from the sub-continent, Syed Mufiammad Ghufran Asim and his wife Imrana Ghufran are pictured here with their eldest daughter Tehreem and twins Javeria and Zoya in the family’s newly opened food outlet ‘Asian Takeaway’.