For wildlife photographer Jason Edwards, it was the day the “god of photography threw me a line”.

Two years ago Mr Edwards was on a field trip with a female researcher documenting desert mammals in the Australian Outback for an international project when they came across a wild, but remarkably friendly, red kangaroo.

The researcher immediately recognised the marsupial as an orphan that she had raised by hand six years before and the kangaroo – who was carrying a tiny, hairless, month-old joey in her pouch – soon recognised the scientist.

As the pair’s friendship was rekindled, Mr Edwards, a Melbourne-based science and nature photographer, realised that he had been handed a unique opportunity: to get up close and personal to a wild kangaroo that was comfortable enough with humans to possibly let him photograph her joey in her pouch.

After a few days of returning to the semi-desert national park in far northern New South Wales and talking to and sitting with the kangaroo, the researcher was able to get close enough to her former orphan to open her pouch.

In a matter of seconds, Mr Edwards managed to slip in a macro lens and capture this rare glimpse of life inside the marsupial’s pouch. The photo – of a newborn joey, known as a pinkie, suckling the mother’s teat – is being exhibited as part of the New Scientist Eureka Prize for Science Photography Exhibition in Sydney.

“It was one of those frames you don’t get very often,” Mr Edwards told The Times.

“I just looked down the lens and was looking for something shiny in the darkness,” he said of the split-second time he had to take the photo.

“Then I just went bang, bang, bang with the shutter and had managed to take a couple of frames when the roo pulled her muscles tight and her pouch closed like a string on a bag. She hopped a few metres away and ate some grass and the researcher and I just looked at each other and said: ‘Oh my God, we did it’.”

The image of the kangaroo is recognised around the world as an icon of Australia, however a newborn joey inside its mothers pouch has rarely been seen before.

While some Australian kangaroos can be friendly – especially the tame ones found around popular campsites and caravan parks where they are regularly fed by tourists – others, particularly pregnant or new mothers in the wild, can be extremely protective of their young and will bound away before you can get near them.

Mr Edwards said he was aware of the potential harm that could have been caused to the joey or the kangaroo, who in times of distress is known to expel her baby from the pouch, and the ethical questions raised from invading a mother’s pouch.

But he said as a wildlife photographer of over 25 years with extensive experience in macro photography, he believed it was absolutely paramount that you put the well-being of your subject first.

He used a special flash – which was less bright than daylight - mounted on a small, 100mm macro lens, and ran tests on a nearby dark tree to make sure the joey’s exposure to light would be minimal.

“We were very quiet and I was under the guidance of someone who was far more experienced with these animals and who also was the foster mother to the kangaroo, so we were very careful and gentle,” Mr Edwards said.

“The mother kangaroo seemed fine afterwards. It was an incredible experience and the joey looked amazing – it must have been destined to have its face shown to the world.”

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