But he's also something more than a daily observer of the dance of politics - he is an artist who, freed from the daily demands of news journalism, takes flight and soars.

So we let him fly. He's been to the sites of the bushfires on the NSW South Coast. He looked and sketched and took photographs, and transformed coastal views into enduring works of art. Who wouldn't want one in a frame on a wall at home? I know I do - the space is there and ready.

In these works of art - because that's what they are - David draws inspiration from some of those classic travel posters of the 1950s and earlier. And there's an elegant simplicity, too, which draws from Japanese prints. The result is a combination of the product of his perceptive eye for the news of the moment with something much more lasting and beautiful.

Read more: ACM launches bushfire recovery marketing campaign for holiday spots

As a bread-and-butter reporter, it was a joy to watch him operate. There he was in the background, observing and listening. We reporters ask the blunt, basic questions - who, why, what - and he listened and heard everything. No detail escaped his eye and imagination. But the facts he gleaned turned into something bigger.

His work captures a huge event in our times. Of course, there have been fires in Australia since time began. It is the fire continent. People have used fire to manage land since way before white people settled here. And fire has been part of colonial and now post-colonial Australia. There have been big bushfires before. But these ones were different in their extent and duration.

The experts say that we have entered, not even a "new normal" because this summer of eternal fire will only get worse. The new normal is a warming planet making it easier for fires to ignite. The best scientists say we are in a world of worsening fires in seasons which last longer.

The American chronicler and analyst of Australian fires, Professor Stephen Pyne, calls the past summer of fire the "Forever Fire". The terrible images spoke to people around the world. They seemed to touch - ignite - a global concern. "They were not merely tragedies - although they were that on a colossal scale - but national traumas," he wrote in his newly republished masterpiece, The Still-burning Bush.

"It was as though Australia had been visited by terrorist attacks, with the bush itself as the source of terror."

David Pope has responded to the magnitude of the event.

There are a few pitfalls to be avoided by journalists talking about the aftermath of tragedy. It would have been easy to do a glossy, everything's-going-to-be fine view - but that would have been a kind of heroic, feel-good propaganda. On the other hand, it would have been easy to do a bleak depiction of a post-Armageddon scenario, with images devoid of hope.

David has not gone for either cliché. He melds the two: look carefully at the posters and you see the burnt forest but you also see the beauty of Lake Conjola. Go there today and both exist. There are families on the water and burnt forest on the skyline.

Life goes on in all its vibrant joy - but the bushfires are in our minds as a warning. They will unforgotten even in our shallow time of short memories.

We're proud of his work - and if it drives tourism to these areas as we're sure it will, and raises money for those who suffered, we are proud to have helped that happen.