Observations 24
This is a photo essay I put together exploring the contrasts of Melbourne. It’s a selection of images I’ve taken in my free time while I’ve been walking around the city. Interesting little scenes that caught my eye as they played out.
This past year has seen a further decay, the passing of an age. The ‘cost of living’ is now the phrase of the day, encompassing all the successive crisis’s that have plagued this country. Rent, food, and fuel. Though it strikes me as telling that there is a cost to live, as if to survive is to burden. Why is life so expensive?
Whatever the case, people are still people, and life goes on. The gilded age has ended. This is the view of its final breath.
01. Advertisement standing over decaying building, Fitzroy. “Funding the solutions.”
02. Passenger with shopping, waiting.
03. Crowded platform at dusk. “Air 1”
04. A stranger on their phone at rush hour.
05. Air filters in the NGV triennial. “Air 2”
06. Papered sign on decaying building. Fitzroy. “Let’s riot!”
07. Couple putting up posters. Fitzroy.
10. Delivery cyclist arriving at crowded venue.
08. Friends embrace during invasion day rally. CBD.
11. Yoko Ono installation at NGV triennial. Note is my own.
09. Aborigional poster watches over state library gardens.
12. Landlady standing by locksmith during eviction.
13. Christmas. Stranger taking picture of Fed square tree.
14. Family watches visions of middle east. NGV.
16. Orderlies in background. Empty chairs at Epworth.
15. Little girl dances alone in stain glass room
17. Photo essay on Hijab. NGV triennial.
18. Mannequin leans seductively in abandoned storefront.
19. Observed photographing by stranger on train.
20. Man sunbathing in only shorts.
21. Memorial to an unjust hanging. “Chains echo”
22. Couple in Carlton Gardens, reading. Ducks in foreground.
23. A student in the University Gardens.
24. Housing commission rises in the distance next to the Melbourne Museum. “Slated for Demolition.”
25. Forgotten storefront signage hidden between gap in buildings.
26. A hawk soars above the ancient visages of Johnston Street. “Still wings.”
27. Young couple leaves State Library, visions of past protests surround.
28. Old man with friend at fancy cafe.
29. One of the Lost Souls of Chapel St.
30. A couple embraces as they take a selfie. Christmas, 23.