A day in the life: Pt.12
02:07:07pm. Princes Pier.
I keep returning to this location; there’s something about it that seems to draw in photographers, and draw them back. On this day, I was seeking a new angle, looking for patterns and textures and forms at a different level…
A day in the life: Pt.11
12:50:53pm. Foddies Cafe, Albert Park.
Time to replenish energy after a morning’s wanderings… this time from Foddies Cafe – lactose free (of course!), which is surprisingly hard to find in Melbourne (supposedly a city that takes its coffee very – perhaps a little too – seriously). Not pictured here: massive pulled beef burger with swiss cheese, bacon, and sweet potato chips IN the bun. Ambitious, delicious, and precarious in roughly equal proportion.
A day in the life: Pt.10
12:04:06pm. Acland St, St Kilda.
I’ll have a… rocky road. Definitely. No, a lemon cream slice. No, actually, a coconut slice. AND a rocky road!
(This is Acland Street, in St Kilda. There are about six or seven of this shops, all with cakes in the windows, all the time. Tempting…)
A day in the life: Pt.9
12:00:01pm. St Kilda.
Morning became afternoon as I wandered towards St Kilda proper. Along the way, I passed this wonderful theatre, looking (like much of St Kilda) a wonderfully charismatic combination of old charm, modern decay, and occasional neglect in between. This is just about the only angle that reveals this particular mix, as the sides of the theatre are almost entirely enshrouded in thick canvas. It’s a work in progress. It’s just not clear what that progress is aimed towards…
A day in the life: Pt.8
11:50:17am. St Kilda Pier.
I walked away from the Pier, towards another little jetty, but it didn’t make the ’24’ cut. I was feeling the pressure in a different way, knowing that I was now half way out of daylight and only a third of the way through my shots… the day was becoming a sort of pushing/pulling, to keep hours and shots in sync. In the midst of those calculations, I saw these two perched on the top of a small hill next to the beach, free from such self-imposed constraints and just enjoying the moment…
A day in the life: Pt.7
11:43:49am. St Kilda Pier.
I thought the Pier might produce something of interest – seagulls, or people fishing, or penguins, or some combination thereof. As it turned out, the view from the Pier was better than the view of the Pier, as the storm clouds gathered above the city…
A day in the life: Pt.6
11:35:27am. St Kilda Beach.
Actually not much to write about this one… I liked the way they seemed to be falling out of the darker cloud to the lighter clouds below, and the way they were gently spiralling. From a distance, it looked a peaceful, serene way to travel. Up close, I suspect this was not the case…
A day in the life: Pt.5
11:29:10am. St Kilda Pier.
When I first arrived in Melbourne two and a half years ago, having lived the majority of my life in Tasmania, I used to wander the streets of the city craning my neck and looking up – at the variety of buildings, the layers upon layers of steel, glass, tin, tiles, and bricks. It was a different visual language to the one I’d grown accustomed to; in Tasmania it was all about sky – vast, bright, and all around, making me feel so amazingly small in the scheme of things.
As I made my way out of the city, continuing my day of wanderings (both physical and intellectual), I was struck by this contrast. And now, I don’t spend so much time looking up in the city, but am completely struck silent whenever I’m back in the presence of so much vertical space. This spot gave me a sense of bringing those worlds together, acknowledging the space, whatever might be in it…
And isn’t it interesting, how the simple act of observation and attention can lead to a space of such quiet contemplation? Who needs meditation when you have a camera, one lens, and twenty spaces left on your memory card?
A day in the life: Pt.4
10:38:54am. Little Bourke Street.
I wandered (lonely as a cloud?) away from Fed Square along Swanston Street, then heading through the Mall, then up through Emporium, and then out onto Little Bourke Street. I’ve had a bit of success with street photos here in the past, and given that I was almost half-way through the time of day where sun was still available as a light source, I was looking for a few ‘easy’ frames to help keep things moving. This time, nothing much caught my eye. I almost took about three photos, but in the context of only 24 frames, they just didn’t seem to have enough there. But enough of what? Intrigue? Drama?
No, it was story. They didn’t have enough story. They didn’t reward you for looking into the frame, imagining what it was like to be there, to see this, to imagine what happened next. I kept meandering through such ideas as I walked, and just before leaving the area, I glanced down into this alleyway, not really expecting much.
Looking at the frame now, I’m not sure how much I consciously worked through in determining that this was worth taking… now, I see the sight line of the wolf, the angle of the dress almost mirroring the hand, the silhouette positioned with the only lightness in the frame just behind, even the bins leading my eye straight to the person. Then, I just saw enough to know there was a story waiting to be told.
Maybe that’s something of my craft as a photographer – to see, in that instant, the story waiting to be shared?
A day in the life: Pt.3
10:08:56am. Federation Square (the back bit).
The ice skating rink is interesting in a “you wouldn’t expect to find one of these in Melbourne” sort of way, but not really in a “that’s a great photograph!” sort of way, so I move on. In trying to gain an elevated view of the rink, I’ve found myself in a quiet part of Fed Square that I’ve not ever really noticed before. There’s a transparent plastic roof on this part, and as I look up to admire the angles of the buildings (I really do like the architecture of Fed Square), I see these leaves. It’s actually the ‘ghost leaf’ on the left that catches my attention first; I see it as something of a metaphor for the Autumn/Winter transition that, at least in my mind, is still under way. The last leaves are still hanging on, but more let go every day, and we tread through them, grinding them into the footpath in a kind of grey pulp. And then they are gone. Not even shadows left behind…
Timothy Moss 