Thornbury House by Meredith Lee

Here’s something with all the greens from Meredith Lee’s Thornbury House…

Did you know that I fly a drone?

I’ll get to the drone in a minute. First I need to say hi, as it’s been a while. And Happy New Year! I took one of my hiatuses from journaling and social media, as I do from time to time, but I found some space between Christmas and New Year to share some of the work I’ve been doing over the past few months.

I’m starting with this mid construction shoot for Bowden Corp back in Spring. Whilst many may scoff and wonder what could possibly be interesting about mid construction photography, I was in raptures, as a friend of mine would say. Do you know how beautiful the repeating lines and shapes of freshly installed trusses can be? Not to mention the pretty blue colour and striking shadows they cast on a clear, blue sky day!

As well as stills, I put the drone up for some aerial action. I did get the footage that I needed but being Spring I had a couple of very aggressive magpies to contend with! I’ve included a little clip of them below (obviously not a finished product!) along with my pick of the stills - less commercial than Bowden Corp’s purposeful selection and more my artistic interpretation.

So tell me, do you see what I see? Or do you think I’m barking mad? Let me know in the comments below once you’ve had a look...

Fixation 7

I went out looking for a new wall, longer story - I won’t go into that, and found a fixation instead. I’ve explored a lot of Melbourne’s streets and laneways over my years of photography so it’s always a surprise and delight when I come across something new. In this case something old, made new, by Hilton if I recall correctly.

Lanson Place Hotel

There’s a new hotel in Melbourne town, the Lanson Place Hotel and it’s been decked out from head to toe with art by the formidable team at Curatorial+Co, led by the most formidable and inspiring Sophie Vander. We spent a full and fun day together last month ahead of the hotel’s opening capturing the beautiful artworks, many of which are by my friend and amazing artist Kate Banazi - this whole project - a coming together of excellent people, doing fabulous creative things. Here are some highlights… too many to share them all.

From the 'New York' end of Flinders Lane...

My friends at Amicus have renovated their own home, and here it is. Tucked away at the New York (I think that’s what they call it these days) end of Flinders Lane, it’s a cosy space that packs a punch in red and blue (my longtime favs).

Langmore Lane for Baldasso Cortese Architects

I tell you, I got lucky with the weather gods for this one. I was watching the weather from two weeks out, which forecast 15ml of rain on this August day. Two days out it was slightly better at 6ml. Regardless of the weather, the lovely stylist Cassie Thomson was booked and we were shooting rain, hail or shine… gulp. To my shock and awe, the morning of, I drove out of Melbourne under a cloudless blue sky, which held until about the time I was ready to head inside and shoot interiors. I must have done something, to please someone that week! Anyway, enough about the weather and more about the building. A little residential gem tucked into the side of a hill in Berwick, designed by Baldasso Cortese Architects and built by Markscon.

Developer: Harmon Group
Architect: Baldasso Cortese Architects
Builder: Markson Pty Ltd
Stylist: Cassie Thomson
Shoot assist: Renee Coster

United Co. Smith Street

Sharing some highlights from the first of a couple of days shooting for United Co in Fitzroy earlier this year. They’ve gone all out to make their offices, co-working and function spaces first rate, highly desirable places to work… more to come soon…

Duality

So many thoughts swirling around my head about the series I’m sharing here. I thought it was going to be a fixation to begin with but this is bigger. I’ve long pondered what draws me to the intersection of contradictions; new and old, natural and built, dark and light, straight and curved and so on and thought it was just a matter of visual interest. What I’ve come to realise through much reading, talking and searching is that it’s much deeper than that. It’s a desire to understand the contradictions, the dichotomies, the dualities within myself. There’s too much to say on this to say it all here, but I’ll leave you with this. For all the time I’ve been looking at places where the natural environment meets the built, I thought, as someone who loves and respects nature, that I was cheering for the nature, when actually my heart lies with the built, in this case the house. My metaphor was back to front.

*Side note. There are too many photos here, I know, but in my defence I spent time with this house on two seperate days and took close to 300 photos. It was hard to choose!

**Side note two, I could have done a fixations series on the lacy curtains alone.