The Stick Shed

During the last school holidays, I found myself in the Grampians with a few hours to spare. Having read about The Stick Shed some months earlier, I was determined to see it and set off for Murtoa. First, some facts for the curious and factually minded…

The Stick Shed (previously known as the Murtoa No. 1 Grain Store) is the only remaining emergency grain store built during World War II. Designed in mid-1941, it was completed early in 1942 after an impressively quick five-month build. The structure is 265 meters long, 60 meters wide, and 20 meters high, constructed from 560 unmilled Victorian Mountain Ash poles, four acres of concrete, and approximately 10,000 sheets of roofing iron.

I was not disappointed to have made the effort. I spent several hours wandering, framing, making images and completely lost time, as I do. Much to my dismay on returning to the main shed door, it was locked shut! I had unknowingly overstayed my welcome and was locked inside. Fortunately, after a brief panic, I remembered that I had a mobile phone and weak but sufficient internet coverage to find a phone number for the office, who were horrified to hear they’d locked me in and were still 5 minutes out from departing for the day! Yikes.

Anyway, I lived to tell the tale and highly recommend a visit if you’re in the area.

A little bit of temple and a lot of concrete wall

I spent over a week exploring Tokyo (barely scratched the surface) and of all of the areas I spent time in, I’m going to say Yanaka was my favourite. It’s part of Tokyo’s “Old Town” and known for the high concentration of temples (70 something in Yanaka.) This little collection of photos includes a small part of one of those temples but is about the gorgeous surrounding concrete wall..! I love it. If you’ve been following for a while or you scroll back a few years, you’ll know, or find, that it’s not the first time I’ve professed my love for a wall and a concrete one at that.

Arimasuton. Tokyo’s "Zombie Fish" Building

You may or may not know that I jetted off to Japan for two weeks last year. As you can imagine, I took a lot of photos. How to share them with you has perplexed me a bit as there are many ways I could shape them into little collections. I still haven’t come to any great conclusion so I thought I’d just begin. And begin with something very unique!

This is Arimasuton, Tokyo’s "Zombie Fish" Building and a handmade, concrete masterpiece. Tokyo’s small scale, lesser known answer to Gaudí, if you like.

Architect Keisuke Oka is the owner and builder of Arimasuton, which can be found in Tokyo’s Mita district, a lavish and upscale suburb where the building stands out and strangely fits in too. For over twenty years Keisuke, along with friends, family, students and neighbours, has crafted the building by hand, from concrete.

Though finished in 2024 the surrounding buildings have been demolished making way for a large-scale development leaving Oka no choice but to shift, yes actually shift, the building back 10 metres away from the construction site, which is what is taking place in my images below. I did attempt to get closer but was quickly ushered away by the polite security guarding the site. I am looking forward to revisiting in the future to see it settled and likely dwarfed amongst it’s future giant neighbours!

Fixation 8

It’s been a little while since I shared a fixation. I’ve got a number waiting in the wings to share with you but this one, shot no too long ago, has jumped the queue. A bit like the last fixation, where I stumbled across something new in old territory, this one is just down the road from me in Richmond. It’s a carpark. Did you know I like carparks? Thing is, although I’m not traipsing through Richmond on foot all that often, I can’t believe I’ve never seen this before, in the 20 (wow!), yes 20 years that I’ve been living in Melbourne. Clearly this lot has been vacant for some time and likely a carpark for much of that time.

So this little gem of a site has all the things that cause me to fixate. Concrete, strong lines, colour, a touch of detritus, repetition, natural elements creeping in and the added bonus of the new and old stood together and also in the distant background.

To top it all off the sun was shining, I’ll revise that to beating, and the sky was perfect blue. A happy little occasion indeed.

'My Body is my Home'

I had the absolute pleasure of documenting ‘My Body is my Home’ a creative workshop inviting women and non-binary people to reconnect with their first sanctuary-the body. Led by Ingrid Voorendt (Back to Back Theatre) and Kate Sulan (Rawcus) at the stunning Tadao Ando, MPavillion, the workshop offered participants a space to reflect, move and anchor themselves amidst uncertainty. It was a gorgeous, albeit wet afternoon, capturing people interacting with architecture in interesting ways, to the sounds of haunting cello music by cellist Zoë Barry.

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.