Halcyon Walk 2 & 3 by Housing First Limited and H2o Architects

If you’re a regular here you may have seen 1 Halcyon Walk that I shot back in 2023 for Housing First Limited, with construction of buildings two and three commencing around me. Fast forward to late 2024 and I was back there to shoot those now completed buildings. How wonderful to see it come together with garden views from the apartments and great indoor and outdoor common areas for the lucky seniors that reside there. It’s a lovely little collection of buildings designed by H2o Architects, with their signature yellow throughout and built by Minicon Construction.

Developer: HousingFirst Ltd
Architect: H2o Architects
Builder: Minicon Construction
Shoot assist: Megan Cox

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.

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.

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.

Image Makers Association Australia's '1 Shot 24 - Seeing & Knowing'

In partnership with Stylecraft, 1 SHOT 24 opened nationally last night in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane Stylecraft showrooms. The exhibition is displayed alongside collections of both local and international brands and products, exclusive to Stylecraft.

The overarching theme of Seeing & Knowing and its disparate meaning is reflected in the images of the 42 exhibitors from Australia’s pre-eminent photographers, who each present their personal interpretation of Seeing & Knowing.

Melbourne friends and followers should get along to 145 Flinders Ln, Melbourne and take in the beautiful collection. My image ‘6:30pm from Fixations 4’, expertly printed by Peter Hatzipavlis of Final Grade and framed by Angelo & Alex Grazzini of A&L Artistic Framers, is amongst the works showing.