in two parts - sydney style

the supporting structure, randwick, from 52 suburbs

Sydney photographer Louise Hawson is on a mission: To nose around one new suburb every week for a year, in search of the beauty in the 'burb. Beauty in this case meaning old, original, retro, rusty, repurposed, nostalgic...

Louise has spent the last seven or so months doing just that - finding beauty in unexpected places, and capturing the essence of each suburb. A weekly post on her blog 52 Suburbs documents her findings. Reoccuring themes include the diverse cultural makeup of each respective suburb, a plethora of architectural styles, and an eye popping dose of colour and patterns. Moreover, Louise makes clever use of the diptych format, pairing people and architecture, manmade and natural in a way that adds further meaning, gravity and humor to her already fantastic images.

Louise is now up to her 25th suburb, and let me tell you, the hardest thing about putting together this post was choosing a shortlist of images to include. As I rummaged through her archives, more and more beautiful photos jumped out at me. So, if like me, you find yourself captivated by the few images I've put together here, GO GO GO. Have a read of her recent posts, have a read of her archives. They are truly magnificent, and will make even the most observant of us (this means me!) feel like we have been walking around with blinkers on. Inspiration overload, and a reminder that you don't need to travel overseas to find beauty. It's right around the corner, in that suburb you speed through on the train to get to work, in the people that call it home. 

PS: Louise posts on Mondays. As far as I'm concerned, poring through a set of her images is a lovely way to start the week. Also, a 52 suburbs book is in the works. Doesn't it give you a bit of a warm fuzzy feeling when you see an awesome creative project taking flight? I'll certainly be heading to the bookshop, wallet in hand. If you can't wait for the book, and simply must have some 52 suburbs goodness in your hot little hand, Louise also has an etsy shop where she sells postcards featuring images from 52 suburbs. Lastly, a more in-depth interview about 52 suburbs can be found on the blog of interior design magazine Inside Out.

1. a seagull's worst nightmare, Brighton-Le-Sands

2. similar vintage, Glebe

3. heavenly light, Ingleside

4. ballet pink, Randwick 

5. wallpaper and tiles, Randwick 

6. bright sparks, Wahroonga

7. are my seams straight?, Wahroonga

8. pretty flash, Wahroonga

9. rose and hankie, Randwick 

10. hands on hips, Randwick

11. stairway to heaven, Brighton-Le-Sands

12. everyone's welcome, Randwick

13. i see a bridge in your shoes, Glebe

14. fly free, Clovelly 

15. patterns and colours, Cabramatta 

16. daily coffee, Liverpool 

17. love letters, Randwick

18. light is everything, Surry Hills
(click on the suburb to explore the rest of the post)

This is why I get no sleep...

chair2 by ~KIM~ on flickr

...Because I discover things like the Polaroid House, on places like flickr, and find them so endlessly fascinating that I spend hours trawling through hundreds of photos, wishing I was cool enough to come up with such fantastic ideas, or, failing that, lucky enough to witness such brilliance in person. Sadly, this is not to be, as is made all too clear by the title of the Polaroid House's flickr pool, 'RIP Polaroid House'.

The Polaroid House is the brainchild of American flickr member, Kim, who found an abandoned house an hour north of California back in 2008. In an interview on www.holgablog.com, she says

"...it really struck something inside me and i knew i would be back. it was so quaint, representing a bygone era in its craftsman styling. the decay of the house and the decay of that era..."

Kim and her friends returned to the house armed with hundreds of polaroids, and covered both the walls and floors with them. A think carpet of photographs, and a polaroid wall ready to be replenished and reworked by future visitors. And they came in their droves, if the sheer number of photos in the flickr pool is anything to attest by. Unfortunately, some visitors failed to respect (or understand?) the nature of the project, and large numbers of polaroids were taken, holes were kicked in the walls. In April 2009, the owner of the house contacted Kim, stating that whilst she had understood and appreciated the installation at first, she was disappointed by the fact that the house was being trashed. The Polaroid House was dismantled, only to live on in the hundreds of photos collected on flickr. And to be endlessly oggled at by one girl on the other side of the world, long past her bedtime.

1 from leah | ohheygreat 

2 from Gotfish / Marc Briggs  

3, 4, 5 from ~Kim~

6 from Gotfish / Marc Briggs

7 from J-Easy

8 from iFaMusicNerdEntOgrapher

9 from boxbabe86

10 from ~Kim~

Another like

My mum tells me they are awfully uninteresting, but despite this, I have a bit of a thing for photos of people looking at art. They way everyone interacts with paintings differently, the way small details are noticed, examined, the way a large scale sculpture or installation can enter and alter a spectator's personal space. I only realised just how much I liked the people-looking-at-art shot several years after making my way around the Louvre and Museé d'Orsay, but lucky for me, the talented Jen Gotch of my polaroid blog has some dreamy, light-filled shots of the Louvre. Meanwhile, I will make do with the (somewhat gloomy) NGV. Tant pis.

1, 2, 3, 4 from Jen Gotch's flickr set, april in paris.

5. John Brack at NGV Australia

6. The Satirical Eye at NGV International

7. 'The Italian Room,' NGV International

8. Bugatti Family at NGV International

9. Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller at ACMI

I like these very much...

AKA I am both slack, and epically busy with work, and I apologise for not posting for such along time. Can I make up for said slackness with beautiful underwater photos by Bahama-based photogapher Elena Kalis? I sure hope so.

More underwater gloriousness here.

In two parts

I have been seeing photo diptyches around the webs for a while now and ached with jealousy, because what with no photoshop, I figured they were out of my league. Sydneysider Louise Hawson's brilliant 52 Suburbs in particular makes me bristle with inspiration/envy - and awesome as it is, it deserves a whole post to itself, so stay posted - so this evening I decided to try my luck with free software. Surely there would be something out there?

After being flumoxed by flickr, and wandering about on google, I finally found Dipstych, a free application available here. It took all ten seconds to download and is pleasingly easy to use - essentially you just open the two (or three, or more) images you want to appear together, chose which will be on the right and which on the left, and hey presto, a new file, in diptych form. At the end of the day, I will have to eventually bite the bullet and buy photoshop, but Dipstych will keep me plenty occupied in the meantime (EDIT: A set of 80-plus diptyches on flickr has confirmed this).

A Man of Many Talents

Image credit: Fecal Face 2008 interview with Alex Lucas. More recent interview here.

So while I was posting my photos of the oil refinery, wondering if I was alone in my love of grimy industrial suburbia, the internet Powers that be decided to make it clear to me just what a silly question that was. I was browsing my love for you is a stampede of horses, where I happened across a post on Alex Lukas. The post describes Lukas as a boy-wonder, and after checking out his portfolio site, I heartily agree. Lukas' most recent works  -- he calls them "disaster drawings" -- feature cities flooded with water or swallowed up by trees, but seeing as I had western suburbs waste on my mind at the time, it was his depictions of industrial detritus that struck me the most. I like the quiet stillness and the delicacy of the colours despite the grimy subject matter, and the luminosity of the skies. I like that whilst they initially appear to be watercolours, a closer inspection (and a read of Lucas' comments regarding his working method), they are revealed to be a skillful combination of silkscreen printing, watercolous, gouache, spray paint, and sometimes collage. Wowsers. A happy and serendipitous discovery if ever there was one.

 Image credit: Lucas' website. 

Oh yeah, and as if he isn't talented (and busy!) enough already, did I forget to mention that Lucas also publishes numerous zines through his publishing house, Cantab Publishing? Is there anything this guy can't do?

Image credit: Fecal Face