50x70 cm Pigment Ink Print on Archival Cotton Rag Paper
Summer Series '24
These eight images are from a larger monochromatic series that forms a compelling visual narrative of an Australian summer, captured during a house-sitting period in Sydney's eastern suburbs of Randwick, Coogee, and Clovelly in December 2024. The series began as a way to remind friends of the Summer they left behind as they made a new life in the Northern Hemisphere, but it evolved into a visual essay of the poetic beauty found in everyday moments and objects that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Series Notes
The collection opens with weathered timber planks arranged in varying heights, their rough-hewn textures and natural grain creating a study in organic geometry that sets both the monochromatic tone and focus on found details. The series then establishes its coastal setting with a view of the ocean's edge, where the water naturally blurs as it meets the sand, creating an ethereal boundary between elements.
A vintage Land Rover utility vehicle follows, its boxy silhouette and utilitarian design speaking to Australia's enduring relationship with rugged, practical transport, nestled among tropical palm fronds like a found artifact that grounds us in this specific place. The geometric repetition of the picnic tables, with their distinctive striped umbrellas, creates a visual rhythm while expanding on themes of communal Australian outdoor culture and shared gathering spaces.
The narrative shifts to urban architecture, featuring a partially open roller door that disrupts the uniformity of the facade, hinting at hidden stories and the interplay between public and private spaces. An intimate detail of cactus spines provides a textural pause, revealing nature's defensive architecture in sharp relief and demonstrating the photographer's eye for close observation.
The series returns to beach leisure with an inflatable pool chair abandoned on sand, its deflated form capturing the melancholy end of a summer day or season. The collection concludes with a random set of abandoned golf clubs resting on a brick wall that speaks to forgotten recreational moments and creates a reflective ending to this observed journey.
Rendered entirely in monochrome, the series strips away the harsh Australian summer light and vivid colours to focus on form, texture, and the subtle interplay of shadows. The black and white treatment lends a timeless quality to these contemporary observations, elevating mundane suburban moments into meditative studies of place and presence. Together, these images create an intimate portrait of Australian summer life through quiet details that reveal the character of a place, moving from environmental observations to community spaces, and then to intimate discoveries and forgotten objects.