Recently we held our own family ‘Amazing Race’ in and around Sydney CBD. One of the stops was the incredible Australian Museum. It has to be said, if you have kids and you live in Sydney, you need to check it out. Fresh off a recent renovation, it is a true treasure trove of all kinds of natural history and interesting objects and artefacts. Kids love it, and it’s free. Walking around the museum, I started to see photo compositions. I thought, ‘Damn, I don’t have a camera on me!’. Alas, we modern folk always have a camera on us…
So, I pulled out my Samsung S20 and started shooting. As we were in a slight rush that day, I actually went back myself a week later to spend a bit more time walking around. It really is a photographic goldmine. It’s almost cheating when you go to a museum or theatre, where the lighting is already set up to be dramatic and interesting. It then becomes to the job of the photographer to look past that into light and shadow, and composition, to draw out visual interest.
I decided to make the series black and white to focus on that contrast between light and shadow, and to provide some consistency between the images. This is something I’m trying to work a lot into my photography at the moment—a ‘brand’ of sorts where it becomes clear that these images belong together, or these follow a theme… Just a way to help the viewer connect the dots. It’s probably the hardest thing in photography, to find your voice and signature style. Obviously, I’m still trying.
I had fun, the kids had fun, and it proves at the end of the day you do not require a Hassy or Phase, even a ‘real’ camera to take images. Could I blow these up to three-metre prints? Perhaps not, but smaller prints? Sure. Perhaps I will.
You can see the full series below. Check out the Australian Museum website here.
