During spring in November of 2023 I travelled down to Melbourne from New South Wales for a three day business trip.
I anticipated that there might be a window of opportunity one afternoon/evening to wander around the city and shoot, therefore I decided to bring along one of my Fujifilm cameras just in case, I chose the X-H2.
The late afternoon that I arrived in the city was on the back of a very warm Melbourne day, and the low setting sun added a warm, yet beautiful glow to the streetscapes.
All too often we move around in busy places completely oblivious to how we appear to others, which makes for fascinating footage and images because you are capturing people in their regular environments and in completely candid circumstances.
For me, I love the hustle and bustle of a very busy large city such as Melbourne. People, trams, cars, motorbikes and trains all moving back and forth in controlled chaos, all susceptible to the seemingly elusive photographer who can become immersed in scenes, creating a visual journal if you will.
If you are brazen enough and fully immersed you will inevitably earn the ire of some people, however I tend to focus elsewhere if I identify that and move on quickly, after all, I’m not breaking the law.
I must say that for the most part people tend to be too busy to worry about whether their photo is being taken, hopefully that is a sign that they readily acknowledge that they themselves take thousands of photos with their phones, and often in public places where there are usually strangers in the shot anyway.
I walked around parts of the city for three hours, focusing on some key areas which are known to be very busy and ones that can provide many great visual opportunities. You see, I lived in Melbourne between November of 2010 and April of 2017 and became very familiar with the city streets, in fact I still very much miss this beautiful and fascinating city.
By the time I made my way back around to Flinders Street Station I was spent, especially after working all day, time to head back to my accommodation and take a look through the images and footage.
Thank you, Melbourne for another fascinating insight into the daily lives of your inhabitants, I’ve missed it greatly.
I hope you enjoy the images, and please feel free to check out the short film that I made from the walk in the YouTube section on this website.
Thank you.
Roger Brooks.
