INTERNATIONAL COLLECTION

G’day mate! Did you know that Melbourne was one of the first cities to decree the 8-hour working day? The number, 888 signifying eight hours’ labor, eight hours’ recreation, and eight hours’ rest. Being a compact and diverse city, Melbourne is “a perfect playground for adventure, wildlife lovers, and foodies.” If you are an art lover, Melbourne has the highest density of commercial art galleries in the world. And second only to Vienna, Melbourne has a world-class coffee culture with “some of the best coffee on earth!”     

Almost half of the population of Melbourne are not native to Australia. Many hail from the UK followed by Italy, Vietnam, China, and Greece. Like New York City, this cultural diversity brings social advantages to Melbourne. Every suburb is different, and you can see the big influence of each culture throughout the suburbs. Also, over 100 languages are spoken in the city, such as Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Greek, Italian and Mandarin amongst the most common.

As I put together photographs for this gallery, I realized that I have taken the greatest number of street portraits in Melbourne than any other gallery (including New York City). The prints have been reproduced from 35mm negative strips and clearly show the warmth as well as the limits of film photography. Nevertheless, this early phase of my international photography is quite special as it reflects a simple and direct nature of life in this dynamic city.