Love of lines. Hobart Central Business District, Tasmania.

It was in Surry Hills of Sydney that I first noticed the secret relationship between the simple lamp post and the architecture in its close vicinity.

If analytical, abstract, creative and graphic imagery and content is not your scene, perhaps stop reading now.

I lived in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney back in the early 2000s, and used to walk past the building I mentioned before, located off of Taylor Square, countless times. I lived just around the corner from it for over six years, yet I had never observed what plenty of time on this solo trip, and a renewed eye that day gifted me in terms of opportunity to notice: the tip end of a beautiful, retro 70s lamp post looked a lot like it was just leaning in to an intimate conversation with the top left corner of the building opposite it. That is, when I moved to a precise position below it. I turned my lens at the image and captured two frames, one catching it in just in the right position.

My tertiary background in graphic design, building on a childhood raised by maker-parents, when on most days you would find me with a crayon/pencil/brush in hand, means I often draw on my love of clean, clear graphic lines as well as typography and architecture in my image compositions. This image ticked that box.

People performing, laughing, dancing, singing, sun-baking, fighting, drinking and eating is also not so far removed from your minds eye at all times of the day, when you are in or passing Taylor Square. Perhaps therefore it was also not too far a stretch for me to be imagining a street post kissing a building!

Since the lamp post picture in Sydney, I have started observing and collecting similar images of the everyday, man-made objects in my streetsscapes, structures that are created and exist for our human purposes only.

The pictures portray urban and industrial forms, but I would argue are not soleless or without story, but beautiful and even slightly humorous. In broad daylight, our streetscapes and their structures make their own interactions, and take on human qualities through their posture and visual relationship as we move, as in this series captured in Hobart’s CBD recently.

Should you decide to undertake this type of activity in your own neighbourhood, because you are interested in seeing your surroundings in a new light too, its helpful to be carefree when people shoot you sideways glances as you circle a radius of 1 metre, move, stop, turn, crank your head, bend down, then point your camera at something up in the air, that they don’t see.

Enjoy!