I was able to spend 5 days in Melbourne last week. The last time I was in Melbourne on a photo trip was 2 years ago and I was photographing under the South Eastern freeway.
The time was divided between a scanning tutorial at Photonet on Wednesday and Thursday for my (5x7 colour and 8x10 black and white negatives) and some photoshoots. One on my own at Footscray on Tuesday, and the second one at Merri Creek in the Clifton Hill/Northcote area with Stuart Murdoch late Thursday afternoon after he'd finished work at the Northern College of Art and Technology in Preston.
As I was travelling light on cheap Qantas flights (2 hand held cameras) the Thursday photoshoot with Stuart was a scoping exercise for a future 5x4 photoshoot. Stuart had photographed in the area 20 years ago and he was reconnecting with that body of work.
I was walking around looking for some suitable locations and times. After walking around a bit in the drizzle we found something to work with near Rushell Reserve in North Fitzroy looking towards an old railway bridge:
It is an edge land shoot. What attracted both of us is the incongruity between nature and industry--Merri Creek was the site of heavy industrial use throughout much of the 20th century, being home to quarries and landfills, and a drain for the waste runoff from neighbouring factories. The best time is in the late afternoon during the winter months.