Around About

Answering a question from a photography student in the 1970s, the American photographer, Garry Winogrand, said,

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‘…[In] the fact of photographing something changes […] if I photograph you I don’t have you, I have a photograph of you. It’s got its own thing. That’s really what photography, still photography, is about. In the simplest sentence, I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.’

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In many ways my photographs follow this logic—I photograph things to find out what they look like when they are photographed. I carry a camera most places and record what I see in the world-out-there. I don’t turn my back on exotic landscapes or strange customs, but don’t seek them out, either. What I look for is wonder in the everyday.

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This does not mean that I photograph anything and everything, nor that I photograph without thought. The opposite is in fact true. When faced with a world that is complex and unmediated, careful selection is vital.

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The photographs reproduced here were taken over a period of three years, most of them in the cities of Perth and Melbourne. There are no skylines or landmark buildings as these tend to locate the image too precisely, to give it too rigid a context. While the images rely on the material world they now exist as objects in themselves.

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They are simple photographs of things that were notable at the time, and they were photographed to see what they would look like.