Fitzroy Narrows 1965

Chris Lermanis                       

Gallery II

Why take a camera down a suburban street to photograph the ordinary everyday lives of my fellow Australians? The streets in Fitzroy and Collingwood were far from ordinary to a 25 year old living in bayside Brighton. It seemed like a foreign country.

I felt like a tourist.

Motivated by a youthful urge to record ‘reality’, these streetscapes were the ideal subject matter for my style of photojournalism.

Major changes were happening in Fitzroy. The Housing Commission of Victoria was demolishing old houses to build new high rise flats. Over many months I witnessed the transformation. Only later did I become aware of the impact this ‘slum clearing and urban renewal’ had on the local community.

In the mid 1960’s life in the streets and lanes was, to me, always unpredictable and interesting. I tried not to be obtrusive or voyeuristic and trust the images are a faithful documentation of the times.

This is the first public exhibition of these photographs. Each is individually hand printed on silver gelatin fibre paper in my darkroom and processed to archival standards.