Pictures for Walls

The photographs presented are from three time periods: August 2009, October 2009 and December 2011. In August 2009, I quite unexpectedly found myself working on a design contract for the NT Department of Lands in Darwin. My first experience of living in Darwin involved a lot of walking (initially to and from work) and wandering. My innate desire to document my views of spaces and places around me through photography was reinvigorated.  A few months later I returned to Darwin, for the specific purpose of photography. In December 2011 I spent a week in QLD, driving (a very long and diverted way) from Townsville to Cairns, photographing both urban and regional locations.

Locations are encountered and found.  On the later 2 trips I researched locations online, through image archives, data bases, search engines, google maps and real estate sites. I also researched old place ephemera in the form of travel postcards, brochures and books.  These investigations often led me to specific towns, after which the buildings themselves were often encountered by chance.   As such the photographs themselves often reflect a tension between ideas of discovery and surveillance.

Lee Mullen, 2011

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