Melbourne Candid Series #1218 Swanston St

 

On Swanston Street, she walks
through a river of passing hours,
headphones sealing a private weather
against the city’s noise.

The traffic lights blink and wait,
faces blur into motion,
but she moves with a measured resolve,
eyes forward, unborrowed.

An illustrated gaze stares from her jumper,
another world layered over this one—
ink and fabric carrying a story
the street will never fully hear.

Wind lifts her hair like a half-spoken thought,
boots meet pavement in quiet defiance,
and for a moment the city bends around her,
letting her pass,
untranslated.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1065

Melbourne Candid Series 1212 Flagstaff Garden

 

Beneath the plane trees’ hush in Flagstaff’s square,
A youth stands caught in time’s deliberate pause;
His glasses catch the pale, indifferent air,
While shadow softens feature, line, and cause.

In profile turned, he faces leftward thought,
As though the past had called him by his name;
One hand bears modern fire, so lightly sought,
A glowing screen within a world of shade.

The strapbag rests like ballast at his side,
A pilgrim’s satchel for the urban age,
Where messages and moments coincide
And private futures wait on public page.

Monochrome renders youth both near and far,
Stripped of the colour of immediacy;
He stands a figure etched by light and spar,
Between the now and what he yet may be.

O still-born instant, keep him thus inclined
Half-bound to earth, half-listening to mind.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1059

Melbourne Candid Series #1211 Flagstaff Garden

 

Within Flagstaff’s quiet, leafed embrace
She stands apart from traffic, stone, and haste,
Her face a careful map of ritual grace,
Drawn not for show, but memory’s chaste paste.

White settles on her skin like borrowed bone,
Dark marks bloom where breath and thought reside;
The garden holds its pause, a softened tone,
As if the city listens from outside.

Her earrings swing like circles without end,
Echoes of dances older than this ground;
In measured calm, her stillness seems to mend
The fractured hours that crowd the city’s sound.

No words are spoken, yet the meaning stays:
Here culture walks where office towers rise.
Flagstaff remembers other, deeper days,
And through her face, their quiet truths reprise.

O shaded paths, O lawn and trembling tree,
You frame her not as spectacle, but sign
That even here, in measured modernity,
The ancient heart keeps time with breath and line.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1058 and FACE OFF

Melbourne Candid Series #1210 Lonsdale St

 

Along Lonsdale’s measured lanes he rides,
A muted engine humming time and need;
Steel wheels trace the city’s patient tides
Where lines are drawn for motion, not for speed.

His helmet seals the weather from his face,
A visor holding back the urban glare;
The jacket bears the scuffs of constant pace,
The marks of work repeated everywhere.

Behind him, boxed and bound in canvas square,
Tomorrow’s meals and moments wait their turn;
The city eats, and he must ferry care
From door to door where lights and kettles burn.

No fanfare greets him as he slips between
The kerb and traffic’s unrelenting flow;
Yet Melbourne’s pulse, efficient and unseen,
Moves partly by the miles his tyres know.

O Lonsdale Street, your verses hum and roll
On battery and breath and borrowed time;
In one brief pass, a rider makes you whole
A working line within the city’s rhyme.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1057

Melbourne Candid Series #1295 Flagstaff Garden

 

Beneath the white pavilion’s quiet span,
They stand aligned, their faces turned away,
With shoulders set as ancient rhythms ran
Through stone and fire at break of ritual day.

A crown of feathers breaks the muted air,
Dark plumes like rays from some forgotten sun;
Each quill a memory worn with solemn care,
Of empires lost, yet never truly done.

The metal glints upon the woven breast,
Cold silver shaped by hands that knew the gods;
It bears the weight of oath, of trial, of test,
Of earth once fed by blood and marked by rods.

They do not speak. Their silence holds command.
The past stands breathing in their measured pose.
Time bends, obedient to their stance and hand,
As history in living motion flows.

O watcher, learn what stillness dares to teach:
That roots run deep where footsteps touch the ground;
What ages take away, the body keeps
In dance, the lost are found, the dead resound.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1052

Melbourne Candid Series #1285 Swanston St

 

On Swanston Street, the light waits at amber,
a held breath between steps.
Trams murmur somewhere out of frame,
steel singing to steel,
while the city keeps time in crossings and bells.

He moves through the monochrome morning
as if the day has chosen him for its measure
hood drawn close, shoulders squared
against the ordinary weather of thought.
The word Nomadic rests on his chest,
not a claim, but a question.

Glass and stone blur behind him,
history smoothed to a soft hush.
Signals hang like small moons,
deciding nothing yet.
His stride answers for him:
forward, unhurried, exact.

This is Melbourne in a minor key
coffee steam lifting unseen,
lanes waking to their own names.
Each footfall writes a line
no map can keep.

And in the brief truce of the crossing,
before the city resumes its argument,
he carries a private horizon with him,
moving through Swanston Street
as if the street were moving too.

Sony A7RV

FE 50mm f1.2 GM

Check out Candid 1042

Melbourne Candid Series #1283 Flagstaff Garden

 

In Flagstaff’s thin high-desert air,
she moves with the gravity of an old world
silver garments catching the sun,
feathers fanning outward
like spokes of a remembered cosmos.

Her painted face is resolve and reverence,
a map of lineage etched in stark strokes,
each line a quiet invocation
to mountains, ancestors, and unseen spirits
gathered just beyond the crowd’s murmur.

She holds the vessel steady,
as though balancing past and present,
as though the liquid within
is not offering but memory
poured from generations
who danced before her
in other places, other centuries.

Around her, spectators fade to a soft blur;
their modern chatter recedes
beneath the drumbeat of ritual steps,
the rustle of regalia,
the breath of altars carried in motion.

In this moment,
Flagstaff becomes a small world turning:
dust rising, hearts listening,
culture alive in the precision of her posture,
the fierceness in her eyes,
and the echo of a people
refusing to be forgotten.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1040

Melbourne Candid Series #1280 Latrobe St

 

Three figures move in parallel lines,
A small parade of human kind
Two men, one girl, side by side,
Their steps in sync, their climates wide.

One shivers in a thin short skirt,
Bare legs braving the wandering breeze,
Another wrapped in winter’s dirt,
A fortress built of wool and sleeves.

The third walks easy, neither nor,
Just weather-ready, calm and plain,
A quiet witness at the core
Of this strange thermal daisy chain.

Three bodies tuned to different heat,
Three stories told in coats and skin
How curious that along one street,
The seasons shift from person to person within.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1037

Melbourne Candid Series #1279 Nicholson St

 

A woman in tight-cut city stride,
Coffee warming one sure hand,
Her phone a glow she will not hide,
A compass she alone can understand.

She walks the street without a glance,
Skipping the world before her feet,
Lost in her screen’s unfolding dance,
Threading through the urban beat.

Traffic hums and footsteps blur,
Yet she moves on, absorbed, alone
A modern wanderer wrapped in her

Small bright kingdom of glass and phone

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1036

Melbourne Candid Series #1275 Flagstaff Garden

 

In Flagstaff Garden,
colour has slipped away—
leaving only the hush
of black and white.

A woman in traditional Mexican dress
moves like a soft echo
from another time.
Her embroidered skirt,
no longer bright,
unfurls in shades of cloud and ink.

She holds a cup with both hands,
its pale rim catching
a thin silver glint of light.
Every step she takes
sends a quiet ripple
through the grayscale air
a dance made of shadows,
memory, and breath.

The festival hum fades
to a distant murmur,
as if the world is listening
through old film grain.
Pigeons lift like smudged brushstrokes,
trees stand in charcoal stillness.

And she
she becomes the single moving spark
in this monochrome garden,
turning the absence of colour
into its own kind of beauty,
a dance that glows softly
in the language of dusk
and silver rain.

Sony A7RV

FE 50mm f1.2 GM

Check out Candid 1032 and FACE OFF

Melbourne Candid Series #1272 Fitzroy St

 

Under the corrugated awning,
shadows fold themselves neatly
along the footpath
a long ribbon of tables,
empty, waiting for stories
to sit down.

The sign reads Viet Rose Bakery & Café,
its letters faded by years
of passing weather and passing people.
Beside it, Yeshi Ethiopian Restaurant
leans over the walkway,
a quiet guardian of spice and memory.

A woman in dark glasses
walks alone,
coat trailing like a soft echo
behind her.
She moves through the street
as though following a rhythm
only she can hear.

In the window,
two men eat
their reflections layered
with cars, bicycles,
and the old brick façades
across the road.
Mouth mid-bite,
conversation paused,
caught between hunger
and a passing thought.

A poster of a bánh mì
fills the glass with its hunger
bread split like a smile,
herbs scattered like confetti
from a quiet celebration.

Above all this,
the wires, the rooflines,
the city’s unhurried breath
a small moment held open
on an ordinary street,
where everything is familiar,
and somehow still singing.

Sony A7RV

FE 24mm f1.4 GM

Check out Candid 1028

Melbourne Candid Series #1268 Flagstaff Garden

 

A man stands in a field of soft, blurred voices,
sunlight falling on his bare arms,
on the crumpled tissue in his hand
a small pause in the middle of a busy day.

Beside him, a woman bends toward a child,
their movements quiet as petals settling.
The child leans forward,
hair slipping like a brushstroke
toward the open earth.

Around them, life goes on
figures drifting, talking,
fading into background haze
but here, in this small circle,
time slows to a gentle heartbeat.

A moment of care,
unremarkable to the world,
yet whole and complete in itself
a simple tenderness
held on a sunlit lawn.

Sony A7RV

FE 50mm f1.2 GM

Check out Candid 1024

Melbourne Candid Series #1265 Flagstaff Garden

 

A young man,
jeans faded like long-travelled roads,
walks with his back to my lens
a silhouette etched in motion.

A wide Mexican hat crowns him,
its brim a small horizon
carrying stories he may not yet know.

He passes beneath the arching sign
of Melbourne’s Mexican Festival,
colours fluttering like paper prayers,
music drifting warm as spice.

In that instant
hat, jeans, stride
he becomes a quiet emblem
of crossing into celebration,
a wanderer stepping
from the ordinary
into a world painted bright
with culture, laughter,
and the promise of belonging.

Sony A7RV

FE 50mm f1.2 GM

Check out Candid 1021

Melbourne Candid Series #1264 Flagstaff Garden

 

In Flagstaff Gardens, Melbourne’s quiet green,
a man stood pausing in the late-day air,
a fork raised like a small, earnest compass
guiding him through a container of nachos
golden shards catching the light
as if the sun had scattered them by hand.

He wore summer lightly:
a T-shirt soft with miles of wandering,
shorts brushing the edge of breeze,
and in his back pocket, a bottle
tipping like a secret he’d forgotten to hide
a small companion clinking with his steps.

Around him, the city hummed
its unhurried evening hymn:
trams sighing, leaves whispering gossip,
pigeons pacing like old philosophers.

But he ate as though nothing else existed
each bite a quiet devotion,
an edible peace,
a brief, gentle proof
that a moment can belong entirely
to one person,
one fork,
one mouthful of nachos
in a garden holding its breath.

Sony A7RV

FE 50mm f1.2 GM

Check out Candid 1020

Melbourne Candid Series #1263 Flagstaff Garden

 

Two men beneath matching caps,
T-shirts blazing a Brazilian logo,
stand anchored in the Saturday hum
of Flagstaff Gardens, Melbourne.

One is bent to the grill,
cutting meat with a craftsman’s calm
smoke curling around him
like a quiet anthem
lifted from far-off shores.

The other,
sunglasses dark as river stone,
faces my lens without flinching
a held breath of curiosity,
or challenge,
or just the stillness
between sizzle and song.

Around them the garden thrums:
kids running, parrots chattering,
wind brushing the old trees awake.

And in the middle of it all,
two men in the same hat and shirt
briefly become a scene
a small, vivid stitch
in Flagstaff’s wandering tapestry.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1019

Melbourne Candid Series #1262 Flagstaff Garden

 

Two lady performers,
floral loops crowning their hair
like dawn-warmed garlands,
let the last notes of their music
settle into the soft lawns
of Flagstaff Garden.

They lean toward their support staff,
quiet laughter blooming
between them like late-spring petals,
their words drifting in the air
where melodies once lived.

The garden listens
trees tilting in approval,
pigeons pausing mid-step
as the performers, unmasked from the stage,
become simply two friends
gathering themselves
after giving their hearts to the day.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1018

Melbourne Candid Series #1261 Flagstaff Garden

 

Two lady performers
floral loops crowning their hair
like small, deliberate blossoms
stand before twin microphones
in the green hush of Flagstaff Garden.

The guitarist begins first:
fingers like soft rain on warm timber,
each chord a slow unfurling
of late-afternoon gold.

Beside her, the violinist lifts her bow
as though summoning a dawn,
and from the strings bloom tones
so tremulous, so fine,
they seem spun from the breath
between wind and dreaming.

Their voices rise
two petals carried on the same breeze
braiding through guitar warmth
and violin shimmer,
floating over the lawn
like a blessing that knows no name.

For a moment, time leans in,
listening.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1017 FACE OFF

Melbourne Candid Series #1260 Flagstaff Garden

 

An Indian chap in a weathered cap
stands behind his hawker stall
at Flagstaff Garden
a small kingdom of smoke and sizzle
claimed for the evening.

He brushes sauces onto skewers
with the precision of habit,
lacquered reds and browns
catching the flare of the grill.

No ritual of sharing here
just trade,
just hunger meeting craft,
just the quiet exchange
of money for flavour,
the brief transaction
between a vendor and the passing world,
each skewer handed over
like a moment that never lingers.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1016

Melbourne Candid Series #1258 Flagstaff Garden

 

Two vendors at the Mexican stall
leaned close in quiet debate,
their words rising like warm spice
into the afternoon air.

Behind them, in the soft green hush
of Flagstaff Garden,
two women—one young, one weathered by years
turned toward my waiting lens.

The younger with curiosity,
the elder with knowing calm—
as if they had long understood
that every moment, once seen,
becomes a story.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1014

Melbourne Candid Series #1256 Flagstaff Garden

 

Beneath the tent’s soft shadowed hue,
He stands in stillness, eyes of blue,
A vendor framed by noon’s slow heat,
Where smells of food and voices meet.

His shirt declares with cheerful play,
Baleadas—Everyday!
Yet in his gaze, a quiet depth,
A thought unspoken, softly kept.

The flag behind him folds and sways,
A whisper of far sunlit days,
While in his hands, the moment stays,
Between the pause of work and gaze.

Around, the fair moves loud and wide,
But he remains—calm, dignified,
A poet’s poise in market’s din,
The world reflected deep within.

Sony A7RV

FE 50mm f1.2 

Check out Candid 1012