Melbourne Candid Series #1144 The Causeway

 

Upon The Causeway, still she sits,
In Melbourne’s hush where shadow knits
The woven light of afternoon
Into a monochrome cocoon.

A café chair, a frame of grace,
She lifts her eyes, a silent face
Held fast by thought, or winds unseen,
That stir the mind where none have been.

No coffee touched, no glance returns—
Only the distant skyline burns
Its outline through the softened grey
Of half-spent time and slipping day.

Her coat hangs loose, her hair undone,
The city moves, but she is one
With something past the tramline’s end,
A lost, invisible old friend.

She does not blink. The hour grows thin.
The world continues crowding in—
But on that chair she drifts apart,
A grayscale ghost with pulsing heart.

Sony A7RV

FE 50mm f1.2 GM

Check out Candid 898

Melbourne Candid Series #1139 Hosier Lane

 

A middle-aged man on Hosier Lane,
With cobblestones beneath his stride,
A cap pulled low, sunglasses plain,
He walks where colours dare to hide.

One hand tucked in his coat’s deep fold,
The other swinging free and slow,
Through art-stained walls, both bright and bold,
He moves where silent watchers go.

The city hums, but he walks still,
A shadow shaped by time and will.

Sony A7RV

FE 50mm f1.2 GM

Check out Candid 893

Melbourne Candid Series #1137 Little Lonsdale St

 

On Little Lonsdale, under silver skies, he stands
A bald man in suit, with upturned eyes and hands.
A microphone clutched like a herald’s call,
Words poised to rise above city’s sprawl.

A leather strapbag hugs his side, worn deep,
Stories stitched in folds it’s sworn to keep.
The satchel slung with a scholar’s grace,
Heavy with maps of a wandering place.

He does not speak, but listens to air,
To trams that sing and the footfall’s prayer.
In the hush between towers’ glass and stone,
He finds a pulpit in being alone.

Sony A7RV

FE 50mm f1.2 GM

Check out Candid 891

Melbourne Candid Series #1129 Bourke St Mall (Summer before winter this year)

 

A Lady on Bourke in Greying Light

Upon the cobbles of Bourke Street fair,
Where trams do hum through autumn air,
A lady passed in monochrome,
Her youth aglow though shades had grown.

She walked alone, yet not alone,
For in her ears sweet tunes had flown,
A Walkman played its whispered song,
A timeworn tape that sang along.

Her tresses curled like drifting flame,
Though black and white concealed her name,
She bore her spoils in papered grace,
From shops agleam in city’s face.

A bum bag slung with no pretense,
‘Twixt fashion’s flair and innocence,
She paused beneath the falling leaves,
As dusk drew in on gentle eves.

No winter yet, but chill in shade,
The light grew thin, yet undismayed,
She danced in step with music’s flow,
A fleeting ghost from long ago.

And though the years may swiftly pass,
Like tramlines threading panes of glass,
Still in that frame she softly stands—
A song, a stroll, two listening hands.

Sony A7RV 

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 884 and FACE OFF

Melbourne Candid Series 1111 Latrobe St

 

Upon La Trobe where night is cast
In hues of coal and echoes past,
A figure sits in shadow's keep,
While neon stars above him sleep.

His hair, in silken tether tied,
Falls like a banner at his side.
Dark features carved by distant flame,
A face the lamplight cannot name.

He bends above a handheld glow,
A pilgrim where no paths may go.
His thumb—a slow, unbroken prayer—
Moves through a world that isn’t there.

Before him, drinks with straws remain,
Like artifacts of some refrain:
A meeting missed, a word unsaid,
Two vessels half-communion, dead.

No sound disturbs the quiet air;
The city hums, but does not care.
Its carriages in midnight slide,
While he sits still, and dreams subside.

Not solitude, nor quite despair—
But something hollow, thin as air:
The weightless ache of all things stalled,
When hearts grow mute and time is called.

Thus framed in grayscale’s careful art,
He waits, though not with open heart.
A man alone, yet not unknown,
Made myth by light, and straw, and stone.

Sony A7RV

FE 50mm f1.2 GM

Check out Candid 867

Melbourne Candid Series #1078 Flinders Station

 

Flinders Station, shades of grey,
Whispers stories worn away.
Stone and shadow, time stands tall,
Echoes move where footfalls fall.

A young man crosses, sleek and fast,
In monochrome, his moment passed.
Jacket crisp, his gaze ahead,
In silent film, where words are shed.

Past and present, black and white,
Merge and blur in morning light.

Sony A7RV

FE 35mm f1.4 GM

Check out Candid 834

Melbourne Candid Series #1072 Little Bourke St China Town

 

A chef in white with blade in hand,
Moves swift as silk, precise and grand;
The cleaver sings, a steely hum,
As golden skin and flesh succumb.

The duck lies whole, its journey done,
Crisped by fire, by craft, by sun.
Each stroke reveals a secret lore—
Of banquet halls and emperors’ war.

Steam rises soft in evening air,
Spiced perfume drifting everywhere;
And down the lane, the watchers wait,
Drawn close by scent, by luck, by fate.

On Little Bourke, where old meets new,
Tradition carves the world in two.

Sony A7RV

FE 24mm f1.4 GM

Check out Candid 828

Melbourne Candid Series #1065 Little Collins St

 

Beneath the sunless Melbourne sky, he stood,
A crew-cut crown above his collar’s hood.
In monochrome, the city stilled its breath,
As lens and light danced near the edge of death.

He held a phone—his compass, guiding grace—
Among the stone and steel, he found his place.
Little Collins hummed with hurried feet,
While ghostly echoes marched in blur and beat.

To left, the buildings bowed in warped delight,
Their edges twisted, bending out of sight.
No architect had dreamt such curving lines—
It was the shutter’s spell, not man's designs.

A fastened eye, wide-open to the day,
Had caught the moment men would drift away.
The sensor’s speed, in chasing fleeting form,
Distorted calm, reshaped the city’s norm.

To right, a Coles truck idled, humming low,
Its crimson name now cloaked in shadow's glow.
Behind the man, a tide of life did swell—
A straddled bag, a story yet to tell.

And in this frame of fleeting time and grace,
A world unmeant found stillness in its place.
The camera wept what eyes could never keep:
The dream of day now locked in grayscale sleep.

Sony A7RV

FE 50mm f1.2 GM

Check out Candid 821

Melbourne Candid Series #1064 Hosier Lane

 

His face is split by the camera’s frame,
Caught side-on, unnamed, a flicker, a flame.
He walks too fast, a ghost in flight,
Slipping through the edge of sight.

Behind him, Hosier hums and calls,
Graffiti and murals crowd the walls—
A riot of colour, a frozen shout,
As he blurs past, fading out.

Sony A7RV

FE 35mm f1.4 GM

Check out Candid 820

Melbourne Candid Series #1063 Little Flinders Lane

 

In front of black glass, five figures stand,
Each lost in thought, no guiding hand.
The street reflects in polished pane,
A ghost of Little Flinders Lane.

One checks a phone with furrowed brow,
Another scans the world somehow.
A third just leans, no place to be,
The fourth stares out, too far to see.

The last stands still, like carved-out stone,
Together near, yet all alone.
The building watches, dark and wide,
A silent witness on the side.

In black and white, the moment stays—
Five quiet lives in their own ways.

Sony A7RV

FE 35mm f1.4 GM

Check out Candid 819

Melbourne Candid Series #1062 Little Flinders Lane

 

Off Little Flinders, where shadows lean,
A laneway hums, soft and serene.
A café breathes its easy charm,
Far from the city's roaring harm.

A worker rests, boots thick with dust,
Helmet down, tools left in trust.
At a tall table, phone in hand,
He drifts beyond the workday’s land.

Messages flicker, the world slows down,
Steel and concrete lose their crown.
In Melbourne’s heart, beneath the sky,
A simple moment idles by.

Sony A7RV

FE 50mm f1.2 GM

Check out Candid 818

Melbourne Candid Series #1059 Elizabeth St

 

Three youths stroll down Elizabeth Street,
City’s pulse beneath their feet.
Eyes like stars, dreams in flight,
Skyscrapers gleam in midday light.

In Melbourne's heart, so vast, so free,
Asian roots weave silently.
Forty percent and rising still,
A city shaped by every will.

Cultures blend like evening haze,
Languages ripple through alleyways.
Each step a story, proud and bold,
In streets where histories unfold.

So let them walk, and let it be—
A portrait of diversity.
In every face, a world to see,
Melbourne hums in harmony.

Sony A7RV

FE 50mm f1.2 GM

Check out Candid 815

Melbourne Candid Series #1056 Swanston St

 

On Swanston Street beneath the sky,
A young man scrolls as strangers pass by.
His eyes are fixed on a glowing screen,
Lost in a world that can't be seen.

Behind him stands a quiet gaze,
An Asian man in the city's haze.
He looks ahead with steady grace,
Unmoved by time, in his own place.

A delivery bike rests by the wall,
Wheels stilled in the evening sprawl.
Moments pause in the city’s hum—
Stories unfold, then swiftly come undone.

Sony A7RV

FE 35mm f1.4 GM

Check out Candid 812 and FACE OFF

Melbourne Candid Series #1053 Swanston St

 

He walks where the city forgets to dream,
Off Swanston’s pulse, in a side-street seam.
An old man carved from dusk and ache,
Thin as memory, too brittle to break.

Beret tilted like a wounded crown,
Eyes cast low, like the heavens frown.
Each step a whisper, each breath a thread,
The living ghost of a life half-dead.

In his hand—O fate!—a paper curled,
Tight as secrets that once rocked the world.
Is it a letter? A map? A name?
A poem never read, or a war’s last flame?

The trams don’t pause for men like this,
Worn to the bone by what they miss.
Yet still he moves, through wind and grime,
Dragging behind the weight of time.

No one sees him—just a blur,
Of beret, bones, and something sirred.
But somewhere deep, the city knows,
He walks with all its buried prose.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Check out Candid 809 and FACE OFF

Melbourne Candid Series #1051 Swanston St

 

A young chap strides with a rhythm bold,
Curly hair wild, like stories untold.
Down Swanston Street where the city hums,
He walks to the beat of invisible drums.

Large earphones wrap his head in sound,
A private concert as feet meet ground.
Dock pants swish with a casual flair,
Swagger of youth, breeze in the air.

The trams roll by, the pigeons flee,
But he's lost in a world only he can see.
Basslines bounce through his steady pace,
A grin half-formed on his traveler's face.

Melbourne moves with its usual din,
But he’s wrapped in music, deep within.
Not chasing time, just catching a vibe,
A living pulse in the city's tribe.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 807

Melbourne Candid Series #1050 Swanston St

 

A tall, slender man in a suit so neat,
Glides down Swanston with echoing feet.
His coat catches wind like a fleeting thought,
A figure of grace the morning forgot.

Phone in his hand, face lit by the screen,
Eyes on the glow, lost in the sheen.
Among the crowd, yet utterly lone,
Each soul adrift in a world of their own.

Trams hum past with a city’s refrain,
Umbrellas bloom in a whisper of rain.
The old stones watch with quiet delight,
At men made of flesh but minds made of light.

So he walks, like the rest—plugged and apart—
A shadow of steel with a fast-beating heart.
In the dance of the modern, the digital stream,
Reality bends like a half-faded dream.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 806

Melbourne Candid Series #1049 Little Bourke St

 

Down Little Bourke, mid city’s hum,
A man walks on, his fingers numb.
His hairline fades with time’s embrace,
Yet focus lights his solemn face.

Eyes fixed upon the glowing screen,
Unmoved by all the urban scene,
He drifts through crowds in silent zone,
A world away, yet not alone.

Sony A7RV

FE 35mm f1.4 GM

Check out Candid 805

Melbourne Candid Series #1048 Collins St

 

On Collins Street where traffic swells,
A rider waits as red light dwells.
With jacket thick 'gainst wind and rain,
He leans upon his silent frame.

A satchel wide upon his back,
Stuffed full along its heavy track,
His front wheel strays beyond the line,
Encroaching where the walkers dine.

Yet on his head, a helmet worn—
A modest grace in urban scorn.
He lingers still, both still and sly,
Beneath the watchful Melbourne sky.

Sony A7RV

FE 35mm f1.4 GM

Check out Candid 804

Melbourne Candid Series #1047 Londsale St

 

Upon Lonsdale Street, in twilight's shade,
A weary man, mid-years and grey,
With bottle dark in hand he strayed,
Its label long since peeled away.

A heavy sack upon his arm,
With secrets cloaked in cloth and thread,
He moved with neither haste nor charm,
Where quiet city footsteps led.

His beard was worn by time’s slow tide,
Now streaked with ash, with silver lined,
And through a strolling pair he tried
To weave his path, as if inclined—

By purpose strange, or whims unknown,
He wandered on, yet not alone.

Sony A7RV

FE 35mm f1.4 GM

Check out Candid 803

Melbourne Candid Series #1046 Elizabeth St

 

Down Elizabeth Street he strides alone,
a slender thread in the city’s tone,
jacket sharp in the autumn breeze,
moving swift with elegant ease.

Fancy ear pods crown his ears,
drowning out the city's cheers—
lost in rhythm, thought, or beat,
a silent world beneath his feet.

Glass and tramlights dance on skin,
as day and noise blur deep within.
He walks a line both near and far,
tethered to sound like a distant star.

Melbourne hums its morning tune,
but he moves on, immune, immune—
a figure drawn in motion's ink,
on city streets that barely blink.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Check out Candid 802 and FACE OFF