Melbourne Candid Series #1125 Swanston St

 

Upon a bench on Swanston bare,
Mid winter’s breath and biting air,
An elder woman took her place,
The chill wind tracing 'cross her face.

A cap drawn low o’er silver strands,
A phone held firm in gloved-up hands.
Her coat was thick, her posture sure,
She braved the cold with something pure.

Beside her sat, with polished grace,
A bag that spoke of wealth and place—
Its leather gleamed, its buckles shone,
A thing of means, yet she alone.

She spoke in murmurs, calm, composed,
As trams passed by and daylight dozed.
The city swirled in greys and blacks,
While frost clung tight to tramway tracks.

She seemed a relic, firm and still,
A monument of tempered will.
While winter wrapped the world in white,
She warmed the street with quiet might.

Sony A7RV

FE 50mm f1.2 GM 

Check out Candid 880

Melbourne Candid Series #1110 Latrobe St

 

In grainy hush of silvered gloom,
I stand above—cemented room—
a carpark edge, the frame is set,
the city's bones in vignette.

Below, three figures dressed in dusk,
carved sharp in light’s depleted husk.
Their shadows stretch, then fall away—
black ink that bleeds through paper gray.

Each head is bowed, each hand aglow,
white screens like lanterns lit below.
No mouths are moved, no glances shared,
they stand like statues, unaware.

Their outlines flicker—smoke and steel,
young men absorbed, half-lost, half-real.
A blur of light on faces drawn,
as if the night could etch them gone.

The street behind—bare, endless scroll,
no sky, no stars, just shadow’s toll.
And I, above, outside the frame,
watch silence pulse beneath their names.

It is a vision, stark and still—
a photograph the dark would fill.
Not loneliness, but something near—
connection shaped by static fear.

Sony A7RV

FE 50mm f1.2 GM

Check out Candid 866

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 #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 #833 Little Collins Lane

 

Watch out the traffic 

Sony A7RV

FE 35mm f1.4 GM

Check out Candid 584

Melbourne Candid Series #593 Buckingham Ave, Springvale

 

He was giggling while I was waiting for mum in shopping centre

Sony A7RV

FE 24mm f1.4 GM

Check out Candid 362

Melbourne Candid Series #591 Craigieburn Rd, Craigieburn

 

The severe distortion of UWA lens gives it an effect I dont mind too much which could be very irritating for some viewers (I noticed the phenomenon on Dpreview.com)

Sony A7RV

Laowa 9mm f5.6

Check out Candid 360