As a photographer, there are times when the visual database stored in one’s subconscious, throws up a reference so overpowering it is impossible to ignore.
Last Sunday, while working on my long-term project, This Working Life, I made this portrait of bartender, Kat Macaulay in the Gypsy Bar in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy:
As I positioned Kat, Edouard Manet’s Bar at the Folies Bergere (1882) was already resonating in my mind:
This Working Life is a long-term historic documentation of work in Australia, supported by the peak body representing the Jobs Network, Jobs Australia. In the past 10 months, Rob Walls has covered nearly 35,000 kilometres throughout Australia. His most recent two month journey took him 17,000km from Hobart to Port Hedland in WA and back across the Nullarbor via Kalgoorlie. His next expedition will take him through Queensland, Northern Territory and Central Australia.
