You May Call Me Frank: 2011

Oct 26, 2011

My exhibition of drawings at Brunswick Bound Bookshop; The Mysterious All-Alloneo Archipelago is now up on the walls. The afternoon tea party is on this Saturday and you are all welcome to come. Most of the islands have appeared on this blog, but there are a few new ones.
Brunswick Bound is at 361 Sydney Road Brunswick, and tea will be served at 2 pm on
Saturday 29th of October.

Oct 9, 2011

Westgarth

After Murrumbeena I travelled into the city boxed in by the type of over-educated idiots who think dressing in a rented suit and standing in a field watching horses run about is an acceptable way to spend an afternoon.
Coming back to Clifton Hill in late afternoon light I passed West Richmond, Colingwood, Victoria Park all looking splendid, but I was on the express train to Hurstbridge. At Westgarth station I snapped 2 girls going over the dilapidated footbridge without them noticing; I'd rather not take pictures of people, especially those I don't know, but this was a happy accident ... and don't they look happy?
The new railbridge over Merri Creek looks a bit pop art; is it meant to be retro 1960's?

Murrumbeena

As unlikely a place as Murrumbeena provided me with a perfectly serviceable cup of teabag for $2.50. An impossibly twee name and sign and logo, but a proper bakery rather than a franchise, with such a high counter I couldn't see over it; meant for working men in search of meat pies and pasties and nescafe in big, manly mugs.
Then a pee in a vintage 1960's toilet block.

Caulfield again.

The number 3a tram deposited me in Caulfield. I was brought so low I went in to a Gloria Jean's.

Balaclava

By the time I left Brighton I was starting to be in need of a cup of tea. There are two things which make travel bearable; the availability of toilets and of tea. Other things like a certain amount of civility, privacy and respect for each other by one's fellow passengers, seem to be optional. So I got off at Balaclava in an effort to find a decent cafe serving more black teas than Earl Grey or English Breakfast. Or failing that a tram to parts West and another train station. No cafes with more than a passing acquaintance with tea, but plenty of attitude and snobbery.

Hampton & Brighton Beach

As befits a posh suburb like Hampton, the train station was both clean and tagging free, and hardly patronized.
Brighton Beach had more people, as well as a working toilet. I've always liked BB station; as an adolescent I spent many winter days wandering on the beach, disconsolately.

Oct 6, 2011

Cheltenham

Cheltenham Station is next to a beautiful cemetery. I wandered about in it for some time.
I had an idea I could catch a bus across to the Dandenong line, but I could only get as far as Southland, and in despair, caught the first bus out of there to Hampton.

Mordialloc

Mordialloc has picturesque decrepitude and an oddly shaped railway water tower of historical significance.

Carrum

From Caulfield, to Malvern, then onwards to Carrum, three stops before Frankston. Carrum station looks like a municipal toilet block built in the 1930's.

Caulfield

I was at Caulfield before 10 am, and Saturday seemed to be turning into a day of warm, filthy wind. The Caulfield races seem to be on because various types of losers and Hooray Henrys wander through the station while I take photos.

Sep 21, 2011

Spencer Street

I began on Saturday with 'Southern Cross' station. I missed a special steam train with what seemed to be red rattler carriages going to Geelong; it was steaming out of the station as I was coming in. It is remarkable how many things I missed out on photographing even when I had a camera in my hands.

Sep 17, 2011

Elsternwick Station

The photos of Windsor Station are mostly of the sunset; and I waited at Elsternwick for the lights to be put on so I could attempt a moody, summery picture of a suburban railway station; it came out as be-bop.

South Yarra

By this time I was desperately in need of a cup of tea ... but I made do with what was available at a South Yarra Station franchise; a paper cup of hot water, a teabag and quite a lot of milk. And I didn't spill it on myself during my journey to Elsternwick.

Hawksburn

... on much the same lines as Camberwell.

Coming into Richmond

East Richmond

No trains stop at East Richmond, so I didn't either.

Burnley Station

Gardiner Station

This picture was taken at the point where the Burke Road tram crosses the Glen Waverly line, just before Gardiner Station.

Malvern East

Anniversary trail

After camberwell, I took the very pretty, but very under-used Alamein Line to its terminus and walked along the old Outer Circle line, now beautified at State expense as the Anniversary Trail. That is I walked until I heard the sound of the The Monash Freeway cutting through the Gardiner's Creek Valley, and then I was stopped by the bridge at Solway St. being washed away. I was in no mood for the detour that penetrated a fairy dell alongside the creek, and I am afraid I was short with the golfers barring my way to East Malvern Station.

Alamein Station

Camberwell Station

Camberwell station was next, and I especially wanted to photograph the long, deep curve that seems to go on forever when coming into the station; but the only good photo has a shunted train hiding behind hawthorn berries.
I remember when I thought that Camberwell was the most sophisticated station; I was impressed by the ultra modern walkways down to platform 1, complete with rockery. The station looks a little battered now, but better than in the 1980's when it and the shops on the high side were both decaying into quirkiness. Today you will never be far from coffee, shoes or sushi in Camberwell.

Flinders Street, again

Royal Park station

On Friday I began photographing train stations near my home with Royal Park Station; impressively maintained for the tourists visiting the Zoo, the station looks like it was only just built.

Sep 15, 2011

Clifton Hill Station

Flinders Street

Flinders Street from across the road in a sushi bar.

Anstey Station, on the Upfield line

North Melbourne

The first photo I took a few years ago with mere flukery, the second with a proper digital camera, but also by happy accident.

Stations

I went out as far as Laverton today, to take pictures; I have been lent a digital SLR camera and I am trying to learn how to use it. So I have decided to try to photograph as many of Melbourne's Suburban Train stations in a week as I can manage. I'll put the interesting images up here. I am limiting my brief to those stations which appear in my Val Morgan Detailed Street Map of Melbourne, which, judging by the advertisements for Valiants and Drive In Theatres, was printed in the late 1960's.
In the coming months the stations I can't get to I will tell an autobiographical story about, or make up some alternative history, or draw the station; I've got a good drawing of Footscray, in a journal somewhere.

Sep 14, 2011

Reconnoitering

Last night on a cold Melbourne evening I saw a man wandering up and down High Street Northcote clutching the front of his slightly too small short-sleeved shirt. I noticed he was also wearing jeans that didn't allow him to sit comfortably on a Tram stop and leave his arse unexposed to the chill northern breezes. Obviously an alien in a man-flesh suit, hastily acquired, a little too small; reconnoitering.

My Desk

This is my desk whilst I was working on my large map of the inner city of Maversham. The spoon is an improvised burnishing tool I used to transfer the pencil on the back of the tracing paper image onto the posh paper. I was using the top of a biro, but a spoon proved more effective.