Denise Truscott is the photographer behind the Street Life exhibition on display in Craigieburn.
Truscott said she likes to capture the contrast between elements in cities like colourful graffiti on grey buildings, or old and new architecture in the one photo.
“I love mixing street art with different architecture, and I try to take [photos at] really odd angles of the buildings,” she said.
“I like a lot of the laneways in Melbourne… that contrast of that dirty laneway with the really vibrant colour [of street art].
“New York doesn’t have a lot of the street art or the colour that Melbourne has… like the beautiful pinks and blues in the buildings.”
Truscott said she often goes into the city for day trips with her husband and son, and will take photos spontaneously.
“I’ll be just walking and something will catch my eye up a laneway and I’ll take off.”
Truscott said she ran into the middle of a roundabout to get a photo in Burleigh Heads, Queensland.
“There were all these cars everywhere, my husband watched me and I looked at the photo and he said ‘quick, they’re coming, dive out’.”
For another photo Truscott sat down in a gutter in Melbourne taking photos of a building at different angles before she got the right shot.
She said her favourite photo was taken from an apartment window in Paris.
“We were up five floors up and I was having breakfast and I saw this guy walking around having a smoke, I just grabbed my camera and I’ve taken a whole series of him.”
Beside the photo of the man in Paris, is a photo of a younger man sitting alone in a Melbourne laneway.
“I loved it, that guy was just sitting there having a cigarette and relaxing, and I went back months later.. and he wasn’t there, it just didn’t have that interest,” she said.
“I like capturing casual moments, not big moments… just moments in time, people not doing anything much, just doing life.”
These photos are two of the six large prints which Truscott said are her absolute favourites and her strongest work.
“I like the little ones where you have to move in and they’re more intimate, and then the A3 ones you can sort of stand back a little bit from those.”
Truscott said the layout and design of the exhibition encourages viewers to walk around and is meant to replicate how she wanders around cities.
“On opening night, everyone was really quite enjoying going around and trying to work out where some of them were [taken]… people see different things [in them] too.”
Truscott said it took her a long time to put her name out there, and she was hesitant to submit her photography for the exhibition
“You’ve just got to trust yourself and believe, even if people don’t enjoy it, it’s your work and it’s very personable to you.”
Truscott’s Street Life Exhibition is on display at the Gee Lee-Wik Doleen Gallery, Hume Global Learning Centre in Craigieburn until 1 February.
