Man about town
Brenda L Croft’s most recent photographic series Man About Town is sourced from the contents of an old slide box discovered amongst her father’s personal possessions after his death. These photographs from around 1950–60 document aspects of his life as a young single man. There is nothing sensational or surprising in this material: these images comfortably precede those appropriated from the family photographic archive for the earlier series In My Father’s House (1999) and In My Mother’s Garden(1998). They are nevertheless striking examples of the genre. This good-looking Aboriginal man in his early 30s appears equally comfortable behind as in front of the lens. As the title suggests, these images document the life of a man about town, cruising through the streets of Melbourne, as in one image Beau Monde, taken at the crossroads of Flinders and Swanston Streets, with the familiar landmark of Young & Jackson’s up ahead. The movements of pedestrians and the solemn procession of cars are frozen in time to characterise the austere formality of the era and something of its more lurid commerce. In other street scenes, such as the aptly titled Shadowland, dominated by the monumental grandeur of Melbourne’s Victorian edifices, the long shadows cast by the slanting rays of the late afternoon sun would appear to divide day from night and perhaps, metaphorically speaking, darkness from light.
Outside of the metropolis, a different mood predominates: our man is portrayed out on the road as a public servant or businessman in the bush or on weekend jaunts with friends, in locations that range from the golf course to the airport and the various semi-rural or outer-suburban scenic spots. This is a world