Richie

Hello, this is the beginning of my new project, it quite simplistically involves taking portraits of people in their homes. I suppose can bullshit some wankery about how the notion of home facilitates some sort of aspect of our inner identity, and how a photo essay can illustrate feelings of intimacy and belonging, while exploring one's personal interactions with space; but I'm not going to pretend there is some profound conceptual framework behind this, because there isn't - all I want to do to capture a snapshot of a person's everyday life.

Richie, Summer 2011
I met Richie in primary school, he was funny and popular and I wasn't, so we never really talked, and I still don't know much about him now. In fact, I'm not terribly sure how we came into contact again, but he lived close by in my old area, a slice of suburbia in the inner south-west of Sydney. I don't think I'm qualified to really write anything about him, but his band practices in his garage, with equal amounts of smoking weed and music-making, he lives with his parents and older sister, I've scarcely seen them though his friends are always around, there are huge wooden boards out the back on which they spray paint, he has a leafy backyard and a near-empty fridge, a bright bedroom housing a collection of musical instruments, and he is always hospitable.