Store fronts
Bari, Italy
June 2019
We booked a June trip to southern Italy sometime in the late winter when we needed something to which we could look forward. It was only four or five days long but it was everything my pale, sad self needed. Gelati, pasta, focaccia, italians, drawing, beer, wine, sitting in the sun, looking at maps,
Dali
Yunnan Province, China
June 2018
It rained the entire time we were in pretty Dali, which I think was maybe three or four days but it’s all blurred together in my mind into one endless, soggy experience of clothes never drying, sitting inside steaming buses, walking walking walking in the rain and getting blisters from wet socks inside my only pair of very wet shoes. Dali is a big backpacker chill destination for domestic tourists, and it’s full of teens and twenty-somethings with (fake) flowers in their hair and lots of shops selling drums and rose petal cakes and rose yogurt (both of these are really delicious). The old town is beautiful, but there is a commercial-hippie vibe that feels very manufactured. I think I’d have liked it about a hundred times more if it wasn’t endlessly raining, so I don’t want to be unfair.
Kreuzberg, Berlin
Germany
October 2018
A local corner bar (called a Kneipe in German) not far from where we live in Kreuzberg. Taken on a cool day back in Autumn, back when I was welcoming a change of season after Australian summer followed by south east Asian and European summer. Now it’s two days from the beginning of Summer and I can hardly wait.
Car Wash
Preston, Melbourne
October 2017
I sometimes wonder if the kebabs they sell out of a window here are poison or good.
Abbotsford, Melbourne
October 2017
Walking around Abbotsford with Nico after visiting c3 artspace.
Store fronts
New York, NY
July 2017
Why I love walking in New York.
Yungaburra, Queensland
Australia
November 2016
We saw platypus in the wild here.
Mossman, Queensland
Australia
November 2016
I first went to Mossman on a field trip when I worked for the public library service in the early 2000s. All I remember from that drive was cane fields.
Montreal, Canada
August 2016
I went to Montreal for 24 hours and this is what I saw.
New Orleans, Louisiana
July 2016
Two businesses a few blocks apart on St Claude. Taken on a hot summers day while I walked in the intense heat and humidity just before a rain shower.
Beauty Salon
Memphis, Tennessee
July 2016
An old beauty salon next to the Stax Museum of American Soul Music (which I highly recommend).
Sun Records Studio
Memphis Tennessee
July 2016
I stood in the room where Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash recorded their records. It was a surprisingly small and humble space. I felt humble too.
Arcade, Nashville, Tennessee
June 2016
A two-story arcade in downtown Nashville modeled after an arcade in Italy. I went here because I read about the art spaces on the upper level, but unfortunately they were all closed when I went by.
The Walgreens adjacent to this arcade was one of the locations of the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins in 1960 - a nonviolent student protest against racial desegregation.
Dino's, Nashville
June 2016
I dearly love dive bars like Dino's. I think they're in my top 10 things I love about living in America. I love the dimness, the cheap beer and shot specials, the bags of chips, the old decor, the seediness of having a beer in the afternoon, the regulars sitting at the bar, the bartenders' tattoos, the jukeboxes, the dartboards and pool tables, the everything.
Store fronts, Philadelphia
April 2016
I really like Philly. I've managed to visit a handful of times while living in New York. The scale of the city is really perfect and the neighborhoods surrounding downtown are really interesting.
Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic
March 2016
Some of the best hand painted signage around.
Neon signs, New York
March 2016
Tuxedos. Nails. Hat. I love neon in New York.
Huevo stores
Centro, Mexico City
January 2016
We found a block downtown with loads of shops selling eggs (huevos).
City Island, Bronx, NY
November 2015
Afraid that soon it would be too cold for day tripping, in early November we went on a little adventure up to City Island in the Bronx. It's been on my list of things to do in New York for oh... four years. City Island is a small island (one mile wide and one and a half miles long) with a ship building past and a sleepy old town feeling (you really don't feel like you're in NYC anymore. But you are!) It takes about an hour and a half to get there from Brooklyn (two trains and a bus) so I guess that why it took us a while to get around to visiting.
On our walk down the main street of the island, we found two church thrift stores. I bought an amazing boat themed sweater for $2 and Adam bought a new-looking pair of Doc Martens for $5. We trawled through a couple of nautical-junk filled antique stores (Nicolas bought small glasses for 50c apiece) and then ended up at the main attraction, Johnny's on the water, at the southern end of the island. We went for the seafood but we stayed for the pina coladas. This place is a feast for the eyes as well as the tummy, with old school signage, baskets of fried seafood and a seagull-filled patio area, and cafeteria tables where leather clad bikers sit alongside old ladies drinking daiquiris. It is as excellent as it sounds.
Canteen, Baltimore
December 2014
My good friend was chef here for the past year or so. Sadly they closed their doors only a month or so after I took this photo.