The Art House

A Very significant photograph for me. The night before I took this photo I attended the last ever show I would ever attend at the Art House. Standing there behind my tripod, the dusty but clean venue shone with sunlight.

The musty smell of dried out wood floors and stale beer always makes me smile and will be an everlasting reminder of all the amazing times I had within the walls of this fantastic venue. I am heart broken to see this place go. Thanks for the memories Royal Artillery Hotel, you will be missed but never forgotten.

...

Two more venues I photographed after the first three. I shot both on the same camera (Nikon D300) but used a different lens (18-100). I would have liked to have used the ultra wide angle lens again but it wasn't available at the time so I decided to go with the mentality of use what you have.


Camberwell Civic Centre


The Evelyn Hotel

The Next Step

This is the first three photographs I took in the series and will be keeping these as the final print for each venue. Taken on a Nikon D300 w/ 12-24 Ultra Wide Angle.


The Palais


The Corner Hotel


The Birmingham

Before the Main Idea

This project was really conceived mid 2007 when I discovered Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, who had created a series of photographs in old picture theaters. Sugimoto would approach old picture theaters which were still in use and ask them to show a film while he photographed the inside of the theater.
By leaving his shutter open while the film was running, he was able to perfectly expose the inside of the theater and the screen would expose as white. I liked this idea and decided that I could use it in the context of empty music venues.


Hiroshi Sugimoto

Without really thinking about the idea I set off with a Pentax K1000 SLR and a roll of T-Max 400 bnw pushed to 3200 and began asking venues for permission to shoot inside. I didn't have a tripod and the main aim wasn't necessarily to see if it would work but if the venues would let me in, in the first place.

This is an example of the first shoot I did of The Corner Hotel in Richmond, Melbourne Australia. As you can see it is very dark and you can't see much of the detail inside the venue.




The Corner Hotel

The Beggining

When I started this project I sent out a standardized letter to venues around Melbourne, hoping to excite something with venue owners and they would let me into their bars, pubs, clubs and theaters to capture a small part of history.

Within a few hours of sending the email I had received reply's from many different types of music venues all willing to offer up their time and space for me to come and photograph their venue.

"To Whom It May Concern:

I am a young photographic artist from Melbourne and I am about to embark on a new and extensive series called “Empty Spaces, Darkened Rooms”. This series will document the interiors of music venues when there is no one in them.

This series will hopefully take me around the world and I am inviting you to be apart of it.
I have been photographing concerts around Melbourne for the past four years and have decided to take a photograph of the interior when empty to show the contrast between when I have photographed a show on your stage and when there is no one around.

All I require from you is access to your venue while it is empty for an hour or however long you can spare (preferably longer than 5mins), so I can set up a tripod and take a few shots of the stage with just the house lights on.

I do intend to apply for funding for this project in the future so I can really get it up and running. I believe what you are doing for our music scene is a valid and important part of history which should be documented for the future.

If you are interested in being apart of this project, please reply to this email.

Thank you very much for your time,

Emily"