An evening in Newcastle, Australia

April 04, 2023

An evening in Newcastle, Australia

It was about 5 weeks ago that Lachlan (Son) and I hit Newcastle for a walk around Photo Safari. A Sunday evening of leisurely walking and getting in a bit of Street Photography and some of the fabulous buildings found in the Newcastle CBD area.

Newcastle has found a new vibrancy in some of the rebuild & new build works that have been occurring. There are numerous cranes to be seen on the skyline approaching the CBD which is a sign of progressive renewal. Happy to say that, with the majority of the rebuilds, the original facade of the heritage building (or a big part of it) is being kept.

It is the areas outside of the Hunter Street Shopping Mall that are moving ahead and embracing change while, embarrassingly, it was the state of the Hunter Street Mall that was disappointing. In its hey day, the Hunter Street Mall would have been packed with people but, since the advent of very large Shopping Centres and the impact of Covid, many shop fronts have closed. This has led to the degradation of the Mall by way of unkept shop fronts, malicious damage and especially, graffitti.

There were plenty of people out; some walking with a purpose and others just out for the stroll. It was a little windy and humid and had just warmed up after a few days of constant rain. Many people were enjoying the Al Fresco dining experience on offer by different establishments and, as the Sun set the shadows provided some interesting light with the last minute sunshine.

After dark, it was time to set the ISO higher to capture the movement of those out and about and also the neon experience of street lights and security lighting.

We did quite a few kilometres of walking and eventually put lens caps back on about 9pm.

It was a great evening of photography the only downside being the state of the Hunter Street Mall.

I also took along a film camera with me, loaded with Fuji Superior Extra 800. I haven't shot with this film before so it will be interesting to see how it fared in the low evening light and later in the artificial light.