Warren Kirk’s distinctive photographs capture signs of country life that are fast disappearing

3 months ago 9

Photographer Warren Kirk has an unusual strategy for combating the blues: whenever he’s feeling down, he hits the highway.

“There’s something really liberating for me about driving and being in open space, seeing the clouds in the sky, the big horizon, and then just pulling in wherever and having a wander,” he says. “We’re crowded in the city, even if we don’t realise it.”

A portrait Warren Kirk took in the Victorian town of Newry from his book, Beyond Suburbia.

The artist formerly known as the Westographer – the name of his much-loved Flickr site, devoted to the changing face of Melbourne’s west – takes his camera with him, documenting the towns and people he happens across.

Images from those road trips across the past 15-or-so years are collated in his latest book, Beyond Suburbia. Ranging geographically from Nhill to Beechworth and many points in between, the book documents a reality that is fast disappearing.

It features a foreword by Don Watson, who grew up on a farm in Korumburra, Gippsland; the man who would become Paul Keating’s speechwriter is clearly familiar with small country towns. “The photographs in this wonderful book wake the dead,” Watson writes.

Drawn to things that show their age and are often a bit worse for wear, Kirk shoots beautifully coloured or weathered houses and buildings, with crumbling paint and faded signs, and wonderfully busy and distinctive interiors.

“Really plain Jane [things] almost as well, a certain era. If they’re too ornate and historic, that doesn’t interest me. It’s more that middle ground, from the 1930s through to the ’60s and ’70s,” he says. “If they look too historic or town hall-ish, even some of those Masonic lodges that have had a lot of money thrown at them, that’s not interesting.”

Milk bars, butchers, motels and barbers also get a look-in. “The ones that have got a bit of charm to them, they’re the sort of things that jump out at me. Classic things like your old servos, shopfronts with old school signage.”

Beyond Suburbia features a mix of people and places but the pictures Kirk takes of people are no standard headshots. “They’re environmental portraits, so you’ve got the person in their environment – that tells the story of who they are. Unless someone’s got an incredible face, just a shot with no context is boring. Their work environment, their home environment, the things they surround themselves with, it adds to the picture of who they are,” he says.

Funnily enough for a photographer, Kirk doesn’t want his own photo taken. He also prefers not to provide information about his shots, apart from the location, saying the image itself is enough. In this age of over-sharing, there’s an inherent mystery to his pictures that inspire your imagination.

Slightly reluctantly, Kirk joined Instagram in 2023 with @pretty_0rdinary. “I was looking for somewhere to show all those beautiful old film shots from the ’90s. Virtually every one of those old buildings would be knocked over.”

While traditionally known for suburban vistas and the rapidly changing landscape of our inner city, Kirk is clearly inspired by getting out of his own environment. “There’s this feeling of being more open, not going about your own routine. It’s a journey of discovery, the excitement of what am I going to find.”

As well as the big sky overhead, the other bonus along the way is the people he meets. “I hardly ever get a knockback in the country. They’re not self-conscious at all. I just tell people I’m a bit of a historian with a camera and they are generally fine with it,” he says.

“Very rarely I’ll get someone say, ‘You can shoot in here but I don’t want to be in the photo’. I say, ‘Yeah, it’s not a photo shoot, it’s not a glamour shot’. And they get it. Because that’s what it is – it’s real life. Things that are hiding in plain sight, things that aren’t every day any more.

“People are quite happy to help me out; they’re doing me a favour as well.”

Describing himself as “the sort of person who gets obsessed with things”, Kirk says sport was his focus back when he was given a camera some time in 1985. It quickly gave way to a new, all-consuming passion that has never left him.

Since then, he has taken thousands of pictures, all the while documenting a changing world. His archive numbers about 80,000 images, including about 75,000 digital photographs and 5000-odd film shots.

“Having a camera put into my hands and just instantly falling in love with the process, it was like a fated thing,” he says. “It completely changed my life.”

Beyond Suburbia is published by Scribe.

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