There are submarines in the New South Wales country town of Holbrook. They lie snugly berthed in the grass of the classic Australian park that runs alongside the main street.
Holbrook worked hard to acquire its submarines. Why? What would an inland country town want with submarines, even authentic ones with their detailed specifications and war histories listed on billboards all over the park?
I was reminded of Holbrook and its wonderful weird fleet when I opened a new book of documentary photographs by Eureka Street regular, Andrew Stark. That’s his work above and right. Don’t ask me why the man is calling on his mobile while behind him the inflated Titanic angles towards perdition. But you can only be glad that someone caught and fixed the moment.
The bill posters at right—with Sydney City Mission rising just above the Soul of America—make absolutely no impression on the man wandering past.The gent in the photograph below: is he measuring the spring in the woman’s thigh muscle the way one would size up a thoroughbred? Or is he just nicking matches from her pocket? What does the child on the donkey expect?
Since 1991, Eureka Street has been blessed with its photographers. Their work has been too eloquent to be used as mere illustration to text. It has spoken for itself, as here—obliquely, wittily, profoundly.