5×5: Best from Down Under by Jack Harries of The Heavy Collective

The Heavy Collective is a Sydney-based, online publication promoting contemporary photography. With a focus on the personality of those behind the images, The Heavy Collective showcases up and comers alongside established heavyweights. For this week’s 5×5, Geordie Cardill and Jack Harries from The Heavy Collective contributes a selection of photographers from Australia.

After perusing 5×5 for some time, we thought it appropriate to serve up a healthy slice of Australiana, mate. Here’s five of the best from Down Under. These photographers span a good chunk of the cultural spectrum. Post war/post Dupain, Australia started finding its photographic feet with the likes of Rennie Ellis and Carol Jerrems, who were there documenting without bias, as the country was ripped out of its Rule Britannia roots and dove head first into the excess and hedonism of 60’s/70’s Australia.

These 5 are our picks, without them the Australian story would be drab, dull and incomplete. Dogs Eye without Dead Horse.

We start with Ellis, who we believe to be one of the chief narrators of the Australian story. There is a personality, a playful wit and a mischievous spirit in Ellis’ image making. From the overtly excessive and debauched to the unshakably Aussie, It’s all on display; fleshy, wild and decadent.

Borne out of much the same chrysalis as Ellis, Carol Jerrems‘ photographs are a quietly poetic counterpoint, they are a more personal account of the same time through a woman’s lens.

Emmanuel Angelicas saw the waves of post war immigration first hand, in the multicultural hotbed of Marrickville, Sydney. Being given a camera at the age of 6, his document of the hard-knock and working class has spanned the last 40 years. Looking at Angelicas’ long and dedicated character study of Marrickville, you couldn’t ask for a better mouthful of the Australian suburban experience.

“Belco’s a hole…. but it’s our hole” From one suburban dream/nightmare to another, Lee Grant‘s Belco Pride is a work of push and pull, of origin and identity, and perhaps a glimpse at a fading bastion of the “Australian Dream“.

Lastly, Garry Trinh‘s observant mind works overtime to breathe life into the banal and overlooked nooks and crannies of Sydney. Cataloguing, collecting, categorizing, Gary manages to elevate the boring and bland to humorous and clever heights.