Practically everything a street photographer photographs is only seen by the artist because they know it, they see it because they've experienced it at some point. That applies to buildings and living spaces as much as it applies to portraits (which are anyway only a reflection of the photographer.) This phenomenon is precisely why Cartier-Bresson had to get away from his wealthy family to advance his senses. The 50 meter high low-income housing project, Nelson Heights, in an otherwise wealthy suburb of Melbourne, reminded me of three months of hell I once lived in.
Up on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, I once lived in a room of a woman's low income apartment. She proudly told me that my rent paid for her marijuana. I needed somewhere desperately at the time so tried to take her living conditions in my stride. I couldn't. She was absolutely filthy. It seemed everyone in her apartment block shared her lifestyle. When I finally blocked out the various kinds of smoke seeping under my door, the fighting of neighbors, and fell asleep, the cockroaches would quickly wake me back up. And few were the times I got home when she hadn't opened my door to 'air the room' for her cat to piss on my carpet floor. I've never been happier to move out of somewhere than when I got out of her hell-hole.
Nelson Heights is that kind of place. It has a beautiful nostalgic architectural sense that the uneducated would refer to as shipping-container-style. However, I'm sure when it was built, the idea was that the wonderful views of Melbourne City and the gorgeous surroundings would give the people who lived there the desire to live in community. It hasn't worked and Melbourne police describe the building as crime-plagued. At various times, even charities have banned their volunteers from visiting. Without knowing any of this, I wanted to knock on the doors and chat to some of the inhabitants but my wife begged me not to. So we just walked the halls, wondered at the broken glass panes and after hearing some whispers from behind screen doors, got the hell out of there.
