Gerry Orkin

I live in a small coastal community a little south of Sydney, Australia.

Very occasionally I see something interesting and I photograph it.

I started making photographs again only a few years ago but my involvement in photography goes back decades. 

Before settling permanently in Australia in 1980 I studied documentary photography in the UK and worked in darkrooms and studios in London and Sydney.

Some of my documentary work in Indigenous communities is held in the collections of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) , the National Gallery of Australia and the National Museum of Australia, and appeared in exhibitions, monographs and books. 

From 1986-1988 I was the photographic coordinator for the After 200 years project, a major documentary photography project undertaken by AIATSIS, that featured the work of 21 Australian photographers. As well as choosing the participating photographers, I supported their work in the communities and mentored young Indigenous photographers who worked on the project. Together with the project manager I curated and sequenced the resulting book and exhibitions.

I also made photographs in two communities for that project; one chapter reflected a collaboration with the community at the former Aboriginal Mission settlement at Purfleet, while the second explored the experience of incarcerated Indigenous men at Cessnock goal in New South Wales.

In the mid-1980s I co-founded Photo Access, Australia's first community photographic centre. I taught photography at Photo Access and in other settings for many years, and coordinated community and documentary photographic projects, including those that worked with young people, people of colour and people with disabilities. Many of those projects resulted in exhibitions.

During my career I always knew that street photography was a thing, and I was a big fan of photographers like Garry Winogrand, Joel Meyerowitz and Elliott Erwitt. I carried a camera with me everywhere, but my personal preference was (and remains) always for story-based documentary work.

After nearly thirty years away, in 2012 I got back into making photographs. I hope to develop documentary projects again, but until that becomes possible, street photography is a challenging and satisfying alternative.

A few of the images here were made with a Fuji X-T2 camera but most were made with a Fuji x100t or x100f (usually with a wide angle adapter). There's also a couple of film images made with an Olympus XA.

My favourite photographers all work in black and white. They include Jason Eskenazi, Josef Koudelka, Nikos Economopoulos and Ernesto Bazan. Their style isn’t strictly street; it’s story-telling at a deeper level, and sometimes more documentary in style and presentation. I'd love to make work like that!

I like the work of tons of contemporary street photographers, far too many to list. I've also enjoyed work of earlier street photographers like Joel Meyerowitz, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Garry Winogrand, Elliott Erwitt and Saul Leiter. 

My partner Julia Coddington is also a street photographer. You should get to know her awesome work :). Julia teachs workshops too.

email: gerry.orkin@gmail.com 

instagram: @gerryorkin