Historical serendipity.
Two abandoned projects and a rare spate of housekeeping collided to bring a segment of the Sydney story to completion in an exhibition of photographs by Bob Kersey.
In 1995 Kersey photographed Sydney and waterfront backgrounds intended for scenes of an Olympic marathon runner to be used as a television promotion following the announcement of the successful Sydney Olympic bid. Then in the Olympic year 2000 shipping density in Sydney Harbour reached peak levels, once again captured by Kersey’s camera, revealing a massive influx of giant luxury cruise ships against a city skyline setting.
The negatives have never been printed and had not been referred to for up to seventeen years until the relocation of the archive prompted curious examination. Curiosity changed to creativity as the number of potentially entertaining and significant frames steadily grew.
Bob Kersey, born on the waterfront in Berry’s Bay, named the selected body of work, The Waterfront.
The negatives are old-fashioned black and white Plus X printed onto silver rich paper from the Czech Republic. The prints look exactly as they were intended: saturated and dramatic.
The Sydney waterfront changes its profile continuously but the past is never far away in this portfolio of photographs.
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