Street Photography at Surfers Paradise
Sweet mother of mercy, Surfers Paradise is gaudy. Even with improvements, upgrades, a fancy light rail, and new buildings, it’s like putting lipstick on a pig. The beach itself is honestly the worst swimming and surfing beach on the Gold Coast. Exposed, windy, busy, full of show-off holiday makers. In the afternoon it’s in the shadows thanks to the highrise holiday hotels blocking the setting sun. It makes the beach even colder and windier. Yeah, I’m the Grinch that stole Surfers Paradise!
Polished turds aside, it’s a great place for street photography. One of my favorite spots. There’s an eclectic mix of everyone. Leathered locals, tourists, flabby white families from Melbourne. Down on Cavil Avenue there’s a permanent assemblage of homeless alcoholics and junkies — nothing like you’d see on Skid Row — just a few old bums asking for change, sipping dollar coffee, and buying cheap goon from the bottle-shop.
Orchard Avenue is where it happens at night. It’s the night-club strip where the pretty young things throw up their expensive drinks in the gutter and try to find sheltered alcoves for a piss. At night it’s a motley congregation of juiced-up bouncers, cops who turn a blind eye, bikies with hellraising motorbikes and throngs of drunk masses. During the day though, it’s a one-way street constantly blocked by the flow of courier drivers and trucks, re-stocking the bars, clubs, and eateries ready for the next night's onslaught. There’s nothing glamourous, nothing exciting about it. Trucks and vans with high-vis vested drivers trying to unload in the warm Queensland sun, racing with trolleys and clipboards after the ‘signature’, then dashing to the next venue.
I stroll down the esplanade. It’s bright, sunny, a hive of activity. Tourists pose in front of the ‘Surfers Paradise’ sign when the ‘green man’ permits. It’s always windy, so everyone’s hair is always blowing around. The kids don’t want to pose. Couples take turns in posing for their insta-photos. It’s always a hilarious spectacle. I delight in seeing how people pose under a lifeless metal sign in front of a windy beach. Inevitably there will be that local dude who likes to wear the pink bikini lurking in the background and the Asian couple on a packaged tour wearing matching red polo shirts and ‘I heart Melbourne’ baseball caps.
There’s a certain joy in seeing families struggle with tired kids on their ferry to, or from the beach. They’ve lugged all their gear from the something-story of a high-rise. They can’t sit on the balcony cause it’s too bloody windy. They’ve already lost two towels they had drying on a rack in a gust of wind.
The kids are tired because the sun seeps through the windows at stupid o’clock and the nine 20 years olds in the room next door thought it would be awesome to get home at 4 am, continue drinking and do karaoke, often followed by the intermittent retch of vomiting.
These families have come all the way from Sydney or Melbourne for a ‘Gold Coast Holiday’. Instead, they spend half the time lugging gear down to the beach, only to find they forgot the sunscreen. The kitchenette in the room is good for making coffee but anything else is a stretch. The little in-room fridge is perfect for heating milk, salad, cheese, and cold meat so there’s no saving money making sandwiches.
They spend way too much money on credit for the same Mcdonald's they could have back home. Sunburned, tired, and in debt, they decide a theme park might be a good way to break up the holiday… And I realise I’ve digressed horribly!
I find movement and people everywhere. I’ve brought a film camera — my 35mm Fujica STX1, and some cheap Ilford F-Pan 50. I’m forcing myself to take photos and practice street photography, my nemesis.
I find captures that aren’t bad but aren’t good. As you know with film, there’s no real way of telling until you develop it and make prints, or scan it for some digital touch-ups.
Sick of the so-called Glitter Strip, I hop into my car and head north slightly to The Spit. It’s a little ‘locals only’ spot with a dog-friendly beach, a nice little breakwall and a jetty — sometimes open to the public. Sadly for me on this particular occasion, it wasn’t open!
I meet a fella with a thick Slavic accent who would like a photograph and quickly transitions the conversation into Nice Mr Putin and Nice Mr Biden with many ancillary topics, all laced together with the same adjective starting with ‘f’. I instantly bond with him and enjoy a solid 15-minute friendship.
Strolling along the breakwall is, for some reason, one of my favorite pastimes. It’s not uncommon to see dolphins jump in the exiting waters of the broadwater. Fishermen cast rods hopefully on both sides of the wall. Locals and tourists alike seem to experience significant joy when waves crash over the breakwall, covering them in a briny, cool mist. On clear days the view south to Surfers is spectacular. At night, long exposures make Sin City pop like a brightly coloured oasis against a sea of black.
A roll of 24 shots done and I’ve had the most pleasant day out. I have a love-hate relationship with this neck of the Gold Coast. Inevitably, as it always does — love wins out.