About Streetscapes

In 2003, brandishing a new digital camera, I set out to collect all the street art and graffiti in Newcastle and surrounds. I'd been passing it on way to work and some of it was pretty good, not deserving the labels 'vandalism' or 'graffiti' in derogation. 

Over the next decade or so (2004 - 2015) a fair amount was gathered, and is now (and still being) published under 'Street Art' on this website. Along the way the lens wandered, and many images of buildings, parks, streets, and harbour found their way into a separate archive labelled 'StreetScapes.' 

It was never my intent to document the vistas, facades and innards of the city's treasures. But the rapid loss of so many timeless vistas was a sad surprise, however inevitable, and so it now stands as a fortunate decision. Because disappear they did, with an ongoing apartment-building spree in the east end, the felling of historic east-end buildings in a frenzy of 'facadism,' a dramatic high-rise reinvention of the west end precinct with the removal of inner-city rail, and accelerated along Hunter Street by the construction of the city's tramline in 2017. 

Images in our collection are not a particularly significant set, but someone somewhere will find them useful. Leaving them to die on a computer is just a waste. They are diminished in importance significantly by Google's constant sweeps of the entire city every few years. However, those are watermarked and effectively copyright, are from a single street perspective, and plastered with various icons and features. They are nevertheless a remarkable resource and invaluable time machine.

Our categories are quite arbitrary due, as you would guess, to so many overlapping qualities. So good luck finding a specific street or building. For example, I chose to define "vistas" and "skylines" are from distant vantage points - they're universally described as "cityscapes."  Elsewise, they are "streetscapes" and comprise the majority of our collection. As in views from street level, where I traipsed on endless early mornings around sunrise, when the light was soft and shadows yet to appear.

The search function on this website will discover any article containing a desired keyword - assuming I captioned an image with sufficient detail.

Panoramas are watermarked. Many others are not, and are published under a Creative Commons with Attribution licence. Use them as you wish, but NOT commercially - unless you need a licensed (and, with luck, a high resolution) copy, then see 'Terms of Use.'

Enjoy!