It’s been a while since I last did portraits. I arrive at the hotel at 9.45am. It’s too early and I need to wait for my subjects to get out of the lecture. There are 88 of them. I have been hired to photograph an astrophysicist convention in a well known Blue Mountains resort. These are probably the most intelligent portrait subjects I’ll ever get to photograph. It’s a good thing there’s a whole constellation of them. I talk to my contact. She suggests we do the shoot outside, in front of some greenery in the back of the hotel. All I need is a decent background, and the sun facing me. “We don’t want people squinting in the sun,” I tell her. It’s almost time. I’ve checked my camera settings. My flash works. It’s a beautiful day in the Mountains and I’ve been in Australia for almost ten years. When I arrived I had nothing, I think to myself. Now I’m photographing scientists. And then they start coming. The first person steps inside the …

When I arrived to photograph the house in Leura, the new residents were sipping champagne in the upstairs kitchen with the architect and the ever-jovial building company boss, my employer on this job. Everything in the house was new. It had no curtains, no personal belongings. The owners had just been handed the keys and may not have felt the house belonged to them yet. That would come later, when the hustle and bustle had died down and they would have time to breathe and take it all in. But for now, by contrast to the empty rooms, there were people and action everywhere. The downstairs garage floor was strewn with power tools, paint buckets, ladders. The radio was blasting 90s hits and sports commentary. The workers were busy packing up and making sure everything was in order before it was time to go and not come back anymore. Later on, the friends of the new residents came in groups, walked from room to room, stopped to look at the empty walls, the uncovered floor, …