July Book of the Month: STILL Melbourne

STILL Melbourne:

Images taken during Melbourne's Lockdowns

by Tony Pierrakos

edited by Jaye Chin-Dusting

July’s Book of the Month is a special one. STILL Melbourne might be one of the most important publications I have had the privilege to contribute towards. Certainly it’s the most beautiful. Let me tell you the story of how this book came to be.

Many of you would be aware that we have a little shop in a shipping container on String Bean Alley at Queen Victoria Market. Diagonally opposite our stall is Intone Photography. It’s owner, Tony Pierrakos, is a street photographer and one of the founding traders on String Bean Alley. Tony’s photographs have long been a famous feature of the market. As you can imagine, for a photography business to thrive in this day and age when we all carry a smart phone with a fancy camera, the photos a professional takes must have a certain x-factor.

Tony has that x-factor in bucketloads. I often gasp when he shows me his work—even, or perhaps particularly, at the seemingly casual shots he takes along our alley-way. I am not sure if it’s the angle, or maybe the composition, but his photographs often stop passers-by in their tracks. Tony shared his secret with me one day.

‘It’s the light, Jaye’, he said.

All I can say is that armed with this knowledge, my photos remain ordinary.

Earlier this year, at the end of the sixth and (fingers crossed) final Melbourne lockdown, we finally reopened. As non-food related stall holders we had been closed for much of the previous two years. Soon after we returned, I wandered across to Tony’s stall, as we stall holders often do. I started flicking through some of his new work.

What I saw moved me deeply.

These were photographs taken during Melbourne’s lockdowns when Tony, armed with his Nikon and going through personal upheaval, captured some truly beautiful images of our city and her occupants. They are artworks of a remarkable time.

‘We need to put this collection together,’ I urged him. ‘We need to put this in book form.’

And so we have.

“ STILL Melbourne is a time capsule, an art exhibition… it comes with the reminder that we should not forget what we were willing to endure for each other.”

STILL Melbourne is a time capsule, an art exhibition, a deeply personal (dare I say) legacy. Certainly, Lord Mayor Sally Capp alludes to it in her foreword to the book. Dedicated to all Melbournians, it comes with the reminder that we should not forget what we were willing to endure for each other. It reminds us of how resilient, stoic, patient we each were. It’s also a celebration of the extraordinary advances in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) that take place globally every day, including the advent of the vaccines that have helped us emerge from the rolling lockdowns.

This is a book I believe every Melbournian will deeply relate to, and one many curious passers-by will savour, as it provides a glimpse of a Melbourne that while staying still, remained the city we still deeply loved.

I urge you to come by one of our shops and peruse STILL Melbourne. It’s currently exclusively available at the Mary Martin Bookshops and through Intone Photography. Perhaps it’s a keepsake you’ll want to have for your own family. We believe it will make a beautiful gift for the loved ones who stood with us as we went through, and now emerge from, an unforgettable time.

This is ultimately, an uplifting book and I thank my collaborator Tony, and our designer Jo Lauritz of Juice Graphics, for creating such a wonderful momento.