WHO?
My name is Linda Maclean and I live in Sydney, Australia with my family. After school I studied Fine Arts in a very casual kind of way, majoring in painting and photography, and spent the years after finishing doing a lot of wandering and not much art. I eventually settled on graphic design which has been a wonderful career but doesn’t entirely satisfy my creativity. I became interested in photography again during my first trip to India and, after chancing upon a copy of Street Photography Now, discovered street photography and was totally hooked!
WHERE?
I usually head to the Sydney Central Business District. I love mingling with the dressed up lunchtime office crowds, photographing them as they race out for an hour of sun, or wander back from the pubs. I’m happiest when I’m shooting my ongoing project at a Sydney fun park, but Covid has frustratingly put a stop to that for now. Beaches offer so much photographic opportunity too, people are relaxed and off guard, and plenty of beach goers are quite happy to be included in a photograph! Sydney is a beautiful city with year-round wonderful light but the population is so spread out, and the crowds aren’t always guaranteed. Over the last few years I’ve been lucky to spend time photographing in Japan and India, two completely different countries with a vast human presence where surprising, crazy and unexpected things happen.
WHEN?
Whenever I can. I like to spend entire coffee-fuelled days shooting, discovering new parts of the city, and losing myself. Every sunny day; I really struggle for enthusiasm on cloudy days.
WHAT?
I’m very interested in how people interact with each other, signals and nuances of behaviour within a crowded urban environment, how aware but unaware people are of the other strangers in the crowd. Like many Sydney photographers, strong light is a recurrent theme in my photography, but sometimes the light is so pleasing and exciting for me that it becomes a distraction.
WHY?
I get great satisfaction from having a creative purpose, I love the thrill of street photography, the physical and emotional meandering and the continual learning. I enjoy the long walks, the small chats I have with people along the way, observing light changes throughout the seasons and when city buildings are torn done and areas rebuilt. Although I’m a complete introvert, since the restrictions of Covid I’ve realised how much I love and miss the energy I get from shooting among crowds.
