Snippets of Suburbia

Snippets issue #1
Photographic Portfolio
Louise Daisy Mannion
Australia 2024

“The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people’s reality, and eventually in ones own”
– Susan Sontag

Snippets of Suburbia features original photographs and words by Louise Daisy Mannion that explore the liminal space that is neither rural nor urban and showcases snippets of suburban life through the eyes of someone living it. In the quiet streets of suburbia you are forced to observe the ordinary.
Click the links to take a closer look at the different aspects that make up suburban life.

Its home to many.

It’s dystopia for a few.

It’s a transitional space a timely place.

Not quite the Australian dream, less white picket fence more shared circumstance.

The act of hanging out the washing or hosing down the car becomes a community ritual.

Every Thursday the streets are lined with bins, their owners eagerly watching at the window waiting to bring them in.

The suburb illuminated during golden hour reflecting off each perfectly white roof.

The wide streets with no shade, houses built to look the same.

A Hilux parked on every drive, where flora and fauna used to thrive.

Nothing is ever enough as native species are forced to make room for us.

Life moves slowly but the builders work fast with new houses appearing daily.

A 40-minute ride to the nearest town often feels like your back in lockdown.

As the noise of dogs barking and songs of bird’s fade.

The sun slips away with only one thing to say, just another day in suburbia, I wonder how long you’ll stay.

As a contemporary photographer and artist Louise works within still life and urban-suburban landscape photography to capture the beauty of everyday objects and the environments that surround us. She uses light, shadow and geometric shapes to create her compositions producing memorable visual narratives. As a new resident in suburbia this series of photographs captures Louise’s feelings and everyday moments of suburban living. Louise’s appreciation for the mundane allows her to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary and capture the charm of familiar scenes that often go unnoticed. Louise’s work reminds viewers to pause and observe the aesthetic details and social dynamics that make up suburbia. Snippets of Suburbia allows you to take a walk around the neighbourhood and reveals the quiet nuances of everyday life in suburbia.

View Full Gallery

“To collect photographs is to collect the world”
– Susan Sontag

I acknowledge the Gubbi Gubbi people as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which I live and work. I pay my respects to their Elders, past, present, and emerging, and recognise their enduring connection to this land, waters, and culture.