Pink Barbie House, Pink Cars, Footscray
Four pink cars parked in front of a pink Barbie house in Footscray, Melbourne.
I was walking around West Footscray recently – taking pictures of houses, buildings and cars, as per usual – when I came across the extraordinary sight of four pink cars parked in front of one pink Barbie-like house. On closer inspection there was a fifth pink car, the latter in the front garden, this one with Barbie as its number plate. A more beautiful suburban sight you’re unlikely to ever see. The pink picket fence too was adorned with pink bows, and there are no doubt more trimmings. In the garden, too, there are pink flowers in bloom. It turns out that this property is known as Footscray’s Barbie House. It’s an apt name.
Campbell Mattinson is a Melbourne photographer, based in Melbourne’s western suburbs. He has an ongoing series of photographs called Real Estate Novelist. He also shoots portraits.
Pink house, pink cars, Footscray.
The bright colours, and the bright sun, and the bright blue sky are all in my wheelhouse, so I snapped a few images from various angles. It’s hard to frame all four cars in the one image and for it to still work well as an image – the image of the single VW with the house behind is arguably the most successful image – but it was still worth capturing the overall scene. With all of these photographs I’ve upped the saturation, which is in keeping with the effect of this scene in real life.
I took some snaps and then kept walking for maybe another 90 minutes. I headed across Geelong Road into the industrial area there. On the way back to the car I passed the pink house with all the pink cars again, and because the sun had moved by then I took some more shots. You can see the different light in some of the images; that’s the reason.
It would be great to know the story behind the pink cars and the pink Barbie house in Footscray but it was still great to just photograph and document what is publicly visible. If I ever do a Real Estate Novelist book, I’d reckon that one of the image above will appear in it.
Campbell Mattinson is a Melbourne photographer based in the city's western suburbs. His ongoing series Real Estate Novelist documents the houses, cars and people of Melbourne's suburbs and beyond – the pink houses, the parked Beetles, the ordinary streets, often depicted in vivid colours. A journalist and novelist by trade, he photographs the way he writes: looking for the story, looking for the colour, trying to capture the essence.
Mattinson also shoots portraits, winemakers and wine regions.
