I have always been drawn to places where the past still feels present. Ancient ruins, historic buildings, sacred spaces, museums and cultural landscapes have a way of connecting us with lives, ideas and civilisations that came before our own.
For me, photographing these places is about more than recording architecture or antiquity. I am fascinated by the stories held within them: the people who built them, worshipped in them, lived among them and left something of themselves behind. Sometimes that presence can be found in something monumental; at other times it is revealed in a worn stone, a fragment of sculpture, a faded surface or the way sunlight falls across an ancient wall.
This gallery brings together places and details that have stayed with me across years of travel and exploration, from the ancient worlds of Greece, Rome, Egypt and the wider Mediterranean to historic places closer to home. Through these photographs, I hope to convey something of the wonder I feel when standing before places that have endured through centuries, and the importance of preserving their stories for those who come after us.
The circular Tholos of Athena Pronaia, built in the 4th century BCE, stands below Delphi against the steep mountain landscape, with three reconstructed Doric columns rising above the sanctuary ruins.A vividly coloured relief at the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari shows soldiers running with branches and axes, preserving striking red, blue and ochre pigment.The soaring Great Hall of Melbourne’s Royal Exhibition Building, photographed during the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show, reveals the scale and decorative richness of this World Heritage landmark.The monumental rock-cut facade of Ad Deir rises high above Petra, one of the largest surviving Nabataean monuments in the ancient city.The frescoed Bird Room at Villa Medici surrounds the viewer with painted birds, animals, fruit trees and garden trelliswork, creating the illusion of a living garden canopy.The Artemision Bronze, created around the mid-5th century BCE and recovered from the sea off Cape Artemision, depicts either Zeus or Poseidon poised to hurl a weapon.An arch opening along Palmyra’s Great Colonnade frames the monumental avenue that crossed the ancient city from east to west for more than a kilometre.A busy lane in Tripoli’s Souq al-Mushir is lined with market stalls, luggage and everyday goods, with the Ottoman-era clock tower rising in the distance.The rock-cut facade of the Great Temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel, created in the 13th century BCE, is guarded by colossal seated figures of the pharaoh.The Charioteer of Delphi, an early 5th-century BCE bronze dedicated after a victory in the Pythian Games, is one of the finest surviving sculptures of ancient Greece.Decorative stained-glass windows with floral and bird motifs are framed by dark marble columns inside Rippon Lea Estate in Elsternwick, Melbourne.The monumental colonnaded street of Apamea stretches across the ancient city, its surviving columns and architectural fragments marking one of the grandest Roman urban avenues in Syria.Michelangelo’s Pietà, carved in 1498 to 1499, depicts the Virgin Mary holding the body of Christ inside St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.Temple-fronted rock-cut tombs rise from the cliffs above the Dalyan River near Kaunos, their facades reflecting the funerary architecture of ancient Lycia.The State Ballroom at Government House Melbourne is defined by its high decorative ceiling, pale blue walls, gold detailing and polished timber floor.A carved Medusa medallion from the Severan Forum at Leptis Magna reflects the rich sculptural decoration commissioned during the reign of Septimius Severus.The arcaded courtyard of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, known as the Blue Mosque, opens beneath domes and minarets in the historic heart of Istanbul.The exceptionally well-preserved 5th-century BCE Temple of Hephaestus crowns Agoraios Kolonos above the Ancient Agora of Athens.A man smokes a traditional shisha water pipe in the shaded souq of Aswan, capturing an intimate moment of everyday life in southern Egypt.The monumental travertine facade of the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, often called the Square Colosseum, forms one of the defining architectural landmarks of Rome’s EUR district.Underground rooms of the Roman House of Amphitrite at Bulla Regia preserve columned interiors and mosaic floors designed to provide relief from the North African heat.An ornate hanging lantern frames a stone passage within the Citadel of Aleppo, drawing the eye toward the historic architecture beyond.The Hellenistic bronze Boxer at Rest, found on Rome’s Quirinal Hill, portrays an exhausted fighter with battered features and wrapped hands in strikingly lifelike detail.The garden facade of Rippon Lea Estate displays polychrome brickwork, arcaded windows and an elaborate cast-iron verandah surrounded by mature planting.Replica Caryatids support the south porch of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis, preserving the celebrated composition while the surviving originals are protected in museums.The open courtyard of the Yusuf Karamanli House in Tripoli is surrounded by arcades, balconies and richly patterned tilework centred on a small fountain.The coffered concrete dome of the Pantheon rises to its open oculus, an engineering achievement completed during the rebuilding of the monument under Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century CE.The theatre of Ancient Messene occupies a broad hillside setting in the Peloponnese, with its Hellenistic cavea and later Roman alterations still clearly visible.Intricate painted and calligraphic decoration fills the dome of the 16th-century Ottoman Mosque of Suleiman Pasha al-Khadim inside Cairo’s Citadel.The Hellenistic-influenced rock-cut facade of Al-Khazneh emerges from Petra’s sandstone cliffs, its monumental columns and pediments forming the ancient city’s most recognisable view.Monumental arches of the Aqua Claudia, carrying the Anio Novus conduit above, run through Rome’s Park of the Aqueducts beneath umbrella pines.The colonnaded forecourt of the late Roman synagogue at Sardis surrounds a central fountain basin and leads toward the richly decorated main hall.Terraced colonnades of the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut rise against the cliffs of Deir el-Bahari, one of the defining monuments of Egypt’s 18th Dynasty.Bramante’s Tempietto, completed in the early 16th century in the courtyard of San Pietro in Montorio, is a compact Renaissance interpretation of a classical circular temple.The Roman theatre at Leptis Magna, built around the turn of the 1st century CE, survives with its semicircular seating and richly articulated stage architecture.The theatre of Termessos is carved high into the Taurus Mountains, where surviving stone seating overlooks the rugged landscape of southern Turkey.Late afternoon light falls across the Italianate exterior and colonnaded entrance of Government House in Melbourne’s Kings Domain.The monumental Naxian Sphinx, dedicated at Delphi around 560 BCE, combines a woman’s head, lion’s body and bird’s wings and originally stood high above the Sanctuary of Apollo.A rusticated arcade in the Ammannati Courtyard of Palazzo Pitti forms the monumental entrance toward the Boboli Gardens in Florence.The Trevi Fountain glows at evening as illuminated water and sculpture animate Nicola Salvi’s 18th-century Baroque facade.The massive Doric columns of the Temple of Zeus at Cyrene mark one of the largest Greek temples in North Africa, first constructed in the 5th century BCE.A sequence of pointed rib vaults recedes through the Gothic loggia of Krak des Chevaliers, one of the most formidable surviving Crusader castles in the eastern Mediterranean.Side view of the Palazzo dei Congressi, the congress palace in the heart of the EUR district. Rome. Italy. The building, a convention and reception hall, was a modern interpretation of the Pantheon by architect Adalberto Libera.Tower tombs stand across the arid Valley of the Tombs at Palmyra as dusk settles over the desert landscape, closing the gallery on a quiet image of endurance and loss.
