For the last 45 years photographer Emmanuel Angelicas has documented his suburb of Marrickville in Sydney’s inner west.
“My Parents moved to Marrickville when I was four years old, and my father gave me my first camera, a plastic Diana, for my seventh birthday. It was then that I made friends with the camera and photography. Marrickville is my home. I love it here. Every time I go out with my camera in Marrickville I return with compelling outcomes. It is a real place with real people. Photography has this power to render things sometimes so real that they seem unreal.”
This photograph is a continuation of Angelicas’ series about aircraft noise in his suburb. His image Person who would rather not be in Marrickville (a photograph of his brother in law on the roof of the house, holding up a toy plane as a jet thundered overhead) became a symbol of Sydney third runway opposition – despite it being taken a decade before its construction. In the same way, this unaltered photograph was taken a year before the 9/11 terrorist attacks in America and now evokes a powerful response. In reality, The photograph of his friend atop a shipping container, aiming a pistol with a silencer at a jumbo jet was meant to be an ironic comment on aircraft noise. As Angelicas put it ‘Why would you need a silencer?’.
COURTESY STATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 2013