The Making of Studio Safari: Part 1
In 2019, after a short stint in Darwin and eight years in Melbourne, I returned to my home town of Adelaide. I had departed the city as a twenty-something marketing co-ordinator and part-time photographer, and returned as mid-thirties full-time freelancer, shooting products on my lounge room floor and hiring Airbnbs for personal branding sessions.
The timing would become significant, narrowly escaping the hell of Melbourne lockdowns when Covid would land in Australia just a few months later.
I had long dreamed of a dedicated work space, and spent the next couple of years scouring Real Commercial for the property to match the mental picture I had built of a bright, airy space for lifestyle shoots, that could transform from “cosy domestic setting” to “corporate HQ” with just a few pieces of furniture and some strategic props.
After many inspections and an almost-signed lease that fell through on a zoning technicality, I stumbled across this gem:
It was the rear room and storage areas of a building on Flinders Street, in the Adelaide CBD. In a past life it had been part of the German Club of South Australia - the main space being the Hans Heysen Room. It was now owned by a co-working company, who was beginning to bring life back to the almost empty building.
A raked ceiling angled down towards fake windows, framing paintings of the German countryside. I later discovered these fake windows blocked out actual windows, and there was a complete lack of natural light in the room. ZERO DAYLIGHT, and I wanted to open a daylight studio.
Three small storage rooms ran along the eastern end, and at the very back, another bunker-style space built almost entirely of concrete and besser blocks.
Fortunately, I’ve had some experience with renovating and uncovering the potential of a space, and supported by an architect husband, was convinced that this turd could indeed be polished. I signed the lease and the landlord got to work.
The brief was straightforward: open it up and paint the whole thing white.
Walls came down, the ceiling came out and the real window openings were revealed. What a difference a bit of sunshine makes! The biggest transformation came with the painting… a few cans of white paint can do wonders. We also flipped the space and made the back the front, adding full height windows and an auto sliding door to the rear wall to create a new shopfront, and a new address.
With no access from Flinders Street, it made sense to use Ifould Street so people could find the front door. After some negotiations with Adelaide City Council, we were officially given the number 80 and the challenge of getting Google and Apple Maps to recognise the location.
The timeline for works creeped out a little, but with the landlord doing all of the major work it was up to me to wait patiently for the move-in date to arrive. The first of April became mid-May but the keys finally landed in my hands and it was time to take things up a notch…
To be continued in Part 2: moving in and making it real.
