Downwardly Static: Southbank: Behind The Scenes

It's funny how some places are well known for a certain facade, but we never really see them from "behind the scenes". Southbank in Melbourne is one of those places. We all know its riverfront promenades, and the view of it from Melbourne city just across the river, but until tonight, I'd never really considered taking a walk around its back streets.

I can sort of see why nobody would think to photograph Southbank from anywhere but the riverfront (or from across the river). The back streets are mostly a jumble of freeway intersections, tall buildings, construction sites, and are generally a bit deserted and unfriendly for walking around, let alone get nice sweeping views of........anything really!

Nevertheless, when going through my photos from tonight's walk, I was surprised how well a lot of them turned out (I thought I'd be doing a lot more deleting than I did!). What seemed like quite boring and drab street scenes at the time actually made for some rather nice-looking urban night scenery.

Admittedly, towards the end of the photo series, the locations aren't really what people would generally think of as Southbank. The area around the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) and the Arts Centre are usually thought of as part of Melbourne city itself. But technically I think they're in Southbank, or at least mark the boundary of it.

I walked from west to east, from the back end of Crown, right through to the NGV. The following photos are all in order of the walk.