Documenting Neue Space, A Study in Scale

It’s around 4:30 in the afternoon, and I’m sitting on the curb outside, drinking water.

The street is quiet. Not many cars passing. Just a warm autumn breeze moving through. I can feel it on my face, but my body is done. Legs sore, feet heavy. No energy left.

I had been there since 9am.

Seven hours moving through the same space, over and over. By the end of it, I had walked close to fourteen kilometres.

And still, sitting here, I was enjoying it.

Just those few minutes of doing nothing.

Last Friday was the longest photoshoot I’ve had since I started photographing buildings.

The project was Neue Space in Heidelberg West. I’ve been coming back to this place over the past two years, watching it slowly transform. What used to be a single large warehouse is now a complex of storage warehouses and office and warehouse spaces combined.

There’s something I like about that. Returning to a place and seeing how it changes over time. Not just physically, but in what it becomes.

But this time, the work felt different from the start.

That morning, walking through the site with the plans in hand, I already knew how this needed to be approached. The brief was clear, document twenty one units for a sales and leasing campaign. Each space needed to be consistent, clear, and easy to understand.

There was a part of me that wanted to do more.

Take extra photos. Explore the space beyond the units. Look for something else in it.

But that wasn’t the job.

So I stayed with the plan.

Unit by unit. Same process. Same structure. Moving through each space, checking things off, making sure everything was covered properly.

After a while, it stopped feeling like individual photos.

It felt like a system.

And in a way, that became the work.

When a project reaches a certain scale, the way you approach it has to change. There’s less room to slow down and explore. More need for consistency, clarity, and care.

The spaces were lit evenly. Nothing really changed from morning to afternoon.

What stayed with me more was the sound.

That echo inside the units, especially early on. Every step bouncing back at you. Doors opening and closing. The pace of the work almost set by those small sounds.

And within that repetition, there were still small decisions to make.

Doors open or closed. Maybe some open, some closed. This angle or that one. What actually shows the space clearly.

It wasn’t about creating something new.

But there was still intention in it.

I didn’t stop the whole day.

Around midday I remember thinking I should eat something, but I kept going. There was this quiet urgency to finish. To get through it in one go.

By the end, it caught up with me.

At the very end, just to break the rhythm and allow a bit of unplanned creativity, I shot a short video. Walking through the space with the gear, with the idea that in post the wear would change as I moved through it.

Then, sitting there on the curb, tired, I realised something.

It wasn’t the kind of work I usually look for. At times, it was repetitive. Even a bit boring.

But finishing it felt good.

Knowing that every unit was covered. That the work was done properly. That nothing was missed.

There was something in that.

Not every project needs to feel creative to be meaningful.

Sometimes, it’s just about doing the work well, and leaving knowing it’s complete.