An era of milk bars and styled cars
BY SASCHA RYNER
The 1950s was the decade that introduced rock’n’roll, new social rules and wild fashions. Of course with such an influential era, comes people who live in the past – and in Sydney there just so happens to be a growing, thriving subculture of those people, known as Rockabilies.
Opening on June 7, the Museum of Sydney will be hosting Steven Siewert’s photography exhibition titled Living the 50s, which documents the lives of those who live and breath a time before many of us were born.
Steven, who works part time for the Sydney Morning Herald, has been working on this project for five years, while continuing his career in photojournalism. But after shooting photos of a student film in a real home enthralled with 50s paraphernalia, he too wanted to explore the scene.
‘I’m not really part of it all but I do like the visual things of the era, like the cars,” he said. “I own a 1958 Holden, and I just love the style and the era, it has a nice nostalgia to it.’
While it was this visual recreation that inspired him to create this project, Steven has done quite a lot of photo-documentary throughout his career, including his work Pigeon Racing.
‘Working in papers, your work becomes quick, but with this, it is based on that whole tradition of spending time and really enjoying it,” Steven said. “There is nothing worse than working on something you don’t enjoy.”
With 84 photos in total, there will be two panels of 20 images in black and white (including snap shots of people emersed in a 50s fair at the Rose Seidler House), and 44 colour photos from events such as Greazefest, a three-day festival dedicated to the Rockabilly subculture.
‘Here I am taking photos, driving in my modern car down to this tiny venue with a band, with an actual double bass and rock and roll dancing, and I feel that I am being given the power to time travel to an era with corner stores and milk bars and styled cars,’ Steven said.
‘If anything, I just love the whole idea of it and being able to celebrate the culture.’
