Invisible

‘Most of the time I feel like I'm kind of invisible’

‘Most of the time I feel like I'm kind of invisible,’ says Sydney-based street photographer and full-time high school teacher Sam Ferris. ‘It’s a nice feeling. I just sort of float through the crowds... it feels like you're not really there.’

Long before he had any idea that there was even such a thing as street photography or indeed before he picked up a camera with artistic intent, Sam had been absorbing the visual language and syntax of picture making.

Growing up in the outer western suburbs of Melbourne, he lived in a home filled with art books. His father Jeffrey Ferris is a painter and as a boy, young Sam was surrounded by art and the making of art.

‘He was a student of Jeffrey Smart and they'd write each other letters. They knew each other socially and my dad used to go to his exhibitions when [Smart] still lived in Melbourne. We had all of Jeffrey Smart's art books in the house growing up. They were always my favourites.’

The area they lived in