If you call Australia home then the sight of a rusty Hills Hoist silhouetted against the skyline like the skeleton of a naked umbrella will always pierce you with a kind of nostalgia. Australia is the land of washing lines in big backyards, country towns and single-story weatherboard homes with paint peeled and crooked fly wire doors… Of sights like this one, made even more beautiful by Julia Trotti’s shoot Pastel Bones.
The simple, pretty clothing by Oh Deer Boutique is the kind that’s just made for those activities of an Australian Summer. Breathing in the smell of wildflowers, using gumtree stumps as immovable furniture, listening to the crackle of dry twigs and the rustle of long yellow grass. Doing absolutely anything barefoot.
“We started this day taking photos in fields of grass in the shade of big gum trees,” writes Trotti. “As we were walking across the road in the heat, we stumbled across this abandoned house. At first we only saw the metal-skeleton clothing line lonelily standing and swaying in the breeze. As we went to knock on the front door to ask the owners if we could take a few photos in their yard, we found ripped fly screens on the windows and a vacated white house.”
Sometimes I think abandoned houses like these spend their lives waiting for someone to come and breath life into them, play in their yards, give them purpose – if only for a day.
Featuring model Ellie Hextall and naturally beautiful hair and makeup by Abbey Love, you can view more of Julia Trotti’s (jtrotti.blogspot.com) photos at the gallery – or hit play to watch the accompanying video above.
