After gems from the Brook

By Jade Lawton
GEMBROOK photographer Brent Lukey is looking for other locals to participate in a documentary about the town.
Mr Lukey would like to interview people who live in Gembrook about their experiences of the town – and also take their portraits.
He said the project aimed to explore notions of development, local history, lifestyle and change.
“My family and I have been living in Gembrook for four years. We looked at several towns close to Melbourne and settled on Gembrook because it wasn’t a suburb, or more to the point, it didn’t have a suburban feel, it was surrounded by fields and trees and seemed to have a close knit community,” he said.
“I find the town fascinating because of its rural and urban mix. It’s basically a potato farming town populated with people who mostly work in the city or suburbs. It’s also a town pressured by new housing estates and commercial growth which threatens to change its country charm.”
Mr Lukey said he recently shot a couple of documentary projects with the Many Australian Photographers Group (MAP Group) – one in Ballarat and one in the Murrindindi Shire.
“It got me thinking about Gembrook. I started to talk with local people and realised the people of Gembrook had a story to tell,” he said.
Mr Lukey is a member of the MAP Group, a photojournalism collective.
If you would like to know more, contact Brent Lukey on info@brentlukey.com.au or 5968 1229.