Newport 1983-84, from the series Sydney Beaches

Mark Johnson's practice spans both an informal documentary style and a more formalised aesthetic that arranges individual images within typological series. After graduating in medicine from the University of Sydney in 1970, Johnson later studied in London and became interested in photography. He held his first solo exhibition in 1978 at the Australian Centre for Photography. Johnson focused his camera lens on Sydney's beaches and buildings - from Coogee to Glebe and beyond - to systematically document various locations around the harbour and the city. The 'Sydney Beaches' series includes 17 photographs and the 'Sydney Buildings' series includes 24 photographs. Each beach image features a band of sky, a foreshore building and bathers strewn across white sand. By producing each image in black and white and repeating various compositional elements, Johnson asks the viewer to look beyond the obvious, to discover differences among similarities.