The Trevor Lemke Archive

Trevor Lemke was a professional photographer who based himself each summer in the coastal resort town of Lorne, on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road. Although several other photographers were based there at times, Trevor was the most prolific. He made his living by strolling along the beach and streets of Lorne photographing everyone and everything from little kids building sand castles to families sunbathing, to guys and girls surfing. In the evenings he would do the same, snapping pics in the pubs, at parties and in local dance halls before passing them his business card, and telling them to check his studio the next day if they wanted to purchase any of his snaps. When his day was finally done, Trevor would have prepare proof sheets then display them in his small main street studio on the following day so that customers could come in and browse through the shots and order copies. In the ten or so years that he worked in Lorne, we estimate Trevor took well over ten thousand photos. Of course, many of them never made it past the ‘proof’ stage and remained as negatives.

The remaining photos in the archive are characterised by their striking technical quality- they are beautifully composed yet still candid. They are characterized by sharp focus, with spot-on lighting and crisp detail. These pictures are of a time that has now passed us by- their lack of pretentiousness is a real eye-opener. Although the archive is quite extensive, with around nine hundred shots, it’s a sad fact that Trevor threw most out at the end of each season, before heading to Mount Buller each winter where he ran a similar business.

The Mount Buller archive features around four hundred shots and like the shots of Lorne most of the people featured are unknown. Who knows- you might be among them!

Sadly, Trevor passed away in 2016.