Wake For Underground Street Photographer Peter Darren Moyle Sunday 19th March.

Sorry to hear of this fine person's death.....keep us updated about the cause.

http://www.active.org.au/sydney/news/front.php3?article_id=4525&group=webcast

http://www.active.org.au/sydney/news/front.php3?article_id=4516&group=webcast

http://www.active.org.au/sydney/news/front.php3?article_id=4576&group=webcast

Really sorry ot hear about this. I only encountered him from a distance, but what a fucking awesome photographer, and what an inspirational way to live.

It was wonderful to be included in the group of people who worked and played with Peter Darren Moyle on the 19th. The memorial service was vibrant. The service jointly hosted by Graham Long from Wayside Chapel and the celebrant Annie Godde from Albury had a sort of freewheeling magnificence and all-embracing openness worthy of the man himself.

It was great to see so many of DPM's photographic subjects there. Around 130 people crowded in. A few lingered outside. Others sent apologies.

Art critic Robert McFarlane spoke eloquently and magnanimously about a man he obviously misses, as did Alan Davies. Damien Sawyer showed photographs and enthused about his friend. Caroline Zalinsky read the last piece of Shakespeare they'd shared. Chris S. wrote to everyone from prison that PDM was described in the Sydney Morning Herald report as "getting too close to his subject, but that PDM's subject was his mates ... and he wouldn't have had it any other way". Gaudy flowers and photos of Darren's childhood were everywhere and yet the event was not given to maudlin rhetoric.

It was great to see that the entire family had made such a huge effort to travel from Melbourne and Albury, after such a hectic and heart-breaking fortnight. That really took some doing. Unfortunately, the celebrant (who had just flown in that afternoon) had been introduced to everyone and overlooked some of those family members present when reading out her welcome.

It was great of Wayne Willis, Roxy Holder and Damien to join with Kylie and Justin Moyle in making this event all that it was. Alan Davies has also been a stalwart.

A very big thank you to the Wayside Chapel. Graham Long is a very generous human who creates miracles from nothing. Chantal lovingly decorated plates with the food we'd brought and dispensed water to everyone parched by words or the steamy afternoon.

The Vincentian village barbeque on the roof was greatly enjoyed by regulars and remembrance was pretty low key.

The evening cleared to give stunning views from Mrs Macquarie's Chair as dusk fell. Fruit bats bickered in silhouette from the Moreton Bay figs while Damien's friends mixed up a subtle and very accessable soundtrack to silent stills from the Ettinger-Epstein DVD. Then the DVD was shown. Many of Darren's mates crept toward the outdoor screen to watch, rowed up like possums on the dark hill.

The video captures PDM so lovingly and vividly that it was hard to avoid feeling the intensity of the artist and eccentric compadre we have lost.

There were beer and tears. Funny memories were shared.

Thanks to Damien and Greg and their friends for making this happen. It was a magical evening and one which will remain with us for a long time. Perhaps it'll be possible to show Darren's slides later for a wider group. Perhaps after a retrospective show or a book launch.

Cheers Peter Darren Moyle. We miss you.

Jane

Please ring SBS and request that they play entire PDM dvd.

Some of us have done so and think that if might happen if many others take the same initiative.

Tel: 02 9430 2828.

PAINTING WITH LIGHT IN A DARK WORLD about Darren Peter Moyle by Sascha Ettinger Epstein.

2002. AFI award. etc etc.

More on active sydney website and via google. Try also "Peter Darren Moyle".

Memorial service photos were taken by agencies, newspaper photographers incl News Ltd.

MEMORIES OF DARREN PETER MOYLE

“By looking at my work, at the photographs, you can see that I’ve been searching. Trying to figure out this world.”

Peter Darren Moyle, street photographer, was found dead in his public housing unit in Woolloomooloo on March 5th. His legacy is his photographs that chronicle the underbelly of Sydney, a world that most of us never experience: prostitutes, drug addicts, the homeless.

He was able to gain privileged access to this world, because he was a part of it. Arriving in Sydney in 1991, he lived for 10 months in his VW Kombi van at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair.

“It was a godsend in a way,” he says in the 2002 documentary about his life and work, Painting with Light in a Dark World, directed by Sascha Ettinger Epstein. “I thought, okay, I’ll start photographing”.

“Time went by and I got more into the excitement of the city and the reality of it all and I just got sucked in I suppose. It was like a fucking massive hit”.

He moved to a squat in Wisdom Lane, Woollomooloo where he met his best mate and a man who became a father-figure, Pedro. Moyle later cared for Pedro as he died of cancer.

By pilfering electricity from streetlights, he was able to establish a dark room in the squat. He began developing the photographs that were eventually exhibited at Photo Technica in 2002, with Sydney Morning Herald art critic Robert Macfarlane as curator.

“You can’t go through these photgraphs without being affected,” said Macfarlane in 2002.

Moyle has captured junkies with needles in their arm. Transvestites half-undressed. A heroin deal taking place in the middle of the City to Surf.

The images gaze at the dark heart of the city. But in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald in 2002, he explained that his photos are filled with hope.

"I don't want to show burdens of society," he said. "I want to show joy, liberation, freedom, release. People need to understand what it may be like to have such a handicap but still be able to love and smile."

Aside from the arresting images themselves, it is Moyle’s love for photography and life itself which are frequently mentioned by friends and family as they remember Moyle.

“He was a smiling cyclist in sunglasses, passionate about life,” says Jane Salmon, a former neighbour of Moyle. “This man was direct, authentic, compassionate and a giver, a virtual saint among the homeless. He was a big spirit,” she says. Many others agree.

Despite Moyle’s lack of resources or financial backing, he was passionate about doing something meaningful and worthy with his life.

“Deep down in my heart I knew what I was doing was fucking profound,” said Moyle at the opening of his exhibition at Photo Technica in 2002, with only the slightest hint of irony. “I’ve known that all along.”

He is described as unconventional, a real character, with a big heart. A man who lived and loved the edges of society and eventually, slipped off.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Photographic chronicler of Sydney street life and suffering, Darren Peter Moyle was born in Echuca on June 20, 1965. He was found dead in his Woolloomooloo unit on March 6, aged 40.

Perhaps an early death was on the cards for Mr Moyle. He seemed to think so. But the way Darren Peter Moyle lived is what made him special.

This man was as generous and as focussed as he was tall. He was direct, authentic, compassionate and a giver, a sometime saint among the homeless and a right pain the rest of the time.

He loved life. Certainly, he was the Arthur Stace and David Hurley of our era, a man whose presence has, for fifteen years, been almost etched into the hard black surfaces of inner Sydney that this large man, rode, strode and photographed.

Transport played a big part in Mr Moyle's life. He had been permanently injured in a motorcycle accident in Albury which left him with agonising headaches as well as spinal damage. His flat was littered with x-rays. Helmets hurt his head more, so he cycled with his beard and cropped hair brushed by wind as he hurtled around the city.

The city's motorists crowded in on this man with no car. Day and night drilling from the Eastern Distributor tunnel and then the Cross City Tunnel affected his rest. Tollbooth and tunnel fumes were funnelled into lower Bourke Street. A last patch of undeveloped space was blotted out by concrete boxes when the government sold off the corner of Bourke and Willliam Street in order to satisfy Macquarie Bank / tunnel developers. Privacy disappeared while relentless construction noise escalated.

And yet Darren remained muscular and kept a small garden of figs and avocado trees growing so close to Talbot Lane.

Paradoxically his own suffering and environment was the source of much of his inspiration. But he is more than that rather simplistic story. He was not merely the sum of his circumstances. He saw the bigger picture.

Photography is an expensive pursuit. His achievement is that he lived, worked and created while so impoverished and for so long.

Darren (who preferred his second name, Peter) was thrilled to be mentored and befriended by both photographic critic Robert McFarlane and by State Library's Curator of Pictures, Alan Davies.

Prophetically, Darren raised the confusing matter of his artistic legacy and royalties upon death many times in recent years. The work could not have reached such levels of recognition without the practical and professional support of these two figures. Fortunately for Australia, much of his work is already preserved in the Mitchell. The remainder was littered in middens around his untidy flat until the day he died. Securing the safety of Darren's work has been a common concern for friends, relatives and colleagues.

He loved to move through all levels of society without compromise. He enjoyed an exhibition at Phototechnica in 2002 and was the subject of a widely acclaimed documentary by Sascha Ettinger- Epstein called "Painting with Light in a Dark World" shown on SBS. This film lovingly celebrates the true Darren. It's achievement is that it captures so much of him, so creatively in just 30 minutes.

The quite lyrical press kit [written by ??] for the film includes a piece which says:

"The true rapture Peter Darren Moyle experiences through photography is symbolized by a scene in this documentary which he is depicted weaving his way through the night-time city traffic on a bicycle, no hands, waving his camera around making long exposures, or 'painting with light'. Intoxicated by the beauty of the city lights, illuminated buildings, car highbeams, he is oblivious to all else but making radiant images of smeared luminosity.

"Perhaps one of the most entertaining elements of the documentary is the characters themselves. Robert McFarlane, a greying and well-fed dignitary, with all the professional pomposity of the archetypal art critic is wiry poverty-stricken Moyle's physical and social opposite. The meeting of their converse worlds is truly comical, yet heartfelt as they communicate through a shared passion for photography which transcends all barriers.

"Darren's antics are mostly heartwarming, inspiring and amusing. He used an antique 1930s Rolleicord camera to take black and white images".

Pedro's legacy is also important. He was a loved father figure. Pedros's large, wise Alsatian dog, Bull, became Darren's familiar, padding through the city behind the bicycle. There is the famous story of how Darren brought the Alsatian and a shopping stroller full of negatives to curator of pictures Alan Davies at the Mitchell Library in 1996. And of how often Davies helped him un-hock his camera or paid to borrow him negatives and print them himself.

----------------

Darren had little time or energy for social niceties. He was blunt about his needs and aims. The work with Davies started soon after Moyle sought out art critic Robert McFarlane.

Robert McFarlane, photographic art critic for the Sydney Morning Herald, was asked whether Darren / Peter Moyle was a chronicler or an artist. He replied that Darren's work is primarily a chronicle.

Mc Farlane adds, "He had an instinctive gift for resonant body language. Take, for example, his photo of 'Chris' with the wounded knees in that concrete paddock, that urban field of the vulnerable".

Could Moyle go against type or was his work completely informed by his environment?

"It mirrored his own situation," says McFarlane. "The measure of him would have been to photograph relatively 'normal' things. He understood the unspoken rules of the street. He knew how far he could intrude, how far he could go in relating to his subjects".

"His photos were visual symptoms of how deeply he became involved with the subject. He took images with awareness and deep insight into the environment and the condition he was photographing.

McFarlane cared about Moyle. "The straight world could find Darren intimidating. He was empathic, loyal and caring", visiting McFarlane in hospital and sensitive to the fact that this eminent figure felt "vulnerable". That word again.

McFarlane marvelled that "Darren / Peter had such a strong moral sense and a clear idea of how people should behave. Yet his belief system encompassed and was accepting of most. He was not a particularly judgemental human.

"Then again he had a curious mockery and challenged the world almost quixotically. He tilted at very, very big windmills.

"He had such meagre resources at his disposal but his spirit was so large. Simplicity informed and refined his work.

"He brought things back to their most basic elements. His work reflects a (sparse?) Australian vision.

Was he naive in his art? "Yes, says McFarlane," In that he had an ability to go straight to the heart of the matter. But it was more than instinctive".

His "Beauty and the Beast" image of the beautiful woman with a motorcyclist is all the more poignant because his subject is no longer with us.

"He had a big encompassing spirit. He could be protective of people. He had an engagement with life which his pictures expressed as intensity and intimacy" summarised McFarlane.

"We all feel we could have done more for him," reflected the magnanimous McFarlane who cared enough to venture into Mr Moyle's chaotic midden of a flat to midwife the Phototechnica exhibition. "I still find it hard to believe that this robust rogue spirit has left us". "In a way he has been absorbed into his own chaos, become part of the process" [or similar].

Photographer Eulalie Moore has said "Darren is known for his Cross shots, but they were only a small section or part of his work. Some of his earlier photographs were of the old Finger Wharf down at Woolloomooloo Bay. These photos were taken before they started demolishing it for the new apartments that are now there. Catching up with Darren would happen at soup kitchens, the Piccolo Bar, bumping into him on his bike or visiting his place which usually included a motley assortment from the night before, or night before that. His passion and perfectionism meant that he took life to where he wanted to go, sometimes to the detriment of himself, but always to get that perfect shot. Taking pictures of that overdose, a friend that had just received a hiding, homeless people camped up for the night, kids at Macquarie Fields, soup kitchens Invasion Day aka Australia Day, Mardi Gras, the swingers party, random light shows, or himself".

-----------------------------

Was he a giver or a taken? Was he addled or insightful? Was he sentimental or resilient? Was he exploring every dark corner of existence or was he an open and sunny friend? Was he sensitive or violent? Was he precise or messy? Was he honest or a manipulator? Was he open or shrewd?

He was the full mix, being both an artist and a reporter of human hardship. He was an activist campaigning for social justice and a minor city celebrity. He was an ethical man who believed in justice. Perhaps he also used his art to rationalise his lifestyle and drug use.

He was yin and yang. He was wise and innocent. Naive and aware. He was ethical and he was a survivor who convinced us all of his invincibility. He enriched the lives of his friends.

He was not merely a country boy who kept a horse, dogs and taught a broken baby eagle to fly.

He was also big-hearted and funny, cheeky, naughty, skilled as a rigger, an innovative and a very practical man who could help renovate a house, AI cattle or work the prawn trawlers. He was a good houseguest. He was not lazy.

He was a smiling cyclist in sunglasses, passionate about life.

He was coherent and creative as a writer, a very spiritual man.

He was a great communicator, as any successful photographer must be.

He loved people; warts, messy or exotic sexuality and all. Yet sometimes he could be careless with friendships so carefully cultivated.

He was a man of limited education and concentration who drove himself to address theories of composition, to file efficiently and to follow scientific formulae fastidiously in order to create.

He is a man who could conjure something from nothing and find the sole treasure in any pile of rubbish.

He was a sharp dresser enjoying jewellery, found fashion, black, biker buckles, leather, crisp cotton shirts and natty hats.

He was untidy but systematic. He embraced the peace which can be found in chaos.

A very challenging and sometimes brutal childhood forged his strength and also left him hurt, angry and sometimes abusive.

This harsh start resulted in a pragmatism which tempered the sensitivity and creativity of his dedicated and loving mother, Margaret. She is a part-time therapist with the aged, who loves order, creates beautiful gardens, sublime meals, keeps chickens and who has given unstintingly to her friends and children her entire life. She can be credited with cultivating Darren's warm nature, his big heart.

Adventurousness led Darren to some places his family would rather not follow. Some family members dismissed him as schizophrenic, despite the fact that no clinical assessment ever found him to be so. Darren found this diminishing and was a strong believer in the value of his own insights, whether of spiritual, chemical or organic origin.

There are as many versions of Darren as people who knew him. Darren took care of Itallian migrant and squatmate Pedro until the old man died of cancer. He had also been a carer over several months for his grandmother.

Such loving behaviour has sometimes been overshadowed by his less endearing traits.

As has been mentioned, chronic spinal and neurological pain followed a serious motor cycle accident. Compensation from the accident covered Darren's first and only photographic course at Albury TAFE but did nothing to ease the disabling agonies he suffered the rest of his life.

Family relations completely deteriorated about the time that he decided to move to Sydney in a kombi van to squat at Mrs Macquarie's Chair.

He next squatted in the aptly named Wisdom Lane of Darlinghurst -- a place where men died in their cars. From 1996, Darren-the-social-worker was equally generous with his Woolloomooloo public housing space, much to the frustration of some neighbours.

The sense of being in the family's too hard basket, of being an outsider without children of his own was something Darren felt keenly.
Justin and Kylie Moyle's move to Sydney enabled their relationship to develop. Justin gave Darren work and visited him often in his flat. However Darren's lifestyle, georgraphy, family and business commitments probably continued to stretch the relationship. He was a loving uncle to his nephews (Chris, Ben, Conner and Quintin) and friends' children. Their grief is profound.

His relations with his father never progressed much beyond a last disappointingly brief cup of coffee.

Ironically, Darren acknowledged that he was probably a father to several children himself and worried but could do little about their well-being.

He was a man whose plans for a book of images and reflections were hampered by emotion, by the lack of a sympathetic editor, warehouse studio, an advance and a paid photographic assistant. One proposed title of his book was "The Kaleidescope of Cryptic Linguistics". He left some interesting diaries. In a way he was in his own road. It would have taken a feat of collective will to lift him out of his own chaos and finalise the book. Perhaps he felt he'd done enough.

Darren scrupulously honoured his debts, irrespective of his circumstances. His photography was often donated to support charities or worthy projects, such as raising awareness about child protection issues by donating his skills to NAPCAN.

Minor fame generated new pressures. Darren was sometimes misunderstood. A sad squabble over who pressed the shutter on one photograph marred a relationship with a key teacher, one who had shown Darren some kindness. It seems petty that a salaried person in shop-bought clothes would expect full credit over a single image which held significance only because of its context. It describes a critical section in the life of a student who sometimes went without proper food or transport for weeks on end.

There were never holidays and Darren enjoyed the luxury of a working fridge for the first time a mere 3 weeks before he died.

There was his friendship with Wayne Willis, who regrets that Darren's form of authenticity has disappeared from the world.

His radical activism and views have greatly influenced Lance Shepherd, Katie Florence and Sue Chant who met him when working at Vincentian Village.

Musically, he enjoyed Frank Zappa and Cat Stevens, Pink Floyd and more. He thoughtfully brought gifts found in the streets, dried his own tomatoes and faithfully reproduced his mothers recipes for his friends.

He is the "war correspondent" of Sydney's struggle streets who never made it all the way back to civilian life. A somewhat daunting and perhaps lonely transfer to the Blue Mountains was planned, following a December fire in his city unit.

Perhaps he looked forward to getting Justin's help with the huge and messy move, a breakthrough with the book, a job, more recognition and understanding from family. Perhaps he was too tired and used up. Perhaps nothing could compare with the excitement of inner city living.

My guilt is that I feel as though I left my compadre behind on the battlefield and barely had the courage to go back.

The irony of the Kings Cross police protecting his property and dispensing his memorial details would not be lost on Mr Moyle.

Family comments are on the active sydney website.

The inner city can be harsh. Gentle words and compliments are rarely given. Dignity and self respect are hard to maintain in the queue for a handout. Co-dependent relationships are often the result of a vacuum left by those one grew up with or whose acceptance and approval one craves. Darren Peter Moyle's ambitions seemed grandiose against this backdrop. Some of us can barely understand the scope of his work and achievement even now.

Darren / Peter Moyle put his hand into the fire of human distress and again and again. He often strode confidently into danger. In 200I, as a neighbour, I saw him barge in and remove a knife from a mother who was threatening her young son while police hung back nervously outside her door, guns drawn. Job done, he walked off, rarely to discuss the matter again.

Darren could be kind and valued thoughtfulness. He rarely visited anyone empty-handed. I have a beaut pair of yellow riggers gloves he brought over.

However, the exposure to misery took its toll. A series of minor calamities and relationship issues added to his frustration about finding a backer for his book. He often talked of his work almost being finished.

Importantly, Darren Peter Moyle respected many people in his life on the basis that they suffered. He would not judge them on the basis of whether they had caused their own misery, only on its impact in their lives.

His friends among some of the city's forlorn have expressed great emotion at his passing.

"That (article by Ben Cubby and D Braithwaite, p. 3 SMH 7 March 06) paper said that Peter had gotten too close to his subject. But his subject was his friends and he wouldn't have it any other way", wrote his friend and photographic subject Chris S. from prison.

This statement is telling. Darren's friends often drew on Darren's compassion, his resources and his neighbours' patience. They may have encouraged the abuse of prescription medicines, cocaine, heroin and alcohol. They expected this depleted human's help whenever they needed food, money, the police were after them or they had been released from prison. Their daily dramas may have distracted him from his work, encouraged despair and divorced him from a more peaceful (but also boring) way of life.

Then again, to the frustration of some, he chose to remain with them. Street people became part of his family.

A vibrant, magnificent freewheeling open memorial service for Darren Peter Moyle was held at the Wayside Chapel (29 Hughes St Potts Point) this Sunday, 19th March in the presence of family. Many of his photographic subjects attended. After a barbeque at Vincentian Village, musicians and friends congregated at his old squat site, Mrs Macquarie's Chair, to sing and watch the DVD on an outdoor screen.

Vale kind friend. You will be profoundly missed. You will be remembered.

compiled by Jane Salmon
02 9416 8459

More on active sydney website and via google. Try also "Peter Darren Moyle".

Memorial service photos were taken by agencies, newspaper photographers incl News Ltd.

MEMORIES OF DARREN PETER MOYLE

“By looking at my work, at the photographs, you can see that I’ve been searching. Trying to figure out this world.”

Peter Darren Moyle, street photographer, was found dead in his public housing unit in Woolloomooloo on March 5th. His legacy is his photographs that chronicle the underbelly of Sydney, a world that most of us never experience: prostitutes, drug addicts, the homeless.

He was able to gain privileged access to this world, because he was a part of it. Arriving in Sydney in 1991, he lived for 10 months in his VW Kombi van at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair.

“It was a godsend in a way,” he says in the 2002 documentary about his life and work, Painting with Light in a Dark World, directed by Sascha Ettinger Epstein. “I thought, okay, I’ll start photographing”.

“Time went by and I got more into the excitement of the city and the reality of it all and I just got sucked in I suppose. It was like a fucking massive hit”.

He moved to a squat in Wisdom Lane, Woollomooloo where he met his best mate and a man who became a father-figure, Pedro. Moyle later cared for Pedro as he died of cancer.

By pilfering electricity from streetlights, he was able to establish a dark room in the squat. He began developing the photographs that were eventually exhibited at Photo Technica in 2002, with Sydney Morning Herald art critic Robert Macfarlane as curator.

“You can’t go through these photgraphs without being affected,” said Macfarlane in 2002.

Moyle has captured junkies with needles in their arm. Transvestites half-undressed. A heroin deal taking place in the middle of the City to Surf.

The images gaze at the dark heart of the city. But in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald in 2002, he explained that his photos are filled with hope.

"I don't want to show burdens of society," he said. "I want to show joy, liberation, freedom, release. People need to understand what it may be like to have such a handicap but still be able to love and smile."

Aside from the arresting images themselves, it is Moyle’s love for photography and life itself which are frequently mentioned by friends and family as they remember Moyle.

“He was a smiling cyclist in sunglasses, passionate about life,” says Jane Salmon, a former neighbour of Moyle. “This man was direct, authentic, compassionate and a giver, a virtual saint among the homeless. He was a big spirit,” she says. Many others agree.

Despite Moyle’s lack of resources or financial backing, he was passionate about doing something meaningful and worthy with his life.

“Deep down in my heart I knew what I was doing was fucking profound,” said Moyle at the opening of his exhibition at Photo Technica in 2002, with only the slightest hint of irony. “I’ve known that all along.”

He is described as unconventional, a real character, with a big heart. A man who lived and loved the edges of society and eventually, slipped off.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Photographic chronicler of Sydney street life and suffering, Darren Peter Moyle was born in Echuca on June 20, 1965. He was found dead in his Woolloomooloo unit on March 6, aged 40.

Perhaps an early death was on the cards for Mr Moyle. He seemed to think so. But the way Darren Peter Moyle lived is what made him special.

This man was as generous and as focussed as he was tall. He was direct, authentic, compassionate and a giver, a sometime saint among the homeless and a right pain the rest of the time.

He loved life. Certainly, he was the Arthur Stace and David Hurley of our era, a man whose presence has, for fifteen years, been almost etched into the hard black surfaces of inner Sydney that this large man, rode, strode and photographed.

Transport played a big part in Mr Moyle's life. He had been permanently injured in a motorcycle accident in Albury which left him with agonising headaches as well as spinal damage. His flat was littered with x-rays. Helmets hurt his head more, so he cycled with his beard and cropped hair brushed by wind as he hurtled around the city.

The city's motorists crowded in on this man with no car. Day and night drilling from the Eastern Distributor tunnel and then the Cross City Tunnel affected his rest. Tollbooth and tunnel fumes were funnelled into lower Bourke Street. A last patch of undeveloped space was blotted out by concrete boxes when the government sold off the corner of Bourke and Willliam Street in order to satisfy Macquarie Bank / tunnel developers. Privacy disappeared while relentless construction noise escalated.

And yet Darren remained muscular and kept a small garden of figs and avocado trees growing so close to Talbot Lane.

Paradoxically his own suffering and environment was the source of much of his inspiration. But he is more than that rather simplistic story. He was not merely the sum of his circumstances. He saw the bigger picture.

Photography is an expensive pursuit. His achievement is that he lived, worked and created while so impoverished and for so long.

Darren (who preferred his second name, Peter) was thrilled to be mentored and befriended by both photographic critic Robert McFarlane and by State Library's Curator of Pictures, Alan Davies.

Prophetically, Darren raised the confusing matter of his artistic legacy and royalties upon death many times in recent years. The work could not have reached such levels of recognition without the practical and professional support of these two figures. Fortunately for Australia, much of his work is already preserved in the Mitchell. The remainder was littered in middens around his untidy flat until the day he died. Securing the safety of Darren's work has been a common concern for friends, relatives and colleagues.

He loved to move through all levels of society without compromise. He enjoyed an exhibition at Phototechnica in 2002 and was the subject of a widely acclaimed documentary by Sascha Ettinger- Epstein called "Painting with Light in a Dark World" shown on SBS. This film lovingly celebrates the true Darren. It's achievement is that it captures so much of him, so creatively in just 30 minutes.

The quite lyrical press kit [written by ??] for the film includes a piece which says:

"The true rapture Peter Darren Moyle experiences through photography is symbolized by a scene in this documentary which he is depicted weaving his way through the night-time city traffic on a bicycle, no hands, waving his camera around making long exposures, or 'painting with light'. Intoxicated by the beauty of the city lights, illuminated buildings, car highbeams, he is oblivious to all else but making radiant images of smeared luminosity.

"Perhaps one of the most entertaining elements of the documentary is the characters themselves. Robert McFarlane, a greying and well-fed dignitary, with all the professional pomposity of the archetypal art critic is wiry poverty-stricken Moyle's physical and social opposite. The meeting of their converse worlds is truly comical, yet heartfelt as they communicate through a shared passion for photography which transcends all barriers.

"Darren's antics are mostly heartwarming, inspiring and amusing. He used an antique 1930s Rolleicord camera to take black and white images".

Pedro's legacy is also important. He was a loved father figure. Pedros's large, wise Alsatian dog, Bull, became Darren's familiar, padding through the city behind the bicycle. There is the famous story of how Darren brought the Alsatian and a shopping stroller full of negatives to curator of pictures Alan Davies at the Mitchell Library in 1996. And of how often Davies helped him un-hock his camera or paid to borrow him negatives and print them himself.

----------------

Darren had little time or energy for social niceties. He was blunt about his needs and aims. The work with Davies started soon after Moyle sought out art critic Robert McFarlane.

Robert McFarlane, photographic art critic for the Sydney Morning Herald, was asked whether Darren / Peter Moyle was a chronicler or an artist. He replied that Darren's work is primarily a chronicle.

Mc Farlane adds, "He had an instinctive gift for resonant body language. Take, for example, his photo of 'Chris' with the wounded knees in that concrete paddock, that urban field of the vulnerable".

Could Moyle go against type or was his work completely informed by his environment?

"It mirrored his own situation," says McFarlane. "The measure of him would have been to photograph relatively 'normal' things. He understood the unspoken rules of the street. He knew how far he could intrude, how far he could go in relating to his subjects".

"His photos were visual symptoms of how deeply he became involved with the subject. He took images with awareness and deep insight into the environment and the condition he was photographing.

McFarlane cared about Moyle. "The straight world could find Darren intimidating. He was empathic, loyal and caring", visiting McFarlane in hospital and sensitive to the fact that this eminent figure felt "vulnerable". That word again.

McFarlane marvelled that "Darren / Peter had such a strong moral sense and a clear idea of how people should behave. Yet his belief system encompassed and was accepting of most. He was not a particularly judgemental human.

"Then again he had a curious mockery and challenged the world almost quixotically. He tilted at very, very big windmills.

"He had such meagre resources at his disposal but his spirit was so large. Simplicity informed and refined his work.

"He brought things back to their most basic elements. His work reflects a (sparse?) Australian vision.

Was he naive in his art? "Yes, says McFarlane," In that he had an ability to go straight to the heart of the matter. But it was more than instinctive".

His "Beauty and the Beast" image of the beautiful woman with a motorcyclist is all the more poignant because his subject is no longer with us.

"He had a big encompassing spirit. He could be protective of people. He had an engagement with life which his pictures expressed as intensity and intimacy" summarised McFarlane.

"We all feel we could have done more for him," reflected the magnanimous McFarlane who cared enough to venture into Mr Moyle's chaotic midden of a flat to midwife the Phototechnica exhibition. "I still find it hard to believe that this robust rogue spirit has left us". "In a way he has been absorbed into his own chaos, become part of the process" [or similar].

Photographer Eulalie Moore has said "Darren is known for his Cross shots, but they were only a small section or part of his work. Some of his earlier photographs were of the old Finger Wharf down at Woolloomooloo Bay. These photos were taken before they started demolishing it for the new apartments that are now there. Catching up with Darren would happen at soup kitchens, the Piccolo Bar, bumping into him on his bike or visiting his place which usually included a motley assortment from the night before, or night before that. His passion and perfectionism meant that he took life to where he wanted to go, sometimes to the detriment of himself, but always to get that perfect shot. Taking pictures of that overdose, a friend that had just received a hiding, homeless people camped up for the night, kids at Macquarie Fields, soup kitchens Invasion Day aka Australia Day, Mardi Gras, the swingers party, random light shows, or himself".

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Was he a giver or a taken? Was he addled or insightful? Was he sentimental or resilient? Was he exploring every dark corner of existence or was he an open and sunny friend? Was he sensitive or violent? Was he precise or messy? Was he honest or a manipulator? Was he open or shrewd?

He was the full mix, being both an artist and a reporter of human hardship. He was an activist campaigning for social justice and a minor city celebrity. He was an ethical man who believed in justice. Perhaps he also used his art to rationalise his lifestyle and drug use.

He was yin and yang. He was wise and innocent. Naive and aware. He was ethical and he was a survivor who convinced us all of his invincibility. He enriched the lives of his friends.

He was not merely a country boy who kept a horse, dogs and taught a broken baby eagle to fly.

He was also big-hearted and funny, cheeky, naughty, skilled as a rigger, an innovative and a very practical man who could help renovate a house, AI cattle or work the prawn trawlers. He was a good houseguest. He was not lazy.

He was a smiling cyclist in sunglasses, passionate about life.

He was coherent and creative as a writer, a very spiritual man.

He was a great communicator, as any successful photographer must be.

He loved people; warts, messy or exotic sexuality and all. Yet sometimes he could be careless with friendships so carefully cultivated.

He was a man of limited education and concentration who drove himself to address theories of composition, to file efficiently and to follow scientific formulae fastidiously in order to create.

He is a man who could conjure something from nothing and find the sole treasure in any pile of rubbish.

He was a sharp dresser enjoying jewellery, found fashion, black, biker buckles, leather, crisp cotton shirts and natty hats.

He was untidy but systematic. He embraced the peace which can be found in chaos.

A very challenging and sometimes brutal childhood forged his strength and also left him hurt, angry and sometimes abusive.

This harsh start resulted in a pragmatism which tempered the sensitivity and creativity of his dedicated and loving mother, Margaret. She is a part-time therapist with the aged, who loves order, creates beautiful gardens, sublime meals, keeps chickens and who has given unstintingly to her friends and children her entire life. She can be credited with cultivating Darren's warm nature, his big heart.

Adventurousness led Darren to some places his family would rather not follow. Some family members dismissed him as schizophrenic, despite the fact that no clinical assessment ever found him to be so. Darren found this diminishing and was a strong believer in the value of his own insights, whether of spiritual, chemical or organic origin.

There are as many versions of Darren as people who knew him. Darren took care of Itallian migrant and squatmate Pedro until the old man died of cancer. He had also been a carer over several months for his grandmother.

Such loving behaviour has sometimes been overshadowed by his less endearing traits.

As has been mentioned, chronic spinal and neurological pain followed a serious motor cycle accident. Compensation from the accident covered Darren's first and only photographic course at Albury TAFE but did nothing to ease the disabling agonies he suffered the rest of his life.

Family relations completely deteriorated about the time that he decided to move to Sydney in a kombi van to squat at Mrs Macquarie's Chair.

He next squatted in the aptly named Wisdom Lane of Darlinghurst -- a place where men died in their cars. From 1996, Darren-the-social-worker was equally generous with his Woolloomooloo public housing space, much to the frustration of some neighbours.

The sense of being in the family's too hard basket, of being an outsider without children of his own was something Darren felt keenly.
Justin and Kylie Moyle's move to Sydney enabled their relationship to develop. Justin gave Darren work and visited him often in his flat. However Darren's lifestyle, georgraphy, family and business commitments probably continued to stretch the relationship. He was a loving uncle to his nephews (Chris, Ben, Conner and Quintin) and friends' children. Their grief is profound.

His relations with his father never progressed much beyond a last disappointingly brief cup of coffee.

Ironically, Darren acknowledged that he was probably a father to several children himself and worried but could do little about their well-being.

He was a man whose plans for a book of images and reflections were hampered by emotion, by the lack of a sympathetic editor, warehouse studio, an advance and a paid photographic assistant. One proposed title of his book was "The Kaleidescope of Cryptic Linguistics". He left some interesting diaries. In a way he was in his own road. It would have taken a feat of collective will to lift him out of his own chaos and finalise the book. Perhaps he felt he'd done enough.

Darren scrupulously honoured his debts, irrespective of his circumstances. His photography was often donated to support charities or worthy projects, such as raising awareness about child protection issues by donating his skills to NAPCAN.

Minor fame generated new pressures. Darren was sometimes misunderstood. A sad squabble over who pressed the shutter on one photograph marred a relationship with a key teacher, one who had shown Darren some kindness. It seems petty that a salaried person in shop-bought clothes would expect full credit over a single image which held significance only because of its context. It describes a critical section in the life of a student who sometimes went without proper food or transport for weeks on end.

There were never holidays and Darren enjoyed the luxury of a working fridge for the first time a mere 3 weeks before he died.

There was his friendship with Wayne Willis, who regrets that Darren's form of authenticity has disappeared from the world.

His radical activism and views have greatly influenced Lance Shepherd, Katie Florence and Sue Chant who met him when working at Vincentian Village.

Musically, he enjoyed Frank Zappa and Cat Stevens, Pink Floyd and more. He thoughtfully brought gifts found in the streets, dried his own tomatoes and faithfully reproduced his mothers recipes for his friends.

He is the "war correspondent" of Sydney's struggle streets who never made it all the way back to civilian life. A somewhat daunting and perhaps lonely transfer to the Blue Mountains was planned, following a December fire in his city unit.

Perhaps he looked forward to getting Justin's help with the huge and messy move, a breakthrough with the book, a job, more recognition and understanding from family. Perhaps he was too tired and used up. Perhaps nothing could compare with the excitement of inner city living.

My guilt is that I feel as though I left my compadre behind on the battlefield and barely had the courage to go back.

The irony of the Kings Cross police protecting his property and dispensing his memorial details would not be lost on Mr Moyle.

Family comments are on the active sydney website.

The inner city can be harsh. Gentle words and compliments are rarely given. Dignity and self respect are hard to maintain in the queue for a handout. Co-dependent relationships are often the result of a vacuum left by those one grew up with or whose acceptance and approval one craves. Darren Peter Moyle's ambitions seemed grandiose against this backdrop. Some of us can barely understand the scope of his work and achievement even now.

Darren / Peter Moyle put his hand into the fire of human distress and again and again. He often strode confidently into danger. In 200I, as a neighbour, I saw him barge in and remove a knife from a mother who was threatening her young son while police hung back nervously outside her door, guns drawn. Job done, he walked off, rarely to discuss the matter again.

Darren could be kind and valued thoughtfulness. He rarely visited anyone empty-handed. I have a beaut pair of yellow riggers gloves he brought over.

However, the exposure to misery took its toll. A series of minor calamities and relationship issues added to his frustration about finding a backer for his book. He often talked of his work almost being finished.

Importantly, Darren Peter Moyle respected many people in his life on the basis that they suffered. He would not judge them on the basis of whether they had caused their own misery, only on its impact in their lives.

His friends among some of the city's forlorn have expressed great emotion at his passing.

"That (article by Ben Cubby and D Braithwaite, p. 3 SMH 7 March 06) paper said that Peter had gotten too close to his subject. But his subject was his friends and he wouldn't have it any other way", wrote his friend and photographic subject Chris S. from prison.

This statement is telling. Darren's friends often drew on Darren's compassion, his resources and his neighbours' patience. They may have encouraged the abuse of prescription medicines, cocaine, heroin and alcohol. They expected this depleted human's help whenever they needed food, money, the police were after them or they had been released from prison. Their daily dramas may have distracted him from his work, encouraged despair and divorced him from a more peaceful (but also boring) way of life.

Then again, to the frustration of some, he chose to remain with them. Street people became part of his family.

A vibrant, magnificent freewheeling open memorial service for Darren Peter Moyle was held at the Wayside Chapel (29 Hughes St Potts Point) this Sunday, 19th March in the presence of family. Many of his photographic subjects attended. After a barbeque at Vincentian Village, musicians and friends congregated at his old squat site, Mrs Macquarie's Chair, to sing and watch the DVD on an outdoor screen.

Vale kind friend. You will be profoundly missed. You will be remembered.

compiled by Jane Salmon
02 9416 8459

knowing peter as he was at that time, that is in 1996 the first time i met him, and from then on till his death in 2006, i came to deal with him on a regular basis , daily speaking.The tragedy with him was the addiction to drugs and the death was the price he had to pay for this vicious habit that took his life.As a photographer he was top, as a person on drugs its another story not to be told.His wish when talking to him was never to come back to this life again, and who can blame him. Personally i know he is free now from this pain in the way it happened and in the traditional way , let his soul rest in peace forever. 

I met Darren in the summer of '95. I was a 16 year old kid travelling through Australia for the summer w my dad and a friend. We met his brother in Tamworth (I believe) and he put us in touch w Darren. My first sighting of him was this jarring tableau: a long bearded, eclectically dressed man with a crazy looking smile whizzing along, astride his bycicle, flowing through the city traffic like water.

The three of us spent a few days w him. It was enough time to discover who this guy was. I marvelled at his insight, brilliance, and unique perspective in explaining the human experience. Living in a world of grit and grime, he captured its odd beauty. He brought lives out of the dark; he showed us what was behind doors that we as a society lock so tightly.  We depend on people like Darren to come along once in a while to open our doors; to liberate us from the dangers of our preconceived notions.

 He was a balance of integration and observation. He was one w his environment, but separate enough to gain perspective and allow for contemplation. His cup of life was not material, it was spiritual--the human spirit. His mind, with his camera in tow, captured that inner light that emits from all of us, no matter who we are or what we look like. Peter "Darren Moyle...irreplaceable in nature; eternal in resonance.