Ah, Fyshwick. The land of car yards, garish sex shops and furniture showrooms. Lightbulb photography studio owners Brenton and Naomi Colley say the suburb is a well-kept secret: "It feels like Brooklyn in Canberra.
It's no longer just the domain of fish and chip shop owners, strippers and tradies in high-vis. Some of Canberra's most talented creatives - from illustrators and photographers to graphic designers and writers - are in love with working in postcode In fact, they begged me not to write this story.
Here's what they didn't want you to know about Fyshwick. I know, I know - the words 'chic' and 'Fyshwick' just don't belong in the same sentence. But I've walked the back streets of the suburb and there are some incredible creative spaces rising from the polished concrete floors of many a daggy, abandoned office, furniture workshop and storage shed.
Smart building owners are pulling down interior walls, pulling up carpet and removing cladding - because what lies beneath is hipster heaven: a minimalist canvas from which cafe owners and creatives can build their dream fit-out. Take photography studio Lightbulb, located on Fyshwick's Geelong Street on the Officeworks side of the suburb. Owners Brenton and Naomi Colley were looking to rent a new photography studio in and just couldn't find a building with enough height to fit their 2.
And then they saw an ad for 'a shed to rent' next to door to office furniture manufacturer, McNally's. The boat was towed away and Lightbulb Studio moved in, transforming the square-metre space into the ultimate in industrial chic: making features of the worn flooring, distressed walls and aged pipes.
