How a photographer’s street portrait captured one woman’s journey from darkness

Brett Canet-Gibson’s modus operandi for his acclaimed Portraits From the Pavement series is refreshingly simple and direct.

Tiffany Toovey, from Portraits From the Pavement. Photo: Brett Canet-Gibson

For the past dozen years Brett Canét-Gibson has been working on a ­photographic project called Portraits From the Pavement, in which he goes up to ­interesting looking strangers in the street and asks to make a portrait of them. If they agree – and they usually do – he’ll whip out a foldable dark backdrop and shoot them on the spot, using only natural light. It’s ­simple, ­spontaneous and often yields fantastic results: three images from the series have been finalists in the National Photographic Portrait Prize over the years.

Tiffany Toovey, photographed outside a café in Perth ten years ago, was happy to oblige, being a fellow creative type. She grew up in the ­Wheatbelt town of Northam, doing ballet and other arty stuff, then trained as a hairdresser and escaped to the big smoke, where she opened her own salon. Isn’t it interesting how she projects herself in Canét-Gibson’s impromptu ­portrait? It turns out she was going through a dark period in her life at the time, a long depressive episode sparked by the death of a boyfriend five years previously; the heavy makeup and dark clothes she habitually wore back then were a kind of ­armour, she says, adding: “When I look at this photo now, what I see is strength.”

Canét-Gibson keeps in touch with many of those who’ve featured in the Portraits From the ­Pavement series over the years, including ­Toovey, who’s now 33, still hairdressing, and doing well: meditation and reiki have restored her to a happy place, she says, and she recently got engaged to a Pom named Rich. (They met over a chai latte a year ago, and sparks flew, but days later he had to return home to England; they carried on a long-distance relationship ­before he moved out here a few weeks ago to set up a life together in Mandurah.)

Canét-Gibson has come a long way, too. Forty-odd years ago he left the Gold Coast and came to Perth playing bass with a band that ­specialised in “bad ’80s covers”, he says. He’s still in Perth, though dreams of rock stardom are long gone: he now runs a marketing and events company with his wife. “I had tight trousers and big hair when I arrived,” he says, adding with a rueful laugh: “Now I have loose pants and no hair!”