About

Hello! My name's Hunter. This site is home to my favorite film photographs I took of neon signs in Austin.

I lived in Austin from 2022 to 2025. Not long, but I moved to Austin from Melbourne, Australia, so this move was significant.

Photography always interested me, but I never really dove into it. After getting settled, I bought an Olympus OM1 from Cute Camera Co, an Austin-based vintage camera restoration company, and got started on learning the craft. 

My main vantage points were from the Lamar pedestrian bridge and on Congress, pointing towards downtown. Taking photos of the lake and skyline around sunset. I took a lot of shit photos, trying to work out how to perfect aperture on a manual film camera. I did alright in the end, but to this day, I still take shit photos to get good ones.

Despite how beautiful Lady Bird is at sunset, what I became most obsessed with, though, were Austin's neon signs. The volume and variety seemed unique to Austin. It wasn't just bars and restaurants with neon signs. It was retail, bakeries, and auto shops as well. I learned that this was entirely the doing of Evan Voyles, a.k.a The Neon Jungle. His fingerprints seemed to be on almost all neon signs. 

I made a list of all my favorite signs. Mostly based on preference, but also on fun memories from the venue. I'd wait for nights with minimal light (overcast nights, waning moon phases) and head out as late as possible to get the best contrast. Some signs I got pretty quickly. A handful of photos. Others took several nights and rolls of film.

I did this on and off for 2 years, posting them to Instagram as a gallery, and then I started printing them to hang on my walls. Friends would come over and want one for their place. Over time, this became a fun way to fill my own walls and my friends' walls with photos I took.

I'm still in the process of uploading all my photos to this site. Each photo description will outline the strongest memory I have from that venue, and provide insight into how I captured it.

In July 2025, I got sick and had to move back home to Australia for treatment. I decided to build this website and sell these prints to stay connected to Austin. The city still has a big piece of my heart, and if my photos can fill a room with memories as they did for me, then that makes me happy.

Each print is made to order using premium, high-quality Pearl Metallic paper surface. The images are captured using a 35mm Olympus OM1.