Mystery photo: Who is this man?

I really like flickr! I was browsing through random photos this evening as I often do, and I stumbled across some mystery photos uploaded by a user who found a film loaded in a twin lens reflex camera he purchased from Tasmania on ebay and decided to get developed. Fascinated, I decided to investigate.







My reply:

I think I've figured part of the mystery out after about half an hour of flickr and Google. As with all good mysteries, there are a couple of interesting twists. One clue I followed up on was V.T. Jewellers in this photo from the same roll. It was located in Central Market in Moonta Street, Adelaide (If you look in the background near the roof awnings, you can see an obscured Central Market sign). It no longer appears in the list of businesses on the Adelaide Central Market Website. China Town is located between Moonta and Grote streets.

The next challenge was to find a picture of Chinatown to verify the location of the man. I found this image of the Grote st entrance taken by flickr user kwyjibo.nz
Also see the photo on Wikipedia

There is a picture of the Moonta Street entrance and a nice article about Adelaide Chinatown by Kerry Hennigan here.

I think the man is at the Grote street entrance (these entrance gates are called Paifang) standing next to where the lion on the left is. The large old brick building on the right further confirms this. I've also noted that the paifang at the Grote street end has square stone footings, whilst the ones at the Moota Street end are round.

But here's the interesting twist: I think the lions are different between the 2 pictures!

The lion in your picture has its right paw on an orb, but in the recent colour images I located, its left paw is on the orb. The detail at the base of the pedestal appears very similar though, so maybe they just replaced the lions at some point.

Your film was shot sometime after 1965 which is when Central Market was opened. And sometime before the replacement of that dragon. As the camera came from Tasmania, famous, amongst other things for its cool climate, the film was obviously well preserved. Black and White film is more stable and lasts much longer than colour does.

I'm guessing the beach is Glenelg as it looks flat and non-descript like the beach on your film and it's only about 20 minutes from the city by tram.

As for the man? His identity will probably remain satisfyingly mysterious!