This work was photographed in a mall in Wagga Wagga, NSW in 2009. I was captivated by the people on the escalators.

Like lifts, escalators seem to invoke a mutually understood zone of isolation. People smoothly travel along with or past one another while desperately trying not to catch the eye of anyone else.

This was how it was that day, until the upwards-travelling escalator stopped.

The rules seemed to change once that happened, with people becoming freer to engage with others puffing up the escalator slope or smoothly sailing past on their way back to the car park.