Sydney, like any major city, has its share of homeless people. How they got that way is anyone's guess except that of themselves and their closer confidantes. Could be unforeseen circumstances, the sum of bad choices, even, in some cases, a conscious choice (which is known to happen but if anyone has the temerity to say it they're declared to be a heartless so and so), family tragedy, mental illness...

Some look for a way back into the "mainstream", others don't want to, and others... seem to have decided to just stake out a spot in a public place and make it their own until or unless someone decides to move them on.

Clearly, given the accumulation of "stuff", this is not your average bag lady. She's certainly not going to be able to just pick up and move on at a whim. I would also hope that she has arrangements to have her stuff watched when she answers a call of nature, which hopefully she doesn't do there. (And before anyone accuses me of being crude, please bear in mind that I'm a dawn prowler for many of my photographs. I've therefore been exposed to the sight of rather more outdoor urban urination than one person ought to be subjected to in any one lifetime. Believe me, nothing that I see in the pre-dawn of this great city surprises me any more.) She isn't unique in this; there is one guy who seems to have made a permanent claim to the corner of George and Market streets outside Myer, the city's leading (as far as I'm concerned) department store. But such "semi-permanent" encampments are more the exception than the rule.

She may certainly have a wonderful view (or a reflection of it) but I think I much prefer the security of a roof over my head, albeit at the cost of a suburbia view that's rather uninspiring.