Lost & Found: 

False Prophets & Fading Signs

A fake doctor selling liver salvation.

An ice cream empire melted into memory.

A Brunswick pub reborn from scandal and stucco.

Sean Reynolds / Melbourne Ghost Signs

When Kindred Cameras asked me to take part in their Lost & Found exhibition, I had a small existential crisis — the kind that hits when you’ve spent years chasing ghosts through alleyways, rooftops, abandoned buildings, and the back ends of milk bars. I’ve taken hundreds of photos of ghost signs: faded ads, sun-bleached businesses, half-forgotten promises painted onto brick walls and rusted tin roofs.

So how do you choose just three?

I landed on this unlikely trio — not because they’re the most beautiful, or even the most complete. But because they tell the story of Australia’s long romance with invention, illusion, and a good hustle. A fake doctor preaching miracles. An ice cream sign hiding another beneath it, like a Russian doll of dessert nostalgia. A Brunswick pub so wild it needed a basement morgue and a police sting to quiet down.

These aren’t just signs. They’re fragments of myth. Shards of hype. Cultural fossils — once lost, now found.