THIS is an unusual art project that shines three ways. Consisting of colour and black-and-white photographs by Jim Rolon accompanied by interviews with subjects by the composer Andrew Ford, Local Portraits attempts to define two communities: Robertson, in the Southern Highlands, and the area covered by Liverpool's postcode, 2168. Each portrait by the US-born Rolon records residents from both places, accompanied by short, perceptive interviews by Ford revealing the reasons for subjects' selection of their favourite pieces of music.

Listening to the MP3 player provided as I moved along the portraits, the subjects' words were progressively more engaging - from an intense young woman, Sarn Davies, who felt safe listening to Ennio Morricone's soundtrack from The Mission to the freckled child Rebekah Ricketts, playing Duke Ellington on her new saxophone.

Rolon's approach to portraiture is very direct, having each subject address the camera from within their environment. This works well with most subjects, especially with his portrait of Davies, who raises her hands above her head and faces Rolon's lens with a fierce, Diane Arbus-like intensity.

Other portraits are full of candour, but a certain behavioural grace emerges from Rolon's pictures only when subjects are given space to express their natural body language - such as in his portrait of Olivia Calver, relaxing with careless grace on a Robertson veranda.
The other area I found slightly problematic was Rolon's arbitrary use of colour against his black-and-white. Monochrome pictures were well observed and printed, whereas colour added little to the pictures where it was used, seeming more exaggerated than naturalistic.
But after absorbing more than 60 portraits the collective effect was revealing. The actor Miriam Margolyes, one of only a few "show folk" to make the cut, told us of her fierce devotion to Schubert's Trout Quintet, and the student actor Freyja Benjamin expressed passion for The Cat Empire.

Local Portraits is ultimately a democratic vision of a microcosm of NSW - well patronised at Casula Powerhouse and a symptom of a successful policy of engagement with local communities by the gallery's executive director, Kon Gouriotis, and curator, Brianna Munting. But for balance I would like to see a future project in which comparable communities were documented by equally talented photojournalists.