Sydney Lights

We went to Sydney last weekend. Ostensibly to see the beginning of the Vivid Festival but mostly to get some time away. We stayed in a place on McMahon's Point and the room had a panoramic view of the Harbour (from Luna Park, the Bridge and Opera House, through to the city and the ANZAC Bridge) I'd never seen such a view of the City before and to think this was the hotel room ... we spent a great deal of time in awe of the view and when we got tired of that ... there was always the 2015 Eurovision Final ;-) .

The Sydney Harbour Bridge was framed in thin, linear lights of splendid clarity and we could easily see the light show on the sails of the Sydney Opera House.

Thinking that there must be a million photos taken of the bridge I resolved to make mine a little different and play instead with bokeh Sydney lights. I particularly liked how the bridge is still utterly recognisable even though it's heavily blurred.

Wandering around Circular Quay on the second night was spectacular, particularly as trains were terminating at Wynyard Station and the roads down to the Quay were closed to traffic. It was glorious walking down the center of George Street with no cars. The thousands of other people there seemed to think so as well. Well done Vivid Sydney.

One of the other reasons we went to Sydney was to drop in and see my friend Gretchen's art exhibition at the Art Est Gallery in Leichhardt ... but there's a separate post coming about that :-)


A Little Piece of Me

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A Little Piece of Me

Dark

I feel it's pull

tangible as a kiss never realised

Cold

the space between

whirling sheets of colour

Light

a piercing clarity

precision at a price

Warmth

strangely within

Life

unfurling

a fern glowing against shadow

(August 2013)

 

 


The Love Locks of Aspen Island

I was a walking in the Autumnal sunshine last Sunday afternoon and came across these engraved padlocks on the bridge to Aspen Island (or 'Carillon Island'). Some of them are quite recent (as in yesterday) and the oldest dates back to late 2012. I can only assume they're paying homage to the global phenomena 'Love Locks' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_padlocks).

 

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I counted a total of eight(!) ... things tend to move slowly in Canberra so we've a fair ways to go until we approach the Pont des Arts in Paris or the Ponte Milvio in Rome.

Most of them bear the names of the lovers and a date ... however there's at least one cryptic inscription which reads;

C+D=B
Rm 701
28/11/2012

Love to hear reader's guesses as to the meaning of that one!

 

 

 

 

Are Love Locks appearing in your part of the world? Do they encrust bridges and walkways?

For those with a geographical bent ... here's the location of the bridge to Aspen Island which incidentally is the location of the National Carillon ... a gift by the British Government to celebrate Canberra's 50th birthday. This year the city celebrates it's centenary.


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Last of the Summer Rains

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It rained last night, a soft gentle rain that collected in heavy droplets and made everything glisten this morning before the clouds moved in again.

I do love water drops ... 


Down the barrel

Round Like A Circle In A Spiral

Down the barrel

Round Like a circle in a spiral...

 This morning I awoke thinking about lenses and the thought: Why aren't photographs circular? I mean the lenses produce circular representations of the light. It must be for practical reasons; glass plates, negatives, storage ... convenience ... who has or had the time to cut out circles? And storing circles ... knowing which way was up. I got to thinking about how these early practical considerations have shaped the way we look at the world. How we frame and crop it to suit. Our cameras have shaped and at times constrained our view for so long that I feel sometimes we forget that the world is not cropped into 4x6 or square or 5x7 ratios ... that the light coming into our lenses is circular and that we chop it up. Our eyes don't see in terms of square cut windows. I think it strange that with the advent of new technologies that potentially free us from the practical constraints of the past (such as digital imaging, capture and projection) we still cling to them ... we call them imaging standards. I imagine that a camera that the captured the light in a circular fashion would be labelled 'novelty' or of 'limited practical use' simply because it did something new (there's an irony in there somewhere).

like a wheel within a wheel ...

From a biological perspective, our eyes see circles. We are fortunate to have them hooked up to a superlative imaging system in our brains that creates the impression that we see much more than the circles of light refracted upside-down onto the back of our eyes. Our brains take this input and effectively stitch our visual reality together for us. Our visual experience appears so seamless because the transition between scenes is edited out. You can test this for yourself very easily by a simple experiment. Standing in front of a mirror, look at your left eye. Now look at your right eye. Did you feel your eyes move? Quite likely. Did you see them move? No, you didn't. That movement is a transitional scene that your mind edits out ... I don't know why it does but it does. Magicians and sleight of hand experts exploit this phenomenon.

Now I don't spend hours in front of a mirror trying to see my eyes moving back and forth and I only present it here to illustrate how what we see is not always what we see.

The photograph: you're looking down the barrel of a 105mm field gun at a defence recruiting display at the Canberra Show. I loved the way the rifling spiraled away into the bokeh. The colour is a result of the crowd walking past the other end of the gun. Reference - sprial - blur - colour ... what more could you want? Sometimes the world blurs into shape and colour ... abstract forms and amorphous shapes (thankfully not when I'm driving ;-) ). It retains for a time the rigidity of frame, of reference but becomes something else entirely ... something without frame or reference.

Did you try the experiment? Go find a mirror and try it now. Did you see your eyes move?


Rusted mesh fence

Falling Out of the Habit of Writing

Rusted mesh fence

Falling out of the habit of writing

Not that I'm running out of things to talk about ... quite the contrary, my mind is often full of ideas and thoughts all competing to get out. Sometimes in conversation I am so internally focused on the discussion that the conversation has moved on by the time my bit is ready to go ... other times I hear someone talking, think 'that sounds interesting I should listen to that' only to find it is in fact me talking! Thankfully that weirdness doesn't happen too often.

Writing, I find, gives me an opportunity to focus, to concentrate, to refine in a way that conversation doesn't. The poems, the haiku, the questioning and searching ... it all makes more sense when written down rather than floating as abstracts in my head. That once I chose a subject to write about the rest just flows ... it's the choosing I find difficult. Like what image to post next(?) ... that is the hardest decision for me with regard to this blog. There are so many to choose from but which one conveys what I'm trying to say now? Once I decide I can find something to write about it. I do like those blogs where only the image is placed ... sometimes no text at all. They have a minimalism that I admire but still I sometimes wish I knew more about the thoughts behind it. It lends a level of understanding of what the photographer is trying to say ... what did they want you to see by placing this image in a place where you are going to see it? Why put an image up if you didn't want people to 'see' something in it.

Today, it's a picture of a mesh fence, the background fernland dissolved into a warm bokeh. The fence for me is that barrier to my mind ... the filter that lets thoughts in and out ... it's a little rusty like my writing skills of late ... I've fallen out of the habit of writing you see.

I can feel myself falling back in too ... thankfully.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.