Catching the Ephemeral

Nothing is more changeable than the sky, and and nothing more fleeting than rainbows. When they appear, you shoot, and sometimes the result is excellent. I grabbed this one from the Westfield mall at Marion, South Australia, on May 24^th, 2012. I was probably on my way home from the university, as I was at the bus stops serving the route, and living close by at the time. I often carried the camera for opportunistic shooting in those days, and got many interesting studies of the sky and buildings. This storm went through in the afternoon, leaving a strong rainbow to the east, and I was able to shoot a whole sequence. Here, the rush of traffic on Sturt Road creates the business of human occupation, while the rainbow is the hand of nature, oblivious of human doing—a dichotomy I always enjoy. This is perhaps the most careful framing of the effect in the shoot, with telephoto employed to compress the perspective between the foreground and the rainbow. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

The Grand Old Institution

 

This is the Natural History Museum, on Cromwell Rd. in London, which from the outside still looks much as it did when it opened in April, 1881. Brainchild of Sir Richard Owen, that “Count Dracula” of palaeontology, it has always been one of the leading institutions of its kind in the world. I photographed it on November 1^st, 2010, on my third UK trip; this was the second time I visited London’s South Kensington museum district, and it was also the last time I had the chance to do so. Distance and cost are relentless, after all. I was really under the weather on that trip, so was unable to appreciate the sights as they deserved—still, I brought home the pictures, and I have them to this day. This is a simple street snap, but at least I managed to hold the camera square! I remember the sun being so low in the sky, despite a late morning time, that most of the street was in deep shadow. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Urban Jungle

This is the redeveloped east of London, after the old, blighted areas leftover from Victorian times were finally swept away. I took this photograph through a train window—the Docklands Light Railway—on my way to Greenwich, back in November, 2007, on my second England trip. It was early in the day, as I recall, and things were very quiet in the new residential areas that used to be London’s busy docks. Now they’re trendy marinas, and the old days of empire are a distant memory. Note a few reflection in the glass. The redevelopment of the East End was extensive, and what were the haunts of the poor in the days of Sherlock Holmes are now the home of the well-to-do. Nothing clever in this shot, just keeping it square (no fine rotation required) and managing the reflections to a minimum. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

 

Servicing the Giant

A scene enacted countless times since the dawn of commercial aviation, ground crews prepare an airliner for its next flight. Machines have their own innate appeal, and when juxtaposed with the natural world are a poignant metaphor for humans cutting their own furrow alongside, or at right angles to, nature. I took this frame as part of a series at Singapore’s Changi International Airport in November 2011, on my way back from my fourth UK expedition. This was an equatorial evening, and home beckoned at the end of one more long leg in the air. The sun is not quite gone—there was some gold about sixty degrees of arc to the left, but “blue hour” was certainly arriving. This is the Qantas Airbus A-380 Reginald Ansett, named for one of Australia’s commercial aviation pioneers. The photo was taken through plate glass from the terminal, with the usual gymnastics to keep the interior lights from reflecting in the frame. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

 

A Designed Landscape

Designer landscapes are nothing new: they were doing it in Tudor times. But the visual impact of such a place—often today merely considered landscape gardening and dismissed as something unimportant—can be amazing. On January 25th, 2023, I paid a visit to Carrick Hill, the famous early 20^th century mansion in the Adelaide Hills, overlooking the city and plain, and the entire grounds are designed to compliment and interact with the house. Views abound, and not just outward—this is a view of the mansion through a veritable keyhole in the now-well-grown trees. It’s an example of expert design given its head, where the undulation of the land features strongly in the layout, and the altitude allows lush growth of northern, deciduous species despite the Australian summer extremes. The place is well worth a visit! Here, it’s a simple shot where composition is everything—the POV looks back at the house through the frame of the trees, and is as picturesque as a painting. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike. Mm

 

City and Nature

Staying with the vertical architecture theme, this is a simple snap taken on October 7^th, 2024, on North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia, down near the east end. What makes it interesting is the juxtaposition of the solid, man-made geometry of the buildings against the random, organic nature of the trees, all bathed in bright sunshine for vivid colour. I love scenes which place nature and the artificial world together like this, the grouping suggesting that they can coexist in harmony if we get the balances right. No adjustments were necessary, this is exactly as the frame came off the phone. It is of course one of a sequence of images, and it was hard to choose between them, so below is another frame which, from a slightly different perspective, favours the vegetation over the architecture, for a different "meaning" in the picture. Poco M5 phone pic. Image by Mike.

Dizzying Geometry

A simple snap, but the thematic material makes the pic. Vanishing point symmetry, of course, but that view up a tall building is always spectacular, invoking as it does thoughts of gravity and physics. The trees are a wonderful biological counterpart to the artificiality of the structure—the natural versus the man-made. Two very similar shots—I thought I’d present both in the same post. I took these frames on October 12^th last year, when in the Adelaide CBD, passing through en route from visiting friends up north. Minor adjustments to contrast, colour and sharpness in Irfanview; Poco M5 phone pic. Image by Mike.

Vertiginous View 2

Instead of looking down the tower, here’s the view upward. This is the Westpac Tower, Adelaide, South Australia, seen from it’s own footing, photographed on April 7^th, 2022. I needed data recovery work and the company’s office was way up on the 31^st floor, so obviously I grabbed a suit of pictures in the process. I ran a shot from the top a couple of years ago (“City Panorama,” April 13^th 2023), and have always meant to come back for at least ine more. The tower was long Adelaide’s tallest building, back from when it was the State Bank Building. That honour is now held by Frome Central Tower One, aka “The Adelaidean,” which is soon to be overtopped by the new Keystone Tower. I love vanishing point symmetry, and any trip to town these days involves looking up at the ever-increasing height of the Adelaide skyline. Minor adjustments to contrast, colour and sharpness in Irfanview; Leagoo M9. Image by Mike.

 

Architectural Geometry

The built environment is the antithesis of nature—it’s all straight lines, cardinal points, vanishing points, and how these things shift and interplay with the effects of perspective and parallax. Some photographers have turned the visual aspects of architecture into an descriptive artform, and there’s plenty in the world to work with. I took this p=shot on the 10^th of September, 2009, in the Festival Plaza area, behind Parliament House Adelaide, South Australia,. This area has been extensively redeveloped since, with whole new buildings occupying what used to be public space, so the available views have changed a lot. This is an interesting study in geometries, on a day when the lighting conditions were not generating harsh shadows. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Hard, Grey and Cold

 

This image evokes thoughts of wind. It was blowing a gale when I was out on that day, and it was so cold. I took this frame on November 22^nd, 2012, close to the waterfront at Tiger Bay, Cardiff. I’m standing practically on top of the secret Torchwood base, here, sheltering under the overhang of the Millennium Centre, looking toward Roald Dahl Plass, beyond which is the bay. I was in town to see the Dr Who Experience (discontinued several years ago), and was glad I braved the weather for the chance to do the tour. No one was out and about—I seemed to have the place to myself, as presumably the locals know to stay indoors when the wind off the Atlantic comes in so strong, and only crazy tourists are abroad. The wan light and hard surfaces create a texture of such starkness: the image is engaging merely for its brutalism. Minor adjustments to colour and contrast in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Fun with Low Light

This is another of the group I took when leaving England in 2010. This is at the very doors of the Heathrow Terminal, looking across the arrivals area, and just before they turned on the purple neon (find that in an older post). Notice the steel anti-ram-raider bollards—I think I rested the camera on top of one of them to stabilise it. In the previous frame a moving vehicle is blurred, telling you how long the shutter was open, while in this one nothing was moving, creating this beautifully textured, nuanced image. The only adjustment I made is a tiny touch of sharpening, otherwise this is exactly as the chip read the moment. This was November 16^th, 2010, and I was glad to be heading home, as I had been quite unwell on this expedition. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

 

Flawed Photo on a Rainy Day in Blackpool

This is (I think!) Lytham Rd, Blackpool, England, on a stormy day approaching winter. There’s good old Blackpool Tower in the background. The reason my memory is dodgy today is that this is a long time ago—November 18^th, 2006 is the date stamp of the image file. It’s only a 2mp image—I was economising on card space in those days, not realising that it really didn’t matter. This was my first trip to the UK and I’d dropped by Blackpool to visit a pen friend (now deceased) and make a pilgrimage to his shop. A hail storm came in off the Irish Sea while I was out and about, and I remember having fish and chips in a small corner shop while hailstones bounced in at the door.

Artistically, it’s a reminder of what not to do: the bin in the foreground ruins the shot, which is probably why I never used it before. But the sense of place is strong in this picture: the people, the vehicles, the storm sky receding with weak sunshine on the wet pavers... If I’d had my wits about me I would have walked to the other side of the bin, to exclude it, yet got substantially the same picture. But I wasn’t thinking in those terms—I saw the lighting and general composition, and grabbed it.

So there you are—a picture with a number of merits about it, and one glaring drawback. I could crop the bin out, but cropping horizontally would also exclude those lovely reflections in the pavers. Cropping vertically, while creating a nice picture, loses the street scene to right and places the lamp post very close to the right hand edge. Does that feel jarring? I’m not sure, so the cropped image is below—please compare and make your own evaluation! Minor post-processing—a touch of contrast, sharpness and extra colour. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

PS: Two posts in quick succession make up for that fortnight with nothing!

Geometry and Reflections

 

My eye is always caught by the interplay of straight lines in perspective. That pays into my fascination with vanishing point symmetry—all parallel lines have that element, but only extended lines display it in an eye catching way. This is the outside steps of the Medical Sciences building at Flinders University of South Australia, photographed on 5^th August, 2011. The building was new at the time, if I remember correctly, and this accessway is on the outdoor route for walking from the university down to the hospital to connect with the bus home. This was late afternoon, and the interplay of the shade slats, the stairs, the reflections in the plate glass to the left, and the general afternoon light, created a striking image that made me pause, pull out my camera (not sure why I had it at the Uni on that day), and take a whole series of frames. This one seems to capture the best balance of all elements. No to minimal enhancement was needed. Fuji S5600. Image by Mike.

The Timeless Gothic

 

Here is an uncomplicated picture by any standards, made special by its subject matter, This soaring Gothic architecture is York Minster, which I photographed in late 2011, during my fourth UK trip. The weather was being kind on that visit, as opposed to another trip to York when it was pouring down. Vanishing point symmetry is always visually appealing, and the built environment aspect is special as it carries a context of Medieval times. No enhancement at all was done, this is just as she came off the camera. Fuji S5600. Image by Mike.

I’ve been particularly busy/distracted in the last few weeks and had not noticed the time going by, so I’ll put up three pics in quick succession.

Down the Tube to Lanantarn

Yes, I’m a sucker for vanishing point symmetry, it catches my eye and I’ll shoot it whenever I find it! This is the Heathrow Express terminal deep under Heathrow Airport, at 5.33 and 54 seconds (by the electronic signage) on the morning of Sunday, October 31^st, 2010. My plane had just got into Blighty, Customs was a quick process (I remember we were the very first plane load fronting up to the desks for the day!) and I was eastbound for London Town with my luggage. I travelled with the camera round my neck and shot as I went, and all sorts of interesting things appear as one goes. The light was low, of course, so non-moving subjects were preferred (cameras were less fancy in those days, and soaring ISO speeds were a thing of the future). Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Blue and Gold—A Whitby Twilight

 

This is a longer view toward the Gothic church in Skinner Street, Whitby (I posted a close up almost exactly a year ago, “Cold Stone, Warm Light,” on July 20^th, 2023) which I captured around November 6^th, 2010, during an afternoon and early evening stroll through the quaint seaside town on the Yorkshire coast. The sun never rises very high at that time of year, so time of day is often difficult to pick from a photograph. This was probably not much after 4 in the afternoon, but the streets are filled with shadow, very blue against the golden light catching the upper parts of the church. It’s a magical place and a magical time of year, just after Guy Fawkes’ Night, when autumn slides quickly into winter. I remember having a drink at The Granby Freehouse, at right of the picture, still a very traditional pub at that time—I’m not sure if it has succumbed to development and updating in the 14 hears since. I set a scene in my first vampire story right there in that street (appearing soon in an anthology with Hiraeth Books!) Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Roman Corner

I’m sure there’s a wealth of history about this exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London, but I think of it simply as ”Roman Corner.” One walks through here between one part of the classically-appointed museum and another, but this particular area recreates ancient times—the statue is probably original, and the marble probably all comes from Italy. If you look in the right direction for a moment, you could be two thousand years ago, in a well-to-do house of a lost civilisation. I took this photograph on November 1^st, 2010, my one and only (to date) visit to this amazing museum. Contrast and colour were increased a little, as was sharpness. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

 

River Frontage

Here’s a deceptively simple image that’s part luck, part skill. A reflex shot—the scene presented itself and I grabbed it—from the window of a train on Tuesday, November 16^th, 2010, on my journey south from Sunderland to London, to head back to Australia. This is maybe 90 minutes after I got the pics of Durham Cathedral through the haze, and several hours before I framed up the neon lighting at Heathrow Airport (see older posts). The train ran through considerable fog, through towns, past great steam-belching power stations, and by the time I was around the latitudes of Birmingham, the weather cleared to sun and blue sky. This is the River Nene, where it flows through Peterborough, and I managed to catch it through a clean patch of window, with the sun angle right for the scene and not to make every speck of dirt on the glass flare. Some adjustments were done—it was squared-up using custom rotation, and the contrast and colour were tweaked just a little. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Geometry in Iron

Repeating shapes always make for interesting visual exercises, and this is mid-Victorian ironwork—Brunel’s masterpiece, Paddington Station, in London. After booking into my hotel on Sunday, October 31^st, 2010, I walked back round to the station to play with imagery, and this one was taken from a footbridge spanning the tracks. In the 1850s (Paddington opened in 1854), British railway engineering was a boom industry, and cast iron was the masterstroke of the age, making possible shapes and sizes of structure previously unknown. Here, thousands of tons of iron create an airy, arched pavilion large enough to accommodate the smoke of steam trains without choking the commuters, and to this day it is one of the busiest railway terminals in London. A simple shot, it took advantage of the topography, creating an almost organic feel. Minor enhancement only—just contrast and colour. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike

 

950 Years of History

This is Durham Cathedral, one of the oldest in England, whose origins date back to the early years of the Norman conquest. I grabbed this and several other frames through the window of a train on Tuesday, November 16^th, 2010, having departed Sunderland at 10.30 on my way to London for my return flight to Australia. The train passed through Durham’s elevated railway station, thus the views over the city and across to the bluff above the river bend where the Cathedral and castle were built. The morning, though quite clear, was hazy, and the train window adds to the effect. In this frame I managed to not pick up my own reflection, which is always a hazard—I have memories of pressing the camera to the glass to avoid reflections in many instances. I would have loved to spend some time in Durham, exploring this amazing place and its history, but that was set aside for a future trip—which unfortunately hasn’t happened yet. This picture marks the beginning of the second year since I resurrected this blog (April 9^th, 2023).Very minor enhancements were done—there’s not much more to pull out of a frame as soft as this. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.