Some good advice...

This bumper sticker is a loooong way from home. I saw it in the local supermarket this afternoon her in Victoria Australia.

It appeals to my sense of humour...

Botanic Gardens, Melbourne

The folk here have made massive efficiencies in water usage over the last few years... here's one of their latest...

After years of drought and water storages for the city dropping to about 20 something percent, this year our dams are nudging 80% full as we come into our warm weather. It's good that the nasty experience over the drought years have made people so much more aware of how they use water. We lost about 30% of our native garden by the end of the last drought - that was about 2 acres of plants... gone. Long range forecasts are predicting a return to the dry times. I hope we are better prepared now.

Just a place I like...

Some places are like a little oasis... we all need them occasionally. That's all.

There be" Wild Things" in the bric-a-brac shops here

Thank you Maurice Sendak...

If I had somewhere to put these promotional boards, I'd have bought them. On the spot.

So many of the children I taught just loved this book! Some of my grandchildren love it now... making a "wild rumpus" with Max... Looking at the Wikipedia entry I see that 19 million copies of the book had been sold as of 2009. I guess a few more by now.

Thank you Maurice Sendak, you "still rock"! - as my children would say.

Remembering the 70's

Once upon a time white goods came in lots of loud colours:  limes, yellows, reds, ochres, and ...

typewriters too.

Found this is a brick-a-brack shop in Collingwood this afternoon.

Some things, like this mermaid thingy, well, I just won't miss!

Shop windows - an art

Window displays really are an art form - a good book is in this, sometime, I'm sure.

These were all taken within 20 metres of each other in an arcade here in Melbourne, Australia.

mmm... yum!

These things just look sooo good!!

(open in new window to view large)

Exploring "street photography"

Recently, I've been looking at the huge amount of "street" work coming out. It made me realise that it's what I was doing about 40 years ago with my camera - I couldn't afford more than two lenses for my Praktica film camera then, and I developed and printed all my own work in a darkroom at home.

In recent years I believe I was hoodwinked into using zoom lenses on dslr's. Not so much the dslr itself, it's just a tool to record an image. But the ease with which you can fire off far too many frames, and alter the focal length so easily somehow caused my "focus" on the scene before me falter - don't know if I'm making sense, but there we are. The size of the dslr with a zoom - even a modest one, hanging off the camera was getting in the way of moving amongst people easily. And it was affecting my ability to see good images. Badly.

About 6 weeks back I bought a 40mm "pancake lens" for my Canon dslr. It's wonderful! Great image quality and bokeh etc etc ...

but...

All that is not as important as the fact that now my dslr has suddenly become so well balanced, portable,and  light - and is not drawing attention to itself. And I'm previsualising images more knowing that I only have one angle of view to work with. In other words, I'm thinking (Lord, help me!!) before firing off another image.

I think I'm becoming a bit of a one lens guy...

Looking in through a tailor's doorway this afternoon, there was so much going on...

Dummy spits

What makes you want to spit the dummy?

Truth be known, I've almost given up spitting the dummy - almost - but it has taken me more than 4 decades to get to this point. Throwing my toys out of the cot means I just have to pick them up again later.  It's never done any good; only ever made me feel bad, and I've decided that I don't need to allow someone else's $#$%^*&@! behaviour to make me feel bad.

There are things that really perplex me though, like this:

Walking through the local park this afternoon, I saw that someone had given the signs around the wetlands a make -over. There are plenty of other places they can exercise their talents...

Why? What makes people like this sort of thing?

Some things are here forever... maybe

Antique brass taps, like the one above, are solid, here for a very long time... when they are cared for, watched over, and protected.

Some things seem not to last... they fade away very quickly, like this toadstool in the forest just up the road... 

... but...

I have the feeling that the ephemeral will outlast the solid because the ephemeral is being made new, constantly.

The toadstools will still be leaping out of the ground long after the brass taps have disintegrated. 

Ballarat Art Gallery

I went to the Ballarat Art Gallery today and was really impressed with some of the art works on display - paintings of Fred Williams, Rupert Bunny, Septimus Power (love his horses!) and lots of others.

..but...

Maybe I'm a bit odd, but the image I took away with me was part of the building itself... one of two highly polished brass taps! That's right. Poking out of the wall above the rather grand main stair case as you enter the gallery. Going up the stairs they are behind you, so they are not easily seen. They are things of wonder. They are huge... they are about 10 inches long - about 4 times larger than a standard tap. These were part of the original fire hydrant system in this building from the 1800's.

Behold, the tap!

Its hand cast and finished  friend is on the same wall,  about a foot out out from the balcony on the other side - about 30 feet from the floor below.