Weekly Photography Challenge: Beloved

I love a lot of people and things, so choosing a particular beloved as my subject is a challenge indeed…

However, I saw my beloved Foo Fighters last week, supported by Weezer (love them too!), so here are some pictures from the show at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne. Every time I’ve seen them, I’ve been further away, I think! The first time I saw them play mid afternoon at the Big Day Out – I forget what year it was – and not all that many people cared. Now they can fill a stadium, and our seats were way up near the roof…Once the lights were out and the music began, I forgot about our vertiginous perch, and just enjoyed the show.

 

As the sun went down, golden rays lit up the windows on the far side of the auditorium, making for a light show that rivalled that on stage. Later on, Dave Grohl asked for darkness and then for the crowd to turn on their phones for a magical display of unity.

There’s nothing like a bit of community singing to cheer the heart, and there was plenty of that before the show was over and we all filed back outside. What’s not to love?

Weekly Photography Challenge: Peek

The main subject of a photo is generally front and centre, but for this challenge, we just offer a peek at it.

I’ve gone back to Seattle and 2011 for my images – I saw a flyer while we were there from a photographer offering to take visitors to the perfect spot to take their perfect pic of the Space Needle. I wasn’t remotely interested in doing that – may as well buy the postcard if you’re getting the same shot as everyone else!

Instead, I enjoyed taking photos of enticing glimpses of the icon.

I took more than these three…I didn’t go inside it, but I loved seeing it. The first pic is from our hotel window, the last is its reflection on a wall of the Experience Music Project.

We spent a lot of our time at the Seattle Center – we could walk there as it was close to our hotel, and there was plenty to do and see, even apart from the Taking Punk To The Masses Nirvana exhibition that was on at the time. We went to a kids Bandcamp concert, and a free show outdoors one afternoon. I had a peek at legendary Seattle photographer Charles Peterson who was there with family, and photographing the bands – a major highlight for me! 

Weekly Photography Challenge: Corner

Standing on the corner, or in the corner… so many possible angles to this challenge….

I’ve chosen a corner of my life – and the corners of my sunroom, which I’ve been redecorating and decluttering (work in progress!)for some time. My Dad built this room – an extension of the existing verandah – about 25 years ago. It was his therapy after my sister died, and it’s served a number of functions over the years. On a sunny winter afternoon, the couch is the best seat in the house – and a favourite spot for the cat, of course.

Taking photos of my decor gives me a greater appreciation for the work of interiors photographers – there’s more too it than plumping the cushions and clicking the button! I suspect that someone does a lot of tidying and “editing” of the homes we see in magazines. I’d love to see before and after styling pics – I think they’d be instructive!

Weekly Photography Challenge: Underneath the Bridge

When I read this week’s challenge theme (a week that is nearly over…) there was only one bridge  I was thinking of. I did take some photos while crossing a bridge over the Murray recently – only there was no card in the camera…we’ll have to go that way again sometime, and try again.

We have plans to visit Aberdeen, Washington again someday, and if we do, we will certainly visit the famous bridge again. It must have been a great private spot forty years ago, now not so much…it’s a place of pilgrimage instead. Someone had carved “KURT” in giant letters on the mud of the bank, and every accessible surface was embellished with graffiti –  messages to Kurt, and quotes of Nirvana lyrics, mostly. All that will have changed by now.

Bryan insisted on taking a photo of me standing under it. I’m the photographer in our family, which means I don’t get in many photos. This was August 2011, and about halfway through our month in the Pacific North West.

Weekly Photography Challenge: Heritage

My Dad was an inveterate collector, obsessed with the rich heritage of Regency England’s gunmakers. He was famous amongst the arcane circle of gun collectors for his encyclopedic knowledge of the guns, their makers and their wealthy, titled owners. As a boy he loved pirate stories, and tales of derring-do, which morphed and grew as the years went by. He always excused his expensive habit as “investment”, which has proved true. Most have them have been sold now, which is rather sad, but inevitable.

I didn’t inherit Dad’s  passion for “Old Guns”, but I definitely have the collector gene, if there is one…None of my collections are going to realise much fiscal value in years to come, but that’s not the point. I like tracking down and looking at this stuff!

Some things I collect become parts of mixed media art – such as the wind-chime I made from a bit of  a broken coffee plunger and a lot of detritus. Then there’s vintage orange plastic (sometimes I buy green, too, but mainly orange), coloured glass (seen alongside a Russian samovar, which was Dad’s, not sure why he bought it!), vintage textiles, which I actually use, eventually, and a shelf of books about Kurt Cobain/Nirvana. Oh, and fake plastic (and ceramic) cacti, because…why not?

Weekly Photography Challenge: Wish

Share a wish…I could have found more iterations of this wish for peace love and empathy, but three seems like enough for now. The yellow background piece is a page from an artist scrapbook I made some years ago – lots of bits of junk and scraps of paper went into it, and it was great fun to make. You can see it here.

The rocks I collected over a period of time – “freedom” and “rock’n’roll” are in there too, and I wish I had more of both.

The last image was done digitally, using an art programme the kids had. It was fun, but frustrating trying to draw with the mouse. Much more sophisticated versions are available now, and that programme is well and truly out of date now, but I’m glad I thought to print this one off to keep.

I’ve found a rock with “Love” carved into it since taking the first photo, so that’s at least one wish fulfilled. I also wish someone would come and do my dusting…

Weekly Photography Challenge: The Road Taken

Every day, we take one road or another, and where we end up depends on the road taken. Most days it’s the same old road, and sometimes it’s an adventure. This adventure began last September, when I booked tickets to see Pixies play in Melbourne. The concert was the day before my birthday, which made it “meant to be”!

We live in country Victoria, so it was a longish trip by coach and train to the city, before a leisurely stroll along Southbank (via the food court for a burrito), then along the banks of the Yarra, and across a bridge to find the Margaret Court Arena among all the other sports venues. We sat outside for a while, watching other patrons arriving, because people-watching is half the fun.

Once inside, local band the Merlocs got things started, and I couldn’t resist the image of red light and moving shadows. If the floor had been full, as it was an hour later, it wouldn’t have looked like that! The Pixies were, of course, awesome, and ended the night with Into the White in a cloud of white smoke. After that, it was a brisk walk back to the city alongside dozens of other people, under the light of the moon.

Weekly Photography Challenge:Path +Poem

The week between Christmas and New Year is always rather strange – days seem to stretch and contract in the wake of the rush leading up to the holiday for some reason. We’ve also had some days of tropical heat and humidity, which are difficult to deal with in a normally Mediterranean climate…So it’s Friday already, and my path has at last reached WordPress for the Weekly Photography Challenge.

This path is in the Japanese Garden in Portland Oregon, which we visited in 2011, and hope to see again some day. That’s a physical path. This poem travels a path too, and I took another path through my photos, looking for some to illuminate the poem.

I walked out the gate
And saw a rainbow
(Symbol of peace and hope)
My heart
(Symbol of love and passion)
Leapt up
sending the blood
(Symbol of empathy and life)
Coursing through my veins.

I couldn’t find an image of an actual rainbow, but I love prisms in the windows and the rainbows they cast around the room on sunny days. Tran(s)cendence (oops) is an image taken when I had a film camera and had to wait to have my pictures developed to find out how they turned out. It became part of a series of “Sukie’s Original Covers” – handmade CD covers using my work that I thought looked like “Cover Art”, inspired in no small way by Pixies “Dolittle”with Simon Larbalestier’s amazing photography in the inlay booklet.

Sukie’s Original became the name I use for all my artwork, and the Trancendence image is now printed on beautiful scarves by Vida. That’s a path I never expected to travel, but I’m happy that I did.

Weekly Photography Challenge: Relax

At this time of year, with the clarion call of “buy! buy! BUY!” ringing across the land, “relax” is truly a challenge! Cats don’t have any urge to do Christmas shopping, so maybe that’s why Morgen can manage to sleep most of the day (and night). Me remaking the bed was only a temporary interruption…

I like my old eiderdowns (I’m not sure why they got the name – there’s no down in them) with their sweet rosey prints. They’ve usually got some wear and tear (literal) that has to be underneath out of sight.One of my cushions was made (upcycled) from a Nirvana Muddy Banks tee-shirt (wear and tear again!). The back of it features photos of the actual banks of the Wishkah River, from our visit there 5 years ago (they really are muddy…). Sewing is a way I like to relax, but I like to get the tidying up done first, unfortunately.

Friday Poem:To The Poet II

More than forty years ago, my husband joined a Record Club (LPs!). The deal was to buy six quite cheaply, and promise faithfully to buy more at the normal price. He ordered the five he liked, and Songs of Leonard Cohen to make up the six. I don’t know what the others were now, but I knew a poet when I heard one and bought all his albums over the years. I used to stack them in chronological order (can’t do that any more) and listen to Uncle Leonard while I painted. And now he’s gone, it seems, on that inevitable journey…

Leonard where are you?
Where in the widening world –
Across what sea, what ocean,
On what continent?
In what house, what room, what space?
Beside what window;
Looking at what view –
What street, what hill, what trees,
What flowers?
Where is your mind, your art,
Your style?
Leonard where are you now?

I wrote the poem in 1981, it seems so long ago (Nancy…)