Art and Practice
While blogging every day has been great to do again, finding stuff to post hasn’t been as easy. I’m trying to write some new posts, and hoped to have one done for today, but it didn’t happen. However, as I was looking through older posts I found this. It is one from July 2015. It is a relevant one for me right now, so it was good reposting this UfD post about photographing with company.
Read more
The weather has been horrible for getting out to take photos. Not really wanting to get out hasn’t helped. Today it seemed like a good idea to try reposting something from the past. Remembering the Weekend Wanderings posts, I thought I would repost one from the Swan Hill Pioneer Settlement.
Read more
There seems to be this idea that if you are a serious photographer that you should go out on your own to take photos. I have never believed this or thought I was any less of a photographer because I don’t like doing that. It’s not that I don’t, I just prefer to have friends when I do. There are a few reasons for wanting to have people with you when you go out and here are 5.
Read more
Driving around the countryside in Victoria, Australia, you are bound to come across old homes that are home to no one anymore. Some of them are easy to get to, while others you need to get permission to go there.
They are made from different assorted materials. Usually very small. It is amazing to consider what they lived in back then and what we live in now. It is also amazing how solidly they were built, considering how quickly houses seem to fall apart these days.
This is on the roadside and many people stop to photograph it. I don’t know if it was a home, but has usual markings of a small two roomed house from the 19th century. Buildings like this are very common around central Victoria from the gold rush days. Many tiny homes. I’ve been in a couple of them and they are so small. I couldn’t imagine living in one of them. What’s that old saying, no room to even swing a cat. I know it isn’t a good saying, but fits what I was trying to say.
This old home is a lot bigger than the previous one, but it is no longer inhabited and has been devoid of life for some time, around 100 years. It was abandoned to make way for a reservoir or dam. The Loddon River was sort of dammed and this house was under water for a very long time. I don’t know when it emerged, but think it may have happened during the drought we had at the beginning of this century. I don’t know if it will ever go under again as our climate warms up and water becomes scarcer.
Another reason for empty homes is that as farms join and get bigger and bigger the homes of the original farms are no longer needed and are just vacated and left.
For whatever reason the homes are abandoned it is good for us photographers. There are so many photographers that love abandoned buildings, so they now get a new purpose. I am finding more and more all the time.
On my trip to the US I didn’t have a lot of time to really spend on my images and doing things to them the way I really wanted to. I also didn’t have the right computer or gear to do it either. I love my Wacom Tablet, but it wasn’t sensible to take it with me. Now that I am home and have sorted some things out I’ve really been enjoying getting immersed in the possibilities of what you can do to an image.
Over on my other blog I have done a post on Riverside Park in New York, but the images have only been processed quickly in Lightroom. For those that are following me here I have some extra images. They are ones that I have played with. I’m not really sure where I am going with them, but I like to change what is there and see what I can do with them. Maybe change the mood or the lighting, make it feel as it didn’t before.
This was the first one. It is the buildings along the edge of the park. The sun was bright and I liked that, but at the same time I wanted that apocalyptic feel to it. Of course there are people there, but I didn’t want them to stand out. These massive giants overshadowing everything.
This one is a similar scene. This time taken from a pier looking back towards the Upper Westside and those giants again. They could represent so many things. The problem with our society today, the greed, the consumerism, capitalism at its best. The society of look at me, aren’t I amazing. Of course, I could just be ranting as well.
Then there are the brownstones. Lovely buildings from an era gone I suspect. I love seeing them and wished I had spent more time uptown than down and seen more of these beauties. I think I am a fan of older architecture.
If you click on any of the images you will get a gallery as well so you can look at them individually.
