blue-grey variations

I seem to be gravitating towards blues and greys today.  Here’s a selection.

agapanthus

spoonbills and stilts
Lake Lanier
80 Mile Beach

Manly Corso, Sydney

public art and decoration

Public art serves a high purpose. It can be fun, the spark for conversation, a cause for quiet reflection or all of the above. Sometimes it’s a decorative feature hidden away waiting to be noticed. Sometimes it’s loud and huge in an in-your-face way. It’s always a matter of individual taste and opinion.

Forever Marilyn – Seward Johnson

This larger than life statue was temporarily located on North Michigan Avenue, Chicago in 2011-2012.  It is currently living in Palm Springs, California. As a piece of public art ‘she’ did her job well, attracting both praise and criticism.

Joshua Reynolds’ words

Above the entrance of the Franklin Building at 720 South Dearborn Street in the Printers Row district of Chicago is this quotation by 18th century English artist Joshua Reynolds.  The building was designed in 1912 at the height of the art nouveau period.

The quotation also appears across the entrance of the perhaps more famous Victoria and Albert Museum in London in a very different style.

Unicyclist – South Bank in Brisbane – suspended work – artist unknown

Search – bronze – 1975 – J Seward Johnson Jr (the same Seward Johnson responsible for Marilyn) in Devonian Harbour Park, Vancouver.

Now that I look at this again, I guess the man sitting next to the sculpture was possibly searching too. 🙂

Bike rack – Chicago

Paint tube on light pole – Bayamo, Cuba – an town where many artists live

landscapes

Today the play is with landscapes. I particularly like the effect on the Glasshouse Mountains panorama. It feels like film stock from the 70s or earlier.

Glasshouse Mountains, S E Queensland

Cable Beach, Western Australia – surf and sand grasses

British Columbia, Canada  – sun and snow

pop effects on photographs

The thing I’m loving most about turning photographs into different images is that even the most imperfect, long-distance, sometimes out-of-focus photograph has the potential to become something quite visually pleasing.

boy on bike on beach

galahs at Julia Creek

sunset photographs

Like most people who own a camera, I’m a sucker for sunsets.  More image play from original photos.

80 Mile Beach sunset (Western Australia)

80 Mile Beach grasses at sunset

Halong Bay sunset – Vietnam

Cable Beach grasses at sunset

Derby Wharf sunset

morning visitor – a white-faced heron

Through the window in my office, I have a good view of the garden and am able to see occasional visitors of note.

This morning it was this white-faced heron.  Because the glare was right behind him, all I was getting on the screen was a silhouette. It took a great deal of pushing the exposure and some other tweaks to get this image happening.

And then the bird flew next door. A different angle and different light meant an easier transition to an image that did the heron a little more justice, despite the longer distance.

floral forms

Street flowers – Sydney

purple spray

Sturt’s Desert Pea

Pandanus – Darwin shore