PhotoFriday :: Architecture

The Contrast of Old & New

For PhotoFriday‘s topic Architecture

The Patch :: Street Art

This weeks The Patch theme is about Graffiti/Street Art/Architecture, this really only leaves me one place to take a picture, the areas around Hosier Lane, which has become famous for its street art. It seems it is the go to place to have your wedding photos taken and on most tourist guides. But all is not well there, much of the decent art is over painted, often with tags and pointless profanities. Ok its a colourful enough scene but perhaps the art is suffering. So a loose coalition of street artist, with council backing, are painting the walls black again to let a new generation of street art develop. Not everyone is happy, you can see a paste up in support has been ripped off and tagged over already (image on the left). I think the image on the right is the better ambassador for street art in Melbourne.
 
quote from the torn paste-up above left

“it's not about respecting nor disrespecting anyone
its about equality everybody having a turn
all art means something to some one”

The Patch :: The Big M by night.

This one is not HDR! 

I missed to opportunity to photograph some of the great architectural features in Melbourne last week as I was having some net access issues and didn't look up this months themes in time. However I resolved to photography interesting detail on one of the Harry Sielder's buildings that were design for the the Waverly Council. I have always liked the big M fountain/foyer in front of the council chambers and figured a photo of it gleaming white in front of a bright blue Australian summer sky would be perfect for this week's the patch theme building features/architecture. Well I've been there a few of times and its been overcast and/or with a strong smoke haze.The white tiles aren't gleaming anymore, but it would be unkind to say they need a clean. So I figured a night shot my be called for, hoping that the facade and fountain would be floodlit.  No Luck there either.  Anyone from around here will recoignize the Big M, not as a well known brand of milk, but the logo of the Monash City council, which took over from the Waverly when Victorian councils were amalgamated. Just goes to show Harry was ahead of his time.

  

In difficult light I often switch over to take a bracketed series and because I still have auto-backup running my images pass by Google+ Auto Awesome filters. Normally it either tries to make them into stop motion movies or something altogether garish and scary. So I tend to ignore them. However I don't mind these two above, which give some idea of the facade by day and by night. I know I keep giving google+'s auto awesomes a hard time, but they are harmless, the original upload remain untouched and you don't have to share them or quick on the "you have .x. auto awesomes waiting" link.

I actually like this one on the right which has a passing car lighting the lower areas, in a couple of the frames, it captures the warm night feel.

A bit of scouting for the patch.

I was out doing a bit of scouting looking for architectural features for this week patch theme and was sniffing around the Harry Seidler designed council offices. Like a lot of buildings it is now surrounded and towered over by less interesting buildings and you have walk around it and glimpse bits here and there to appreciate the whole. A situation that is hard to present in one phone, but a composite collage can begin to layout and unwrap the design.

The collage was created with picasa;s picture pile collage tool, which I do like for such situations as this. Its capable of assembling Hockney style joiners quickly and easily. I however ran into a persistent problem trying to use the Blog This button. Given that the Share on Google+ makes it harder to share to blogger I am getting that unnerving feelings about google’s intention to maintain or not the very popular blogger and picasa platforms?  So with a fair delay I ended up posting this via Windows Live Writer! Go figure?

Melbourne's Arcades