Statuesque

For any other members of the Utata group on Flickr, a discussion rages at the moment on the subject of photographing sculpture.
I continue to find it much easier to capture the fall of light and shadow on works of art than to engage with the very complex nature of portraiture. Statues are what they are... people's faces change with every passing mode and shift of the head, leaving me slightly dizzy.

Having given street photography a wide berth I now intent to work on toning and bringing the stone and metal to life, if possible.

It Does Make One Think

The imperative to make objects and artifacts is one of the most unusual aspects of human life.

Gulliver and Dublin

This is a surprisingly often viewed photo on Flickr. It is one of a series taken over several years of sand sculptures in Dublin.

Mostly they can be found in Summer in an interior couryard in Dublin Castle, but since I'm not a great fan of the medium used I haven't bothered to upload any more.

I don't much like Swift's writing either and while Sweet Auburn was a favourite literary reference point for adults when I was growing up, I found his writing coarse. Rabelais has the same effect and the recent dramatisation on Radio Four left me with nothing to listen to for a dull hour on a Sunday night.

The official media are a puzzle... as is why so many people bothered to look at this somewhat indiffent photo.

The artist in this case was excellent, but since the work was surrounded by protective metal girders I found it really difficult to photograph it well. (An update... Oliver Goldsmith, not Swift wrote "The Deserted Village" and I've sorted the confusion out by posting on Widgetinghour. This post has reminded me, as if I needed reminding, that the pleasure of keeping a blog is that it involves uploading only material that one enjoys and not having to produce work that is paid for by others.)

Statuesque

There is one subject that could be better represented on the Internet... Sculpture.

Statues are everywhere nowadays and they make large and obvious subjects for anybody who has little patience with nature's buzzing and flapping or the impossibility of capturing a "true portrait" of people one meets.

I am always aware of the incredible effort taken to make an object in resistant materials that is meant to last for a very long time, if not forever.

The statues in the Giusti Garden in Verona disport themselves so strangely through the formal hedging that it took several hours before I could comfortably capture them. Whoever placed them where they are must have had a sense of humour, as they don't conform to what the ordinary viewer is trained to expect.

They wanted to confuse the new visitor?
Or perhaps they did not have a classical sense of proportion?

The reason is probably lost in the mists of time.

Cranbourne

Cranbourne Gardens are a must for any garden lover.

. There are thousands of native species planted and although I have never yet seen a Southern Brown Bandicoot, I live in hope.