G+ Anniversary Adelaide Photowalk #3

Well, I'm sort of cheating on this post, the 3rd in the series of the G+ Anniversary Photowalk in Adelaide (from the 30th June)... in that I actually went to the Botanic Gardens twice, once on the way to the National Wine Centre, and the second time on the way back from the BBQ (on the way to a birthday party)... So I've sort of thrown them altogether... so apologies if you think something strange has happened...

Now given that's it's very late, and I'd like to get to bed, I've decided that I won't write much today (yeah, I hear you say... or at least you would if you were reading this)... Actually I've written about the Botanic Gardens before (here in October and then again here  in Nov 2010). It's acutally interesting to look back and compare photos from back then...

In the afternoon, I was blessed with some rather wonderful clouds ... the thunderstorms that had been forecast for earlier in the day never materialised, but they did produce some fantastic skyscapes for photography.

And the Adelaide Centennial Conservatory did the rest... it's a natural photogenic structure... so when in Rome, buy a pizza.

I have to say that I've not been too careful on my processing, and I might come back to these photos to bring out a little more oomph to them. But for the moment, I'm pretty happy with minimum effort (I believe I mentioned before about how lazy I am...).

The glass water sculpture to the south of the Conservatory is also quite an interesting subject matter too....so many different things going on, it's hard to know what to focus on when taking photos here.

And now with just a hint of colour...

But it wasn't all glass and steel... the Botanic Gardens has lots to see. Unfortunately both times I was there, I didn't really get an opportunity to spend much time. So these photos are a little rushed.

One of the problems with a Photowalk is that if you're with someone (I was walking with +David Fielding in the morning, first time through) it's always difficult to talk, walk AND look for taking photos. Especially if people like taking different sorts of photos. Still, we made our way through the gardens at the time of morning when there was still some beautiful light..

And just enough time to take time to smell the mushrooms.

And on the other scale of plants, there's quite a good cactii garden here too....

And sculpture is very much a part of the Botanic Gardens too.

Ok... I couldn't resist at least one more gratuitous architectural photo.

Did I say one photo? I meant one lot of photos. Actually the Water-lily House is one of the really interesting structures here...

And it's great for exploring glass, reflections, and lines.

It is also normally very good for taking some lovely photos of water lilies as well, but unfortunately the cold, moist air when mixed with the heat from the glass house was instantly covering every glass surface (read: my camera lens) with a sea of condensation. Score one for the power of water.

And speaking of water, and reflections, it's good to find interesting versions of these things... in the strangest of places...

Like the hollowed remnants of an old fallen tree...

Where even death, brings the promise of new life... 

But where life itself can take on the strangled frenzy of death and corruption. Actually this photo reminds me of the mangrove swamps down at St Kilda.... 

And then there's the glorious trees along Plane Tree Drive that runs along the northern boundary of the gardens... the point of all of this... if ever you're in the city on a fine day (or even a not so fine day), check out the Botanic Gardens. There's something interesting here all the time, even in the middle of winter.

Walking Through Adelaide - Photo Fun Pt 1

Well today I'm stuck at home getting over a cold, and feeling like taking it easy in front of the computer for a little while. I've just realised how little I've been posting of late - mostly due to some pretty insatiable work demands that have been consuming most of my time. And what time I've had left has been pretty well devoted to family time. As it should be.

Still, I'd like to push out a few more of my photos from the other month... a trip into the heart of Adelaide... where I just had one thing on my mind. Experiment taking photos. Well - these photos aren't exactly experimental, but they were fun for me to do. And the one thing I've been experimenting more with is B&W photography (care of some simple filtering in Picasa).

One of the more interesting sights in the city centre - and quite at the other end of the historical spectrum - is the Rundle Lantern. This was a light-sculptural feature that was built to hide one of the ugly car parks in the city and has now become a very the canvas for a quite interesting light show that plays every night (one evening I'll have to come down and take some video of it... but in the meantime have a look at this video by Martin Whipp).

Statue to Sir Ross Smith, who along with his brother Keith and Jim Bennett and Wally Shiers, were the first people to fly from England to Australia in 1919 (took 28 days and 135 flying hours!). He actually was one of the original Anzac's that landed in Galipoli back in 1915, and was also a WWI fighter ace... and was even the pilot for Lawrence of Arabia (of all people). These days we often forget the people that have forged such remarkable places in our history. Now you can find his statue, almost secluded alongside the Adelaide Oval.

Adelaide has some great architecture that dates from the late 19th century and early 20th century. And some of the best examples can be found along North Terrace with the Museum, Art Gallery, and Adelaide University in particular. Today I was more interested in the details rather than the buildings - plus I already had my 50-250mm lens on... The somewhat unusual tone work was just achieved using a very simple colour B&W filter which can really add some nice subtle textures especially against the sky blue tones.

I'm a sucker for some good old neo-gothic architecture, and Adelaide's architects were apparently too... And Adelaide University's Mitchell Building (built around 1880) is a classic Gothic Revival style that you can see spotted throughout the city.

With just a little tweaking of the filter, you can add some very nice tones to the B&W images... or at least they please my eye.

An almost B&W photo... I'm sorry I couldn't resist my tribute to Shindler's List symbolism... ok.... it wasn't that good a tribute. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to frame the shot, or wait for the cars to take off from the traffic lights... and it was hard to get the focus right to get the reflection in the water feature. Did it work... not quite, but it was worth a try.

And a couple of near-monochromatic photos for good measure. North Terrace has a number of Plane Trees  along it's wide boulevard, which make for a beautifully green walk in summer. Coming out of winter however, they also have these amazing seeds that look almost like dried Christmas decorations. Adelaide has a strange relationship with it's native and introduced flora. These Oriental Plane Trees were originally planted in Adelaide in 1910.... that's over a century of historical significance.

A little bit of a boost from the saturation on this photo brings a very different look and feel to the masonry on this tower detail from the Mitchell Building (see above).

Anyway - that's one more off my list of posts in a steadily growing backlog.

Adelaide's Rundle Street Architecture - A Change of Pace

For all the going's on in the world, there's often no place like home. And home for me is Adelaide. Good ol' Adelaide. Now, Adelaide is a relatively young city, having been founded in 1836, and as a "free colony". That gave us a few things - most notably the distinctively "proper spoken english" with it's fuller, more rounded vowel sounds, as well as a much larger proportion of German Lutheran settlers around the outskirts of the city. The nature of the colony was also such that we never really out-grew our colony status... and to this day, Adelaide has a "big country town" feel that is often noted by inter-state visitors.

It also has Rundle Mall... the central shopping district of the CDB. A throw-back to the 70's when Malls were a novel invention to post-war Australia. A street for pedestrians. Add to that the 70's architectural modernism as encapsulated by the Mall's Balls (the two silver spheres shown above).

The architecture of Adelaide owes a lot to the period of it's founding, and indeed there remains a few relics of that time - including a fountain cast in the late 1800's. This is always a mecca for kids in summer... though it used to be filled with a white foaming substance (I don't even want to imagine what sort of chemical they used to put in there). Thankfully, it's now a more "normal" if coppery colour.

So Rundle Mall (which extends on to Rundle Street to the east) is the heart of the city. Looking at it, you might not be that impressed. And for good reason. It's meant to be a casual place for spring and autumn with plenty of outdoors walking. In winter and summer, pedestrians are always clambering to find shelter or shade respectively. Indeed, around late February you can see that in the later part of the afternoon, the Mall gets quite shaded anyhow.

Now I am no architect - amongst a great many things that I can safely say I'm not. But I do like looking at buildings as a way of reading the history of a city. And Adelaide has a fairly traditional, though slightly off-centre architectural heritage. I was hoping to take you on a quick walk down the Mall to see some of the more notable, though often unnoticed buildings. Actually, after I went looking... even I was quite surprised at the heritage that I had been walking around in - and the very unusual styles that pervaded the early buildings of Adelaide.

The Regent Arcade (below), like the Adelaide Arcade (next below) have a lot of style... ok they're not quite on the same scale as the QVB in Sydney, but they're grand old buildings that have been given a nice facelift of  late.

Regent Arcade

Adelaide Arcade in particular has a very nice style - which I will have to photograph next time I'm in Adelaide with my camera (not that often).

Adelaide Arcade

Yet beyond these obvious buildings, the real interesting story for me begins not at street level, but rather higher up - where the original buildings stand above the newer facia with a some kind of greek-like tragic pose. The styles are varied - but elaborate is an underlying theme. There is no real order to these photos - and no real story to the architecture... as I said, I'm no architecture expert.

And as you move into Rundle Street proper, it is actually a bit like walking on to a stage from an old historical movie (admittedly I'm showing a biased sample here). Still, you get the feeling of what sort of architectural skeletons can be found without too much effort in Adelaide's central business district.

One of the nice buildings is the old Adelaide Fruit and Produce Exchange building, or market. Though it's days of being a market have recently been replaced by trendy apartment living (not shown here) - there remains some of the old character. The east-end of the city really had a beautiful (and sometimes bohemian) feel to it. That's now replaced by the cafe set... still pleasant, but lacking much of the real honest personality.

The one building that I missed to photograph is the Adeliade Beehive building at the other (western) end of Rundle Mall - this building was owned by John Rundle (ah - now it's starting to make sense). I'll add that to my list of photo projects to do.