Lest We Forget

In the Forecourt of The Shrine :: Tinto 1848 // Float // No flashIn honour of the brave souls who sacrificed all for their countries and their fellow man, lest we forget:

The Dancers

All day beneath the hurtling shells
Before my burning eyes
Hover the dainty demoiselles—
The peacock dragonflies.

Unceasingly they dart and glance
Above the stagnant stream—
And I am fighting here in France
As in a senseless dream.

A dream of shattering black shells
That hurtle overhead,
And dainty dancing demoiselles
Above the dreamless dead.

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

A poem of the First World War, from Men Who March Away, edited by I.M Parsons (Heinemann Educational Books, 1987)

Anzac Day, 2013

A Guardian of The Shrine :: Tinto 1848 // Float // No flash

The Dream Under the Overpass

Oblivion :: Helga Viking // Claunch 72 Monochrome // No flashThe other day I was trawling through my photo archives and came across this photo of a drawing I did over a year ago. I had forgotten all about it, and how I laughed when I saw this picture. It brings to mind Callum Morton’s sculpture Hotel that sits surreally beside the EastLink freeway in Greater Melbourne. (I chuckle every time I flash past it.)

Hotel, Callum Morton 2008I often have very vivid dreams, many about travelling, but I might have forgotten all about this one if I hadn’t made this drawing the next day. I am not sure if it’s a fragment of the one where I was also travelling by bus through the snowy wastes of Russia. Here I had stepped off the road (note the striped roadworkers’ tape in the foreground) to view some sunken apartment buildings just beyond an overpass. I was warned by a fellow traveller not to step nearer because the ground was unsafe. Oh really? I never would have noticed. I didn’t care though – I needed to take photographs of this extraordinary sight. I am absolutely certain I would do the same thing in real life!

Now that I’ve found this photo (goodness knows what happened to the original sketch) this shall have to be turned into a proper drawing I think. 

The Forlorn Things

The Forlorn Kitchen, 15 February 2011 :: Lucifer VI // BlacKeys B+W // No flashDuring my daily perambulations one of my favourite things to do is to spot lost things and photograph them using my favourite photographic app, Hipstamatic. I’ve collected many, many photos over the years.

Some of the items aren’t strictly ‘lost’ – they’ve been abandoned or carelessly dumped, but many of these items are both pathetic and amusing.

The Forlorn Cosmetics, 26 January 2013 :: Watts // Claunch 72 Monochrome // No flash The Forlorn Sparrow, 1 December 2011 :: Matty ALN // Claunch 72 Monochrome// Laser Lemon GelThese lost things range from the enormous (an entire kitchen left on a nature strip in my street), to the bizarre (a zebra-printed floating armchair caught in the rushes of the Yarra River), to the tiny (a button on the steps up to the Shrine monument), the predictable (innumerable hats and thongs left behind in the Botanic Gardens, broken umbrellas thrust headfirst into rubbish bins), the unpredictable (a cat playground complete with scratching post and dangling fake mouse, in the back alleys of South Yarra where I live) and the truly forlorn (a tiny sparrow lost amongst a flock of wrought-iron ducks).

I’ve endured the stares of strangers – wondering what on earth I’m photographing, crouching on the ground – and you can now see some of these pictures in my new Hipstagallery, The Forlorn Things.

Revisit Lost Things here.

The Forlorn Jacket, 5 February 2013 :: Tinto 1848 // D-Type Plate // No flash

O What a Beautiful Morning!

What a beautiful morning :: Abbie // Dixie // No flashThis was yesterday’s morning sky. Isn’t it beautiful? It makes me feel the glory of being alive. And the Little Fancy comes from a spring afternoon from last November.

Little white clouds :: November 10th, 2012, 5:17:14pm

Little white clouds
sail through the sky
like marshmallow puffs,
on their way to die
from roasting in the fire

but the sun,
the sun is kinder
and merely chases them away.

I’m Melting, Melting!

Little Tin Man :: Loftus // C-Type Plate // No flashIsn’t this tin toy ice cream man just the cutest? He is a little find from a quaint little doll shop in Blackheath, in the Blue Mountains. I felt greedy buying two, and was torn between the blue and white sailor-themed carousel (you can just make it out in the right of the photo below) and this little man. The imminent arrival of my train forced me to hurriedly choose and the primary colours and the blooming cheeks of the ice cream man won out.

Tin Toys :: Tinto 1848 // C-Type Plate // No flashThere was also a sweet clown on a tricycle tempting me, but the front wheel seemed to be missing, so that discounted him. There was a large selection altogether, including the classic tin robots and monkeys on bikes, all remarkably inexpensive. I remember I had some as a child – possibly a ladybug, or something else that skittered constantly across the kitchen floor.

Meanwhile, Melbourne shows no sign of cooling down by much yet – I feel like I’m melting in my extremely hot apartment, a bit like this melting ice cream truck. This brilliant and witty piece of sculpture, called Hot With the Chance of Late Storm, is by The Glue Society, and was unveiled at the 2006 Sculpture by the Sea exhibition in Sydney. No chance of a storm here and now though, apparently.

Hot With the Chance of Late Storm, by The Glue Society, 2006