Forum Replies Created
-
John: yes, it’s a bit out of the way, and most people who do get there hit the east coast (and fair enough too – there is plenty to see there), but the west has a lot to offer too (and much less crowded!) from the tropical north, through the rough and arid north-west with gorges (I’ll seize this opportunity to add a picture), spinifex and immense iron mining, the wonderful dry-land forests of the goldfields around Kalgoorlie (another picture), Perth (reputedly the most isolated big city in the world – picture), some of the best beaches in the world around Esperance, and the wonderful SW corner. One could easily occupy a couple of months in WA (that means Western Australia to those in the know, not Washington!) alone, but yes, it needs a reasonably generous budget!
These two got lost from my previous post …
Attachments:
I’ll throw in another two bob’s worth: SW Western Australia
Great beaches mixed up with rugged rocky coastline, mixed weather making for good photography (far enough south to feel the ‘roaring forties’ – the westerly gales that sped many a sailing ship on it’s way to Batavia after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, but also drove quite a few onto the rocks if they went too far east before turning north), wonderful wines from the numerous picturesque vineyards (very similar climate to Bordeaux) served up in dozens of welcoming cellar door outlets, pleasant rural scenery (dairy cattle etc), majestic eucalypus forests (including E. diversicolor or Karri -among the tallest of hardwood trees) and other weird endemic vegetation and flowers, and the people rarely bite.
Iceland.
The people are great, the food is good, the coffee excellent, best cheesecake in the world, everything is just so well done – the roads are good (I’m talking the roads, not the tracks through the wilderness), there are wonderful apps with live cams, weather reports and traffic counts and showing road conditions/closures – one always has the feeling that ‘Team Iceland’ is there should you ever need them (but use your brains). Then there is the otherworldly scenery – extraordinary, raw, majestic … . It’s not really that cold (but do bring multiple layers of woolies and something good and waterproof and windproof ). The wind is something else – forget umbrellas.
Sorry – something’s gone haywire with the photos attached. One doubled up (which refuses to disappear), and one missed??
Further thought that came to me as I was sweating away in the gym just now: when such emptiness works it has a similar effect on me as walking into a hardware shop, or a shop selling stationery, or cookware, or art supplies. I sense all this POTENTIAL. All these blank canvases (whether literal or metaphorical) sitting there inviting some creative person to fill them with artistic excellence, be it Boeuf Bourguignon, an elegantly proportioned wooden bookcase, the next great novel or a fine work of art on canvas. The blank space pulls at me. I’ll use this opportunity to post another of my depictions of potential: a space of darkness just waiting for the ferns to fill it with luxuriant growth.
Attachments:
I’m a big fan of negative space – the silence tends to speak louder than any amount of extraneous guff. I’ve attached one of my recent efforts, wherein I think of the space as speaking of all the vast possibilities that the little boat has to sail into. I’m sure some would think that I’ve over-egged the pudding, but I like it (nothing succeeds like excess??).
NB: you have to click on the image to see all of it, including the only bit that isn’t negative space!
Attachments:
… and crocuses. Crocuses do make a splash: Spring Crocus
Attachments:
Fresh green leaves springing from the formerly bare branches – they say ‘spring’ to me.Spring Time
Attachments:
I got my first digital camera early in 2012, and this is the first result with it (in February) where I think I really ‘hit’ my style, isolating the subject from too much distraction, and managing to find some interesting light to bring it to life. Certainly not my best ever photo, but heading in the right direction.Line Up
Attachments:
