Rustique Winders

A local view with high dynamic range (HDR) and filter.

James

Playing with mirrors

At the Myer art deco ballroom, some months ago.

Because, what's a ballroom without mirrors in which to admire the scene (and your hair)?

There & Back Again

It's been quiet here.

But we're back.  I noticed on our return that the crisp all-too-bushfire ready grass made the same crunchy noise at +35 degrees as the snow in Canada did at -2 degrees*.

We'll get a few blog posts together of some of the many highlights and fun things we got to see and do on our Christmas and New Year extravaganza over the next few days and weeks, so check back and please let us know you're stopping by!

James

( * For those still stuck using Fahrenheit, that's 'really hot' and 'just below freezing' - or 308.15 and 271.15 Kelvin.)

Holiday Memories

It's always nice to get a CD of pics from a now-not-so-recent holiday.

This pic (by Pam) is of us enjoying the kayaks on Endeavour Inlet, New Zealand. Pretty topping.

James

More cars at the Rock

As I said this time last year, every year, on the Valentine's Day weekend, the Macedon Ranges & District Motor Club hosts the 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' car show. It's a great event with thousands of interesting cars in a unique venue and really is a giant picnic. Here's this year's selection, starting (above) with a Yank Tank in front of the Rock.

While there's a fair amount of repetition of popular classics, there's enough rare and odd stuff if you keep looking. There's a French bias in this list, just because the French built so much neat machinery. After all what car show would be complete without a DS Goddess?

The Nash above is the first of many contenders of why the American machines are bigger than the British; although a Mini on the wing's hardly fair!

Good to see an old friend from London.

That famous signature logo pops up all over.

Australian icon, the early Holden.

And of course a good representation from Germany. Beetles (or Bugs) are still popular worldwide, but Australia has a good representation of the other 60s types on the road as well.

However you don't see many of these here, however common they are in Europe. This one for Greg!

I'm not sure, but I think that may be Thunderbird 9. FAB!*

Neat logo, and an English reminder. Not so exotic in the local lingo, sadly.

Winner of Best Commercial and oldest driver (at 88, for the owner) this magnificent Thornycroft, with solid tyres.

And if your parents are dedicated, no need for the young ones to miss out. However the green machines 'off-driveway' capability seemed as limited as you'd expect. Think the motor got a bit grumpy.

Just in from the Sudan, or possibly a Victorian barn...

The locals were very patient with all the visitors. This guy seemed a lot more sensible than his many admirers (they are wild animals and they can kick hard, folks). The Moggies seemed almost as rare this year.

One of the overall views. It's a great venue.

And to finish, Austin corner. Didn't Noddy drive one of these?

More pictures, including the above, can be seen here in my photo account.

James

*Thanks to the various people who've kindly helped the idiot who tried to make a lame joke about how the car looks a bit like one of the Thunderbird Supermarionation machines, and was nothing to do with Ford Thunderbird cars, or the USAF Thunderbirds, or a drink or any stations west... It's actually a 1965 Buick Rivera. Please do not continue to write in.

An Art Noir

We watched 'The Woman in the Window' (1944) last night, and I certainly found it enjoyable, but very much a film from another time. Directed by Fritz Laing, I didn't realise that it was often cited as one of the seminal films that set what we now know as 'film noir'.

The actual 'woman in the window' is actually in a painting in a shop window, before she appears to the main character - played against type by Edward G Robinson - as a reflection in that same window. It's a bit of a clumsy-clever title for a remarkably suspicious trick at the point the film takes off.

You wouldn't point to it as a genre establishing film on its own accord, and Robinson seems bumbling and out of sorts which may be good acting - or may be seen as a usually scary actor out of place.

Of the small ensemble cast Heidt, the corrupt ex-cop turned 'tail', and now a blackmailer, played by Dan Duryea, is the most convincing, perhaps because he is the only charecter with some snap and dynamism to him; the others often seem like they're sleepwalking. Perhaps the latter befuddlement is what happens in reality to 'normal' people is such a trapped situation, but it doesn't play well.

Whether you like the film or not, there's some interesting takes on it here (film showing 'free will' or not) and here, the latter including some musing on the role of artworks in the period in film:

"Elsaesser wonders if this indicates the revenge of cinema on painting or if the filmmakers are unconscious of the fact that the paintings they include are bad. (Could it be that they can only afford or find mediocre painters to execute them? Or could it be that because portraits of fictional characters in films are themselves fictional, they necessarily lack authenticity? Since the portrait is simply a prop, it does not need to be a genuine or great work of art.) His explanation is as follows: 'the mediocrity of these portrait paintings is less a matter of aesthetics and more a question of ontology… mediocrity being here the effect of a certain void or vertigo emanating from the portrait, or rather its pretence of a presence… it is bad… because of the multiple perturbations it brings to the narrative.'"

A good start at the budgeting point, unfortunately going into art-crit onanism. For what it's worth, and as can be seen in the still from the film (above) it's not a bad painting by any means and a better likeness of the subject than most of the filmic kind. There are plenty of 'great' paintings of people who are frauds, fakes and even actors in role*.

I would agree that generally most artworks in film (where they are created as solo or incidental props for those films) vary from low quality to risible. Other paintings, where the subject of the film is perhaps a painter or their oeuvre, the artwork can be of remarkable standard - I'm thinking of Bratbys in 'The Horse's Mouth'. A film for another discussion, another day.

James

*That's the great Ellen Terry as a truly terrifying Lady Macbeth by a chap called Sergeant.

6,000 Sticky notes

This Deadline film should make you smile.

One of those things that you'd think you could do yourself (if you'd have thought of it) but soon realise there's a lot more to it than the initial, simple impression. 6,000 sticky notes, 3 months planning, and a 4 day shoot.

The follow up of a sticky figure man traveling the world is even more fun, albeit an advert for a sticky note company. The making of Deadline and Deadline Two (Sticking Close To You) can be found here and here.

Just fun.

James

Autostitched Puddle

We've had a bit of rain recently, and there's a big puddle in the big field.

While standing in it in my Wellingtons (that's what puddles are for, remember?) I thought it would be a fun opportunity to try out the Autostitch App on the iPhone (from Cloudburst Research Inc, since you ask) and bashed off 27 images it then nailed together into one. All settings were basic auto, and although there are a lot of artifacts in the full size original, and I didn't try to fill all the gaps (I wanted it to look vaguely like a Hockney composite) it's an impressive job, I think.

James

Mumm

What's better than one glass of champagne?

Several, of course. Thanks to Mike and Ania, we were able to sample the wares of Mumm in California, and it was rather nice.

Reflection in a Mac

The afternoon sun passes by.

Cloudscapes

One of the things we like very much about living here is the big sky.

Yesterday evening there was a number of thunderstorms rattling about, and they created the most amazing pre-sunset cloudscapes.

When the sun did start to set it turned the opposite sky pink.

Ripples in the dam were created by paddling feet.

James

The Wet - I

Normally a nice view of Five Mile Creek in Woodend, from this bench. Still a pastoral scene, but somewhat more aquatic.

It's been interesting times around Eastern Australia recently, as most know. The tragic events up in Queensland, including the shocking fatal flash flooding in Toowoomba, have hit the world's headlines, and recently, and currently, there's been significant flooding in North-Western Victoria, with towns flooded and in some cases isolated, but with thankfully none of the sudden onrush and subsequent loss of life Queenslanders have faced. Many people have asked us if we are OK, (including Sahlah in a recent comment) and we are.

In fact the longer it stays wetish (for us) the better as stuff can grow, and it eats into what's normally fire season. We'd all like it in less big lumps, more evenly spread over time. But we certainly aren't going to complain, here.

There's been exceptional rainfall around us and some minor flooding, which has thankfully been mainly 'interesting' rather than a problem for our area of Victoria. Here's some of what we've seen.

The view of the rock, shows a local field filling from the lower side. The low line of trees running down to the right are on a creek, normally dry, but here... On that day we measured 102mm (4 in) of rain, which was frankly like being in the tropics, for us.

A later walk a day or two later with as much rain again, this was a nearby field. I liked capturing a cloud in the puddle. Kind of existential waterness.


This is (rather obviously) the Campaspe River in flood. The turbulent line is the river, the rest is meadow, underwater. It's a fair amount of water, and in fact this is the stuff providing part of the problem for our north-western neighbours, because the Campaspe flows inland and (much later) into the Murray, this causing Echuca and the other towns to the north of us and downstream on the Murray (westwards) lots of problems. Like a lot of Australia's rivers, it's not very big, it's very long, and it goes the wrong way. And like many of them, it's there as much as a flood route - very infrequently - as a normal river.

'No Entry' indeed. This is the car park for Woodend's tourist information centre. It's actually only a few centimetres deep, and drained quite soon. In fact before we got there, our friend Kathy captured a shot in Woodend that was waterless when we arrived a few hours later. It's a great shot, and you can see it here.

ALL of the waters above have now gone, and while it's a bit damp (like England is all the time) it's not a problem anymore.

But more on the Big Wet soon...

James

Glass Bottles

Every evening at this time of year when there's a sunset, these bottles that Bev's collected from here, there, and the cottage garden, are sunlit about dinnertime.

Sunset at the Year's End

Actually taken on the 29 December, it stands well enough for the end of 2011. The duck family should be pleased as they seem to have navigated the majority of the ducklings to full size.

James

Imagine...

A concours car show in a Great Exhibition era building.


Intrigued?

Reflections, light and water in Wellington

I don't think this café was always a café, you know. And how 'HB' can be the initial letters for 'Clothing Factory' beats me.

Mermaid in the Museum of Wellington City & Sea

Keep right in the cablecar.

Blue skies and the observatory

Maori carvings awaiting erection

I think the market will crash soon.

...

Pretentious architecture and blue lights.

Cause sunbathing later

Restaurant & fishing boat

Hooked on Scotland.

The light in the old cathedral.

And the words on the University Bookshop.

amam Wag.

Wake.

Beached boat.

Beached whale?

Protected stream.

Gordian knot.

And more on the wonders of windy Wellington soon.

James