graffiti

State Route 120

| paulamyes

State Route 120 is perhaps better known as the Great Southern Highway. It is the road that takes you to York once you leave Perth via the Great Eastern Highway. I always breathe a sigh of relief once we turn onto it because it means we’re leaving the madness of Perth and returning to our quiet country existence. I love driving down it watching the forest change gradually from Jarrah to Wandoo.  The other thing I look forward to is the art work you see. For the last twenty or so years people have been decorating some of the trees. It maybe a complete paint job of a long dead tree or it maybe a small painting on board or sheet metal that has been attached to a tree.  Every now and again a new piece turns up and its always a pleasant surprise.

 

 

 

State Route 120 by Paul Amyes on 500px.com
Dave Minion. Great Southern Highway, Western Australia.

 

State Route 120 by Paul Amyes on 500px.com
Australian Easter Stump. Great Southern Highway, Western Australia.

 

State Route 120 by Paul Amyes on 500px.com
Startled stump. Gret Southern Highway, Western Australia.

 

State Route 120 by Paul Amyes on 500px.com
Mary has seen better days. Great Southern Highway, Western Australia.

 

State Route 120 by Paul Amyes on 500px.com
Tipper is not what he used to be – his ears have been broken off. Great Southern Highway, Western australia.

 

State Route 120 by Paul Amyes on 500px.com
Happy to see you. Great Southern Highway, Western Australia.

 

State Route 120 by Paul Amyes on 500px.com

 

 

State Route 120 by Paul Amyes on 500px.com
Lucky The York Tree. Great Southern Highway, Western Australia.

 

I was feeling a bit of a loose end. The weather has been unpleasant and I didn’t feel like going out to photograph wildlife or wildflowers. I suddenly had the bright idea of documenting the art along the Great Southern Highway. To make it more interesting I decided to use some of my old classic film era Olympus lenses – specifically the OM Zuiko 21mm f3.5, the OM Zuiko 35mm f2, and the OM Zuiko 135mm f2.8 – on my Sony A7r. The whole process of framing up, setting up a tripod and manually focusing the cameras and carefully making the exposure is the complete antithesis of photographing birds and it made a nice change.

Graffiti

| paulamyes

Graffiti is a subject that seems to upset a lot of people – especially members of the “hang ’em high” brigade. Personally I don’t get bent out of shape by it, and in fact some I even enjoy. The other day we were walking in Enright Park in Northam and we ventured under the Brookfield Railway Bridge and we were treated with an extensive graffiti gallery which I quite liked.

 

These colourful pieces on the bridge piers where what caught our eye and encouraged us to explore under the bridge.

 

White Crow and a white face.

 

I don’t think the artists are paying attention to the warning signs.

 

Graffiti on the Brookfield Railway Bridge near Enright Park in Northam, Western Australia.

 

For those that complain about graffiti and demand the death penalty for it here’s a few facts. The only known written material in the ancient Safaitic language (an early form of Arabic) comes from graffiti. In the classical era most graffiti was rather sophisticated and demonstrated a very high level of literacy and a deep appreciation of art and poetry which indicates that it was done by the elites in society (Ponnamperuma, Senani (2013). Story of Sigiriya. Melbourne, Australia: Panique Pty Ltd. p. 157). In the Nineteenth Century Lord Byron avoiding his creditors, ex-lovers and looking for lots of non-binary rumpy pumpy graffitied his way round Europe in-between writing poetry and fighting for Greek independence (Shanks, Michael (1996). Classical Archaeology of Greece: Experiences of the Discipline. London, New York: Routledge. p. 76).  I don’t know where Byron got the time and all the energy from.

Old Skool

| paulamyes
Mary is the tree spirit that lives in the wandoo forest outside of York, Western Australia. Canon EOS300d, Canon EF18-55 lens, 550EX speedlite.

The other day I was rootling around in the darker recesses of my photo files when I came upon this image. I remember taking it very clearly, this painted tree is visible from  the York road and as I set up my camera on its tripod people driving thought I must have been operating a speed camera and slowed down as they passed. The shot was taken on my first dSLR, a Canon EOS300d with its kit lens and a 550EX speedlite. Prehistoric equipment in today’s terms. Only 6Mp, a sensor that should be used above 400 ISO, and features that were serious crippled so as not to steal sales from the Canon EOS10d. Why did I buy the camera? Well it was the first sub $2000 AUD dSLR in Australia. Now you can get so much more for $500. Technology marches on at a relentless pace. Seeing this shot made me get the camera out again, and just for old times sake I shot the photos of the cameras in last weeks blog entry with it. Processing them in Lightroom was a revelation, they came up looking quite good. So I went back to the original RAW file for Mary and processed it Lightroom and finished off in Snapseed. The result was much better than when I first processed it using Canon RAW processor and Photoshop Elements 4. It just goes to show that newer software can breathe new life into older images. I’ve decided to keep the 300d out for a while longer and shoot stuff for the web with it.

As always clicking on the photo will take you through to my gallery.