A Day in the City

This week my photos come from an outing I went on with an amateur photography group I recently joined. We all headed into Darling Harbour and walked around taking pictures hoping to get some nice shots of the sunset. Unfortunately it was a very miserable day, so no wonderful sunsets, but we still had lots of fun.

I started shooting in colour but because of the dreariness of the sky I shifted to black and white and really enjoyed the effect. I love shooting in black and white because it draws attention to form and texture, making you look harder at your subject than when you shoot in colour. I hope you enjoy these shots of beautiful Sydney.

 

 

  

 

  

While I was walking around I noticed how much my perspective changes when I am taking photos. I would normally just stroll through an area enjoying what I could easily see and that would be it. But with photography I am always more inquisitive, looking more carefully from different angles, behind me, noticing the effect of light, tones and textures, shapes and design.

Photography has always been such a great way to see the beauty of life and to appreciate the simple things. I live in such a beautiful and interesting city and it is always so much fun getting out there and capturing it. I hope you have all had a wonderful week and I thank those who left me messages and emails from my last post, very much appreciated.

Life and Death

As I shared in my last post, I am now the proud owner of a Canon 600D DSLR. I have been out taking photos and each week will share with you some of my favourites. This week my photos come from a weekend I spent visiting family in Goulburn, particularly photos of the beautiful local Catholic church.    

While churches are intended to be welcoming, with their ‘doors always open’ to people wanting to find God, their doors are often heavy, ornate, closed and sometimes slightly foreboding. Since moving away from religion I now find the structure of churches even more fascinating, as I contemplate the messages they send to ‘outsiders.’ I find church doors and statutes, particularly on Catholic churches, immensely interesting. I like the confidence these structures exude, the hope they promise, and the sanctuary they offer. However, I can’t help but also feel deeply distressed by the things that happen behind the doors of some churches.                                                                                              

The pairing up of this church building and the next shots of cherry blossoms has meaning to me beyond the mere fact that they were both found walking around Goulburn.

The cherry blossom tree holds special significance in my life as it corresponded with a dream I had not long after my Dad passed away two and a half years ago. No longer a believer in the Christian faith, and no longer sure what I felt about the idea of heaven and hell, I was trying to work out where my Dad might be now he had passed away.

One night I dreamt that I saw my Dad and he was in Japan and behind him were cherry blossom trees in full bloom. He didn’t say anything in the dream but I felt reassured that he was safe, happy and possibly travelling the world in some soulful way. I found out later that the cherry blossom is symbolic of beauty but also of sudden death as its flowering season is so short.

Considering that my Dad passed away unexpectedly and quickly, I found great comfort in the idea that things we love can come and go and that it doesn’t change their beauty or importance in our lives. Since that dream I always love seeing cherry blossoms out in all their beauty.  

                                                        Check out what other people are up to this week at Our Creative Spaces.

Going With the Flow

More watercolour painting for me this week, as I picked up one of my library books on watercolour painting and gave one of the exercises a go. It turned out much better than I expected. I really enjoyed doing the background and loved the flow and ease of watercolours. It is by no means an easy medium but I like the smoothness of it and the versatility. That actually surprised me how versatile it was…can’t wait to try a few more exercises.

 

As much as I love really ‘polished’ photos, when it comes to art and blogging I love to be able to share the ‘realness’ of creative expression- note the paper towel and the Shrek like green water on the right. This was step 1, to lightly sketch the flowers and then do the wash for the background.

Step 2

Once the paper was dry I could go to step 3 which was to paint in the stems and petals, adding a soft grey over the white to get the shading. This was the final product.

This is always the sign of a good day.

I hope you have all had a great week and have been able to take the time to do something creative. Check out what other people have been doing at Our Creative Spaces.

My Creative Space- Water Colour Painting

I have been incredibly lax this year with blogging and it is not because I haven’t been doing anything creative, I guess I just lost my blogging groove. I also have the admit I was getting highly frustrated with my compact camera and not being able to illustrate this blog as I would have liked. So I am back now armed and dangerous with the new Canon 600D digital SLR. It was an absolute indulgence but I have been wanting an SLR for ages. I spent many happy and creative years with my Nikon film SLR and have deeply missed the creative potential of SLR photography. 

So to kick my ‘new and improved’ blog off, I wanted to share my creative space with you this week. This week I have delved into the art of water colour painting. Over the weekend I met up with a bunch of wonderfully creative and inspiring women to paint and do other ‘artsy’ things. I cut out some pictures of plants from some magazines and settled on a gorgeous succulent with wonderful greens, pinks and reds to paint. 

        

It was a wonderful day and it inspired me to go to my local library and borrow some books that have some step-by-step beginners exercises, which should be great.

Today I was also fortunate enough to spend the day with a friend who is teaching me how to do mosaics. She is a very talented artist and I really love the mosaics she has done so far. Photos to come on this project.

I hope you have all had a wonderfully creative week.