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Week ending 4.4.4 |
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Most houses in Orange County tend to built on cement slabs with no foundations. |
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The tar pits in Los Angeles are quite amazing. And, as the name implies, they are areas where tar naturally comes to the
surface. Tar, being very sticky, some of the animals that made contact with it got stuck. And died. Over time the dead
animals were covered by the tar - and preserved by it. Take this process back over several million
years and what you have in the pits are the skeletons of animals long since extinct. |
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Despite how often I see this, it is still a very neat optical trick. Or is it? |
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The woods in America have a very primal feel to them. Very different to being in the Australian bush. Perhaps because the bush feels less dangerous. And perhaps it is the size of the trees, the eucalypts mere stragglers in comparison to the mammoth redwoods and sequoias. Putting our size into perspective. |
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Week ending 11.4.4 |
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The Huntington Library at San Marino is a monument to the wealth of another philanthopist. A huge library that contains
where around 4 million books! And many of them old and rare, including this original Gutenburg Bible. That is, one of the
first books ever printed by a machine. |
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And of the landscapes presented in the gardens, one of the most diverse and interesting is the desert landscape, with some
very spectacular cacti. |
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The gardens include an Australian section, admittedly not spectacular. I think any acre on the mountain at home would be more
interesting, but be that as it may.... |
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The Japanese garden was extensive and beautiful, ruined of course by the number of other tourists. But that is 2004 for you. |
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And what Japanese garden would be complete without an image of the buddha?. |
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Part of one of the paintings in the Scott gallery. |
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Week ending 18.4.4 |
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No, I have not finished on the topic of cars. And particularly big cars. It is not that I object to big vehicles. They have
their place. But put them in the wrong place and they become very wrong. |
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Just remembered the Three Brothers in Yosemite National Park. Just as the Blue Mountains west of Sydney has the
Three Sisters. |
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Suel s'dai chnam t'mai. Happy New Year. |
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This is the Santa Ana River. For the last 25 miles before it runs into the sea, the whole bed and banks of the river are
concreted! Leaving just a little trickle down a central drain. Which is about all you see most of the time in an area
that has an average annual rainfall of 12 inches. |
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Week ending 25.4.4 |
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The newspapers in America daily report on the losses in Iraq.
It is not uncommon for a local to have been a casualty and he will receive a considerable write-up. But besides that,
all deaths are reported with a photograph and a paragraph describing them and which state they were from. This keeps the
tally at the forefront of people's minds - at least those that read newspapers. |
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Another week, another country. From Los Angeles with Lufthansa to Lyon in France via Munich. On an Airbus, which is the European
manufactured plane, and is the most comfortable and quiet a plane I have ever been on. Munich airport is one of the largest and most
efficient I have seen too. |
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And you know you are in another country when the building materials change. This is a typical wall around farm buildings, a rural church or even houses or commercial premises. The wall is not held together by cement, but mud or clay. The tiles on the top of the wall keep it together by preventing the rain from washing it away. It works, mostly. |
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One very noticeable
difference immediately is the cars. Whereas the Americans keep upping the size of theirs in complete ignorance of the concept of
'limited resources' and in complete disregard to the environment, the French have adopted the opposing views. And their cars
reflect this. |
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Despite the presence of the supermarche (supermarket) and larger megastores within easy reach, the French love nothing more than the village market. This is Sunday morning in Genas, a rural village on the outskirts of Lyon, where it seems tomatoes are in season, but where all sorts of vegetables, fruits, cheeses, salamis, breads and a selection of clothes can be had for the Euro. |
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Yes, the French
understand cheese and if you can't find one you like, you're not trying. |
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Week ending 2.5.4 |
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Vieux-Lyon.
Old Lyon. And with its UNESCO world heritage listing, it is quite remarkable. Old buildings, narrow streets that are never straight, covered archways - the remarkable thing is that even 24 hectares of this 16th century style of living remains. Of course, there are no donkeys plying up and down the cobblestones, but Renaults and Peugeots, mostly service vehicles and those of the municipal constabulary. But generally it is left to pedestrians. |
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Linking some
of these rarely-parallel streets are passageways known as traboules. The traboules wind in, around and under the
houses, are mostly covered but do break out into these lighted squares between the buildings, not quite big enough to
be courtyards. I just like this picture. You are free to criticise it. |
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The people who
built these accommodations all those centuries ago had some idea of the communiality and even the conviviality of man.
The windows face a sort of courtyard in such a manner that you would conversing with your neighbours and passers-by
with some degree of ease. Try that in a modern apartment block. Go to the top of the page. |
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The other parts of the city of Lyon, while not four centuries old, are one to two, producing this wonderful architecture that persists in street after street. Buildings generally five to six stories high and identical windows along the facade. Then the next building will look the same, but windows will be different to the first and the colour too. There are no glaring colours, no doubt by edict, and the overall effect walking along the street is one of fascination. Whether or not the buildings are very livable inside I don't know, but the outsides produce their own symmetry and beauty. | |
The French just love their tomato racing, often in the street. Here, two ladies keep a careful eye on proceedings. | |
The Fourviere
Basilica on Fourviere Hill overlooks Lyon from a great height. In particular the old town is clearly visible way below as a
fascinating series of geometric exercises in red tile roofing. Then there is the Saone River, the cluster of the city proper
in antique style (Renaissance), then the Rhone river in parallel. Then, towering beside the Basilica is this tower, with the gilded figure of some religious significant, mute and blind, but with the best view of all. Go to the top of the page. |
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The fountain of the
raging horses. Or so it seems. This fountain was designed by the guy (Bartholdi) who did the statue of liberty and probably knew it
would become an ironic icon America. See that fantastic architecture in the background? |
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These doorways just
appear everywhere. They are, in and of themselves, museum pieces. They are large, solid and intricately carved portals that leave
you wondering about what lies behind them. They are, mostly, the entryway for the whole building, usually a series of apartments, so that there is series of door inside, off a central set of stairs - or for the more modern, an elevator where it has been installed. Go to top of page |
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One of the fantastic things about country villages in France is that there are always reminders that you are in the county. The farm houses and outbuildings are often in the village and, as here, the farms come down to the main road. I am standing on the main street of the village and between streets, a field of wheat (unfenced) comes right down to the busstop. | |
This picture is a
bit of a trick, which I will explain presently. I was talking to a Lyonnaise who had lived all of their 24 years in the city, who was surprised at my interest in the buildings. She saw nothing particularly special about them. But having lived their all her life, they are but normal for her. They are what she sees on a daily basis and comes to presume that it is ordinary. So it is for many of us that do not move much, our senses are dulled to the beauty around us. It sometimes takes the perspective of the outsider to reveal it to us. What is magnificent in this, and so many other buildings in Lyon, is the whole facade of these five and six storey structures. The matching windows in perfect symmetry, the plain painting of the wall, the touches of ornamentation, right down to the street. What is hard to capture, because part of the effect is three dimensional, is the perspective of depth, the soaring nature of their height exaggerated by the narrowness of the streets, which gives a sense of them closing overhead. The narrow streets, too, make it difficult to capture photographically. Even standing up against the far wall, only the door and first window fit into a photo. A very wide angle lens might capture the street to roof perspective, but would necessarily distort it with curvature. Facing the camera upwards also accentuates the perspective so the result is almost triangular towards the roof. So what did I do for Number 17? The modern tools of digital photography and digital manipulation provide the answers. Firstly, it was necessary to take three separate photos of the facade, starting with the door and first window, then upward, until the third, much distorted by perspective, takes in the roof and sky. What to do with this distortion? Firstly import the pictures separately into a decent photo manipulation program like photoshop. Using a perspective filter, draw the top edge of the photos sideways to widen the top perspective until the sides are vertical. This attenuation needs to be greater with the pictures of the top of the building. Once all three are 'square' combine them into a single file so that appropriate features overlap (the overlap needs to have been planned when photographing). Then scale the individual layers so the width is the same. From there it is a simple matter of adjusting the colour, contrast, hue and resolution of all three to be approximately the same (the camera will often set different exposures for each picture), then merge them together. The result looks like the building has been photographed from a long distance with a powerful lens. However, the perspective, if you look carefully, is not quite right. That is because, while the lower floors are nearly correct, the upper floors to the roof look square, and are, but because they were photographed from below, not at the horizontal from them, it has that 'under' look. In this particular case, it is not particularly obvious, although notice how you can see under the eaves, though the perspective is that they should be straight on to your eye? Thus it is with many of the photos on these pages that are either very tall, or very wide. Just thought I would let you know. Go to top of page |
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This is the statue of
Louis XIV, and my history being what it is, I have no idea about what he did or could do, except he can apparently ride a horse. And
obviously, the French think him worht honouring. He sits (or rides) in one of the largest squares in a European city, itself part of
the UNESCO world heritage site that is old Lyon. Way off in the distance is the Fourviere Basilica. Yes it is reasonably cold at the end of April. |
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Village architecture now. While in their own style and clearly designed for a cold climate to allow as little opportunity as possible for the cold to get in (actually for the heat to get out, since there is no such thing as cold), I do not understand the lack of a porch or cover over the front door for when it is raining, which it does here often enough. | |
Like this more modern house. This house just has a touch of symmetry that I like. You may not. | |
The fields in France were so often surrounded by hedges. These plants could grow to three metres high if maintained correctly. Like most of their English equivalents, the hedges have been mostly let go (to the detriment of the flora and fauna that inhabits this microcosm, but this nice example remains on the northern entrance to Genas. | |
Book markets like this one on the bank of the Saone I don't really understand. It seems that each vendor has such a paltry collection of tomes and even though I do not read French, clearly a lot of them are cheap and worthless. And having them exposed to the elements, often, for weeks on end does nothing to improve their condition. Maybe someone could explain it to me? | |
Buildings of glass are often just fantastic in the way they reflect the real world. What goes on behind them? | |
The Park of the Golden Head is the translation of the name of this park in Lyon. It is chocka with people on a fine weekend and does have some lovely lawns and paths. As well there is a big collection of identified plants from France, Europe and some international species all laid out in an attractive manner. But it is all offset by an interspersing of animals in enclosures, that appear just large enough, but not sufficient to prevent the elephants, the giraffes, the lions, the tigers and the monkeys from exhibiting more than their outer selves but also the symptoms of their neuroses due to the confinement. The overhead trees were nice though. | |
I am not sure that this is what latin scholars mean by the split infinitive, but the red paint in the grooves is not something I remember. I wonder if it is a more recent innovation, or whether it was just the Gaul area. Lyon was called Lugdunum (Light) in roman times and was their Gaul capital. However, I have not seen any monuments to Vitalstatistix. | |
This is actually taken at roof level, from the upper floors of the museum of fine arts. The tops of the buildings are just as interesting as the bottoms. | |
One of the endearing characteristics of this region at least, is the propensity to not leave a blank wall blank. Wall murals are very common, very realistic and very well done. Here, a couple of bricked up windows have been painted in, as has an otherwise bland electricity box. | |
I still do know what this sign was trying to convey. That we should constantly question? That no-one knows all the answers? That ignorance is bliss? That the future is uncertain? That we have to figure it out for ourselves? |
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