Some church interiors from Venice.

I was (am) still very much getting the hang of my DSLR (Canon EOS 500D if you are interested in those kinda specs). I had a ye olde film SLR for years but it was pinched from me on a trip back in 2008 and I haven't been able to replace it (btw if anyone has and wants to sell me a film Nikon f50 let me know!) This meant I was very out of practice with even the basic shutter speed and aperture combo, not to mention the array of new settings to play with like changing the ISO and white balance and a whole host of other things that make graphs that I don't really understand yet. The DSLR is great because you get very instant feedback, first on the little screen and then on your computer. For a while I just adjusted the shutter speed and let the camera choose the aperture, or vice versa. But I wasn't all that happy with the results, I often felt they were over exposed. I have always had a fondness for dramatic contrasts of light and shade, chiaroscuro I suppose, photos but the basic settings for the camera seem to err on the side of overall even exposure. There is probably a way to change this but I haven't figured it out yet. I'm not really a manual reading person I just like to play around and gradually figure things out. Also I find the manuals are so full of cheesy photos of cutesy children and cliche landscapes that they start to put me off taking any photos.

One thing I really struggled with was working out how to take decent photos inside churches. This was actually one of the things I was looking forward to being able to do with a better camera. Generally they are very low light and I had never taken that many in the past with my little camera unless there was somewhere I could rest it (this resulted in many many photos taken from 'pew height'). Taking photos inside churches in Venice was also compounded by their ridiculous rules against taking photos. I understand rules against flash and rules against photos in churches or chapels that are largely used for devotion, or during services and so on. However, most churches are essentially being used as tourist attractions and I think as long as people aren't lying across pews or getting in the way they should be allowed to take photos. I also think that frankly the 'custode' yelling 'NO FOTO' across a silent church is far more disruptive.

I had mixed results with my photos, in quite a few churches I just set the camera to auto with no flash and 'shot from the hip', in others I hid behind a column or waited till I wasn't under surveillance. It is frustrating but maybe it made me more creative and more focused on small details.

Here are some of my favourites:

Santa Maria dei Miracoli. This church is small and exquisite. The marble clad interior is quite unusual for Venice where many churches have brick walls and the interior decoration seems a bit haphazard to someone more accustomed to the interiors typical of Baroque Rome. The delicate carvings are very beautiful and I became quite obsessed with them in this church and others and took many many photos.

Marble paving is nothing without beams of natural sunlight to illuminate it.

The obligatory Jesus.

Santa Maria Formosa
Or Santa Maria Samosa as I like to call it.It has an interesting interior, lots of pierced walls, satisfying late 15th century architectural geometry. I actually can't decide whether it is complex or simple, perhaps it is both if that is possible. It has straight lines and simple curves yet they are put together in such a way as to create a very satisfying whole where your eye can't quite settle on one point.

Below are some of the bare brick walls I mentioned before, and the unusual pierced walls of the side chapels. Usually side chapels are quite enclosed. The stark white walls are outlined with stone carvings that up close are often very delicate with marble columns that usually don't quite match on account of them being salvaged from other buildings.

San Giovanni e Paolo (or San Zanipolo as the Venetians say)

This is one of the largest churches in Venice. I most like all the wall tombs and the huge columns.

A lot of writer's post Ruskin tend to have a go at the 17th and 18th century additions to these churches, as though they somehow besmirch the perfect 13th/14th/15th century origins. I find it quite annoying for various reasons but mainly because the beauty of these churches is the crazy mix of different works of art and architecture from different periods. It is an artistic and a social history.

 

Wall tomb.

The high altar

Hello baby face.

Candles at Santo Stefano

I have some Roman interiors too but perhaps I should start a new post!

Snapshot, Venice

I am busy sorting photos for a longer post but I noticed this picture I had forgotten about.

Snapshots, Venice

I have been home a month and I am being very slack about pictures of Venice! I wish I could blame some kind of super busy lifestyle but really it is more a type of blogging ennui, and battles with my recently installed photoshop. I have added blogging to my list for the weekend and hopefully this is the first of a few photo posts from my trip. This is a view of the underneath of the Rialto Bridge. I was struck by the thin shaft of sunlight that was breaking through a narrow canal that runs into the Grand canal. Very pretty. Also I took this photo before 9am, it is well worth getting up and out in Venice by 8am or earlier as most tourists don't seem to emerge till after 10am.

Snapshot, Rome

San Andrea al Quirinale, 11:30am, April 22nd 2010.

Snapshot Venice, 2005.

I'm off to Venice, hope to have lots of gorgeous photos for the blog when I get back from my trip, and maybe even a sneaky update while I'm away. Though I can't promise I will spend my time seeking out internet cafes when there are Veronese and Titian paintings to see, canals to cross and prosecco to drink.

A presto!

Save the Windsor Rally

I was at the rally yesterday and there was a decent turn out. I'm terrible at guessing crowd numbers but maybe 150 people? Enough to fill the steps and crowd the pavement. Rod Quantock MC'ed, and various people spoke including Bob Brown. Who promised to make it a national issue. I also hope that The Greens make it an election issue. They came very close to winning the seat of Melbourne in the last election and I hope that if they could campaign on issues like this then maybe they would unseat Bronwyn Pike. Some of the liberal members also spoke but I am a bit cynical about their motivations, they were more focused on the corruption in the planning process and one man in particular seemed to be very obviously avoiding stating that he was against the proposal for The Windsor.

I am very against for a few reasons. I believe that a huge tower tacked on the back of The Windsor will ruin its appearance, the way the the sun shimmers over its facade will be lost and the grand hotel will sit uncomfortably in the shadow of a glass monolith.  I think the design itself is boring and completely insensitive to The Windsor, it speaks of an architect who wants to dominate a low rise area with a  statement building, not try and work sensitively with what is already there. The issue here is not simply about a single building but about good urban planning, about how buildings sit in relation to one another. Tall buildings in Melbourne's grid plan create wind tunnels and shade streets for much of the day. Lonsdale St beside the QV is a good example, the BHP billiton building funnels the wind along the street and keeps the street cafes in shade almost all day.  It's all a bit depressing. Melbourne has places for high rise buildings, like docklands and Southbank and the other end of the CBD, we need to retain low rise areas as well. Many cities have very successfully kept strict height limits, and these have led to very creative and inventive pieces of architecture. Anyway here are some pictures, I particularly like my one of the Madden Mad Hatter towering over the Windsor so I have made a new badge to replace my now defunct Save Lonsdale House Badge.

The relevance of the Alice in Wonderland characters is that Madden is the Mad Hatter (naturally). Brumby is the March Hare and Heritage Victoria is the Dormouse, asleep at the table. Alice represented the public, confused and treated with contempt.

British Archive of Old Signs

Remember that old sign I posted a few weeks ago? Well I was reading in The Guardian about an archive of 'Ghostsigns'.

Painted signs were once common but have been replaced by printed billboards, and those that survive are fading fast, or being demolished during building work.
Project manager Sam Roberts has documented over 650 painted 'ghostsigns' around the country, with the help of interested photographers through the Ghostsigns Flickr group.

A flickr group seems like a good idea, maybe the Melbourne map of old signs 'Our Fading Past' should also have a flickr group. Thoughts?(Possibly there may be something like this already that I have missed!)

Some of the signs I have photographed...

Lt Lonsdale St, Melbourne

 Gertrude St, Fitzroy

Gore St, Fitzroy

Snapshot, Carlton.

Photos of a slightly damp Carlton Gardens. It is closed off now for the STUPID Flower and Garden Show, which is so commercial and all about selling boring patios and watering cans. I really don't see why most of the exhibits couldn't be set up inside in the Exhibition Centre, or the Exhibition Buildings. It is basically a trade fair. There is a good piece here from The Greens about it back in 2008 and the same points still stand. I ranted about it last year. It mainly makes me cross because it damages the gardens so much. A lot of the grass still hadn't recovered from last year and it is now being covered in bricks and pavilions. Plus it is a public space, so many people walk in those gardens every day, or sit and eat lunch. for people in the inner city these are our green spaces, we don't necessarily have backyards. The gardens are closed off from Wednesday 17th March till Wednesday 31st. I might work up a longer post about it later, or I might write about Chaumont, which is a proper garden festival rather than just a glorified gardening shop. Actually the fact that it is such a rubbish event annoys me too. Other festivals like the Food and Wine festival encourage creativity and celebrate really interesting chefs and whatnot, but the garden festival doesn't do that, it celebrates very mediocre mass market gardens.

Telstra building in a puddle.

Snapshot, Sydney

The old Police Court on Liverpool St in Sydney. It was designed by W. L. Vernon and completed in 1892.

'Garters and Petticoats' - Portraits of Victoria and Albert

A talk coming up at Melbourne Uni that might interest some of my readers.

Click the image to see the full size poster. You can also view the original post here: http://fineartsnetwork.org.au

I should say that I help run the fine arts network website and I recommend it to you if you have an interest in art history. It includes details of art history events (focused on Melbourne), new research databases, funding, conferences and journals.