A quiet place.
The green moss on this rock brought out the amateur photographer in me. Outdoor workers call it high-visibility green and wear vests of this colour, all the better for us to see them with, but it doesn’t make them as pretty as these rocks by the sea on the south coast of New South Wales.
Ailsa has posted some photos of misty, mysterious and mystical forests that stopped her in her tracks: http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/11/16/travel-theme-mystical/. She succumbed to the temptation to capture a scene that can’t quite be explained, as did the man behind the camera in Fort Capuzzo, below.
In 1940, when Libya was still an Italian colony, this frontier fort on the Libyan-Egyptian border was bombarded into the pitiful state you see in the photo below. In 1940 and 1941, Fort Capuzzo changed hands seven times back and forth between the allied and axis forces, finally falling to New Zealand troops who captured it for the last time in November 1941.
In the little grotto, a statue of Mary survived the beatings. Whether the photographer was Catholic or not, he evidently found her survival mysterious, hard to explain. So do I.
Ailsa’s photos of soft things are excellent pieces of photography. She found something soft that’s normally scratchy and hard-edged: grass. You must see it: http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/11/09/travel-theme-soft/
I, too, found a photo of something soft in a hard place.
Finding a soft thing in a blokey shed is rare. When we found this possum curled up on top of an old wardrobe cum tool cupboard, we tempted him with his favourite food, fruit, and he kindly sat up and took the piece of apple for our photographic benefit. My husband took this excellent shot.
I have to confess that though his fur looks soft, I can’t confirm it. Possums are vicious; it’s wise to put the piece of fruit in front of the cute ball of fur and quickly withdraw your hand.
Another photo from my father’s World War 2 album: it’s not a sharp image, but it’s about renewal, and that’s what matters.
During the presence of Australian troops in Egypt, house boats on the River Nile were used for officers convalescing or on leave. Earlier this year I posted a photo of Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo where officers also spent time relaxing and renewing their spirits. On the same theme, Dad wrote a poem about time-out for officers and privates, called Seven Days’ Leave, a few verses of which I posted here.
As the Nile flows through Cairo it is divided in two for a short space by Gezira Island. And on this island there’s a public green space with a geometric layout called the Andalusian Garden. It was designed by the architect Mahmoud Zulfiqar Bey in 1929 as a gift to his wife, and was originally used as a roller skating rink by members of the royal family. In 1935 it was opened to the public, and in 1941 when my father was in Cairo during the war he visited this Moorish garden. The park is now protected by a heritage classification. Unfortunately the pool in the photo is now dry, but the terraces are still decorated with coloured mosaics which are not evident in this black and white photo, but photos on this blog site show the beautiful colours of the tiles and the excellent design of the garden.
Thank you Ahmad Omar for telling me the name of this garden. The photo is from my father’s collection which he brought back from Egypt in 1942.
When I saw the themes for this week’s photo challenges, Foreign (WordPress weekly challenge) and Spooky (Ailsa’s travel photo challenge), I knew exactly which photos I wanted to submit. They’ve given me the creeps since I was a child paging through my father’s war album from the Middle East. While I’d linger over photos of pyramids, camels and Arabs, I’d glance quickly at these two, shiver, and turn the page.
The Foreign theme: The photos are owned by me, an Australian, and it depicts a palace built in Egypt in Hindu-style architecture designed by a Frenchman for a Belgian, Baron Empain. The architect, Alexandre Marcel, was inspired by the temples of Orissa in India and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The palace’s sculptures of Hindu divinities, mythical creatures and erotic French maidens are so out of place in this Muslim country that they attract the attention of looters and vandals. The palace is in Heliopolis, now a suburb of Cairo, but at the time of building, between 1907 and 1911, it was a town apart, designed by the Baron out of a stretch of desert he bought from the British colonial government. The Baron is buried under the Catholic basilica in Heliopolis, also commissioned by him, which you can see in a previous post.
The Spooky theme: Where do I begin? Both the interior and exterior of this reinforced concrete structure are crumbling and graffitied. Once decorated by Georges-Louis Claude in the French style, it had frescoes, parquet floors, gilded ceilings, gold-plated doorknobs, Belgian mirrors, and a spiral staircase in a tower sitting on a revolving base. It must have been beautiful. Now it’s bare, the only inhabitants bats and stray dogs. And ghosts. Not only is the palace said to be haunted, but some say Satanic rituals are practised there and that some of the mirrors are stained with blood. The Baron’s sister died when she fell from the tower and his psychologically disturbed daughter died in one of the basement chambers.
Its dark history has kept the palace closed to the public. Since 2005 it has been owned by the Egyptian government which has made a few attempts to find restorers, but plans have always come to nothing. This year, however, the government announced a definite restoration project to transform the palace into a cultural centre…
More photos of the palace exterior in its present decrepit state can be found here.
And Ailsa’s spooky photos can be found here.
20th Oct – On someone else’s computer I saw, for the first time, an advertisement on my blog. It’s for an expensive car. My husband reckons the car maker chose my blog for its readers.
21st Oct – Some kangaroos love the beach as much as I do.
22nd Oct – A man I know who was from childhood a practising atheist, and who in recent years became a Protestant, has recently been baptised as a Catholic. A coincidence for me – I’ve just translated a story about a character who did exactly that.
23rd Oct – 30th wedding anniversary today.
24th Oct – A female politician (the PM) has loudly accused a male politician (L of the O) of being a misogynist and sexist. Yet I heard today that he cycles long distances every year to raise buckets of money for good causes including breast cancer research, a women’s shelter and Carers Australia.
For her photo challenge this week, Ailsa showed us some couples captured on camera: a couple hand-in-hand on the beach and various other couples, human and non-human. http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/10/19/travel-theme-couples/
When my father was in the Middle East he was surrounded by men and nurses. Mostly men. Sometimes they were soldiers in a war; sometimes they were larrikins. (The Australian Oxford Dictionary’s definition of larrikin is ‘a person who acts with apparent disregard for social or political conventions’.)
These soldiers look like they’re on a roof. Don’t tell me they’re acting as Bathsheba bathing on the roof and King David wooing her with his flute! Well, then, they’re imitating one of history’s most famous couples. I seem to remember that Bathsheba was beautiful…
There aren’t many things in the world bigger than these:
For a size comparison, see the people walking ‘between’ the pyramids.
Not sure why the barbed wire was there.
Ailsa has shown us some colourful displays she’s seen on her travels. They’re worth a long look: http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/10/12/travel-theme-on-display/
She’s asked us, too, to find a photo of a display that would be good to share.
Strolling through Paris one Sunday afternoon, heading for Place Vendôme to see where the rich do their shopping (though not on Sundays when everything’s closed, as I found), I was stopped in my tracks by this window display. Someone with an eye for the beauty of repetition has found a new use for old Singer sewing machines, technological marvels that produced clothes faster than human hands. Their black and gold and curvy bodies fill the windows to the ceiling on both fronts of the street corner.
When I was 5, I was taught to sew by a professional dressmaker (my sister), but I had to wait until I was 12 to get my own sewing machine, a Singer treadle. I made clothes on it until I started work at 15 when I bought an electric one, which I still use… That Sunday, the sight of all these old machines had me believing this was a tailor’s shop, and I would have gone in if it were open. But a little Internet research this morning reveals it’s a clothes shop. I’ve found photos of similar window displays in the US for the same company, All Saints Spitalfields.
Next time I’ll stroll down Rue Etienne Marcel during the week, and go in, but not to buy. I want to look at the window display from the inside.
