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Ailsa’s travel photo challenge: Flowers

Thanks again to Ailsa for proposing a theme.  She showed us how New York does flowers:  http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/07/27/travel-theme-flowers/

And here is how my daughter-in-law does flowers.  When my son married this beautiful girl in April, she decorated their wedding with flowers:  in her hands, in her hair, in the bridesmaids’ hands, on their dresses, and on the tables.  But not on the men.

Bec has since dried her wedding bouquet, taken of photo of it, written about it, and about marriage, here:  http://therebeccapapers.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/not-the-stuff-of-myths/

Photo by Luis Power
Photo by Luis Power
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Weekly photo challenge: Purple

On a family outing to the Pumpkin Festival in Collector (a no-horse town near Canberra), I went off in search of pumpkins and lost my husband.  When I found him he was shooting purple bears.

Purple bears at the Collector Pumpkin Festival (Photo: Brett Worth)
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Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside

Why pose outside when you can pose inside and pretend to be outside?

Here’s a great illustration of Orientalism:  a European model imagined as an Arab.  Exotic oasis with odalisque.  Orientalist photography and painting were born from European colonisation of Middle and Far Eastern countries.  Artists and photographers at the end of the 19th century and up to the Second World War years produced paintings and postcards depicting exaggeratedly different and exotic females both in and out of the studio.  Outside the studio, photographers captured images of women who were mostly covered.  In the staged setting of a studio, women were mostly uncovered, and it’s these photographs that express a Western male’s fantasies of penetrating the harem, in a scene which could be created with actual North African women or, as here, with a European model posing as an odalisque (a female slave or concubine).  The images say more about the colonial perspective than about Arabs:  the men were seen as enviable sheikhs with many wives and concubines and the women were often painted as belly dancers whose sole occupation was to entertain and satisfy men.  We, the Western viewers of these images, both men and women, were convinced, by the contrast, that we were civilised.  Except, this is an image my father obtained in colonised Egypt while fighting in a six-year-long war between civilised countries.

Odalisque – Orientalist photography, 1930s/40s
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Ailsa's travel photo challenge: Tradition

Ailsa’s travel photo challenge:  Ailsa proposes the theme of Tradition this week.  Her post is multicoloured – take a look:  http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/07/20/travel-theme-tradition/

My post has only two colours:  black and white. The photo is entitled ‘Water cows’ (water buffalo) and comes from my father’s war album of photos taken in the Middle East.  This one is in Egypt, where the water buffalo is the most important domestic animal.

If farmers traditionally transport their cows on foot along a certain route, then an expanding city will just have to accommodate them.

Water cows (buffalo), Egypt, 1941/42
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Weekly photo challenge: Dreaming

The weekly photo challenge instruction is “Share a photo that makes you dream”.  When I look at news footage of Syria these days, I wonder if it will ever again look like it does in this photo from 1942.  Let’s dream it can be this peaceful some day.  Soon.

The 2/15th battalion of the Australian Imperial Forces, which my father was a part of, went to Syria in January 1942 for several months of frontier garrison duty.  I have several photos of the region from his album, but the Biblical tone of this one makes it the best.  Click it to see the detail.

Syria 1942
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366 unusual things: days 189-193

7th July – Researching the El Gala’a Bridge in Cairo for a ‘Night’ photo challenge, I discovered it opened for feluccas by pivoting the central part around to perpendicular, making two passageways for the boats.
The first photo below is my father’s (that is, it was in his album but possibly not taken by him) which seems to have been shot from an identical position as the ‘Night’ photo.  Following this are two photos (undated but taken during WWII) in the National Library of Australia collection, by war photographer Frank Hurley, of the bridge opened for felucca traffic.  When closed, the bridge seems to have been only for pedestrians in those days.  I searched for recent images of the El Gala’a Bridge and found that it now carries heavy vehicular traffic, and during last year’s revolution was jam-packed with Egyptians heading for Tahrir Square.

“English Bridge”, Cairo (El Gala’a Bridge), 1942

Hurley, Frank, 1885-1962. Feluccas on the Nile at Cairo [with city, viewed from above] [picture] : [Cairo, Egypt, World War II]

Hurley, Frank, 1885-1962. Feluccas passing through the English Bridge, Cairo [Kobri Al Galaa or Evacuation Bridge] [picture] : [Cairo, Egypt, World War II]

8th July – Bought a green leather bag which was half-price ‘because of the colour’.

9th July – Spent hours searching the Internet for an image matching my camel bridge photo.  Finally found a postcard from the early 20th century showing the same bridge.  The Internet is an amazing resource!

10th July – Tried to get out of a 3-hour free carpark.  Put the ticket in the machine and it shot out and landed in a puddle where 6 other tickets were being rained on.  Mine was the driest, so I picked it up and put it back in.  It shot out again.  I hit the red ‘Help’ button and a muffled voice announced the free parking had been reduced to 2 hours.  The boom was generously raised anyway.

11th July – Learned that Joni Mitchell’s song ‘Both sides now’ was written as a poem.  It’s great read aloud.

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Weekly photo challenge: Movement

Movement:  each of the three creatures here is raising a foot to move forward.

My father captioned this photo “Camel Bridge”.  I’ve done some research and found it is a footbridge over a boat passageway through a dam wall on the Nile.  It’s known in English as the Great Delta Barrage.  In Arabic (from Google Maps) it’s Alkanater Kheireya.  The wooden bridge was lowered for foot traffic, and when boats needed to pass through, it was folded up against the building wall.

Camel bridge, Egypt, 1941/42
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366 unusual things: days 179 – 183

27th June – Rode my bike home in the twilight.  Have only ever ridden in daylight.

28th June – Read that looking at an old painting by candlelight shows us what the artist saw before studios were lit electrically.  I have only one real painting on the wall; I started it but never finished it, but it became something better when I held a candle to it.

Photo by Brett Worth

29th June – I have sons who wake up on one date and go to bed on the next.

30th June – Heard that J.S. Bach had 20 children to 2 wives.  Eleven of them died within his own lifetime.

1st July – This is the date when I remember meeting my husband (31 years ago), conceiving our first child (4 years later :-)), and starting this blog 6 months ago.

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366 unusual things: days 174-178

22nd June – Saw a work of art made from an old book by detaching the pages, folding them creatively, then reattaching them to the hard cover.  The book was Moral Dilemmas.

23rd June – Borrowed the latest DVD of Alice in Wonderland.  The cover shows the Mad Hatter front and centre, with Alice peeking in from the side.  That is, it shows Johnny Depp front and centre.  Poor Mia Wasikowska who plays Alice.

24th June – Found an old pioneer house at Tidbinbilla that my husband thought was rented out.  I insisted we go and look closer anyway.  Clearly, the last tenants had moved out some time ago.

Rock Valley Homestead, Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, built c1895.  Photo:  Brett Worth

25th June – Rang the National Archives today for advice and got a woman who was very interested in my research.  She talked to me for half an hour, asking more and more questions.  Until today, I’ve always found Archives staff officious and disinterested.

26th June – In a book about books, a word was broken at the end of the line like this:  had-.  The next line began n’t.