photography - Sounds like wish

15 June, 2012

Ailsa's travel photo challenge: Secret Place

SECRET PLACE

When I’m in France I go into churches and sit by myself and think and pray. They’re all good for this, whether a large cathedral or a small village church, because most of them are open during the week. It’s a privilege I don’t enjoy here in Australia where I live. Inside these ancient structures it’s surprisingly quiet, even if the church is situated in the heart of a city. The stone walls block out most noise and it’s very easy to focus without distraction. Because I experience this particular solitude only in France, it came to mind immediately when Ailsa proposed a ‘secret place’ for her travel photo challenge. See hers here: http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/06/15/secret-places/

The churches in French villages are particularly peaceful and very often are empty on weekdays. This photo is of l’Église Saint Mathieu, the church in the beautifully restored mediaeval village of Oingt, north-west of Lyon. I went there with a couple of friends one day in 2010 and we were the only people around, except for a few staff in the small restaurant and art gallery.

It reminded me of another day a few years before: I was a student in Lyon, and my brother died but I couldn’t get back to Australia for his funeral. Another student suggested that if I wanted to get away to somewhere peaceful for a day, I should go to the ancient village of Pérouges, also north of Lyon. I went on a Wednesday and was all alone for about two hours, walking the cobblestone streets and narrow ways, the ruelles, between buildings. But the most precious gift that day was half an hour alone in the church, l’Église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine de Pérouges, sitting in the back row of old wooden pews and looking at the stone floor of the aisle, grooved from centuries of footsteps. It was comforting to know that in the 1400s, people were worshipping and praying to God exactly as I was, looking at the same stone walls and walking down the same aisle.

11 June, 2012

Weekly photo challenge: Friendship

I have several photos taken in Egypt of soldiers smiling together with their arms around each other, close mates in a time of war, establishing friendships unlike any they had back home. This photo is interesting for its depiction of friends but also because of the background the photographer captured. They seem to be standing on top of a building showing off Heliopolis, developed in 1905 as a model suburb of Cairo by Baron Empain, a Belgian industrialist. One of the buildings he ordered his architects to design was the Roman Catholic Church (behind and to the left) known as the Basilica of the Virgin Mary, or l’Église Notre Dame d’Héliopolis, built in the heart of the new suburb in 1910. It’s a small copy of Hagia Sofia in Istanbul. When the baron died in 1929 he was buried in the crypt.

The mosque in the photo (behind and to the right) is described in the photo album as the ‘wailing mosque’. It does not appear in any present day web photo search, nor on Google maps. Many buildings have been demolished or altered during the last century, particularly during the 1970s, and this must have been one of them.

My father gave this photo the caption “S. Chambers”, though I don’t know which of them it is.

S. Chambers and friends, with the domes of the Roman Catholic Basilica and the suburb of Heliopolis, Cairo, in the background, 1941

9 June, 2012

Ailsa's travel photo challenge: Oceans

Readers, before I begin, I want to thank Ailsa for her challenge and her ideas here: http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/06/08/oceans/

Oceans lap the Australian coastline on three sides. To the east there’s the Pacific; to the west, the Indian Ocean; to the south, the Southern Ocean. The northern coastline is lapped by seas not vast enough to be called ocean. They’re the Timor Sea and the Arafura Sea, separating us from the islands of New Guinea and Indonesia.

In 1941 ships crossed the Indian Ocean to take Australian troops to the Middle East and back home again. The photo below shows the Aquitania leaving Sydney Harbour in 1941 before she was painted battle grey. Before being assigned as a troopship the Aquitania had been a luxury liner in the Atlantic and before that she had served in the First World War. She was the last surviving four-funnelled ocean liner. The photo was possibly taken from the Queen Mary, another liner transformed into a troop carrier. There was a convoy of converted liners in Sydney Harbour in April 1941 taking on board thousands of soldiers. The Aquitania and the Queen Mary made a number of these journeys across the Indian Ocean and back. Of course, Sydney is on the east coast of Australia and the ships were heading west, so it was a long trip just to get out of Australian waters, let alone across the Indian Ocean. My mother told me that my father went on the Queen Mary, and his service record tells me he left Sydney on 1st September 1941 and arrived in the Middle East on 25th September. About three weeks at sea. On the ocean.

3 June, 2012

Weekly photo challenge: Today

Today my husband and I went to Old Parliament House in Canberra for lunch. We then played at being politicians in the old House of Representatives and acted as journalists recording an interview with an ex-Prime Minister (one of the activities for visitors). As we left the building I took this photo of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy on the opposite side of the street, an unofficial and often-in-the-news embassy that has existed since 1972 on the lawns in front of Old Parliament House which, in 1972, was the only Parliament House. A new, much much larger one has since been built on the hill behind it. The tents are out of view to the left and right but in the centre is the sacred fire which burns continually. The two people to the left of the sovereignty letters are on segways which can be hired to ride around the lake, a popular weekend pastime.

Sacred fire and Sovereignty sign at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, Canberra, looking towards the War Memorial and Mt Ainslie, 3rd June 2012

2 June, 2012

Ailsa's travel photo challenge: Rhythm

Ailsa proposes ‘Rhythm’ as this week’s photo topic, which is great for me! Since the WordPress weekly photo challenge is proposing ‘Today’ as a topic, I can’t draw on my father’s black and white photos from seventy years ago! But I can for Ailsa.

See her Rhythm story here: http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/06/01/rhythm/

And here’s mine, the only photo from the album in which someone is playing a musical instrument. I imagine this monkey is dancing to the beat. It was amusing enough for a few people to stop and watch and for at least one soldier to stop and photograph. My father wrote ‘Kan-Kan’ under the photo, so that must be the monkey’s name.

An Egyptian man with a dancing monkey is generally a beggar who lives on alms. He is called a fakir (so I read), an Arabic word for ‘needy man’. In Western countries, the use of animals for street entertainment is frowned upon now, though I did see some online images of dancing monkeys in India and Pakistan. I suppose it’s like busking; there’s probably some talent involved in training the monkey. But from then on it has to dance for its supper. It’s something which leaves me ambivalent: I have a real (Western) pleasure in Orientalist images, whether they be paintings or designs or photos like this one. I feel the same when listening to gypsy music like that of Django Reinhardt, which makes sense: the word gypsy comes from Egyptian. The colourful elements of Middle Eastern life are like chocolate to me; they’re rich and mysterious. Here’s to ancient peoples! We owe them much.

31 May, 2012

Weekly photo challenge: Summer

The photos I’ve submitted so far for the weekly photo challenge have been from North Africa in 1941 or 1942, but my father, who took those photos, missed out on an Egyptian summer. He left Australia in spring to go to war in the Middle East where it was autumn followed by winter followed by spring, then returned home to autumn followed by winter. However, in the album there are photos taken a few years later when he and my mother had a holiday together, in what looks like summer. Well, it was in Queensland, where it’s hot for at least nine months of the year.

My father’s face was heavily shaded by the hat, but editing it to increase the brightness revealed his features. This is how he always looked. I don’t think I ever saw him without a cigarette dangling from his lips. However, something that’s unusual to me is his short sleeves. I never saw his bare arms. I was born about thirteen years after this photo was taken, and by then he was wearing long sleeves and trousers in all weathers. I always wondered what he was covering up, especially when temperatures were up in the high thirties of summer.

The romance implied in these two photos is somewhat comforting. ‘You take my picture and I’ll take yours.’ They seem to be enjoying their holiday. My mother is about 24 and gorgeous in clothes she made herself; my father looks healthy, tanned and muscular. This is not the man I knew all those years later.

Dad in front of the Hotel Scarborough, Queensland, c1946

Mum in front of the Hotel Scarborough, Queensland, c1946

28 May, 2012

366 unusual things: days 144-148

23rd May – Rode my bike to work today for the first time (car dead). Next to the bike path, ducks and galahs were dining together.

24th May – Read on the Via Lucis Photography blog that when building their Romanesque churches, the French moved more stone than was used in building the pyramids in all of Egyptian history.

25th May – On the radio I heard about a guy who goes to the dentist every year on his birthday so he doesn’t forget. And he enjoys it.

26th May – Sat at a café table outside in strong autumnal wind. Sparrows were hopping over the salt and pepper shakers, pecking in the holes. A strong gust of wind blew the froth from my cappuccino across the table. A magpie came and pecked at my sandwich, through its wrapper.

27th May – Watching a one-year-old boy and his three-year-old brother toddling past my place, fair in the middle of the street. Another five houses till they’re home.

26 May, 2012

Ailsa's travel photo challenge: Street markets

Ailsa (http://wheresmybackpack.wordpress.com) proposed Summer for her photo challenge last week and I was inspired to look long and hard for the right photo to submit. There were no summery images in the war album of photos taken when my father was serving in the Middle East, during the northern winter! So I had to resort to my own recent photos. Now, coincidentally, here’s that summer theme again on this week’s WordPress photo challenge. But I don’t feel disappointed because I have a photo I’ve looked at many times and wondered what theme I could use it for – and low and behold, coincidentally again, Ailsa has put out a new challenge… for Street Markets.

19 May, 2012

Ailsa's travel photo challenge: Summer

Ailsa from the northern hemisphere has proposed a photo challenge: summer. http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/05/18/summer/

Of course, I’m sitting here in the southern hemisphere, the heater blasting and the doors closed to keep the low low temperatures out. It’s a good thing I have photos to remind me what summer is like.

Summer = beach. I can’t get enough of the beach. However, in recent years I’ve moved to Canberra, a few hours inland from the coast and now I don’t get much beach at all. But when I do travel down to the coast, there’s a special compensation for the much cooler ocean temperatures which will keep me out of the water most of the time: the exquisite pleasure of walking on the rocks and reflecting on the constancy of the waves. I’ve discovered that the rocky shoreline is pitted with rock pools and tiny caves for sea creatures. This photo is one I took in a moment of delight at spotting crabs spotting me.

19 May, 2012

Weekly photo challenge: Hands

To an enemy, our hands are the most immediate threat. With our hands thrust as far away from our body as possible, most of us are defenceless, except for those with awesome kicking skills. Here, two soldiers play at war as if they were boys, except the gun and bayonet are real. And the war is real. But so are the smiles, for now.