Mary Canning Photography

The mountains and photography mojo

There is no point hiding the fact that I seem to have mislaid my photography mojo.  All week here in the mountains the days have been gloriously blue - skied, the gang gang cockatoos creaking away in the trees and the camellias blooming white at dusk.  And yet my photos did not please me - or they did not quite capture the beauty I could see around me.

It took a walk with my son down to the local falls to reinvigorate me.  

 

I learnt a new and important lesson.  It is always a good idea to look back if you glimpse something that pleases you.  I was focusing on the father and his little girl, her pinafore, her tiny yellow shoes.  It was only after I was looking at the photos later that I saw that the mother was embracing her older daughter.  In life you are told to not look back.  Maybe sometimes it can be worthwhile if we can take something positive from it.

Of course it is autumn here and the trees are blazing. 

You will be pleased to know that no matter how disoriented I may be feeling, I never forget to look up.

Light and shadow

Good Friday.

 The light poured down on the boys at the skate park.  And the twin boys riding on the esplanade.  Tied carefully to the front of their matching bikes were their soft toys.  

The shadows were striking.  She wore a panama and he wore a cowboy hat. 

They were striking too.

Dunny Bowl Maroubra

The waves on the weekend were enormous, the weather wild and today was the first day I got to spend a bit of time walking near the beach.  At the northern end, looking down at the rocks, I saw something - vaguely, weirdly, familiar.  Something that should not have been there. To my knowledge it is only a recent addition to the rock shelves.

I went home, grabbed the camera, and clambered down the rocks to have a closer look.

Someone, in fact probably more than one person, at some risk to life and limb, has cemented a toilet onto the rocks. 

Which is gorgeous really.

Since the surf break there is known as the Dunny Bowl.

22 February 2013 (Maroubra)

It is a wild and windy day here in Maroubra.  

So it is a perfect day to start taking photographs of the people who drink, eat, talk and laugh at our local cafe.  

From Canowindra to the Coast

I drove out West last week to do a photo shoot - our destination was Canowindra.  I love long drives in the country, especially along euculypt lined narrow roads. I love spotting old corrugated iron sheds drowsing in dry paddocks.  I love the huge skies.

Canowindra is a small town with a curving main street. Its verandahs are edged with iron lace and the windows are leadlight.  Our two day visit was spent meeting amazing people, passionate about the land and their responsibility to farm it well and carefully.

 

Today I took the walk I have done a couple of times in the past two weeks, along a cliff path which skirts the Eastern edge of our city.  It is unbelievably beautiful and I shared the path with lots of walkers and their dogs.  Many commented on what a special day it was for taking photos.  They, like me, stood and watched the water spout that formed out to sea.  They saw the cliff bathed in gold and the gauzy curtains of rain which drifted across the water.  

It is a walk I will take time and time again I am sure.  

I want to see a rainbow out there.

Maroubra 31.1.13

It's taken a while - a year in fact - but it is happening.  The love that I feel for the mountains is now also the love that I am beginning to feel for the sea and my neighbourhood here.

Maroubra is not the shiniest of suburbs. Its inhabitants are of all races and creeds. Young mothers. Old Greeks. Vietnamese. Chinese. Korean. The young men with the brown backs and the tattoos emblazoned across their shoulders. The bent old woman who walks past every day with her shopping bags. Rich. Poor. 

And the sea.  Always the sea.

For the past few days there have been massive waves.  I have never seen so many people as I have this week just standing up on the cliffs and gazing and gazing. People taking photos on their phones and on their big professional cameras.

Until today it was unsafe to surf but today the surfers are out there.  They run to the rocks across the sand and then launch themselves into the water.  I don't know much about surfing but I know that some of the people out there in all that blue are truly gifted.

I'm looking forward to documenting this new love of mine.. the sea and those who live near it.

 

Mist

When the mist descends in the mountains, all colour is leached from the landscape, all sounds are muffled.  It is peaceful and quiet and in the summer provides sweet relief from the heat.

 

Yesterday we arrived in mist but by late this morning it had cleared. Margot and I walked to our local lookout and gazed at the view.  We listened to the kookaburras, parrots and black cockatoos.  I took her back home and then continued on down Butterfly Lane - the lane she named years ago on a summer's day walk when everywhere we looked there were butterflies. There is an old shed on the lane - its colours of mustard and blue fade more each year but are still beautiful - even more so in autumn when nearby maples blaze red and gold. The lanes are lined with agapanthus and coreopsus, all purple and yellow and vibrant. Most of the houses here are weatherboard and almost all of them have verandahs which have bits and pieces of old furniture on them - today I saw an old rocking chair draped in a crochet rug. 

In our garden hydrangeas bloom under the silver birches.  

Hazy evening light

Sometimes on a summer's evening here by the beach, a hazy light pours over everything.  Sunlight and salt and sea spray combine to create a gorgeousness that lifts the heart.  On a particularly warm night like tonight the beach is still busy with swimmers and surfers and parents dangling their children's feet in the water.

Kids sit on the Cube and watch the water and laugh and ask to have their photo taken.

Somewhere there in the waves is my son, swimming and swimming.

He doesn't come home until the last of the hazy light has gone.

2013

So that is that.  Another year done.  2012 was such a challenging year for many of us and for a variety of reasons.  I'm mostly glad it is done with, though it is not a year I regret living through.

I'm looking forward to 2013.  I have no idea what it will bring.. I have no plans.  I am curious to see what will come my way.  I am turning 50 this year and honestly I am conflicted in how I feel about that. I do know that I would like to live my life with more energy this year - I cannot explain it better than that.

Margot and I found a tiny park on the foreshore at Balmain to watch the 9.00pm fireworks.  In the park were a number of people of all nationalities...all the accents mingling in the warm night air.  A Muslim family whose patriarch quietly and without embarrassment knelt and prayed whilst children swung on the swings nearby.  A Greek family next door were roasting meat on a spit and dancing on their balcony.  

We went back before midnight to a different place.  An old man talked to the English girl next to me about different places in Sydney she must visit.  A group of rowdy young boys stood behind us, counting down the last seconds before midnight.  

We got to bed about 2.00am - all my family under one roof. It took me ages to get to sleep - every time I shut my eyes all I could see were fireworks. 

Happy New Year!

Iconic

We live a few miles south of Bondi Beach - within spitting distance of our own long, curving stretch of sand and rock pools and an ocean that is pond like one day and angry crashing waves the next. Today I met Linda for coffee at Bondi and it was one of those Sydney summer mornings that are bluer than Margot's eyes.  The water was all a- glint and glimmer, sparkling brighter than a Christmas bauble.

You can't be cynical on a day like today.  You embrace Bondi and understand its iconic status.

You drink coffee and yarn with a friend and feel the laughter of others seep into your bones.