From Paris to Juan les Pins

Voila!

On a recent trip to my parent's house, I was digging around in their cupboards and I came across a crumpled old brown paper bag.  Crumpled old brown paper bags are like a red rag to a bull to me, so I zeroed in on this to find out what was within.  This is what I found:

The Patheorama is a 35mm film viewer.  You load the film across the viewing window, close the lid, hold it up to your eye and wind the film manually using a wheel located on the backside of the viewer.   The images appear through the window one at a time, black and white but tinted.  The films are all French, one of Paris, another of Norway, Switzerland, a cartoon and the Riviera.  

I don't recall seeing this device when I was young, which might have been a good thing as the old film is very delicate and brittle.  The images are murky through the scratched lens, faded and elusive.  I love them!  Here are some delicately coloured scenes of Paris and the Riviera, near Antibes and Villefranche, I think:

 

I asked my mother about the viewer and she told me that her father had been given it by a friend who had returned from the continent during the first world war.  It makes me happy to think that I can still rummage around in my parents cupboards and find new treasures, just like I did when I was a kid!

Prints and Prints

Escaping from work

I noticed that the Flinders University Art Museum and City Gallery is now located in the State Library of South Australia, so I went to visit it during the week to see what was on offer.

Currently on show is an exhibition of South Australian political prints from the 1970s and 1980s called "Mother Nature is a Lesbian".   The period covered now seems like a golden age for South Australia, what with Don Dunstan and a healthy and visible culture of protesting for change.  Maybe I'm looking back through rose-coloured glasses, but there's something very appealing about those years from where I stand.

I loved the energy in the posters on display, all pre-digital era of course, and I snapped a couple of my favourites below.   I highly recommend a visit to this very conveniently located gallery.  The exhibition closes on 13 July 2014.

 

Pamela Harris, 'Memory Trace' 1983, serigraph.

Pamela Harris, 'Women' 1984, serigraph.

Ann Newmarch, 'Nationalize the Car Industry' C1975, serigraph.

Mandy Martin 'But for the 750,000 people in the world who depend on 

General Motors for their daily bread' 1975, serigraph.

Mandy Martin, 'Gallery 2' 1977, serigraph. 

Also at the State Library of South Australia is a small exhibition of photographs and photographic equipment called "Moriendo Renascor: 19th Century Photography".  I would love to see more from the library's collection and I understand that the public may browse its collection.   This exhibition closes 31 July 2014. 

A modern print of a C1850 daguerreotype 'Actors', photographer unknown.

The photo above is an extract of a modern print of (I think) a glass plate negative C1879 showing the studios of an Adelaide based photographer, Captain Sweet, on Flinders Street.   

Of course, the name Captain Sweet alone is enough to pique anyone's interest, but what little I have seen of this photographer's work makes me want to learn a lot more!  I understand he photographed a lot of landscapes, but it is his portraits that caught my eye.  I have one in my own collection which is one of my favourites, a gentleman in dark glasses.   The subject is interesting, of course, because it is unusual to have a sitter wearing dark glasses, perhaps he is vision impaired, or perhaps it's a trick of the light turning his standard reading glasses dark.  I don't know.  But it is also the space, the jaunty position of the sitter and the quiet simplicity that I love.  

Laura

The gloriously sweeping theme tune to Laura (1944), which starred bad boy Dana Andrews and the impossibly beautiful Gene Tierney.  Composed by David Raksin.  Lyrics later added by Johnny Mercer.  Compare the instrumental from the movie with the 1952 Billy Eckstine version below.   Dreamy.

The Last Day of Summer

While there will still be warm weather ahead, the edge has been taken off the heat now.  The days feel shorter and, sometimes, mistier.  While autumn is one of my favourite seasons, it is sad to see summer fading.  Sad in a melancholy way.  And don't we love a little bit of melancholy?!  

Here is our (newly mown) garden in the last rays of summer:

A bit of Harinezumi 2+++ camera madness.  Speaking of which, look at that edging! I'll be out there this weekend with a pair of lawn clippers, or at least, someone will be...

Farewell summer!

Holiday snaps

I was fortunate enough over the Christmas break to visit the beautiful coastline of north New South Wales with my partner.  As usual, I took a bunch of cameras with me, including the Harinezumi and my trusty old Holga.  I had purchased a new roll of film for the trip, Kodak Ektar 100.  This film is touted as having fine grain and high saturation, which is great, but I was using it for the Holga - the unpredictable photobeast.  So, who knows what would happen.   

I have just got the photos developed and nearly every one of them is a dud!  Completely washed out, with brown staining on the top and bottom of the negatives.  I know it was warm up there, but I've taken the Holga out for a walk in the deserts of Arabia (ie, downtown Dubai) and the prints were fine despite the heat exposure.  So, I'm at a loss to know what has caused this.  I guess the roll was exposed to light somehow.   But that's life with film!   Here is one print I like, looking like a hand-tinted early Kodak; the lighthouse at Byron Bay.