Lux Fine Photography

Tuesday, 5 April 2011

Monday, 4 April 2011

When I was a kid i liked making prints with potatoes and paint, cutting out patterns in the potato. When I got to be a teenager it was lino cutting and ink prints which was kinda cool. Today it is photoshop and I am still just playing and making interesting visual stuff. I don't usually play with my photos to this extent, usually the photo that you get is pretty much what I saw in front of me when I took the picture. This was a photo I had previously played with, so think of this as flutterbies 2.0.

Sunday, 3 April 2011

Berlin Wall, Berlin

Well a piece of the wall anyway, placed between an aging Soviet Union flag, a tourist shop and Checkpoint Charlie - art is where you find it. I liked the abstract expressionist feel it had to it. It's funny I am old enough to remember the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is the first major world event that I can remember being consciously aware of - seeing people hacking pieces off it and sitting on top of it, concurring the fear of all it represented. A kinda cool moment in the scheme of things.

From Wikipedia:

"The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Soviet-dominated Eastern Bloc officially claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany. However, in practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post–World War II period.

The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) by GDR authorities, implying that neighbouring West Germany had not been fully de-Nazified. The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame" – a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt – while condemning the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB) that demarcated the border between East and West Germany, both borders came to symbolize the "Iron Curtain" between Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc.

Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin, from where they could then travel to West Germany and other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989, the wall prevented almost all such emigration. During this period, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the wall, with estimates of the resulting death toll varying between 100 and 200.

In 1989, a radical series of political changes occurred in the Eastern Bloc, associated with the liberalization of the Eastern Bloc's authoritarian systems and the erosion of political power in the pro-Soviet governments in nearby Poland and Hungary. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, a euphoric public and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the wall; the governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of the rest. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on 3 October 1990."

Friday, 1 April 2011

Rooftops

I just liked the angles in this picture and the different tones.

Thursday, 31 March 2011

No. 11

Not a real tree, but a tree of remembrance in the Jewish Holocaust Museum in Berlin. I liked the interplay with the shadows and light on the wall.

Wednesday, 30 March 2011

No. 10

I used to travel over Hayward's Hill and past the Pauatahanui Inslet to Kenepuru every day - which to be honest is a lovely drive. These trees were about half way up the hill. I liked the arc of the branches.

Monday, 28 March 2011

The Folley

This folly is on the way to Shepshed from Loughborough. It looks very peaceful and would be rurally idyllic were it not for the gentle hum of the M1. Every time I go past it on the double decker bus I think that would make a good photo, from that height. Unfortunately I am no where near that height, but I still think it looks good.