My eyes deceive me

Some posts are fun to construct, and this is one of them.

I've known Ingrid/Gattina via her blog Nonna's Castle for what must be 15 plus years, maybe longer. Ingrid is 80+ and lives in a retirement home, a former castle in Waterloo, Belgium. Yes, that Waterloo of battle fame.

While her age has now restricted her adventures, she looks outwards to life, and has become somewhat of spokesperson to management for residents in her home. 

That almost sounds like an obituary, but she is alive and well and has been playing with AI, especially with old and newer photos. 

I hoped to get permission from Ingrid to use her photos to show what can be done, and she was quite happy with that, so here are some of her efforts. I am just imagining the commands she gave to fix and alter the photos. This is the original with her late husband Rick.

With their baby son.

Boring background?

 

Just whack in a back drop of the Rocky Mountains. When I saw this it made me rather afraid for the future, let alone family history.

Show my cat Rosie biting my nose.

Shorten my son's hair, and add a red shirt and a nice background.

Show my grandson smoking and drinking beer. Note the librarian dog going about its work.

Ingrid was wearing black pants and her cat Arthur was not sitting at her feet.

Son and grandson on holidays.

Put my son and grandson in diving wet suits.

This was funny, when she pointed out it was raining cats and dogs.

Me, me, me. Let me have a turn.

Raining cats and dogs made me think of the Weather Girls' song It's Raining Men. Nah. Too many boring older men, along with a number of Mary Poppins wannabees. 

Rain me some hot looking men. There, much better.

This photo of Ingrid and her bodyguards, her son and grandson, amused me. Her son and grandson are 2 metres tall, 6'6", and Ingrid is not tall, but I don't think this photo is quite right.

Public photography

I can't speak for other countries, but in Australia you are free to take photographs in public spaces. Defining public spaces is difficult, and I would certainly call anywhere government owned as a public space, with restrictions as defined by government law.

Our Spencer Street Station Southern Cross Station is privately operated but it is certainly government owned, so I reckon it is fair game for the public to take photos. After checking, personal and amateur photography is fine. 

What about Museum Melbourne Central Station?  The same as Southern Cross. 

Well, to my surprise this post is going nowhere. My suspicions about photography at private company operated railway stations seems unfounded.

Even at  a car service station where you might fill your car with petrol, while privately owned on privately owned land is considered a public space by Victoria Police.  

This was inspired by an article in an English electric newspaper, https://amateurphotographer.com/latest/photo-news/use-a-dslr-in-a-railway-station-you-get-questioned-use-a-smartphone-youre-ignored-why/ 

Speaking of English newspapers, their free versions are hideous. The Telegraph had an ad over the text of a news story that didn't disappear, and nor had any usual method to close the ad. Only by refreshing could I read the article. Other electric English papers are just as bad with overwhelming advertising, and the pages jumping around on the screen as you try to read something. If I lived in England and wanted to read newspapers, I think I would buy a hard copy at the corner shop. 

And I thought our own advertising was intrusive enough. 

Viva Gibb Photography

Is that Blogger/Compose "Paragraph" drop down menu new? Hang on, the whole menu has changed, I think. Interesting.

Some of the exhibitions at the Town Hall City Gallery are excellent and some not so excellent. This one I thought was in the former category, and I loved it.

Of course no one has taken such photos better than late Rennie Ellis, but he was very well known. Viva Gibb isn't but deserves to be with her photos mostly of people she came across in the streets where she lived. Such folios are easy to create in our digital times, but are they being now? The ordinary needs to be on the photographic record. 

While clicking on the photos creates opens the photos at a larger size, if you right click and open the photos in a new window, that will give decent sized photos.

In my opinion these two photos are brilliant, and perfectly lit.

A brief search finds a good photo of Viva, and some information. Is that a joint she is holding in her hand?

"Working with a Rolleiflex medium format camera and a 4×5-inch Graflex Speed Graphic, she developed and printed all her own work."

A hexibtion

The Melbourne City (lending) Library is rather marvellous, and during the gay month of Midsumma beginning with a huge carnival, followed by a dance party and culminating in Pride March on Sunday, there has been a huge number of other events, from films, to art exhibitions...well all sorts of things.

Hairdresser Friend asked if I wanted to go to Pride March, and I kind of would have. We used to form large parties of up to twelve people to lunch on Fitzroy Street with a few drinks and watch the parade. But I think my years of participating in such events has passed, besides, it is hard to get to without walking over one kilometre from a tram stop, unless I go into the city and out again on a different tram to the normal direct tram.

While it is a bit of a tenuous connection, N & B are considered part of the family and they came to Ray's memorial celebration. B is Ex Sis in Law's step daughter. N & B have a three year old daughter and a one year old son, and his birthday will be celebrated on Sunday, so no Pride March for me.

I can't totally ignore Midsumma though, so I visited the photo exhibition at the aforesaid City Library, and it was pretty cool for about twenty minutes. The curator of the exhibition was there and I overheard him saying and showing on his phone a visitor of the only photo in the collections that was definitely Australian. I assume most photos are of American lovers. There were more couples in military uniform than I would have expected. 

It is interesting that is was presented by the European Union to the Midsummer event, with a message from the EU Ambassador to Australia. Are our connections to Europe already becoming stronger as we slide away from the US?

Here are a few photos.

State Library 2 - Rennie Ellis

I published a post about Hazara refugees featured in photos at the State Library. I was actually there to see a much more fun exhibition, the photos taken by the marvellous photographer Rennie Ellis, 1940-2003 . If he ever took a photo without a human in the photo, I've not seen it. 

My expectations were low. What would the exhibition be like? Enlarged photos pinned to a wall? Oh no, it was so much more, with photos projected or on screens in a large size. It was just brilliant and well done to the curators.

I took lots of photos and I will remark on those who I knew of in the photos. 

Albert Park Beach. We often visited and I still do.

Probably Keferd Road Pier. The runner used to be seen all over Melbourne's inner southern suburbs, always topless. 

Like they need darker skin.

Tea for two. Do Aussies remember those ubiquitous mugs?

There were quite a number of photos from more than one Melbourne Cup, a horse race, and a public holiday for Melburnians. 

If you can't look glam, you can look interesting. 

Celebrity hair dresser the late Lillian Frank.

The year the carpark flooded, where the wealthy used to picnic from the backs of their cars, and champagne of course dahling. 

Sporting matches, Rennie could be there.

Music guru, tv presenter, Ian (Molly) Meldrum. 

Lillian Frank again. She lived her last years around half a kilometre from us.

The very naughty and sadly late artist Mirka Mora. 

Our Local Bearded Media Resident and now former politician with his then wife and the very popular singer, Johnny Farnham. 

Rennie got close to many famous performers. Sadly Tina Turner is history.

Jagger.

Molly Meldrum again.

Keith Richards.

I don't think Rennie was gay but he did like to photograph large gay events.

Protests for women's rights. 

I don't remember these anti Portugal demos. I guess they were about central Africa.

Anti nuclear protests.

Protests about the sacking of our elected Labor government by the Queen's representative, the Governor General.

Mr, All Prick and Ribs, Mick Jagger, again.