Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place vs. home

Posts from the ‘Photography’ category

Links to photography blogs, information, sites

Ian Wallace, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Something different, etwas anders

Above/featured: Intersecting with Ian Wallace: Vancouver Art Gallery – 23 May 2017.

The Oxford Dictionary defines different as:

•   not the same as another or each other; unlike in nature, form, or quality.
•   novel and unusual.
•   distinct; separate.

A first glance at something seen might be good enough at the outset, but a photograph excels at the magic of a moment. Okay, it’s not always magic, and sometimes it’s more than the singularity of an event. Glance at these images and it’s possible you’ll proceed without additional examination, but if you stop for another look, you might find yourself asking questions.

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Belvederegarten, Marmorsaal, Oberes Belvedere, Unteres Belvedere, Belevedere Museum, Belvedere Garten, Marble Hall, Upper Belvedere, Lower Belvedere, Vienna, Wien, Oesterreich, Austria, fotoeins.com

My Vienna: urban frame (2018)

Above/featured: Belvedere Garden, north from Marble Hall in Upper Belvedere to Lower Belvedere and beyond to St. Stephen’s Cathedral at left-centre – 19 May.

It’s easy to reduce a city to stereotypes, distilling landmarks to short paragraph summaries designed for easy consumption.

Some might say: you’re making things too complicated; they’ve got to be simpler. That misguided sentiment needlessly and carelessly minimizes the diversity and complexity of a city, her people, and the infrastructure through which citizens reside, navigate, and thrive. Although I chased after traces of Otto Wagner throughout Vienna, I’m also interested in illuminating the city as reflections from past and present and as glimpses of resident and visitor.

Vienna is an exceptional city

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The Pi(e) in Pie Town (US-60)

Above/featured: Welcome to Pie Town. The 2018 Pie Festival was held on 8 September.

The two words reach your eyes and enter your brain.

Pie Town.

The questions are immediate.

What? Who? Why? How do I get there? Is there really pie?

A sense of calm eventually prevails, and that’s when planning begins. Because there’s firm promise: “oh there will be pie.”

Fast forward to our drive through the American Southwest over three weeks in October 2018, and our adventure is drawing to a close.

With morning sun and excellent conditions, we’ve departed Tucson for a long drive for which there are three goals. One, we must arrive in Santa Fe by tonight to catch our flights out the next day. Two, we have to stop in Albuquerque for a return visit and chomp on a spicy stuffed sopapilla at Mary & Tito’s Cafe before they close at 8pm. Three, we’re desperate to visit Pie Town which by design is on the way to Santa Fe. We’re on the road for over 300 miles (480 kilometres) through Arizona, into New Mexico, and to Pie Town, and that’ll be followed by another 220 miles (350 kilometres) to Santa Fe.

The car continues to roll along the paved undivided two-lane highway on a stretch of lonesome landscape with short stubby hills and tall grassy fields for company. US-60 is nowhere as famous as its northerly US-66 counterpart; both are historic national highways. As some have noted, driving present-day US-60 comes very close to similar conditions on US-66 in the latter’s bygone heyday.

The miles add up, and the hours tick by. Isolation is punctuated by farms, ranches, and small towns. We’ve made notes about the towns, because there’s always a need for fuel: gas for the car, snacks and drinks for the occupants. Small towns may not look like much on first approach, but I know the welcome greeting and warm atmosphere are in store as soon as we step inside a shop or restaurant.

Our destination in New Mexico isn’t “nowhere.”

Because there, pie awaits.

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Die Ruferin, The Caller, Othmar Schimkowitz, sculpture, Musenhaus, Muse House, Medaillonshaus, Otto Wagner, Wiener Moderne, Vienna Modernism, Vienna, Wien, Oesterreich, Austria, fotoeins.com

Global Architectonics

Above/featured: Ruferin (caller) sculpture by Othmar Schimkowitz, roof and corner of Otto Wagner’s Musenhaus – Vienna, 18 May 2018 with 6D1 (more here).

Architectonics is a noun which represents “the scientific study of the art and practice of design and construction of buildings.” And by analogy with (plate-) tectonics, key figures and their subsequent creations have shaped architectural ideas and trends around the world. In the following locations, I’ve chosen specific buildings or structures over generic cityscapes.

  1. Austria: Innsbruck
  2. Austria: Vienna
  3. Canada: Burnaby
  4. Czech Republic: Prague
  5. Germany: Alfeld
  6. Germany: Dessau
  7. Germany: Hamburg
  8. Germany: Magdeburg
  9. Germany: Munich
  10. Germany: Rothenburg ob der Tauber
  11. New Zealand: Wellington
  12. USA: Grand Canyon
  13. USA: Seattle

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Grand Canyon National Park: The North & South Rim

Above/featured: West-northwest from Mohave Point – 15 October 2018.

The Grand Canyon National Park has very different timescales: over 100 years of human inscription as a national park, but almost 2 billion years of geologic history.

European colonizers and settlers recognized protection was required for the big dramatic landscape. On 26 February 1919, U.S. Congress passed legislation “An Act to Establish the Grand Canyon National Park in the State of Arizona” which was signed by President Woodrow Wilson. With its official designation, the country’s 15th National Park encompasses over 1-million acres (almost 405-thousand hectares) in surface area and several thousand years of history of human habitation by indigenous peoples, including the Havasupai, Hualapai, Hopi, Navajo, Paiute, and the Zuni, who consider the Grand Canyon as their ancestral birthplace. UNESCO inscribed the Grand Canyon National Park as World Heritage Site in 1979.

The park also includes over a billion years of geologic history. By geologic standards, the Grand Canyon itself is relatively “young” with the Colorado River carving into the rock about 5 to 6 million years ago. However, the Vishnu basement rock in the Grand Canyon is over 1.7 billion years old, even though that age is only 38 percent as old as the Earth’s oldest rocks at 4.5 billion years.

Over three days in October 2018, we explored parts inside Grand Canyon National Park. After our drive from Flagstaff to Vermilion Cliffs, we pushed forward to the North Rim and the winding scenic drive through the Kaibab National Forest took us to Point Imperial and Cape Royal in time for the day’s final illumination.

With a night spent at the beautifully serene Cliff Dwellers Lodge, we retraced our drive back to Cameron, then heading west to Desert View to the eastern section of the South Rim. After establishing our new ‘base’ in Flagstaff, we drove the following day to the main entrance of the Grand Canyon National Park (via Valle and Tusayan), and we spent the day in the western and central sections of the South Rim. The 1126 km (700 mi) we covered over the three days made up 22 percent of the entire 5049 km (3138 mi) driving distance accumulated in New Mexico and Arizona.

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