Victoriana

A rather lovely and whimsical Observatory garden I noticed while out walking early.

It started to drizzle now as I got back from my run and we got another spectacular rainbow. Auto white balance let me down here in the camera and my phone’s warmth control couldn’t get it all back. This is also where I realised that the default Apple photo editor has no perspective controls - at least none that I can find. Edit: doh! @ezlemoen pointed me to the perspective controls and I realised I’d seen them before.

More jpeg experiments. I’ve loved “blue hour” since before I knew it was called that. But this is the first time I think I’ve ever photographed it. I just used to think of it as that time when the interior lights matched the intensity of the ambient light. Per my previous post, I backed off the saturation on the “Vivid” Nikon picture control setting from 3 to 2 - although the full kazoo might have worked here. It’s really only on green foliage that I find it too lurid to stand.

Astonishingly, some suburban houses in Cape Town have retained their original low walls without their inhabitants being murdered nightly, presumably. Though I also know it’s a relief when people don’t regularly hop into your yard. Cape Town is a cruel city. And being “middle class” here (actually being in the top 5% nationally) puts you in a weird place in terms of how to react to the countless people struggling at the margins. There’s a lot of ignoring, pretence, occasional sympathy, and the ever-popular blaming-the-poor-for-their-poverty. ...

More Obz Victoriana on the new street.

Observatory. It’s the mixture of Victorian cake-like prettiness with a layer of middle-income country grime.

This is our last autumn in Ash Street. We’ve lived here since 2007. Without any plan in that regard we’ve both lived here longer than either of us has ever lived anywhere else. We’ll miss wonderful neighbours but it’ll be good to be moving… a full 3 or 4 blocks away.

Cat food buying walk no.1 - renovations.

After four years of drought it takes mere days to get annoyed by the inconvenience of a proper Cape Town winter. But when it does clear enough to walk to the shops it can get really pretty.

Strolling to the #recordstore to sell all my #cds on a #spring #morning. It’s a #medicineday, I had the #13thfloorelevators in my ears and #observatory was #perfect.