The Boomer Legacy

Landscape

A Glimpse of the World that was

Sample #7011
Home before the leaves fall    (Dec 2019)

Topic Images

There are currently 23 photographs in this section.

Go tell the Spartans

Philip Oldfield, who reviewed Quay Quarter Tower for Architecture Australia, argued that the building is one of the most important of the 21st century, as a demonstration of how office towers of more than 100 metres could be adapted instead of demolished and replaced

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Quay Quarter Tower courtyard, Circular Quay [Dec-2022 532KB]

Features of heritage redevelopment

Mate, if you want to make an omelette then you gotta break a few eggs

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1920s heritage shops at Lawson in the Blue Mountains NSW, prior to demolition in Dec 2010.

This linear panorama — divided into three strips for easier viewing — was composited by hand from 62 source images. The master image is a continuous panorama 52000 × 3300 pixels [Oct-2006 462KB]

A crown of ashes

Every Christmas we would gaze up at the pyrocumulus sky, exchange Bushfire Survival Plans and kiss beneath the epicormic shoots

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Woodford bushfire aftermath, Blue Mountains [Dec-2019 1081KB]

Remarks

Panoramic sequences have become commonplace ever since phones and cameras included built-in “panorama mode” options. Nevertheless, shooting high-resolution panos still require lens entrance-pupil aligned mounts and supports. Used to do this stuff professionally 1996—2006, so occasionally it's fun to get the gear out to shoot some scenes, for instance the aftermath of yet another Blue Mountains bushfire

Beneath the steps

The smallest details were often overlooked

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Sassafras Gully Track, near Springwood [Aug-2021 915KB]

Precipitous descent

Decades of wandering through a hostile terrain, only to flounder in the sea

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Ocean cliffs south of Little Marley, Royal National Park NSW [Aug-2020 715KB]

Remarks

This is a hand-held multi-image sequence, which had to be taken by carefully rotating the camera around the lens entrance-pupil. With a calibrated pano-mount it's easy, but had to eyeball it here as the mount was left at home to keep the hiking weight down

Tracks through the past

COVID lockdowns encouraged the rediscovery of our neighbourhoods

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Tramway track at Darks Common, Lapstone [Aug-2021 1248KB]

Zigzag environments

Our infrastructure was forever being torched or overgrown

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Zigzag Railway upper and lower viaducts, Clarence [Jul-2019 995KB]

The way out was not easy

The unprecedented was discreetly normalised

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Florabella pass track, Blue Mountains National Park [Nov-2019 1096KB]

Past escarpment

It was easy to forget how dramatic the landscape could be

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The view south from Thelma Head, Royal National Park NSW [Jul-2019 618KB]

Across the rill and into the trees

The way out was much easier than Papa feared

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Fern Dell, near Springwood NSW [Oct-2019 1084KB]

Golden mean

The rise and fall of the west glowed with unfulfilled promise

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Garawarra Ridge, Royal National Park NSW [Oct-2019 903KB]

Wolo world

Most of the snow melted in the middle of January. Luckily a few weeks later there was huge dump at the beginning of March

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Zermatt township & Matterhorn CH [Feb-2024 727KB]

Home before the leaves fall

The mist was smoke and haze, the leaves fallen due to drought and fire

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Woodford bushfire aftermath, Blue Mountains [Dec-2019 1082KB]

Temporary respite

Spend all morning crawling over room-sized boulders, before having a break and doing it all over again on the way back

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Glenbrook Gorge, Lapstone [Aug-2021 955KB]

Remarks

A few days earlier at Darks Common lookout, noticed a family with small children wandering around in Glenbrook Gorge far below. Thought that if they could take their toddlers in there, then it shouldn't be too difficult for me to walk in. Yeah right. Clambering over boulders for almost an hour and then slipping into the river with $Ks camera gear was not anyone's idea of “easy”. N.B. the small beach in the image no longer exists, washed away by extensive flooding in 2022

Unlimited potential

Entire hillsides were covered with these things, just standing there and not doing anything

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The lower portion of the Wodi Wodi track, near Coalcliff NSW [Oct-2020 1277KB]

Public Private Partnerships

Local governments were prepared to go to any length to protect the value and amenity of beach-side mansions (The Guardian, 2021)

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Collaroy Beach anti-erosion seawall [Apr-2022 744KB]

Retro refurb

Tranquilly through adverse possession

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Whitely Gardens on reclaimed NSW Railway land, Lavender bay in Sydney [Oct-2020 1116KB]

Peak oil

Rapid obsolescence was just around the corner

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Motorcycle parking at the top of Hill Street, North Sydney [Oct-2020 554KB]

Remarks

A disadvantage of panoramic cylindrical projection is that horizontal lines will always appear curved. You can partially compensate by using a Mercator projection, but often you just have to live with it. If the budget allows, you could print the image and mount it inside a concave backing, and then stand inside the arc to see the horizontals straight again, a truly mind-bending experience! (Here the master image is 15340×7670 pixels, which if printed at 150 dpi would end up being 1.3×2.6 metres)

Leave No Trace

There will come a time when it will be hard to believe we were ever here

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Fern Dell, Springwood Blue Mountains National Park [Oct-2019 1168KB]

Pac-Man rock

Eventually the environment will reward us for our diligence

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Florabella pass track, Blue Mountains National Park [Aug-2021 1109KB]

Abrupt about face

The first explorers received a nasty surprise when they tried to follow the rivers inland

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Glenbrook Creek boulders, Lapstone [Aug-2021 821KB]

Rewilding the wilderness

Civilisation was only a few kilometres away, although you would never know it

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Magdala creek, Blue Mountains National Park [Oct-2019 1026KB]

Cruise to live

We were global citizens who liked to move whenever the fancy grabbed us

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Majestic Princess cruise-ship at the Sydney Overseas Passenger Terminal [Dec-2022 528KB]

Notes

These images are multi-shot panoramas, typically showing a view 120° wide and 38° vertical.

They were assembled from 6−10 rectilinear images, shot in portrait-format and using an entrance-pupil aligned camera mount. The individual shots were then “stitched” to create partial-panoramas @ 110 MPixel in size.

 

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