shapeofthings | Light magic Part II: walking cliche (Reply)

Good real-estate with a view is a hard find in Brisbane. Some people will go to extreme lenthgs for it.

So, we were on our way home from the brewery, via Birdwood Terrace, which leads straight to the mountain. The light and sky were still utterly perfect, so I asked Alex if we could head up the mountain. As we turned onto Rouen Road the green, green grass in the old Toowoong Cemetary caught me eye, so we parked up on the hill and went for a wander.

I don't usually hang about by the gravestones, being the living, breathing, sunlight loving type, but I do find them interesting places to emplore. Cemetaries can give you a quick insight into the history of an area, as well as a great illustration of the power of nature over man-made structures. I'd only been to the Toowong cemetary once before, for a very quick look around, and with the deep blue skies, verdant lawn and city views, the day was ripe for an exploration of death. Those of you more at home with headstones might like to join me on what has to be one of the more cliched photo missions I've attempted.

Lately I've been exploring the manual setting on my camera more and more. I'm finding the auto options are really limiting what I want to capture. For the first time I'm really starting to feel like I'm getting the hang of it all and an SLR might actually open some new opportunities. I shot most of these on ISO50, fast shutter, small f. I'ts the first time I'm played with ISO 50, so it was fun to see what it could do. A few shots were woefully underexposed though, as a most annoying feature of my camera is it's too-bright display, which makes judging the correct exposure very difficult. Still, I had a great time and got a few really nice shots that didn't need anything behond re-sizing to post. This is very good, as for a while I'd been getting quite disheartened and feeling like my images had hit a wall. It's nice to feel inspired to shoot again.

Also inspiring is watching the way nature can take man's forms and turn them into something better. There's a stand of old pine trees in the cemetary, and below them, a small forest of saplings has taken root among the headstones. The hush of pine needles and soft, green light create a timeless air and it feels more like exploring city ruins than taking a stroll in a still-active cemetary. Unfortunately, the heavy atmosphere also attracted the mosquitoes, so we didn't stay long.

Wildflowers were springing up unexpectedly in unmown places, natures bouquets on neglected plots. I used to go collect these flowers with my mum when I was little, where they grew on the vacant lot next to the hospital. Seeing them again filled me with a five-year-old's contentment and a sense that nature evens everything out in the end.

Still, there were sad reminders too. We came across a mass of matching white headstones marking grass graves, and you know what that signifies. There lay our war dead, still ranked in attention, even in death. It's too easy to forget the wars that shaped my country's heritage, and I wonder about these lost men and the families who grieved them.

So many people's lives lie here. Some graves stood testamount to macabre Renovation Rescue efforts, resplendant in new granite and brass for a relative one hundred long years gone. Others are slowly eroding with the rain and wind. Faith and race still segregate, with their own mortuary suburbs. Greek orthodox, Irish Catholic, Japanese: but now they have the irrefutable in common.

But we were still very much living. And also hot, thirsty and tired. So we bid them all farewell on that bright Saturday afternoon. We climbed back up the hill to the car and turned, once more, for home.