A day at the beach
City lights II
Ithaca
As you set out for Ithaca
hope that your journey is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
— C P Cavafy
Ithaca by C P Cavafy; recited by Sean Connery; music by Vangelis
Fitzroy
Fitzroy, Melbourne’s first suburb, sits at the northern perimeter of its commercial heart — what locals call ‘The City’. The kilometre-and-a-half grid of streets situated on Wurundjeri land has a checkered history, transitioning through the decades from a genteel residential neighborhood of stately Victorian homes, when Fitzroy was conceived in 1839, to a working class area of boarding houses and small factories, a centre for immigrants — first from China, then Europe, later for arrivals from Vietnam and Africa, a mecca for students, artists and musicians, to its inevitable gentrification, becoming an expensive inner-city lifestyle hub; though public housing estates in the area ensure a diversity of residents, these days the area is defined by its many cafes, restaurants and bars, its art galleries and live music venues, and by the extensive vibrant street art, bold ornate tags and scrappy graffiti that adorn walls everywhere.
Night views
Travel. Not too long ago it was a pedestrian experience; these last years it’s become impossible for many, less than pleasant and wrapped in the paperwork of pandemic-fueled bureaucracy for those who can. And still, even now, with travel can come moments of delight. For me, one of the small pleasures of arriving in a new destination has always been the anticipation of what lies behind the door of a new hotel room: the space and light; the furnishings and decor; the bathroom facilities. And then going to the window, perhaps looking over the balcony: sometimes delighted; at other times disappointed, but always gifted a new and different view.
The camera through history has often looked through windows, peering into rooms and also looking out. Recently I’ve been able to do a little bit of traveling, stay in a few hotel rooms, and with my camera look out their windows.
In-dependence
Since Japan was defeated in the Second World War the US military have maintained a presence in the country. Nowhere is this more evident than Okinawa, a prefecture that comprises less than one per cent of Japan’s land mass yet houses around seventy per cent of America’s Japanese military facilities.
It seems somewhat ironic then that this year — today, in fact — Okinawa celebrates the fiftieth anniverary of regaining its sovereignty, control of its lands transferred back to Japan in the Okinawa Reversion Agreement of 1971 — the transfer occurring on May 15, 1972. Something, it should be noted, that was achieved twenty years after the rest of the country. During that period Okinawa was practically a foreign nation: not only was the place governed by the Americans, the US dollar remained the prefecture’s official currency and locals needed a special travel permit to visit other parts of Japan.
Unsurprisingly, Okinawa has a complicated historical relationship with both the US military and Japan’s central government. The prefectural government, which feels both misunderstood and taken for granted, has a fractious relationship with both. While there’s an understanding of the strategic security benefits of the island bases and the population generally feel no antipathy to their American neighbors, who have over the decades had some impact on the islands’ culture, there are mixed feelings and resentments towards their bases given concerns about environmental damage, accidents, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, aircraft noise, crowding and crime. As for Japan, which annexed the independent Kingdom in 1879, Okinawans march to the beat of their own drum, a recent survey of residents showing that some seventy percent of people identified as Okinawan more than Japanese — something unthinkable in other parts of a country that has a unwavering sense of national identity.
The Ongoing Moment
Amid a sea of photography books there are few that engage with the medium in an intellectually meaningful way — critical thinkers such as John Berger, Roland Barthes or Susan Sontag with their decades-old contributions to photography are notable exceptions. A more recent addition is Geoff Dyer — a wonderful writer whom I’ve only recently discovered — whose book The Ongoing Moment (2005) is an absorbing and illuminating read.
Dyer’s extended essay is an investigation of sorts that takes the reader, via a series of vignettes and ancedotes, on a meandering tour through the history of photography, bringing to life the obsessions, irritations, grievances, squabbles, affairs and of course the work, especially the work, of many notable European and American photographers.
Dyer’s chosen subjects are introduced and linked through various tropes or motifs. The book opens for instance with thoughts on a 1916 portrait of a blind woman taken in New York by Paul Strand, moving on to explain how strongly Walker Evans was influenced by this photo before drawing in thematically relevant poetry by William Wordsworth. The topic is then expanded to include a 1911 photo of a blind beggar by Lewis Hine — who happened to be an instructor of Strand’s. Next, Dyer skips over to 1968 to look at another image of a blind man in New York, this one taken by Garry Winogrand. A little later he moves on to André Kertész, describing a number of his images, including one of a blind man taken in 1955, before summing up that photographer’s grievances thus: His vision was sharp, melodic, subtle, humane, but he was treated as though he were blind.
And so it goes, this interplay of topic, time and place repeated with such motifs as solitary figures in hats, picket fences, doors, windows, roads and fruit: oranges in particular, which become the catalyst for a trip through the origins of color photography and its practitioners.
The Ongoing Moment is exhaustively researched — a quick look at the extensive end notes and bibliography tell us as much — but this thoroughly enjoyable book is worlds away from any dry academic text.
Sweet caresses
The sakura trees in Tokyo are once again enjoying their time in the sun, their delicate blossoms marking yet another year. Amid the city’s cold brutalist landscape, those pale pastel blossoms — both joyous and wistful, beautiful yet ephemeral, much like life itself — transform their surroundings like the brush strokes of a master painter bring a canvas to life; soothe us like the sweetest caresses of a loving hand; lift our spirits like the brightest of rose-colored glasses.
Wherever I lay my hat
Home. Melbourne, Sydney, Tokyo, Osaka, Okinawa, for a few brief moments the Greek island of my ancestors, all have been and are in some sense home. Most recently, my base has been Melbourne, my original home, the city often rated the world’s most liveable. At certain times of the year it more than lives up to its reputation. When the weather is fine, the city’s glorious outdoor spaces, a kaleidoscope of greens, are pockets of paradise, and eateries across town, both big and small, serve up meals and drinks whose serious quality is tempered with a typically casual professionalism. The city’s streets provide a feast of visual stimuli. In Melbourne these last months I’ve been busy, but have found time to savor both the outdoor oases and the eateries. I’ve also managed to enjoy Melbourne’s streets and to make a series of photos of the city that has become the latest addition to my Wallpaper gallery.
Reflections
With the dawn of a new year, I’ve added this blog to my site as a place for more spontaneous publishing: a place for phone snapshots and photos that don’t fit into more considered long-term projects, for photographic items of interest and interesting quotes, for unformed ideas and brief musings.
I wrote those words on this site in my very first post, Hello, two years ago to the day. Today’s post is the hundredth, a small personal milestone.
Life, it comes at you fast, as they say. The last two years have, for the most part, been truly awful: unsettling for so many people, filled with worry and stress, illness and pain, loss and grief. Two years ago, who could have known? The calendar says we’re starting a brand new slate today. Another year of history waiting to unfold, memories waiting to be made, and posts waiting to be written. Thus far, publishing my snapshots has been a creative release and scrolling through the last two years of posts has helped me revisit my past, the earlier ones especially triggering forgotten memories of a world that no longer appears to exist. It seems appropriate to keep adding to this blog, for in the words of Joan Didion, who left us only days ago:
We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.
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