Found Alphabet - Z

Less than seven hours from the end of the year I bring you the end of my found alphabet. This is the detail of a sign put up to tell tourists about one of Gawler's historic areas. No alternate Zs for now, I'm just glad to have had the chance to find a good photo to finish with.

It feels good to have finished this year though I have hopes to improve some of the letters through reshoots or new subjects and eventually produce some kind of poster as an end product.

Beyond this I hope to find a new photo project and create some more crafty things, possibly tutorials too. I also hope to start reviewing books again and I'm sure I'll have more to say on the business of being a librarian.

Until then I hope your New Year celebrations are memorable, I'll see you on the other side!

Found Alphabet - Y

I had great success looking for Y. Down by the riverfront I found the sleigh-pulling kangaroo's harness and was sure I had an unbeatable shot then only seconds from home I found this wire fence with the tops not bent over and just loved the shot.

All of these are in and around Gawler - the old steam train at the Gawler train station, a log near a church on Adelaide Road and the riverbank Christmas Display.

Just one more post to round out the year and this found Alphabet!

Found Alphabet - X

I'm so happy with today's X photos that I had to ask a friend to help me select which one to go with. Asides the half-shadow one they're all pretty decent resolution too - doesn't make it easy!

This is a rotated shot of a cast iron heritage street lamp in Gawler. I pass by it and many other beautiful heritage features every work day.

The shadow photo I'll attempt again later - at the moment the sun's in the right position when the light is getting quite dim so with a lot of zoom involved it's a touch difficult to get a good quality shot.

The shot with pigeons is the underside of a heritage road bridge - I like it for the pigeons and how lined up I managed to get several rows of struts, there is, however, the inevitable byproduct of pigeons in there too...

The staircase jumped out at me from some distance - I wish I could somehow have all of these as my feature shot...

Another post later tonight with Y - I've not edited/cropped/rotated any shots for that yet but I've got at least two I believe will come out exceptionally well.

Found Alphabet - W

I was incredibly lucky to get this shot - one morning this moth was just sitting on my verandha and it stayed put while I got a camera extremely close to it to get this. I wish I'd had my SLR ready to go to get a much more detailed close-up but I'll consider myself lucky to have this one. The unedited shot below (you will have to click on it to expand to full size) shows the amazing texture of the moth's wing. This was as close as a zoom/distance combo could get me without losing focus.

I have some other Ws that I'm also very happy with but I just didn't know how to top the one above... and yes, the same moth was a back up U - it's quite the show-off... these were found on a walk around this area. I especially like the tree, it was tough deciding between that and the photo I chose to feature.

I realise I miscalculated yesterday so tomorrow there should be a morning and afternoon post (bonus).

Found Alphabet - V

A quick aside, somewhere in there while I wasn't paying attention my blog passed 50k views! Just a little excited. Thank you! On with the show...

Strictly speaking I mean to take photos sequentially... but this V was too good to leave behind. Technically it dates back to my holiday in November - this is the ceiling in one of the terminals of Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

I should be back with W tomorrow - a photo a day to the end of the year will see this alphabet done this year. Then I can work out which letters need a reshoot etc. and work on some kind of final project.

Found Alphabet - U

It's time to pick up the pace a bit to finish this up this year! This picture is from the veranda of a local bakery that makes shortbread that I don't buy very often - only because I'm going to wind up eating the whole packet in one sitting. I was very excited to find the second U below - it's the wing of a moth that I happened across. I thought at the time I'd found my W and was very excited to get a wing-close-up letter, but there was more than one hiding there.

Found Alphabet - T

At long last, T appears. I may attempt a reshoot of my favourite T but although the brick one below has some things going for it I love that this one isn't so flat and it's got a very strange sense of perspective that's kind of fun.

There were many chances to get electrical pole Ts but I did that back at F and I didn't want a repeat...

I hope I can pick up the pace to get this thing done this year...

I also spotted the most wonderful M in leftover wrought iron on an old stone fence while I was doing this. I may have to think very hard when it comes to deciding which ends up in the final piece of work once the alphabet is finished.

Found Alphabet - S

 

This S comes from Kuala Lumpur International Airport - I was in transit and spotted this on a a lamp in the cafe where I was enjoying a rather excellent teh tarik and some samosas.

The one below was meant to be my S, it's the pavement of a market area in Patong, Phuket. I waited for tuk tuks and market shoppers to get off it for a moment... but the angle and framing just aren't right. This is the best I can get it to be.

*grump*

On the upside my holiday was incredible and I'm working on writing up my travel journal.

Found Alphabet - R

If I regret anything about this letter, it's not having it found and photographed for International Talk Like a Pirate day. Because... ARRR!

I visited Port Pirie last weekend for a fundraising dinner and also went hiking with my sister at Mount Remarkable National Park where she spotted this R - really nicely defined. I'd love another chance to take this shot - maybe when wearing a fly net. The walk was lovely but that particular national park appears to have taken delivery of several cubic metres of flies. Standing still for more than a couple seconds dramatically increased the risk of inhaling a fly. *shudder*

The other R was spotted in Brisbane a while back - I do like it but wanted something taken more recently.

I'd suggest this should be the last difficult letter to find but I really want to avoid jinxing myself...

Found Alphabet - P

I just spent four wonderful and very relaxing days in Brisbane. I thought it would be a good chance to get this alphabet back on track. I've not found much to inspire a P post - at first I was just too busy, then I just couldn't find anything I liked. I think the holiday was very much needed... I feel refreshed and renewed, if somewhat tired from the late flights that I took in order to maximise holiday length.

The final choice is part of a sculpture near the Queensland State Library - found on my last day in Brisbane, the only one that wasn't blue-skied and sunny. It was nice not to be cold for a few days! The internet tells me the sculpture this is from is Approaching Equilibrium by Anthony Pryor.

The second below is also from a sculpture, this one in the Queensland Art Gallery - Elvira Madigan by Ron Robertson-Swann. This was the first of the images I found and after some weeks of feeling a bit disconnected from this project I suddenly had to scoot back to the cloak room to grab my camera. Hopefully this new rush of energy for the alpha-hunt continues.

I also did a lot of reading. I told you about Spellwright by Blake Charlton but read another four books too. That's a story for another post.

Found Alphabet - O

I've definitely not had any trouble finding material to use for this project this weekend. If anything the challenge has been narrowing it down to a sane number to post.

I visited the Oi You! Adelaide art exhibition this weekend - it was fantastic though I'm sorry to say that exhibition has now closed. None of these shots are from inside though - they are from an outdoor work. There were a lot more put up on walls around the city for this event and I'm hoping that they're not planning on destroying them as I haven't had a chance to see most yet. Next weekend I hope to take the map I've printed out and go check out more of this work. If you happen to be in Adelaide it's well worth a look - what little I've seen myself and in the photos of friends has been amazing.

Most of the rest of the photos are also from the urban art festival or other bits of urban/street art I've seen around. There's a pretty cool mural quite close to my house though that has not yet made it onto here. I've had a fascination with street art in many forms for some time and I have a bit of a collection of photos I've taken - some day I'll have to link more of them out here.

It's been an amazing week on this blog. My TARDIS tutorial post got a couple of really big linkages and the view count went sort of crazy. Last I saw that post had passed the 8000 views mark. I'd sort of planned to do something interesting when I saw the 10k mark approaching... but a week ago when my view count was just past 4k I thought I had some time to think about it. Anyhow, it's amazing to see the power of a couple of links. The rest of the blog is just ticking along as normal as if nothing happened, but I enjoy sharing things whether it's with five or five thousand. My biggest problem of late has been having too many post ideas. I'm hoping to get more of those happening soon.

My major project at work also hits it's biggest milestone this week. I'm sure everything's going to go well but wish me luck all the same!

Found Alphabet - N

The cast iron decorative features in this town might just about form an alphabet by themselves - I found large number of Ns all the same - a couple were unfortunately a little fuzzy as it has been a quite dim day so here's a selection of the rest of the best.

With this post I skim on past the halfway mark of this project - it's been quite a week for projects for me! A lot of landmarks and while this is the smaller of the projects I have ongoing it is a milestone all the same.

So far I've learnt to see things in a whole different way - there are possibilities everywhere. I'm looking forward to continuing this.




    

Found Alphabet - M

This view is through the top of a church steeple - I considered trying to take it again in better light and closer up so that my definition would be better. But my chances of getting a bird to sit just so again were pretty slim - so I ran with this one anyway!

The runner-up is actually from the same building. I've seen more single and triple arches on churches, but a double arch certainly makes for a good M!

Found Alphabet - L

I didn't realise just how black and yellow this week was until I looked at the photos for L... which proved to be harder to find than anticipated as I wanted to avoid using cut-off T and cross shapes. That felt like cheating. Still, a bit of a walk around the neighbourhood and I had a decent selection. I was tempted to choose the one that doesn't have the yellow thing going on... but while the nested L effect that one has is neat it's seriously lacking on the colour front.

M, on the other hand, is proving easier to find than expected. I spotted two good options when I was out looking for L - I plan to go looking for better angles on them during the week.

Found Alphabet - K

I've had an amazing week! I've done at least 800km in the last six days, but it's been absolutely worth it. On Tuesday I travelled through the Barossa Valley and up to Clare on a day trip. I managed to leave my camera in a restaurant in Clare, making this photo even later than it was going to be...

But now I can bring you a pretty spiffy K - this was part of some decorative ironwork on one of the bank buildings in Clare. I hoped to find more instances of this letter on that trip but while I saw many others, including the H below, K eluded me until I had got all the way to Clare.

This weekend I spent an amazing couple of days with a group of friends - we played games, went hiking and generally had a blast. This photo was where we were hiking this morning. I didn't take terribly many others but I'm sure that everyone else made up for it! I did find a couple of candidates for L, so maybe you'll see them next weekend...

We did see some interesting trees as well - one appears to be gradually swallowing a boulder whole, while we could see a face in the other. Can you see it?