"I cleave the heavens, and soar to the infinite. What others see from afar, I leave far behind me." Giordano Bruno (1548 – February 17, 1600)

Thursday, August 28, 2014

"The Gloves are off!" - Round #01: Abandoned

"You are hurt and worn out"
Ayumi Hamasaki 
Goyte and Fourth Floor Collapse - "Worn Out Blues"
"The Gloves are off!", at least in Gersthof, the area of Vienna where I live. Wandering from my apartment to the local transport junction, has taken an intriguing turn in the last few months. Major trackwork, on the tramlines, has been going on and will continue until the end of September.  I touched on the work in a previous essay, titled "Nuts in May".

The photographic opportunities afforded by this work to shoot some intriguing and offbeat photo studies has been overwhelming. I could be writing on a variety of topics and sharing the better photos for months on this trackwork. The photos above, of work gloves caught my attention on different days and in different places.

Worn-out and abandoned, the pair in the first photo, shot on a rainy day, were left laying on a section of bare tracks undergoing work. For more than a week, I passed this pair, unmoving and undisturbed, exactly how they were first shot. During this time, I contemplated a number of scenarios for their abandonment - the sad, the bad and the ugly. They finally disappeared when the area was cleaned, as the final work, for that section, went ahead and the plinths, between the sections of track, were put back into place.

Monday, August 11, 2014

Best Keep Secrets of Austria – The Secret of the Giant Leporidae

 
 
 
 
 
Albrecht Dürer's "Young Hare" 1503
Image: Wikipedia
"What beauty is, I know not, 
though it adheres to many things.."
Albrecht Dürer 
Simon & Garfunkel - Bright Eyes
I was wandering through Vienna during the middle of July, while heading towards the Burggarten on a photographic mission (more on that in a number of future blog essays). I decided to go along a side street of the State Opera House, when my eyes caught sight of something totally unexpected. Sitting on top of the most famous Bitzinger Würstelstand, located below the Albertina Museum and across from the Opera house was a supersized green bunny.
Austrians like to enjoy themselves with some rather strong or numerous enlightening liquids and some have been known to see some odd things. Being stone cold sober and spying this ginormous green bunny was a surprise, and delight, to me. I couldn’t help taking a few shots of the bunny sitting in all his elegance on top of this famous Würstelstand.