25-5-28

 

25-5-27

 

25-5-26

 

25-5-25

 

25-5-24

 

25-5-23

 There is a lushness and green-ness that creeps in all over Vancouver. And flowers. And secret gardens. 

25-5-22

I own things that are older, but not many. It still have pennies in it. It's not particularly hard to crack this safe. You can shine a flashlight through the coin slot in the top and look through the little holes in the back that you might have used to secure it to a wall and you can watch the two discs turn so the flat spot aligns with the tab that holds the door closed. That's if you're being crafty. If you tug on the handle a bit while turning the dial, you can feel the ticks as the combination hits the right numbers. 

I still remember the original combination. Two numbers. My father changed the combination on it once. I can't remember why, but I wanted it to be changed. I think he popped the dial off and stuck it back on in a different position. There's well over 200 pennies in there. The newest one I could find was from 1984. The oldest from 1942. Time machines. That penny was minted in the middle of WWII. It was probably in circulation until about 1984 when I put it in that safe. 2025. It's an 83 year old penny, and it's spent most of it's time in that little tin box. 

I don't know what any of that means. But tomorrow's photo is probably going to be of an old penny. 
 

25-5-21

 

25-5-20

 

25-5-19

 

25-5-18

 

25-5-17

 

25-5-16

 

25-5-15

 

New pen. The packaging was exquisite. 

25-5-14

 

25-5-13

 

25-5-12

 

25-5-11

Sometimes I take the time to discuss my own photographs. This one....

It's a contrast between the manmade and the natural. That tree is a survivor towering over the built landscape. It's like they forgot to cut it down when razing the hill for a laneway lined with little car houses. 

Despite the towering tree perched upon the hill, the garages have a monumental scale that dominates the frame in the foreground, pushing the limits of the framing of the photograph, and the towering tree is diminished in scale. The biggest things, the tree and the sky, take up the smallest part of the photograph. The banal components of the landscape dominate and are powerful in their ordinariness. 

 This photograph isn't dissimilar to the one above. Though it's inverted somewhat in that nature is represented in the constructed and lends a sense of monument to the house itself. The lion, (Ce n'est pas un lion. - Magritte) frozen, symbolically protects the mansion. It's two steps removed from the real, as in, it's a cheap plaster with faux patina representation of the proper marble Medici lions of the 16th Century. The landscaping and the "wild" lions suggest a pastoral landscape and a strong tie to nature, and yet it's completely subverted by pretend arches and columns, cultivated gardens, and faux wildlife. 

It becomes an ostentatious display of an idea of wealth and permanence while it's really a rainy season or two of no maintenance away from an entropic re-ordering into dust. 

25-5-10

 The world would have been so different today. 

25-5-9

 

25-5-8

 

25-5-7

 My good friend Ian was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer today. 

25-5-6

 August 17, 2023, I rebuilt these steps. I didn't put a railing on them. The stairs are 6' wide. If you walk up the center, there's no risk of falling off. Last week we got two notices from Canada Post that there was no railing and the stairs were "dangerous." So I built a railing today. 

25-5-5

 

25-5-4

 

25-5-3

 

25-5-2

 Hello Cedar. 

25-5-1

 

25-4-30

 

25-4-29