Found Alphabet - H

I found H in the Garden of Unearthly Delights - a major Adelaide Fringe venue. For those of you not in Adelaide, the Adelaide Fringe is the second largest in the world after Edinburgh's festival and it's absolutely fantastic. I try to see as many shows as I can fit in - though shockingly I haven't been in three days - hot weather in tent venues is nasty and the air conditioned status of indoor venues is unpredictable.

My favourite way of experiencing the fringe is to do so with Rushtix - last minute cheap tickets - often bought at the Garden of Unearthly Delights box office. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, but it's an amazing way to discover all kinds of awesome things. I do book one or two items of particular interest ahead of time as many acts do sell out, but the bulk of my fringe experience is last-minute and cheap - that way I can see more! I've been known to see two or three shows in a night given the chance...

So far I've seen the Fringe Parade, Eastend Cabaret, Morgan & West, Sammy J and Bushpig. I hope to considerably expand that list in the next week. Later in the week I'll also do a brief write-up on those and any others I see in the meantime.

This is one of the seat-ish things that are located in the food area - they get used in many ways, probably because they're not particularly a chair or a table and are very low to the ground. I think they make a pretty perfect H, and pleasantly there's no need to selectively crop the item. Almost any window frame could be an E, an F, and H or an I with selective cropping and rotation but I prefer to avoid that - it feels like cheating!

Just the one instance of the letter - whenever I've been free I've been at the Fringe. This is my excuse and I am sticking to it! If you're tossing up whether or not to go to the fringe, do it. No matter how weird or wonderful the act it's a really fabulous time of year in Adelaide.

Hutt Street Library outdoor reading room

I found an oasis of art, calm, green and reflection right in the heart of the city today - the Hutt St Library's outdoor reading room. The library wasn't open today but this fantastic little space, just a couple of parking spaces given new purpose, is available at any time (despite what the link says) and will be here until some time in April. The coffee shop next door serves a pretty decent coffee too.

 We're well within library wi-fi range so if you've had your login set up you can connect to the library wireless and download an e-book from the library's collection well outside of the actual opening hours of the library.  I took along a more traditional printed book - I'm currently reading 'The transformed library: e-books, expertise, and evolution' by Jeannette Woodward, which seems like a very appropriate book to read here. Why not come along and have a look, sit and read and enjoy a coffee? It's a wonderful thing to come across in the heart of the city.

P.S.   There are likely more things going on here during opening hour so I'll be visiting again later on.

Found Alphabet - G

This G is slightly behind schedule - I was having way too much fun on the weekend. Adelaide goes into full-blown festival mode for four weeks starting in mid-February. It's a giant party for that whole time, the biggest festival is the Adelaide Fringe, second only to the Edinburgh Fringe for festivals of its kind. Then there's Adelaide Writers' Week, Adelaide Festival of the Arts (every second year), WOMAD, Future Music Festival, Clipsal 500 and SO many more. After that Adelaide tends to re-disguise itself as a very quiet city. Until next year...

Anyhow, last year I was able to attend a huge number of events and performances, especially as I took advantage of last-minute cheap tickets wherever possible. I'm hoping to do much the same this year, at least for the first couple weeks as I'll likely be moving house after that (3rd time in 18 months. Ew.).

Enough explanation, on with the post! This was one of several Gs that I found this week - I expected to be struggling to find them but was pleased to find quite a few, all within the CBD. This was one of three I found in the same wrought iron fence around the Adelaide GPO. I wasn't expecting this one to be the winner but it was so much clearer and more defined than the others.

There are some more below - another from the GPO, a close-up of the hair on one of the Chinese lions guarding Moonta St. by the Adelaide Central Market and the third is from a very old and well-known fountain in Rundle Mall. The fountain looks like being shunted around in the near future, as will the famous Malls Balls - if I ever do a numbers series to continue this you can COUNT on that being no. 8.

 

Found Alphabet - F

I first saw this F when I was doing the D week - so I went back this week... and I'm so glad I did. This is one of the clearest and best letters I've found yet, and stands out boldly even without editing and cropping. I'm also especially glad that it's not an image that could just as easily be an E that's been cropped down. That would have been easy. Any of last week's images could be turned into a reasonable F with only a little adjustment.

The two below are from a visit I made to a library that I used to work in which is shortly to close to be reopened. It's very strange walking through seeing the almost empty shelves. Some areas still have a reasonable, if depleted, stock but others are bizzarely bare.

I'm expecting G week to be especially challenging. I've found one possible image already, but it's not as good as I'd like. I thought my way through the alphabet and I figure if I can work out this week the next worryingly difficult one is Q. So wish me luck!

Papercut Chinese New Year

I haven't posted a lot of crafts recently - many reasons, but I've been able to let out some of my creative energy in my work. One of the great bonuses of my current position!

This is the display I've put together for Chinese New Year - my supervisor gave me a small picture which she liked, but the resolution was far too low to use it directly - so I combined it with my love for paper crafting and this was the result.

The snake was far and away the hardest and most time consuming of the project - mostly cut with an exacto knife with a hammer-driven hole punch for some of the finer detail. I made it over several days - knifework can be tough on the hands, especially where a lot of detail is involved. I chose this colour palette as it's a water snake year. You might see a tiny issue there, but I'm not going to tell you - anyone's capable of a derp from time to time. It sticks out like a sore thumb to me but apparently some don't notice until it's pointed out.

The lanterns were made without a template, except for the script, of course. I had an idea, ran with it, and it worked out just fine. I couldn't use real lanterns because they set off the security system at night - I think these are a nice substitute.

The scroll was built using parts from an old Chinese New Year decoration that I butchered for the purpose. It took more trial and error than the other parts, if not as much time.

The display will be completed shortly with the addition of some work from kids' club - hence the empty spaces. If need be the scroll will be relocated.

But in the meantime I'm really happy with the way this came out!

Found Alphabet - E

E was a letter I found all over the place. It was easy to find - difficult to find those that were well defined. I didn't always have a camera hand but I had a lot of shots to look at this week. In the end I chose this one - it's an extreme close-up of a computer at work. If the staff don't look at me too funny I might try re-taking it next week. It's a little fuzzy. If I take one of the public computers before opening the light there should make it better.

There were several Es I liked so in the end I asked Mum to pick a winner. What do you think?

I have put a few of the others I liked below. Including one that's a bit of a cheat as it's lower case, but when I saw it I had to take it. Some of those I didn't include are a bit abstract, or a bit too like earlier weeks. There was another angled and cropped shot of a park sign like D, and another of the wood carvings in the hall, similar to C. The end of the slide was nice, but I decided it was not very clear, so ... these were my finalists.

I've already seen some Fs I want to try to photograph this week. I think like this week the challenge will be finding a high quality one, whereas I think that G week will, like B week, be more about finding one at all. I was thinking through the alphabet while walking and looking for Es earlier today... G and Q seem the most challenging. But first I'll worry about F.