Yes, I'm behind in my PADing again but this time I have a good excuse. I've been in Canberra for the last couple of days to see the Masterpieces From Paris exhibit at the National Gallery of Australia (pieces from Van Gough, Cezanne, Gauguin and others on loan from the Musee D'Orsay), and the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2010 at the National Portrait Gallery. (In which, you cannot take photographs. I can understand the reason but there's something about that which is very... Kafkaesque in a way. It's all about photography, which is an activity that you Must Not Do.)
Aanyhoo, autumn is starting to take hold in the national capital, and when it does it's at its best in my opinion. Obviously with a mixture of evergreen and deciduous trees there is a lot of shedding... and a lot of not shedding. As I looked west along Condamine street, I noticed a number of autumnal trees backlit by the setting sun. I decided to use them as my backdrop, keeping the foreground leaves in focus. This didn't turn out exactly as I planned (or saw) it; I've lost a bit more red in the background leaves than was intended and perhaps stopping down just a liiiitle bit to get a smidge extra DOF might have helped with that, but I'm not too displeased with the result.
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Edit April 2024: I could not for the life of me remember anything about that exhibition or my visit to it, some 14 years later. This, despite there being a constant reminder. The book of the exhibit (titled Van Gogh, Gaugin, Cezanne & Beyond) sits on the upper shelf of the built in wardrobe in my study, though stacked under other books and my flatbed scanner meaning that it is rarely accessed, and then not easily. Thumbing through it I recognised some of the paintings, though whether it's from this exhibition or merely from other art textbooks I couldn't say. But clearly none of it really "grabbed" me. Which is not to say that that never happens; I recall several instances of standing in awe of paintings that I'll never forget having seen... but the truth is that the majority of exhibits that I've been to over the years have become little more than memory dust.
As for the National Photographic Portrait Prize; I stopped following that years ago, when it devolved from being a competition to find the best photography, to one which you need not bother entering unless you or your subject (or ideally both) were pushing a particular narrative and agenda. Not so oddly, this coincides with declining visitor numbers at galleries and museums. I'm sure it's all a coincidence. Or Covid, which has only been over for 2 years. Or something.
