Tag Archive for: Austria
Reading to Ivy by Leanne Lindsay
This afternoon, I came into the room as Ivy was "reading" to her teddy bear with a babble marathon. After a little while her brothers joined her. Thankfully, her big brothers are total champs. They swooped in like superheroes, armed with storybooks brighter than the sunshine streaming through the door. Next thing I knew, Ivy's teddy was abandoned (sorry, little bear!), and story time was in full swing. This photo melts my heart! You can practically see the concentration on their faces as they weave tales for their little sis. And Ivy? She's all ears, soaking it up.
Purple Flowers by Leanne Lindsay
Wandering through the vibrant flowerbeds at Auburn Botanic Garden, these clusters of purple caught my eye! Their rich color instantly drew me in, and I knew I wanted to capture their beauty. To really make these beauties pop, I focused on using a shallow depth of field. This technique keeps the front flowers nice and sharp, while blurring the background into a dreamy bokeh effect. I love how it creates a sense of depth and draws the viewer's eye right into the center of the frame.
The blurred background hints at the abundance of flowers throughout the garden, while the sharp foreground lets you appreciate the delicate details of these purple blooms.
Purple by Leanne Lindsay
I don't know what these flowers are and despite all my research, I wasn't able to find out. The shape and texture of the flowers just fascinated me. This photograph was taken in Wendy Whiteley's Secret Garden in Sydney. If you asked around, you would find that many people have heard of Wendy Whiteley’s Secret Garden, and some would have already been there and connected with it. It is not really a secret. It is actually one of the worst kept secrets in Sydney – it has been talked about on the radio, written about in the newspapers, viewed on countless web pages, featured on television, and it gets numerous visitors from all over Australia and the World. Wendy and her renowned artist husband, the late Brett Whiteley, set up their family home in Lavender Bay in 1970 and lived there together for two decades. Brett painted many of his iconic Sydney Harbour pictures in the house.
In the weeks that followed Brett’s death in 1992, Wendy’s grief-stricken need to regain some control in her life, to clean up a mess that she could clean up, found her obsessively attacking the piles of overgrown rubbish on the large land filled valley of unused railway land at the foot of her house. Wendy hurled herself into the forlorn site, hacking away at lantana, blackberry vines and privet, clearing up dumped bottles, rusty refrigerators, rotting mattresses, labouring till she was too exhausted to think or feel, then collapsing into sleep each night. Then doing the same, the next day and the next. Wendy never asked any authorities for permission, and no one told her to stop, so she kept going. It's a fascinating place to visit.