Ball

Today I should arrive back from our camping trip down the Coast. A real busman's holiday that one, and if all went well, Mr Auto Pilot has kept posting in my absence.

We had a ball!

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Going Fishing

Off for a day fishing. The tide is so high that he had to crouch down going under the bridge, (or take his hat off, and that would never do!)

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Gutters

It's been a big month for architecture! Many of our buildings, even the large commercial ones, have roof guttering exposed, so that in extreme rainfall conditions they can overflow without causing damage to building interiors.


Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Brasserie

The Plaza is empty at night, but the Brasserie remains illuminated for our enjoyment as we leave the cinemas.

Sunshine Plaza
Maroochydore

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

A Skywatch PuzzleToday's Skywatch from the Sunshine Coast

Just where does the sky go to on those nights when there's no moon, and not a star to be seen?

It completely fails to reflect!

I don't think we get a better idea of the infinite nature of the universe than when we peer into inky blackness!

Sunshine Plaza at Night
Maroochydore

Find links to lots more Skywatch images from around the world on the Skywatch Portal!

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Foxtail

The foxtail palm, Woodyetia bifurcata is a native to the World Heritage listed rainforest in Cape Melville in far north Queensland. For many years there was a huge black market in seeds smuggled out of the forest, and it was illegal to actually possess them.

Despite that, the palm is very hardy and fast growing and now appears in large numbers with a plentiful supply of seed. It's a particularly pleasant "self cleaning" tree, with leaves in the characteristic "fox tail" that gives it its common name.

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Cassia

I thought they were the leaves of what we call a Cassia, but after a bit more research it appears that there are numbers of plant species which share that common name. I am fairly certain this one is Senna surattensis which is also known as Singapore Shower among dozens of other names.

Whatever its real origin, it is covered in yellow flowers in early summer, and it has no place in our native forests! This picture taken from below, in full sun and once again illustrates the depth of shade elsewhere on the path I think!

Mooloolaba

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Supergraphic 4

This will be the last in this series for a month or so, it's too easy to have too much of a good thing!

But it's interesting to me that, building components can accidentally give the same effect when viewed from angles other than the ones intended by the designer.

How do I know this was unintended?

Well the Garden and the fence I had to climb were a strong hint!

It looks like I really am away a few more days this time, hopefully the scheduled posts are appearing and you can read this!


Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

SuperGraphics 3

This is a deep (1.5 metre) panel on a shop verandah facing west. It could have been obliterated by signs for the retailer behind but the graphic gives something of a consistent, subtropical, sunny even, disposition to an otherwise simple building.

It looks like I really am away a few more days this time, hopefully the scheduled posts are appearing and you can read this!


Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Supergraphic 2

If you read the link yesterday, by now you will have become an expert in Supergraphics. Here's a beauty I think, simple fins and a sun awning over small slotted windows. The form of the building creates the "lines" for the colour.

It looks like I really am away a few more days this time, hopefully the scheduled posts are appearing and you can read this!

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Supergraphic 1

In our new environment, our designers and planners are constantly seeking ways of disguising utilitarian buildings economically. We have dozens of examples, some better than others, some enormously complicated, and over the coming year I'll make a point of photographing more.

Can the designer of this building really have foreseen the blue of the sky, or the shadow of the streetlight interacting with his/her seemingly random vertical lines? As time goes by, I have no doubt the original intent will be obscured by trees, and many will be painted over in the quest for economy in the future, so perhaps I can record some for posterity!

Since this won't be the last, you may as well be informed!

Supergraphics is a coined word of prefix Latin Super meaning ‘more, speacially, extremely’ and Greek Graphikos ‘write and schematize’ joined together to mean ‘an oversized graphics’. And the prefix super means Big and Gigantic. But the oversize not only denotes to the size of the picture but also transcendence of spatial limitations.

Supergraphics has a wide use with many different appellations.

Supergraphics are often called as the street art and urban murals used in urban environments. In the beginning it used to be called Giant Graphics, and Outdoor Wallpaintings, Urban Fantasy, Mural Painting and Big Art. In France it was called le Mur Peint, and Die Bernalt Stadt in Germany. The history of
supergraphics dates way back to the prehistoric cave paintings, however it was only in the 20th century after the Industrial Revolution that Supergraphics settled itself in the urban settings. The first use of the term ‘supergraphic’ is thougt to be by Prof. Charles W. Moor who covered the walls of the shower-room in
Sea Ranch with powerful colors and patterns.

If you would like to read more on the role of Architectural Supergraphics in Identity Design, here is a paper published by the HongKong Polytechnic which I rather enjoyed!

It looks like I really am away a few more days this time, hopefully the scheduled posts are appearing and you can read this!


Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Skywatch last week

It seems like much more than a week ago when the sea was a mass of spray and foam, and the sky full of anger, but this was indeed what it was like last Friday at Caloundra!

Find links to lots more Skywatch images from around the world on the Skywatch Portal!

It looks like I really am away a few more days this time, hopefully the scheduled posts are appearing and you can read this!

Caloundra.


Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Maybe not quite normal..

Back to normal after the storms, except...

See that black stuff on the bags? That's oil. Part of 20,000 tons or was that 200,000 litres, no one can say, but it seems to be lots, which is being frantically removed from 60 kilometres of coastline after a shipping accident during the gales.

The bags themselves are part of a foreshore protection project at the mouth of the Maroochy River.

Maroochydore.

It looks like I really am away a few more days this time, hopefully the scheduled posts are appearing and you can read this!

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Back to normal

By Sunday, everything was back to normal.

Maroochydore

Well we've tried to disappear for a few more days, let's see how this trip goes - no cyclones perhaps?

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Collapse

The next gust destroyed this umbrella, it just imploded on itself and it's hapless owners. I've seen plenty of umbrellas turned inside out, but not just give up. By the time it happened the heavens had opened, and I was standing under a fire hose, trying to keep my camera dry.

Alexandra Headland

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Gales

Once the sunshine returns it's hard to come to terms with the fact that just three days ago, severe gales were lashing the coast. The world was an almost monochromatic grey-green and for the first time in years not a solitary surfer was to be seen.

Maroochydore from Alexandra Headland

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

It's been a year!

It hardly seems possible that a year has gone since the establishment of the new Sunshine Coast Council, and not coincidentally, this blog.

Just as the Council has struggled in its first year, I've still not quite worked out what I'm trying to communicate, but perhaps that will come with time, and it's been a lot of fun anyway. While I am grateful for our endless blue skies and cheery new buildings most of the time, I must admit to the odd wistful glance at photographs from other places, of changing seasons and the patina of centuries of history, and with every visitors comment, I am prompted to visit some far flung corner of the globe!

Here, the changes of season are far more subtle. Notice that there are no beach umbrellas in the picture? It's Autumn and things are cooling down!

If things get too hard, I can always go to the beach, no matter what time of year it is!

Thank you to all who have visited over these past 365 posts, I hope to see more of you in the coming years!


Mooloolaba.

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Storm

We were going camping for a couple of weeks, but Tropical Cyclone Hamish had us scuttling for home. After a week of storms and wind and relentless seas, Hamish seems to have retreated, leaving sixty kilometres of coastline damaged from oil leaking from a damaged freighter.

Without a surfer to give scale, these waves could be a metre high, rather than three metres of boiling foam they were in reality, and yes I am about to get drenched once more by the line of squalls coming across the sky!

Cyclones aren't all that conducive to getting out with one's camera!

Caloundra

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Today's Skywatch from the Sunshine CoastWith Apologies to Jeffrey Smart 4 of 4

Reluctantly I have to admit that I quite like the lighting from this angle, and I quite like the way the evening sky composed itself around my subject too.

Sadly to get to this angle, one has to cross four lanes of freeway on foot, then climb the centre of the cloverleaf landscaping, none of which is in all probability strictly in compliance with all of the local bylaws!

"I'm sorry officer, I have no idea how I got here!"

Find links to lots more Skywatch images from around the world on the Skywatch Portal!

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Bridge DetailWith Apologies to Jeffrey Smart 3 of 4

Perhaps this is pushing the "Smartesque" a little far, and it still doesn't explain to me the purpose of the decoration in this apparently carbon aware age in which we live!

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Motorway BridgeWith Apologies to Jeffrey Smart 2 of 4

This little bridge crosses four lanes of motorway. All of the other similar bridges are simple utilitarian structures of concrete and steel. I'm all for public art, but does bunging up some green mesh, and lighting it create a beautiful environment?

I think not.

I rather enjoy the changing of the coloured reflections of the traffic lights in the concrete crash barriers more!

There is none the less, something quite surreal about this bridge.


Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Intersection With Apologies to Jeffrey Smart 1 of 4

I could never aspire to be Jeffry Smart but as I was passing this bridge, the absence of traffic and he weird evening light reminded me of some of his work.

I'm curious to discover if others see similarities, or was it just my medication kicking in again!

Please note I'm back early from the wilds, in the face of Cyclone Hamish, so I guess we'll go away next week!

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Yellow Meanother view of visual pollution

Of course the colour of the sky helps, but I think I'll go off in search of more during the year. Signage as a positive contributor to the built environment? Well they pay big money for art which isn't as graphic!

Kawana

Please note I'm currently off in the wilds, well away from internet access, so apologise if I've been even quieter than usual, will be back next week.

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Me Tooanother view of visual pollution

There's always a side to a sign which can be quite pleasing if you can find it.

Kawana

Please note I'm currently off in the wilds, well away from internet access, so apologise if I've been even quieter than usual, will be back next week.

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

It's about MEanother view of visual pollution

Signs start to get out of hand. Of course "me" is the operative bit of "home" which is the operative bit of "home centre" which I would have thought would have been all that was necessary to tell me what goes on there.

Alas this is not the case, every tenant competes for a bigger share of the visibility quotient, but it does lead to some interesting photographs. I hope you don't get bored over the next few days.

Kawana

Please note I'm heading off into the wilds today, well away from internet access, so apologise if I become quieter than usual, will be back in a week and a bit.

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Skywatch with Boats

It won't be long until warm sunny skies start returning to those cooler parts of the globe, so I thought I'd get in one more clear sunny sky before we all have them!

Find links to lots more Skywatch images from around the world on the Skywatch Portal!

Golden Beach

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Water with Boats

Just one more I promise.

They looks so pretty you see.....

Caloundra Classic Boat Regatta
Golden Beach

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Felix

Without wanting to get too technical, a cat rigged sailing boat is one with its mast well forward, and usually unstayed, and boats rigged like this are called cat boats. (Not to be confused with catamarans which are altogetherly different.)

Felix is a cat boat.

(Get it? Slaps forehead and moves off-stage....)


Caloundra Classic Boat Festival
Golden Beach


Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Wooden Boats

I suspect that no description is required!

Caloundra Classic Boat Festival
Golden Beach.

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Sailor's Lunch

A sailor seems well enough provisioned for a day pottering around in the sunshine!

Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Glass

A sunbather reflects under the watchful eye of the Surf Rescue Patrol.

Did I need to mention the sunbathers sunglasses, the lifeguard's glass binoculars or the glass in the window itself?

I didn't think so.

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants in this month's theme, "Glass".

Mooloolaba