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street view – John McRae Photography & Studio

View from an apartment building in Parramatta

I was on a job the other day and I looked out from the balcony to what I discovered was an impressive and unusual view. It was an elevated impression of the city of Parramatta that I hadn’t previously seen. I am sharing this because I found it visually intriguing … and so I felt like including it in a blog post.

I was taken by the way the city skyline looked somehow “unreal” in the light, almost surreal as if some AI program had created it. I think it was merely a result of the soft afternoon light and the fact that I was using a telephoto lens, which has the tendency to compress imagery.

I also liked the tall residential building constructed directly opposite where I was positioned. I couldn’t help looking directly into the stack of neighbouring, domestic boxes and wonder about the inhabitants. It reminded me of when you used to fly into the old airport in Hong Kong, past all the high-rise apartment buildings, looking at the laundry hanging out to dry, with various other signs of inner city living.

It was also intriguing to look down to see that just below me was one of the old cemeteries of Parramatta, with gravestones covering a large area adjacent to the residential towers. This contrast and juxtaposition fascinated me.

A touch of Mad Max in Rozelle

It might be a tad cold at the moment in Sydney but on the positive side, I find that the light is fantastic. I do prefer the winter light as it seems to give a much crisper definition to my images. Also you don’t have to wait for quite as long for the end of the day to come, when the light becomes softer and more forgiving – although the days are shorter and the sunsets and sunrises happen very rapidly.

I am using this period of the year to get out and take a few shots of my greater environment … buildings, street scenes, things that interest me, whenever I find some free time, as happened the other evening on the way home from the swimming pool. I saw the western side of the city lit up with the last rays of the sun. Luckily I had my camera with me in the car, so I stopped and snapped a few frames.

I did marvel at the unusual, futuristic looking cylinders that border the park. They are the exhaust stacks emerging from the tunnels that extends beneath the Rozelle Parklands, newly excavated as part of the WestConnex interchange. In my mind, they look like they belong on the set of one of George Miller’s Mad Max movies.