📸 Photographs
📸 It all seems peaceful enough on Queen Street, Auckland
Though this might develop into something
But the local constabulary are ready.
Will walk by again later.
🎈028/366 | 📸 Just A Picture
Because somedays 🖇️ Ain’t Nobody Got Time For ‘Dis’. Sorry.
🎈022/366 🤖 AI Experiment
… is a picture I took this morning while I sat with a cup of coffee.
If you have been following along with these posts recently, you will have noticed that a lot of images I use in the 366 series are generated by an AI. (More often than not Leonardo.ai) I do not spend a lot of time on creating the perfect prompt. I am really just playing around and creating a little eye candy whilst learning what I can. Which got me to wondering, what would Leonardo make of my view?
I used this prompt.
“I am looking at Auckland Harbour from a balcony in the viaduct. The sun is shining, but the day is still quiet. Create an image for me that you think reflects what I am seeing.
I ran the prompt three times and these were the results.
I decided this was the closest to the right result as in ‘matching the prompt’.
- It has Sky Tower - so ‘Auckland’ - except if I was looking at the harbour from a balcony - Sky tower would be behind me.
- It is very clearly a balcony.
- I rejected the bottom left, because really - to match the prompt ‘I’ wouldn’t be in the picture.
- There were others that were as acceptable. None were ‘right’/
So - why no boats in the AI images? Because they weren’t included in the original prompt.
Just for kicks I modified the prompt
“I am looking at Auckland Harbour with some moored boats from a balcony in the viaduct. The sun is shining, but the day is still quiet. Create an image for me that you think reflects what I am seeing.”
Am I happy with the finished results? Well - no.
But if i didn’t have access to the actual image, for a few minutes of work - the results weren’t too bad.
(These are the results from the free version of Leonardo. I know they would be massively improved if I subscribed and added access to the other models they have available. First though, I want to learn as much as I can for free.)
What do you think?
📸 one thing you can be sure of. You are in Eastbourne .. be the store; pharmacy, butcher, bakery or fruit.
🎈005/366 | 🎨 Art Imitating Life❓
Continuing on from yesterday’s post (4/366), Martinborough is actually a planned town, originally laid out by
Its center square and the roads running into it were laid out to represent a Union Jack.
Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life
💬 Oscar Wilde
The names of the roads through ‘old Martinborough’ are named after towns in Europe that Mr. Martin travelled to on a world tour before he laid out his new town. Later - as the world moved towards World War 1, some of the more germanic sounding street names were changed to celebrate important Military leaders of the time - hence Kitchener.
Meanwhile - head down Kitchener Street to the square and back out along Jellicoe Road there are three mural on the wall. This is one of them celebrating The Martinborough Hotel.
The Artist seems to have an understanding of how the town came to be - or are the bags on the Fiat actually those of the visitors to Martinborough - and not of Mr. Martin. Then again - when Mr. Martin was traveling, I am not sure the car had been invented, much less the Fiat 500.
Maybe Oscar had it right? Maybe the artist is predicting the arrival of the Fiat 500 - so that life can indeed imitate art?
🎈004/366 | 🏢 Demonstrating The Pace Layer
Over the break, I had the fortune (not committing to whether that’s good or bad, since that is a whole different story) to visit Martinborough in the Wairarapa - one of New Zealand’s wine regions. It’s a cute little town that includes a single ‘supermarket’.
On one visit I noticed two photographs on the wall - the building from the early part of the last century, photographed in 1906 ….
… and a second of a different building (same site) in 1949.
As I took the photographs of the photographs, I commented to a couple passing by and watching me that it was a shame that a beautiful building such as the original was replaced by the ‘flat pack’.
I assumed that some bright spark had decided to pull the old one down in favor of the ‘modern, sleek lined building’.
Never assume.
Yes the old one was pulled down - but after a major earthquake rendered part of it flat and part of it unsafe - and I get why you would want to modernize and I know why the designs changed - but that’s not what this is about.
What it’s about is that the photographs and conversation reminded me of a 🔗 recent post from Stowe Boyd that referenced Stewart Brand’s book 🔗 How Buildings Learn which in turn built on the ideas of British architect Frank Duffy.
Buildings aren’t made out of glass, concrete and stone: they’re made out of time, layers of time.
💬 Frank Duffy
Brand’s model is clear;
… and the two images reveal it in action. No images from the inside of the store - though for the Kiwi’s amongst you, I can say that the Martinborough FourSquare is the nicest (and largest) FourSquare I have ever visited. (For Brits, think of a FourSquare as something like one of those Tesco or Safeways Mini-marts we find in ever increasing numbers around the British Isles. Think of the Martinborough Foursquare as more akin to a mid sized Waitrose. For American readers … Wholefoods? High end Safeways?
All that said - look at Brand’s model carefully and consider buildings you know and how they relate.
🎈001/366 | 📸 This Is What I Know
There’s a 🔗 Stonehenge in New Zealand.
Spent a lovely afternoon there today.
If you have interest its 🔗 three words are ‘enable.improves.preperations’.
