Anti Graffiti Strike Squad

 Today I discovered there is a whole squad of golf carts out there whose only purpose in life is the removal of street art! I vaguely thought there was "some guy" from the council who cleaned off graffiti, so when confronted with the squad in Chippendale I was dumbstruck.

Most of them had passed by before I actually thought to take a photo. Up until this moment, I hadn't found much street art to be honest, but there were heaps of spots that had been 'cleaned' or painted over. The penny dropped and I cursed them!

Rubbish bins and cars are bad enough! Now there's a hit squad?!*^$%!!

I found a few paste ups, stickers and stencils and 3 of MIM's cat stencils and quite a few SMC3 paste ups.

I found a fun Alien paste up, some great googly eye stickers and a "You are here" sticker so I came away with a smile on my face after all.

  

Beware the anti-graffiti squad,

J in JAM

Glebe Tram Sheds

Yesterday was probably our last trip out to the Glebe Tram Sheds, redevelopment is occurring now and a new fence and screen has been placed all around the perimeter. It was our third visit in this amazing place and it will be sad to give up such a wonderful photographic subject.

The day started with a stop off at Leichhardt to photograph a Syke mural and one photo in, my batteries died. Our backups were also flat! Not happy Jan. Anyway my partner managed to have both batteries and a memory card and did the honours. 

We saw the "Blue Mox" of the Natural History Museum of London (car and garbage bags blocking the view), an interesting power box and toilet block. Unexpected discoveries are always sweeter.

Lucky for me, but not my wallet, a small corner store had batteries at somewhat inflated prices and we stopped for fish and chips at a place claiming to be the "BEST" fish and chips in the suburb. I doubt it.

The tram sheds are always interesting and we had a great time finding the changes since we last visited and searching out new ideas for photography.

I felt like I was saying goodbye as we left. It's obvious things are changing now and workmen were on site nearby, even on a Saturday. If you haven't seen the tram sheds at Glebe, you've probably missed the boat. No doubt some new place will spring up in its place and that will be a new adventure.

Happy hunting,
J in JAM

Hazzy Bee goodness

The whimsy of Hazzy Bee's art never fails to make me stop and stare - and get my camera out. I'm happy to say one of my pics is now on the Hazzy Bee website http://hazzybee.com/art Hazzy Bee sometimes works with Akisiew  (http://akisiew.com/) on murals and I love their collaborations.

Taking photos of street art is often difficult with a variety of intrusions like power poles, street signs, cars, trees, rubbish buns, dumped garbage, large items awaiting collection and so on.

The there's the weather - too bright, too dark, too many shadows....

 And let's not forget 'user error' like batteries dying, leaving the memory card back home in the laptop, smudges on the lens, etc

The boot of our little car is filled with tripods and 2 milk crates for ladder purposes. The crates take up 90% of the boot space! We've revised our idea to take 3 crates after Mox told us one of his worst falls from stacked up milk crates.

It's great when you capture something well. I often find myself cheering for other people's photos when they've done such a great job. Good pics and great street art  just inspire us even more :-)

Update on Akisiew - see her gorgeous new work at http://www.arthousecoop.com/library/2444#page-slide_1

More art please!
J in JAM

Graffiti in the sunshine

800 photos in 3 days?


Wonderful weekend. Weather and street art-wise. 

Big City Freaks mural detail, Chippendale

From Friday we started the hunt for a suburb we haven't hit before - Chippendale. We had a few ideas about where to look and there certainly was a rich vein of graffiti gold to uncover. 

Stencils and paste ups in Chippendale

More Chippendale plus Enmore on Saturday and Enmore and St Peters Sunday. We found plenty to photograph.

 Lady Munchkinio pointing out one of her felt ladies which has been painted over.

The result of all this hunting is a mind whirring with images of street art and feeling blown away by the creativity this city has to offer.

Street artist Mox's London Museum of Natural History stencil.

Highlights? Chatting with Lady Munchkinio and Mox about graffiti. Successful hunting of pieces we'd seen on Flickr. And finding more MIM (iLL) cats.

Stencilled cat by MIM (iLL).

Soon we are off to Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast for a week so no graffiti hunting for a week or so.


Cheers,
J in JAM