Beach Graffiti
This is another view of the beach in front of Beacon Hill Park, featured in previous posts such as last week’s Log Ashore . This another long exposure used both to catch the waves in motion but also to blur out of sight the many people walking on the beach as this was one of the first nicer days of the spring (even though the sky says otherwise, it was warm, not raining).
I took a few photos from this location and was intrigued by the water, but more so by the peeling paint on the stairwell that reveals countless layers of graffiti that have been covered up. It looks as if it must be a monthly task, that has already fallen behind. The darker log in the left of the picture is the static log shown in Log Ashore and it was from the top of this cylindrical stair well that I shot those pictures.
The slope in the background is the seaward edge of Beacon Hill Park looking toward Ogden Point Breakwater, which is obscured behind the headland.
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A map of this location can be found here – it will be slow to load on many computers, but you can look around my blog for a few minutes while it does :). Once it is loaded the map serves as a geographical index to the blog and will take you to some old posts at the same or nearby locations.
Canon EOS 5Dmkii, Canon 50/1.4 lense, ISO100; f16, 20 seconds. Cameron ND Fader filter, at about 6-7 f-stops of density.
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burnt embers 
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Hi, Many thanks for the continual supply of wonderful pictures.
I wanted to let you know that I have nominated you for Versatile Bloggers Award. John
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Hi John – thanks so much, I really appreciate that. I hope I can keep up the ‘wonderful’ part. The ‘continual’ only so long as it is fun to keep on pumping the posts out.
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Wonderful. I love the layers of graffiti and the juxtaposition of nature, man made structures, and art. Great shot.
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Hi Ryan – thanks. Jutxtaposition is a great way of saying it. I have been wondering if maybe I should have been concentrating on just one thing at a time – I do have beach shots, though most have ghosts of people moving in them, but I did not take a picture just of the art.
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No, I think you captured the place perfectly – the mix of all works in its own harmonious incongruity. I like it.
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I would not have picked up on the many layers of graffiti if you had not pointed it out. I was just talking to my son about a graffii art project idea…
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Hi Paula – at first I did not notice what it was exactly, though I liked it and set up the camera to take several shots of it as part of the beach scene. However, when you are shooting 20 or 30 second exposures, you have a lot of time for looking around which was when I really had a close look at what I was photographing. If you look at the stratigraphy of paint, it appears that the current overcoat colour put on by the city to “tidy” things up is on top of a grey one, which is on top of a pale blue. Kind of hard to disentangle from the graffiti. But, I am thinking the blue is the same paint that was used on the Johnson Street Bridge which is now being taken down due to the lack of will to maintain it. Perhaps these layers date when they last painted the bridge – perhaps they used up the leftovers of the bridge paint here and then never bothered with the bridge again (except for covering up some of it’s graffiti too).
If so, this would make the pale blue overcoat about 20 or 25 years old. Graffiti art with spray paint was getting well established in the early 80’s I think (I know it was a hot topic for anthropology and sociology graduate students in the mid 80’s, which probably means it had been around for 5 or 10 years by then, and was well entrenched). Different than carving lover’s names in a tree, or the pyramids which has been going on for ever. So, this is a very long way around to saying that under all these layers of paint, on the original concrete surface is probably preserved some of the original sprayed-on graffiti art in Victoria, and perhaps an art conservation project is called for, to expose and protect it for viewers, sort of an outdoor gallery.
If anyone is thinking I did not get enough sleep last night, they would be right.
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I live in a city that prides itself on covering up graffiti immediately, but I live near Toronto that has some amazing work by graffiti artists. When we were in Portugal recently, we noticed the amount of graffiti that appeared to be more along the lines of “defacing” – angry slogans, etc. – that seemed to tell the story of the frustration of youth. I could have been misinterpreting this, though, as I was not able to read what was being said, as it was not in English. It appeared less artistic, though.
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I am with you in finding graffiti interesting. I draw the line when it’s mindlessly painted on the side of a sensitive heritage structure that cannot withstand too many cleanings, or which drives an owner to paint the structure with an anti-graffiti paint of some kind, when it would not have been painted before (stone for instance). In Victoria one of the side benefits of graffiti is that a common way of discouraging it is to paint a mural on the side of a building, which gives us a great deal more street art (including the better graffiti), and provides some artists with funding, not to mention a giant canvas.
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Peeling paint and graffiti are on my “must photograph” list, along with sunrises, sunsets and baskets of kittens. I feel obligated to shoot them (not the kittens). I’ve seen quite a few but no two alike. I like this a lot.
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I fear that those ‘must photograph’ items have the real danger of producing cliche images, but I know exactly what you mean. The obligation to shoot these subjects must be commonly felt (except for kittens).
Your comment does make me think that it’s a bit of a shame I did not get this picture at sunset since it does set behind the Sooke Hills in the distance. And, the ledge is big enough to hold a basket of kittens too. Really, I should go down there when the tide is right, do a long exposure of the ocean, at sunset, with a basket of kittens in the foreground. Now, if my camera would do double exposures, I could set up at sunrise, get some of that light on the nearest side of the graffiti as well. And, the image would be improved if one of those beautiful 1920’s wooden speed boats were pulled up on the beach. Most pictures have room for improvement, and this is definitely one of them. I need a bigger camera bag, to hold the props.
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I’ve tried to get kittens to sit still (even for a short exposure) and it’s darn near impossible. Good luck!
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Perhaps if one shoots them first and then artfully arranges them in the basket that would work. Using photoshop of course…
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Or would that be cheating?
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