Rounded House
This small bungalow is opposite the main gate into the Chinese Cemetery at the corner of Penzance and Crescent Roads. The photo was taken the same day as yesterday’s post, two Decembers ago. Since I have been laid low by a nasty cold or flu, I have not been able to take photos for over a week (other than of my new grand-daughter, now one week old), or spend more than about 20 minutes putting together blog posts. So, my archive is getting a work out.
The processing of this image is a bit of a nod towards Melinda Green Harvey, without the courage to take the contrast quite as far as she so often does (though uploading to WP has helped push things along that path quite a lot).
I like this style of house. This is probably the most basic possible version, compared for instance to the one on the slopes behind (just out of view at this angle) that I posted about a while ago and which has a terrific view over the water to the mountains. This place also has a great view, but when it was built the Chinese Cemetery was considered a really bad thing to have in the neighbourhood – all those loud ceremonies and so on conducted by all them Chinese. So, this house which is now on very valuable land would have at that time had a depressed value and likely the house was less ambitious than its contemporaries on King George Terrace. Still, it’s a nice little house in a great location. The current owners seem fixed on this location, so its immediate future is probably secure, but it is one of those houses not likely to survive another change of ownership.
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Canon EOS 5D Mkii, Canon 5omm/f1.4 lens, polarizing filter, ISO 200, f2.2, 1/3200th
burnt embers 
I really enjoy Melinda’s work, too, and this post really does remind me of her style. Fabulous deep contrasts and shadows at work here, Ehpem. I know this house well and have often wondered about it… it sure was great to get a little background info on it all!
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Thank you Toad! I wish I knew more about the place. Even though I know the people that own it, I don’t feel comfortable asking for it’s history for the sake of a blog entry.
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Love this house! The high contrast of the photo reminds me of 1940’s and ’50s photos of bungalows in California.
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Thanks Lynn. If you don’t know it, check out Melinda’s blog (link in text of this post) – she has many (mostly ruined) houses or other buildings with this kind of approach but much better executed. You won’t see too many interesting gardens though….
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Oh yes, I see what you mean by Melinda’s photography; love that look!
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It’s a beautiful house. We have friends that owned a house very similar to it by the Genesee River built in then 1920’s. I think there was a period in architecture where builders took chances and created beautiful and unique homes. We don’t see it too much anymore except for the very rich and even then most of the time they are average looking houses, only bigger.
I like the processing treatment but part of me wants to see what’s in the shadows, too.
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Hi Ken. I know what you mean about the shadows. In this case one reason I chose to obscure the shadows was because they were very cluttered and could do with simplifying. The upload crunching took out some detail that I had hoped would survive.
There is a lot of modern architectural design happening in houses around here, especially on the waterfront. Some of it is nice, but some have not a single discernible redeeming feature. They don’t even look like older or normal houses blown up out of scale. They just look awful like warehouses or boxes without windows. The windows face the water of course, so the face these houses present to the street has the wall where all the other stuff is put – washrooms and beds and things I would imagine and they only get tiny windows, like one foot square, scattered around acres of otherwise featureless wall. And the houses are huge. I should take a picture sometime.
The designers should be embarrassed, and probably will be in 20 years when they have moved on. I have lived in a horrible box of a house in a bomb site in London – around me were a lot of nice old houses. Of course for me it was fine as I did not have to look at it, I got to see the more interesting houses. They had our place to stare at from their windows. I think some of that is going on with these new places too – they look out at the view and could not care less that other people have to look at their house’s backside, which they only glimpse as they drive into their garages. Rant for the day….
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Nice shot! I like the very white building on the hill in the back – it adds a nice spark. (Thanks for the shout-out, too!)
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Thanks Melinda. That is the Gonzales Observatory, always popping up in my shots as it is a constant in the background to the neighbourhood.
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