By Virginia Simpson-Young on behalf of the Bulletin editorial team, Bulletin 5/2024, July

Each month, the Bulletin publishes a photo judged by the editorial team to be the best image of Glebe-Forest Lodge taken by a Glebe Society member. The Management Committee will decide the overall winner to be published in the December edition of the Bulletin. The overall winner’s prize will be a free ticket to our Christmas party. We have four photos this month, each very different from the other. Two are of Blackwattle Bay but depict contrasting features, and the other two are more domestic in scale.

Mary Regan’s ‘Winter Sunrise Blackwattle Bay’ is described by one judge as having ‘striking colour, dramatic composition with reflections, and thoughtful use of bridge and cloud diagonals’. The soft orange light from the rising sun, still below the city horizon, makes silhouettes of the training rowers.

The bay of Dale Dengate’s photo ‘A different angle on Blackwattle Bay’ lacks the calm, ordered symmetry of the bay of Mary Regan’s photo. In fact, as the photo’s title suggests, angularity is a feature – of the bridge’s elbow-like stanchion, irregular angles between the forms of the bridge, silos and blocky, functional buildings. Also, the sharp pointy angles of the replica Endeavour’s masts, yardarms, and pointy poles of the little jetty. Such a jumble of structures is familiar in a working harbour. While once the whole bay area was a working harbour, it is becoming less so, as the Glebe foreshore attests. The work in the photo’s scene is modern work – servicing boats many of which are more for pleasure than necessity – and the Glebe Island silos exist now only to support advertising, not to house grain. The photo may not be particularly well composed, but it is interesting and reflects aspects of the bay that get less attention.

The other two photos are terrestrial. ‘Tree culling on a eucalyptus above Wigram Lane’, by Caroline Lipovsky shows an appropriately kitted-out arborist working on a large, dead gum tree branch. This central action is framed by the colourful flowers and foliage of living plants. The other terrestrial photo is Lyn Collingwood’s debut ‘In Focus’ entry, ‘Montrose’. The photo of Montrose Medical Practice, taken on a rather bleak winter’s day, shows a nice interplay of rooftops and functional items clustered there out of public view: air conditioning compressor, vents, chimneys (old and new), wiring conduit, downpipes. Montrose’s extensive restoration and renovation contrasts with the exposed brick side wall of the neighbouring property’s old double-storey rear wing. Frangipani branches peek in from the right.

In all four photos, the old and the new co-exist, which can also be said of the various ‘scapes’ (cityscape, streetscape, landscape and waterscapes) of Glebe-Forest Lodge.

This month’s winning entry

A couple of the judges were rather taken with Dale Dengate’s ‘A different angle on Blackwattle Bay’, perhaps thinking more about the photo’s subject matter than its aesthetics. All agreed, however, that Mary Regan’s ‘Winter Sunrise Blackwattle Bay’ should be the winner this month. ‘Winter Sunrise Blackwattle Bay’ will now be in the running for photo of the year.

Have you got a photo to share?

Have you recently taken a photo of Glebe-Forest Lodge that you particularly like? Please send it in! Keep your smartphone handy when you’re out and about, and snap something you find interesting, beautiful, new, old, colourful, animal or vegetable.

Below is a reminder of the rules of our photo comp:

  1. The photo must be taken within the 2037 postcode
  2. The photo must be recent (not more than a year old)
  3. The photo must have been taken by a financial member of the Society
  4. The member warrants that they own copyright of the photo and licences the Society to use the photo in its publications and social media
  5. A member can enter only one image in each monthly competition
  6. The editorial committee will determine the monthly winner for publication, but selected other entries will be posted to our website
  7. The Management Committee will determine the overall winner.

Email your entries to editor@glebesociety.org.au.  Please send photos at full resolution.