Swell Festival 2016 – part 1

Up before the sun and with a hit of caffeine, Hubby, Bundy and I were ready to head south to Currumbin, host to the 2016 Swell Sculpture Festival. Sunrise and sunset are the best times to experience the festival, fewer crowds and better light for taking photos. Bundy loves the festival, it is his chance to run around on the sand and meet a few new faces (or sniff new butts to put it in dog terms). Alphy the turtle is the big hit this year, as are the huge deck chairs but I really love the dog walker sculpture and the timber freight boxes lying on the sand. With so many sculptures I have decided to break up the photos and share them in two lots, you will see more of the dog walker and other wonderful works of art sometime next week.

Which one is your favourite?

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Swell: the final series

Thank you to everyone who liked my shots of the Swell Sculpture Festival in previous posts: series one and series two, I now present the final series of photographs from the festival and I hope that you’ll like them as much as the earlier images.

A familiar sight on surf beaches all around the world, this piece of work attracted alot of attention and it had me wondering how they managed to keep the towels in position overnight.

Bundy loves attending the Swell Sculpture Festival, not only does he get to ride in the car and go for a paddle in the surf, he also gets to pose with the sculptures and assist with providing a sense of scale to the artwork.

This really didn’t look out of place on the beach, the large rock close to the horizon is known as ‘Elephant Rock’ and you can see the high rise landscape of Surfers Paradise in the background.

There is always a nautilus shell featured in the exhibition.

Water tanks are normally pretty plain and boring, you will find one in most Aussie backyards but they certainly don’t look like this and I can’t imagine that it would hold much water anyway.

I’m guessing the motion of waves inspired this sculpture (no I didn’t read the exhibition program), those made by water and by humans.

Like many native species, the tiger and koala are struggling to stay alive in our constantly changing environment. In Australia, Tiger conservation is a highly promoted and supported, however our native Koala which is in danger of disappearing from our region as a result of growth in development and traffic, has only recently been acknowledge as being in danger by our government. It is shameful that the majority of the Australian population take this beautiful creature for granted, its plight has become ‘invisible’.

A daylight shot of the giant mosquito featured in series one, this thing is huge!

Sums up the festival perfectly 🙂

Swell: series two

As promised, part two of my series of photographs from the 2012 Swell Sculpture Festival and there are still a few more to come.

No, the ice cream truck wasn’t a sculpture but I love the ‘retro’ appearance and who doesn’t like enjoying an ice cream by the water.

Hot off the press! Swell: series one

Just after 4am I arose from a deep slumber courtesy of my husband, the plan, to see the sun rise over the Swell Sculpture Festival on Currumbin Beach. I am not a morning person but once on the sand the enjoyment of being on the beach and watching the sun rise removed all trace of sleep. Photographers with their tripods were everywhere, we unintentionally followed each other along the esplanade, vying for the best position in an attempt to capture a creative photograph of the sculptures on display. There is much for me to learn and I’m pretty sure that some of other people’s images were taken from an angle that never entered my mind, yet I’m pretty happy with the results and I hope you will be too.

The biggest mosquito on the coast was the most popular insect on the coast this morning with several people toting cameras and tripods preparing to capture its silhouette as the sun rose.

The love cats…

This sculpture represents rain, sunshine and wind, which is which? My guess, from left to right is wind, sunshine and rain.

It won’t come as a surprise to any of you that the reflective dogs were one of the pieces that I really loved, seeing them from front, back, left and right gave me something different and interesting to experience.

Sculptures featuring mosaics appear every year, regretfully I did not pick up a program so I don’t know who the artist responsible for this colourful and pretty piece is but the style is familar and I’ve no doubt that their work has been exhibited in Swell for the last few years.

Between May and August humpback whales migrate north along the east and west coasts of Australia to breeding areas off Queensland and in September they begin the return journey to feeding areas in the Antarctic. This sculpture is a beautiful and timely reminder of this annual event, later in the morning we did actually spot a couple of whales off shore, even though they were too far away for me to photograph them it was still an exciting experience.

Can you see the faces? I didn’t notice them at first, distracted by the colour and the reflections it wasn’t until I looked through the lens during my efforts to focus that I noticed them.

With more photos still to come please stay tuned for Swell:series two!

Cheers and have a great weekend 🙂

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Swell sculptures

The Swell Sculpture festival is on again and I plan on cruising down the Currumbin esplanade sometime this weekend to view and photograph the amazing sculptures on display in the open air. Today I want to share some of my favourite Swell sculptures from the last few years.

Enjoy!