PORTRAITS OF ISTRA - Episode 12 - PULA : PICTURES OF SUBURBIA, part 1

Sometimes the mundane activities in the most unremarkable places, can become kind of poetic when frozen on photograph in the right moment. Even the construction of another boring shopping mall at the edge of the city, already saturated with similar shops, can have a moment or two like that.

Like this working man in the sky, high among the birds, transcending the ordinary construction site.

Followed by two shots filled with birds, machinery and clear absence of humans.

Flocks of seagulls are overlooking the fast - growing supermarket, all those crawling creatures ...

... and their strange, noisy machines.

There is also the man on the roof ...

... and the flat still - walking humanoid trapped in his square world on a pole.

And here is another lovely crane ... I mean, on the following photograph, the vertical one.

A month or so after these pictures ...

... the new shopping center was almost over ...

... and someone left this lovely umbrella in the new parking garage in the cellar...

... at the edge of the city. But not all the areas around the old town look like this ...

... on the opposite side of the city, the sea is the border.

Here the urban area ends abruptly ... and definitely ...

... with some large hotels ...

... and this interesting example of coastal art ...

... angry face waiting for another high tide.

While walking along this scenic seaside promenade ... you can even see a whale ...

... in the distance ... jumping out of the dark sea of pines.

For now is stuck on that building ... but maybe, one day ... the great marine creature will jump high enough to reach the sky ... and freedom.

This seaside part of the city hasn't changed much in the last decades ...

... but other suburban areas ...

... are seemingly ...

... permanently under construction.

In many of these places ...

... among the typical public housing ...

... that all look like some copy - paste constructions ...

... you can always find some, much smaller, oddities ... with small patches of unorganized, disheveled vegetation ...

... or old houses with colorful gardens ...

... in this case a lion is guarding the isolated little world ...

... with refreshing breath of some different times and lifestyles.

He, he ... from this angle looks a lot like the lion from the Merry Old Land of Oz ... pretty scared and lost ...

... among the faceless apartment buildings ...

... with no gardens ...

... no fruits or flowers ... no hidden angles in the shade of some tree.

But even on this boring apartment buildings ...

... especially when they get older ...

... you can see little sprouts of individuality ...

... on the balconies.

And everything looks much better on the sunny afternoon ... like the one on this photograph.

Here are the windows on the large building in a similar neighborhood ...

... I like the little details that are able to disrupt these boring urban patterns ... like this colorful little clothesline ...

... and these seagulls passing by.

Here a man working on the facade ...

... brings a bit of life and action ...

... in the usually uninteresting suburban scenery.

Here is the nearby tree ... is late autumn ... and you can see one leaf falling.

On this shot, taken in springtime from inside the car, the nice morning sunlight through my dusty windshield is giving a bit of warmth and atmosphere to another faceless, boring example of suburban architecture.
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Here is a shot taken inside one of the shopping malls in that area, a summer selfie, with me in one of the many mirrors there.

Some shiny, mirror - covered buildings, mostly banks and insurance companies, have their moments of magic early in the morning ...

... or on the gloomy day with dramatic clouds ... on these occasions they can look pretty cool. On the following series of photographs ...

... is a little virtual walk through that area ...

... among these mirrors and cubicles ...

... a very ordinary look ...

... from a very ordinary ...

... pedestrian prospective.

Here is another shiny building.

I really like the blue of these windows.

This large advert also looked pretty cool to me ... that's why this shot is here.

At one point the car appeared ... and the wind deformed the face on the advert ... changing the scene ... so I had to include this shot too.

There is an automatic car wash nearby ...

... that also deserves ...

... to be in the post ... I think.

Here is another car wash of the same type ... in another part of the city.

Here is a large building that once was a part of the military complex ... and now is some kind of art center, with many different creative comunities from all fields ... music, theater, visual arts of all sorts ...

... and a lot of skateboarding.

I like to photograph people in action ... especially in cool places.

Here is a little detail of some appropriate art on that building.

Here is a seagull, resting in that area.

Here is a storage area far from there, but also at the outskirts of the city. On the following three pictures ...

... are tree similar details ...

... from three very different parts of suburbia ...

... distant from each other.

Here is a wider look at one of those areas.

Here you can see the same things a bit more up close.

A wider look at some different area. On the following picture ...

... the same place ... just across the wall in the right corner of the antecedent photograph.

Here is the same street ... with the vehicle passing by.

Another detail from that neighborhood.

A view from that place.

A view from another place ... not far from there.

Another look at the mostly blue suburban sky.

Another relatively new neighborhood ...

... with the family passing by ...

... on their way towards the rosy future ... in the spreading suburbia ... and now ...

... with this closing GIF of the working crane ... on another active construction site ... is time to end this little walk through the outskirts of town ... as always in these posts on Steemit, all the photographs are made by me.
[//]:# (!steemitworldmap 44.864834 lat 13.871381 long d3scr)