My childhood was spent in the idyllic surrounds of the Kiewa Valley in the foothills of the Australian Alps. I was educated in Melbourne, and in my early twenties, with no fixed plans or expectations, I did as many young Aussies did and still do today \u2013 I travelled to London to find my freedom and to discover the world. It was almost a decade before I was to find my way home.<\/p>\n
My time in London was spent working on short contracts, saving a little, and then travelling throughout Europe and Scandinavia to wherever my whim, or the next lift, would take me. Several glorious years passed as I enjoyed\u00a0the magnificent collections of galleries from London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Munich, all the way to Oslo and in between. When dosh ran\u00a0short\u00a0I would return\u00a0to London and, just like Finnegan, \u00a0begin again.<\/p>\n
In 1974 I set off on an epic \u2018Magic Bus\u2019 journey, which was to take me overland from Victoria Station in London, through Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East<\/a>, and Asia, to Khatmandu in Nepal. We had not been long on the road before a major military crisis in Cyprus<\/a> \u00a0caused the first of many upheavals to our plans. A series of dodgy buses and fellow travellers added to the general confusion. This was a time when travel on the infamous \u2018hippy trail\u2019 was at its height and along the way much was lost in the general haze of aromatic smoke and chanted mantras.<\/p>\n By the\u00a01980s I had returned to Melbourne<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the year 2000, I made a return\u00a0visit to the Balkans. Belgrade was displaying the raw\u00a0scars of recent NATO attacks, the latest in a long history of assaults and war which have ravaged this historically strategic and beautiful, if somewhat battered and melancholy, city. I stayed for only a few weeks but returned in 2002 to take up a teaching post at the International High School of Belgrade, in a building which overlooks the River Danube. This time\u00a0I brought my youngest son. We lived in, and explored, Belgrade for the next six months, taking excursions\u00a0into the Serbian countryside and travelling as far north as Hungary, and south-west to Monte Negro on the Adriatic coast. It was an extraordinary adventure for both of us.<\/p>\n In 2012 I realised a life long ambition when I graduated from Monash University<\/a> in Melbourne with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, having majored in both English and in Australian Indigenous Studies.<\/p>\n In 2009, as part of this process, I had the good fortune to spend several weeks studying the Renaissance in Florence<\/a>, literally and academically. I was one of a group of students under the guidance of the erudite and engaging academic and noted historian, Professor Peter Howard<\/a>. This was surely one of the most interesting and enjoyable times of my life. Our daily framing lectures and seminars were held in the Monash University Prato Centre<\/a>, located in the Palazzo Vaj, an 18th<\/sup>-century palace in the historical city centre of Prato<\/a>. Informed by the lectures, along with primary and secondary source material, we set out on daily field trips designed to engage us in the close study of particular aspects of Florence\u2019s history.<\/p>\n It\u2019s my intention to use this web site in an attempt to gather together and organise some of the images and ideas which resulted from these and further eclectic\u00a0studies, and from many of the journeys which preceded them.<\/p>\n It is also my aim to eventually include some aspects of Australian government and politics<\/a>; of Australian Indigenous archaeology including\u00a0not only the questions which it poses but also those posed by its practice and approach; and of questions of social justice and Indigenous Australians.<\/p>\n Unless otherwise noted, all the photos are my own. The black & white photos were taken with my trusty old Pentax Spotmatic II with a 1.4 lens, and then processed, by me, in any available wardrobe, bathroom, or stairwell (hence the blotches). All the others\u00a0are taken with my rudimentary\u00a0Kodak EasyShare DX7590 digital camera. Some are not particularly well framed or focused, but I have included them as part of a sort of visual narrative. Some are, I think, good pictures. I hope you enjoy them, or find something interesting in them, or both.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Back to the top<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Greetings fellow travellers! Welcome to the home of Lee Braden. Here’s a little note about this site: it’s a work in progress, perpetually under development as I add images and develop\u00a0text related to the images, and vice-versa. Every page and every post and and every category is constantly under revision. A bit like me. And … Continue reading About<\/span> ![\"C'est](\"http:\/\/leebraden.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Lee-Braden-237k-150x150.jpg\")
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<\/a>Site Map<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"