The weather was hot at the beginning of the month. I went up to Mount Macedon to photograph the memorial cross at daybreak of 9 March, because it was 29°C all during the night, I was over it and needed distracting. It was the hottest March night on record. Altitude is supposed to be cooler, right?
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I was invited to submit some designs to the Secret 7" initiative for 2016, having had one chosen in the 2015 round, so I sent a few off. Last year there were about 5000 entries, including designs by Yoko Ono, Martin Parr and David Shrigley.
Here's one: The little South Australian township of Lobethal is noted for its yearly Lights of Lobethal Festival, which essentially sees every house, shop, tree, sleeping dog etc bedecked in a million Christmas lights. It’s said to be the largest Christmas Light display in the Southern Hemisphere. That’s a big call. Clearly nobody’s been to see what’s going down in suburban Happy Valley!
I recently spent some time working in Sydney with Nic Granleese at offices like these: Tragic, isn't it? Somewhat appropriately, this old camera was in the lobby of our digs. We're not talking "this is as big as your head" type of camera. We're talking "this is as big as you" type of camera. People often given their pets odd names. If I had a cat, I'd call it Ferris Mewler. Does that make me odd? These are Bestie's fur kids. Check out their names and judge for yourself. *Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Me and Nic Granleese (www.nicgranleese.com) went on another walk around Melbourne one morning on a reccy for an upcoming job for a utility company. It didn't rain. Me and Nic Granleese (www.nicgranleese.com) went on a walk around Melbourne one morning on a reccy for an upcoming job for a utility company. It rained. There are times in my life when I’ve wondered how I can possibly afford to move to the coast, sustain a living and have decent internet. Such things were on my mind as I planned an overnight trip to Reeves Beach in Gippsland to photograph a perigee moon rise over the sea.
Each year the tulip festival is hosted by Tesselaars, and this weekend was Irish Weekend, whatever that meant. I didn’t see anything particularly Irish-y except baked potatoes and a pint of Guinness (oh how stereotypical of me!). There was a band that played a couple of distantly Celtic-sounding tunes. Does that count? Apart from that, it was just busy as buggery with far too many people to move around comfortably. It being a Friday public holiday with beautiful weather didn’t help matters much. Bestie had a baby and the baby be quite cute. A month old and already trying to lift himself up to see what's going on. Must be a Leo. Kids are cool if you can get them to do stuff for you. This one just planted some flowers for me. Saves me getting dirty, right? And now he's doing a Huckleberry Finn impersonation. And now he's performing tricks! For food! Brilliant!!
It being winter, I was reflecting on how much I dislike being cold (which will be tricky if I ever manage to get to Iceland) and whether or not I should move to Queensland where they have these:
On a whim, we went to Mooloolaba and found some digs opposite the aquarium and because it involved no longer than 5 minutes of walking to get there, we went there. Nah, actually we went there because oooohhhhh…..fishies! After yesterday’s torture session on Mount Beerburrum, a change of pace was in order, preferably one without hills, steps or anything with an incline larger than 1 degree. Maybe involving transport of the sitting down kind. Some shade, a spot to eat lunch, perhaps a croc or two? Where else but Australia Zoo? It’s easy enough to spend at least half the day there and there really is a sort-of train for getting around if your legs haven’t recovered from trudging up hills.
70km north of Brisbane in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland lie the Glass House Mountains. They’re not made of glass and I saw no houses on them. They’re more ‘large hill’ than ‘mountain’ and I know this because I’m spectacularly unfit, yet I managed to haul my butt up one of them without dying. And I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t have happened if they were truly mountains.
Toby was taught to play guitar by his dad while he was growing up in Queensland. Now he’s just launched his first album of original songs with a sold out gig at the Bella Union in Melbourne. A thoroughly nice bloke, and handy with a guitar, Toby was completely at ease on stage and had the crowd behind him from the first song. Edit: Updated website: http://tobiasmusic.com.au/ It was a full moon in Scorpio or some such and I was supposed to be worshipping my inner virgin but instead I was googling moon phases with a view to photographing one for a uni project. Somewhere along the internet search line, I found out that I was born on a waxing gibbous moon. Not the actual moon obviously, but whilst a waxing gibbous moon was floating in the sky. I was born in a hospital. I’m more normal than you might think. Anyway, a waxing gibbous moon is the phase that occurs just before a full moon and people born under this phase tend towards kindness, nurture and good old bloody perfectionism! That explains a lot actually. Apparently, to “fully realise” my potential, I have to accept that I’ll “never actually be perfect”. Harsh!
Whilst creating work for a folio, I started playing around with photographing water drops. How hard can it be to drip water into a bowl and photograph some lovely little drop formations? Turns out…quite difficult, actually. It’s time consuming and more miss than hit. These images came from two different sessions which used up about 14 hours of my life! Still, it’s amazing what you can manage with a bowl of water, some food colouring, an eye dropper full of water and the ability to count and press buttons at the same time for hours on end. None of that newfangled timer gadgetry here! Hidden behind a roller door on a Brunswick side street, Matthew Miles of Opus in Wood quietly works at his craft of designing and making beautiful furniture.
When I saw these bad boys looming, I though it prudent to bring in the washing and batten down the hatches. Okay, there’s no actual hatches to batten…it’s just some pavers, a few canna lillies, some artificial turf and a handful of potted plants…but metaphorically speaking, stuff needed securing. So, naturally I ignored the battening and got my camera and tripod out. I fired off a handful of shots as the clouds gathered and swirled, before pancake-sized raindrops prompted me to pack up and retreat inside. (Yes, yes....alright…they weren't really pancake sized…unless the pancake was about the size of a 50c piece. That’s still pretty big you know. You’d get quite wet if you were hit by lots of them. Raindrops, not 50c pieces.) A very pleasant 26C weather forecast for Mount Dandenong prompted a visit to William Ricketts Sanctuary for a bit of a wander. Ricketts was a Victorian sculptor and potter who spent a good part of his life living with and learning the culture and traditions from several Aboriginal communities in Central Australia.
It being Christmas/New Year time in South Australia, it's stupidly hot. Finally, a day when it's only mildly hot, so one can get out for a ramble. Ended up at Morialta Conservation Park. No falls running of course, but the koalas were plentiful. Got some courage and submitted some works to BSG to go up during their 40x40 Exhibition this month. These are they: For no other reason but that I'd never been before, I went to Lake Eppalock for a look. Lots of dead trees, low water levels, parts of the lake almost dried up. It's supposed to be good for water sports but I didn't see anything happening on or in it. Maybe it was just too shallow.
Went to Casterton for the weekend for a special family birthday party and ended up going for a drive on the Sunday to Nigretta Falls and Wannon Falls. It being almost summer, there wasn’t much water falling! Both fall drops are in the Southern Grampians Shire and are fed by the Wannon River. Nigretta used to be called the Upper Wannon Falls. They feed down to the Wannon Falls which is a punchbowl waterfall. |
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