Brisbane inception

I'm in Brisbane over the weekend for a quasi family get together. They are not technically my family - sadly my only immediate blood relative remaining alive is an ageing aunt with severe dementia amongst a cocktail of mental and health conditions - but they are such good friends that they have 'adopted' me as family, a relationship I contentedly reciprocate.

I attempted a panoramic photograph of Brisbane city. It didn't work but the product is reminiscent of a scene from the science fiction flick 'Inception' famous in part for its computer generated images of crumbling cities.

I might have a future in Hollywood?

Spoilt photos

This man ran through my photo of the Harbour Bridge

This man walked across my photo of the Opera House forecourt

I don't know why men keeping walking across my camera line.

Testing new camera

I have a fairly expensive SLR camera which takes good photographs despite my general ineptitude but it is bulky and heavy to carry around over long periods. Yesterday I purchased a new compact camera for my forthcoming overseas trip which I will use for most point and click situations. Here are several of the first photographs I took with that camera as a test last evening.

Scenes from my balcony (familiar to regular visitors to this site). Click photos to enlarge.

Sydney Harbour east to Manly

Sydney CBD skyline

Sydney Tower and CBD skyline (zoom)

I think this camera will do for me.

San Francisco in fog

Not visiting San Francisco this time but I love the image

Adieu QM2

The photo taken with a zoom lens is a little blurred and may not be clear to those unfamiliar with Sydney. Taken from my balcony this evening around 9.15pm the photo shows the funnel and top decks of Queen Mary 2 as it pulls away from its berth at the Overseas Passenger Terminal in Circular Quay. The Harbour Bridge is to its port side and the Sydney Opera House is to starboard. The buildings in the foreground are in Potts Point. The zoom lens compresses the image concealing two bays, Farm Cove and Woolloomooloo Bay, that lie between the Opera House and Kings Cross.

You can click on the photo to enlarge it.

Tea time

Orange and the bright light

With bush fires to Sydney's south, west and north today fanned by 34ºc heat and strong winds there is an eery orange cloud over most of the city and yet a gap of blue sky is casting an odd light reflected against southern fascias of CBD and North Sydney buildings.

Here is a pic captured a moment ago of North Sydney (not the best photo, I hastily used my iPhone zoom);

(Click to enlarge)

An old Queen in Sydney

The Queen Mary 2 in Sydney today as viewed from Mrs Macquaries Point. It is berthed at the Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay and in the above pic is seen between the southern roadway to the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. QM2 departs Sydney at midnight tonight headed eventually for its home port at Southampton but stopping first, for Andrew's benefit, in Melbourne.

My friend Sn will be on board as far as Durban in South Africa. This old Queen, that is to say; I, have promised Sn to farewell her by dancing nude in my bedroom window flashing the lights on and off so that she can identify my apartment from the vessel.

If I'm not heard from again then the best guess is that I have been detained for offensive behaviour. Either way, Sn's cruise can only improve after a start like that.

Here is another pic taken today from the same vantage point but without the zoom. It is a very popular photographic stopping point for tourists for obvious reasons.

Change imminent

Clouds signalling a weather change

This is a section of the car park at Sydney's latest super IKEA store in the suburb of Tempe with my silver/grey Mazda 3 nudging the walkway bottom left.

Sydney Airport is immediately to the right and planes taking off fly very low overhead with deafening noise however there was no airport noise noticeable whilst we were inside the store.

None of this was the reason for my photograph. I was trying to capture the interesting cloud formation moving in over the city signalling the predicted cool and possibly showery change after a hot day. The temperature had just peaked at 33.3°c

Full moon rising

As seen from my dining room. The moon looks small and distant in my amateurish photograph but to the naked eye it looked close, large and brilliant.

Then and now

I had planned to include a 'then' photo in this post from Andrew's blog but unfortunately I haven't been able to locate the relevant post from his site.

Let me go back a step. In my memory (and mind's eye) a few weeks (months?) back Andrew posted historic photographs of trams in Sydney one of which was taken near the corner of Queen Street and Ocean St, Woollahra. That intersection is quite near to where I live and at the time of Andrew's post I made a mental note to take a photograph from the same position for comparison.

As is my habit it has taken me weeks (months?) to follow through on my promise. Today was the day. I found myself at that intersection on my constitutional this afternoon, remembered that promise and took my photograph even though conditions for photography were not absolutely ideal with the afternoon sun in the snap.

Here is the 'now' photograph taken, I believe, from a similar position to that in Andrew's historic photo but of course minus the tram and tram lines which were removed in the 1960s.

Queen Street Woollahra, May 2012

So what has happened to the 'then' photo? Well I searched for it using Andrew's blog tags but obviously I can't read Andrew's mind as well as I imagined. I tried 'tram', 'transport', 'sydney', 'history', 'old' and even 'quiz' with no success. I even went back in his archives about 6 months but still no luck.

Perhaps what I remember as a blog post from Andrew was an email but thinking it through is giving me a headache. I give up!

UPDATE: Andrew confirms it was an email message and not his blog. So here is the 'then' photo (courtesy of Andrew);

Queens Street, Woollahra tram and tracks

Pelicans at Woody Point

On Boxing Day Mt drove me down to Woody Point on Bramble Bay in Brisbane so that I could photograph pelicans and some of the local landscape for her. Mt's 60th birthday present, at her request, is a commissioned painting of pelicans and the artist she commissioned to create the work asked for photos to be provided. It's an image that will provide memories of Mt's childhood at the Brisbane seaside suburb of Redcliffe.

Staff at the local information centre feed the pelicans at 10 o'clock each morning so Mt asked me to accompany her with camera in hand to capture images to assist the artist.

The Information Centre located at the aptly named Pelican Park

I switched my camera to the 'sport' setting which captures photographs at machine gun like pace. A small group of pelicans landed near the information centre right on cue and although the feeding was over in a matter of minutes I managed to gather around 500 photos. Here are just a couple.

Feeding gets underway

Pausing for breath

'Next course, please!'

Afterwards, Mt rewarded my exertions with a couple of drinks at the nearby Belvedere Hotel.

Belvedere Hotel

Art and About

The annual Spring outdoors Art and About festival is on in Sydney at the moment. I enjoy walking through Hyde Park to see the photographs enlarged and displayed on banners. This was the scene there yesterday morning before the Sunday crowds appeared.

I rather liked the following photograph but am not sure just what those in the picture are actually up to. There is an ominous sweat soaked torso lurking in the background.

The Food Festival is also underway with the night Noodle Market lighting up the weekday evenings in the park.

The night Noodle Market was blissfully asleep this sunny Sunday morning resting before swinging into action again tonight.

Red lanterns adorn the perimeter and provide a context for the cuisine available.

There were plenty of photographers in the park. Ooops, one of them stepped into my picture.

Yes, No or Maybe?

Lunch today with three longstanding friends. We've all known each other for over forty years. Someone decided we should try Italian as a change from the 'Modern Australian' restaurants we have frequented lately and another selected the venue; the Italian Village at The Rocks. That is a very touristy location with stunning harbour views but would we get a good meal? Sometimes these locations deliver the 'tourist experience' at the expense of quality cuisine.

The weather was all in our favour. It was a gorgeous Spring day and as I made my way around Circular Quay to the restaurant I passed plenty of visitors photographing the sights and themselves.

He had to wait for three ferries to pass before getting a clear view of 'you know what' in the background

Photographing the white icon with the sails ahead with the grey icon to his left

Well, the food at the Italian Village proved to be quite reasonable but we had a bit of a problem with the bill. In addition to the glossy laminated a la carte menu the restaurant offered a separate 'Business Luncheon Menu' for $29. That menu advertised five pasta dishes, four pizza dishes and one free glass of drink. There was no 'And' nor 'Or' separating the pasta section from the pizza section and no other wording to indicate that this menu was anything other than a two course meal with one free glass of drink for $29.

Just to make certain we asked our waiter to confirm that this was the case. His answer was curiously ambiguous. There was no clear 'Yes' or No'. Four more times we asked the question and four more times we were left uncertain. It seemed that the waiter was confirming that we were ordering a two course meal plus drink for $29 and yet we were still uncertain. Not one of the four of us sure that this was the case.

When our pasta 'starter' dishes arrived it seemed doubtful that this truly was a two course menu. The pasta dishes were all very generous serves and quite frankly by the time I had cleared mine I was wondering whether I would be able to manage a pizza dish to follow. I think all four of us felt the same.

We made a valiant effort with the pizzas; not quite polishing them all off but we got close. When the bill arrived it was a few cents short of $300. It was obvious that we had been charged a la carte; well above the advertised Business Luncheon deal. We spoke to the cashier explaining that we had tried multiple times to clarify that we were ordering the Luncheon deal and to the restaurant's credit they reduced our bill by a quarter; effectively charging us the advertised Luncheon rate. (Some additional drinks, coffees and a salad dish lifted us to the revised bill of $200.)

All in all, a happy outcome...for us.

How I wish I could create something like this.....

Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.


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5th Avenue & Central Park

(from Lover of Beauty)