Travel

Circular Quay

What can you say or shoot about Sydney that isn’t a cliche? Harbour views. Meh. Harbour Bridge. Meh. Ferry ride. Meh. Opera House. Meh. Centrepoint tower. Meh.

Still, it is all spectacular, not the least bit for the fact that people are expected to be tourists and are less suspicious with photography. The challenge I found was to shoot different aspects and angles, a few of which I’ve included. I especially like angles of ‘the coathanger’ which play tricks with your mind in 2 dimensions.

I do always find bare Windows desktops in public places (which I assume should be actually doing something other than displaying a desktop and tasktray notification) amusing…

Travel

Sydney Harbour Bridge

I took a Ferry ride from Cockatoo Island back to Circular Quay via the scenic (and probably spectacularly expensive harbour-side properties) route. I happened upon a spare seat at the front which gave me the opportunity for some snaps, although I was slightly timid partly for the signage that claimed no liability for wet gear or passengers, but mostly for the liklihood of going in the drink when concentrating on some shot or other.

As it happened, the forecourt of the Opera House that wasn’t being dug up for renovations, held a display of the Sony World Photography Awards. A number of which (the movement ones in particular) I liked, but like the art heathen I am I failed to appreciate others.

 

Travel

Darling Harbour

Darling Harbour has come such a long way from what I remembered of it in the late 80s. That pink shopping centre chic on one side and the aquarium way over on the otherside are almost lost in the vibrancy of buzz going on. I remember grandma at the aquarium (way back when) going to each of the exhibits in turn saying (in Chinese): “that one’s nice, that one’s nice, that one’s delicious, that one’s nice…”

A ferry terminal from which to do a round trip to Circular Quay via Cockatoo Island, and more restaurants and cafes than you can poke a bread stick at, my favourite discovery was a gelateria next to Imax which served black sesame gelato. Not quite as nice as the ones we had in Kyoto, but still very yummy.

A walk all the way dorn Sussex Street to Chinatown to find some dinner, I was disappointed at the vibe of the street and mall offerings, so ended up going up into a food court and getting some Japanese from there. Which was all the more disappointing for its gooey tofu and half cooked gummy over garliced gyoza. From another stall I’d hoped for a bubblecup but got an oversweet lychee tea with stodgy pearls in it. Good thing I had a kilometre to walk the experience off.

Travel

Sydney CBD

Having finished my meetings for the day, I decided to get some air so grabbed the camera & went for a bit of a stroll. The Four Points Sheraton at Darling Harbour (which does an absolutely gorgeous seafood buffet) was a pretty location, but all the moreso as the room I had faced a multistoried carpark and traffic as opposed to the (soon discovered) Darling Harbour itself.

I discovered from one of the local attendees that a Banksy and others exhibition was being held at Cockatoo Island, so thought I’d do a recce do find where and when to catch a ferry. First stop, I zigged instead of zagged and ended up in Sydney’s CBD so took the opportunity to have a look around. It was only upon reviewing the pics that Anna pointed out they were a bit Jeffrey Smart…

Photography

Geelong photoshoot

A meeting of diaries finally coincided that I could catch my good mate Kev, and have a bit of fun with his new D5100. It has an amazingly fast and responsive focus typical of most modern DSLRs. We played with a variety of lenses, from the stock 18-55mm to my 18-200mm workhorse, the 35mm f1.8 and the 85mm micro. I used both of my D300s and D70 bodies, but had completely forgotten that I’d whacked the D70’s ISO setting to its maximum of 1600 which gave a very noisy/grainy finish to all of my day’s shots. An easy enough beginner’s mistake… The D5100 like the D300s laugh at an ISO of 1600, but I was trying to make the old D70 feel not too unloved.

Woodwork

Final interior coat

A second interior top coat which I’d decided to apply by roller. I’d made maybe 5 minutes progress starting with the ceiling then planned to work around and then down. At this stage I had the paint roller tray in my left hand, standing on a saw horse with the roller in my right hand looking upwards. The natural poisition of the left hand tends to follow the angle of the rest of the body, so I soon discovered that I’d covered myself with white acrylic!

After an hour’s worth of this, I decided that a brush might be the better option, so ended up again at Bunnies with credit card in hand. I purchased a premium ‘rat tail’ 75mm wide synthetic brush which gave a very satisfactory finish. I’ve now finished the interior as much as I’d wanted to, and yet the artiste inside my head keeps whispering “one more coat”. At this stage, I’ll ignore the inner voice as I’ll miss the whole of next week for meetings.

Before finishing up, I couldn’t help myself but to dry fit one of the window frames.

 

Woodwork

Glass panes attached

Amazing what you can accomplish when you’re under the gun. I was hopind to set aside a few hours to silicone in the glass panes, lovingly placing each piece with care & precision…

As it happened, I just ran out of time (insert ironic music here), and so ended up with about 35  minutes to glue in 6 panes for 8 windows. Let’s see, that’s (using fingers and toes), less than one minute each. If it were prescriptions, I could fire them out that double that rate, but this? I guess my time starts now…

Woodwork

I’m still sanding

So, a final sand, air blast, and coat of blue for the exterior, and I’m pretty much done. I put a layer of undercoat on the inside on Cup Day which was miserable wet and cold. I was hoping to have a coat on in the morning and then reapply later in the afternoon (judging by previous external efforts, this was feasable). However, I was defeated by the weather. After I’d gotten back from lunch (and putting on an each way bet for Illo), I’d discovered that the morning’s paint was still quite wet. Nothing to do then but go home as I’d run out of extra other things to do. I’ll contact a signwrite soon and organise those requirements which hopefully shouldn’t take long.

Meanwhile, I’ve taken some sanding, and some arty shots.

 

Woodwork

Waiting for paint to dry

Something that I have discovered to be particularly useful in my short lived cabinet making career, is that it is often worth having several things on the go simulataneously. Not so much from the point of view of being a go-go-go freak, but more that there are often down times when you literally need to wait: for paint to dry, for glue to set, for solvents & timbers to cure.

That’s not to say that down time for contemplation purposes is not valuable (which it is), and sometimes down time can be quite convenient so that you can harass your sister-in-law check out what others are up to, take inspiration or give opinion if sought, or just lend a hand where two are not enough.

Anyway, I’m waiting for the first coat of inside to dry so I’ve test dry fitted the glass panes and made a few minor adjustments where the thickness of paint has sent me acropper.

 

Woodwork

Third coat of blue & interior prep

Somewhere in the back of my head, I had considered the options for the TARDIS interior. On the Ecclestone episode “Father’s Day”, the set designers inverted the TARDIS exterior panels to face inwards for the empty insides scene. Two other options are straight black and straight white. As I don’t intend spending much time on the inside, not longer being of an age with an overactive imagination, I decided on straight white.

Which left me with the problem of actually doing it, which had not entered my calculations when I started the exterior painting. So, more preparation, more sanding, more scraping, removal of blue overspray from the outside (and ergo, the persistant new though that whire overspray from the inside is going to be inevitable), and generally more sanding.

There’s lots of fiddly bits on the inside because it’s not the beauty aspect, so a few corners and construction details I’d left raw (such as screw holes, dings and scrapes, and various timber fitting repairs where the odd shim was required).

My issue now is that time (sigh) is quite pressing on me for the project to be completed by semester’s end, so I’m going to be a bit expedient with the inside.