Category — Picture This

My favourite place.

At some point last week I realised I was feeling a little bit over “short form” social media. In other words, I was a bit over the passive-aggressive Facebook statuses and the armchair politics of Twitter. I thought I’d get rid of both for a week and see what it was like.

I loved it. I didn’t miss reading about people’s lunches at all. I was less angry, I got far more done, and most importantly, my attention span increased dramatically. I went from not being able to sit through an hour of Sopranos, to sitting through The Talented Mr Ripley, which comes in at a little over two hours, including the longest Dolby Digital ad ever, which I accidentally watched twice. I finished two Vanity Fairs that had been sitting beside my bed since last year [featuring some brilliant articles, including this one about the dispute surrounding L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt’s gifts to François-Marie Banier; another  which is a gripping story about the deadly risks of climbing Mont Blanc, and a surprisingly engrossing extract from Lauren Hillenbrand's new book about three men who survived when their World War II bomber crashed in the Pacific].

I had all kinds of weekend plans which I did without spending half my time looking at my phone and no-one was forced to read 11,000 Tweets about anything clumsy I managed to do [until this morning, when I felt it was my duty to inform people that I'd dropped beetroot on my pants, right on the groin region].  

I’m going to go another week and see how I feel about it all then, but in the meantime, if you spend less time on the ‘net, you spend more time doing stuff like:

Rodd Island

Kathy and Luke had their engagement party on Saturday on Rodd Island. I met The Sisters Scott at 2204 for brunch first [I can report that the pancakes with boiled fruit are pretty amazing], then we headed to Leichhardt in the world’s slowest taxi, which almost caused us to miss the last water taxi to the island.

There we found a veritable little paradise. The lawn was strewn with beanbags, there was delicious food and bright buckets of alcohol, lawn Twister and a piñata.

It was a delightful day, made even more delightful by the possible appearance of a shark [maybe].

Dr Pong

Afterwards, I went to Oxford Street to Dr Pong, where I met Joel, Steph, and a selection of Joel’s friends, where we belatedly celebrated his birthday with $10 Caprioskas, and many of them. If you like having drinks served by someone in a huge feather headdress, and I suggest you probably would like that, head to Dr Pong.

Book Club

On Sunday I went, with Steph, to a new book club which her friend Bron is a part of. It’s a rad idea, each meeting they pick a Penguin and decide if it is a classic, or if it sucks. The first one we will read is Notes from Underground by that salty dog, Dostoyevsky, whose name I love. I’m interested in seeing what it’s like, I have had a fraught relationship  with Russian to English translations in the past, I find they make the characters very cold, but I remain hopeful as I’m currently reading The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov and it’s amazing. Maybe there is hope for me and the Russians yet.

Yesterday I got an ultra wide angle lens [the Sigma 10-22mm for those playing at home] and I spent the evening taking real estate photos of my lounge room, before annoying The Wuz.

In this photo, titled This is bat country, she is being a cat version of Hunter S Thompson.

And yes Mum, I see the cobwebs on the window. And no, I probably won’t clean them off.

Last night I had the pleasure of going to take photos of my friend Fiona getting tattooed for the first time. For weeks she has been pondering it, looking at different sizes of the design she wanted [the f hole from a Fender Telecaster Thinline], sneaking to the work printer to print them off, asking lots of questions about the pain [we've decided it's not dissimilar to someone drawing on you with a pen, but pressing hard], and the big day finally came!

We went to Mischief Moon, where I got my most recent tattoo done a few months ago. Indeed, Fiona was tattooed by Greg, who did mine. My favourite thing about the Mischief Moon peeps is how long they spend with each client discussing designs and how honest they are about any potential issues with your design.

Which is very different to being tattooed by bikies in small country towns. And didn’t I learn that lesson the hard way? Twice. Actually no, make that three times.

I learn slow.

This is Greg. I find him funny, which is a selling point. Just don’t mention TV, pink, or Trent Reznor. Actually you can mention pink, just don’t ever say ‘Um, do I look like the kind of person who’d want to get a pink tattoo?’

This is Miss Fiona. She loves it. It was like truth serum. At one point she said something like ‘I love pain, I can take pain, give me more pain, YES! Anticipated pain!’

I wanted to ask for her PIN, just to see what would happen.

Pink tattoos. They are a good idea [no, really, I'm kinda tempted]!

Hello! Seriously, look at that fringe! I am a scissor-wielding god.

I don’t know how Fiona is feeling now [besides apparently waking up this morning and yelling 'I am the coolest person in this bedroom!'] but I definitely have the itch…

I have been up to a whole bunch lately, mostly photography-related after school activities.

My good friend Kate works for The Festivalists, who put together, amongst many other things, the Possible Worlds Film Festival, which is a festival of Canadian film held annually in Sydney. I didn’t know Possible Worlds even existed [though no fault of the guys who put it together, I tend to live with my head under 80 thousand tonnes of rock and miss most awesome cultural events], so when Kate asked if I would like to volunteer my services at some of the screenings, I was über excited at the prospect of meeting some new people, getting out from under that 80 thousand tonnes of rock and seeing some Canadian film.

I went along to the opening night at Dendy Circular Quay, and saw the film Chloe. It was a saucy thriller.

Before hand, I took some crowd shots.

Here we have filmmaker Nelofer Paziraand Possible Worlds Artistic Director, Matt Ravier.

They are both ridiculously photogenic.

I loved these girls! How much fun do they look like they’d be? I bet they make up all kinds of awesome uke songs.

I went along again on one of the last nights and saw Leslie, My Name is Evil. It was a strange film, I don’t know that it quite got where it wanted to go, but it was a really interesting film to watch, kind of a pop art take on the Manson family.

After the screening, all the hip kids headed to the after party. I followed them.

And followed them.

And followed them.

Then we partied.

And projected.

And partied.

After getting over that and editing a trillionity billion photos, my dear friend, and fellow Canonista, Fiona, asked if I wanted to shoot the Eels last night. I like Eels, I wanted to shoot them, so I said okay!

Here’s where I fan boy out a little bit, so please, just let me have a moment.

The gig was at the Enmore Theatre. The venue where I’ve seen some of my favourite musical acts ever. A huge old theatre venue. And here I was, with a sticker slapped on my jeans, which allowed me access to the photo pit in front of the stage. 16-year-old Julia would have died and gone to heaven. 27-year-old Julia came close. It was so exciting, and shooting from the pit is AWESOME.

Here is my pit pass, as modelled by me, assisted by The Wuz:

The support was Laura Imbruglia, who I’ve never seen live before. She was both a delight to listen to and to shoot.

Then came Eels. We had a three song limit and those three songs were short, darkly lit and performed by only two members of the band. I didn’t let this phase me, I was all ‘Canon 500D? Let’s do this shit!’. And we did. I was pretty happy with the results I got, but as bummed as all the other photographers when we got booted out of the pit and turned to discover the whole band on stage with awesome red and orange lighting. Them’s the breaks.

The rest of my pics are over at my Flicks, yo!

Yesterday Steph and Joel headed off on a six-month trip which will take them to Thailand, on tour with Cloud Control in the UK, through Europe and then from west to east coat in the US.

We got together with Joel’s family in Newtown for lunch before heading to the airport. Lunch was meant to be two families farewelling the newishly married couple before their big journey, a journey during which Joel is apparently going to sit in various poses pondering his future and getting massaged, but it quickly degenerated into a few hours of the Moopa trying to see what he could feed Vincent.

Afterwards it was us versus them in a race to the airport. I think perhaps we were the only ones playing, but we were serious. There was both the Gregory’s and GPS being used to make sure we were the first family, Amazing Race style, to arrive at the airport. We won, my new glasses coming in very handy in spotting no right turn signs from a distance at intersections where we needed to turn right. I like to think I played my part.

And then they left, damn them, on a trip of a lifetime. I seriously can’t wait to read Steve’s travel blogs and to see if her ability to shame herself in public will translate overseas.

Afterwards, we went and bundled The Wuz and my eight million tonnes of luggage into the car and headed to Orange. I hadn’t mentioned that The Wuz tends to cry for entire road trips and we made it about half way down Parramatta Road before Dad was all ‘Cat, I am going to tie you to the tow bar’. Mooma, however, had other ideas. She loves The Wuz, partly because The Wuz is friendly, partly because she’s hoping to one day wear her as a coat, and so to make The Wuz feel better, Mum sang to her. First, and dubiously, (How Much Is) That Doggy in the Window? then later, some sea shanties.

Then we played Guess What I’m Whistling. Dad was ominously silent. I think it’s safe to say Mum and I have an overinflated opinion of our own whistling.

It was dark and cold and hit zero degrees at about 7:30pm.

When we got home we ate cheese and biscuits and lit the wood fire and drank a bottle of red and [in my case] mercilessly mocked whatever Dickens was on the ABC. I identified strongly with the menacing character who lurked in the background eating apples and whispering to a pig’s head and causing characters to fall under wagon wheels.

This morning, I woke up to this [well...actually this morning I woke up at 3am to the sound of The Wuz falling head first between the bed and the bedside table, getting stuck upside down, but I digress]:

And now I must go. I heard something about a trailer and firewood needing to be collected and I am still in my pyjamas [which I discovered last night, are identical to the pair Dad is wearing at the moment].

Today I went to Shark Island, which is in Sydney Harbour.

Apparently it looks like the shape of a shark, but I’d prefer to think that it’s because it’s surrounded by hungry, hungry sharks.

The picnic that we had was to celebrate three things: the third wedding anniversary of my older sister, Mary and her husband, Drew; Drew’s 30th birthday, which was back in February, and the three month birthday of their son, Vincent.

Oh Vincent.

Mary and Drew both only have sisters, so bar my younger sister’s husband, Joel, Vincent only has aunts.

And he is a big hit with said aunts.

Here he is with Aunt Steve. Aunt Steve who is leaving the country on July 4, for just over six months. When she gets back, it’s not entirely unfeasible that V will be … three foot tall. I’m only kinda kidding. You will see a lot of V here in those six months so Steve and Joel can keep up-to-date with the happenings of V. And because he’s redunkulously cute.

This is V and Aunt Nina. Nina is Drew’s younger sister. Drew and Nina have an older sister, Liga, who lives in Canada now. Because she chooses to live in Canada [and yes, I'm envious], she only gets two weeks annual leave a year, so she’s not yet been able to meet V. That is also why I post a lot of pics of him, because by the time Liga meets him, V could be … five foot tall.

Nina doesn’t live in NSW, but I’m hoping V is enough of an attraction to get her to visit more, because Nina is the bomb.

Aw! It’s me and V! I told Mary yesterday that I was going to be in a nautical theme for our time on the island, and could she please dress V to match. I think she did a pretty good job!

I seriously, ridiculously love this kid. Even when he’s eight foot tall I’m going to be pinching his cheeks.

Naw, de baby!

Most of my fam are over six foot, myself included. To me, V looked baby-sized. If anyone had asked me how big he was, I’d have said ‘He’s just a baby-sized baby, you know? Small, kinda chubby, drooly and funny, but baby-sized’.

Then V met Oliver. This is V and Oliver [who V loved, I might add]:

Two fairly similar sized babies, in fact, I think Oliver might be slightly smaller.

V is three months younger than Oliver.

Join the club, kid.

I got out my diaries today, to fill in gigs for late May and June [Boris and Laurie Anderson, respectively] and realised I’m already double booked for the June long weekend. Lessons learnt: Colour A Month Moleskines look awesome, but lead to easy double booking. Also, I don’t know about anyone else, but 2010 seems to me to be going by even faster than 2009.

This week was mostly work and hardly any play. My interview with Byron Stroud [Strapping Young Lad/Fear Factory] went up on the yourGigs website, though in a very condensed form, and I liked the interview a lot, so I may post it here in full at a later date.

I found Byron pleasant, happy to chat and he gave really good, thoughtful answers. He was promoting his new band, City of Fire, whose self-titled album came out on April 9th. The band also has Burton C Bell in it, on vocals </pimp>.

The most exciting part of all work, no play, was when Ms Meesh, of Black Boots fame, appeared at my desk, with very exciting looking parcels in her arms from the US of A. In said parcels were a variety of Lensbaby lenses and optics which we talked each other into buying [and please check out Meesh's website, she is one of my all time fave live music photographers]. I got the Lensbaby Muse lens, with a single plastic optic, and a single glass optic to play around with.

The obvious place to take them for a trial, was Luna Park, and so to there, on Saturday, we went. Let me just say this: I will forever be devastated that I didn’t get a shot of the man with the heavily tattooed face and neck, holding up a very small baby girl, dressed head[band] to toe in pink and frills. I thought about it and then he gave me a look that said ‘What part of the word KILL* emblazoned on my cheek do you not understand?’, to which I tipped my hat and say ‘And fair enough’.

This is a small selection of my shots from Luna Park. More can be found on my Flickr. As for details of the shots, mostly I was using the single glass optic, with various apertures. Except for the first half hour where I was accidentally shooting with no apertures at all. Which is actually how I got the first picture below, so it wasn’t all fail:

After Luna Park, I dashed off to meet Drew, my bro-in-law, for my belated Christmas present. See what I mean about 2010? I knew about this gift in December, yet no time could be found until now to do it. Drew and Mary’s present to me was a beer appreciation course at Redoak, a boutique beer cafe. I didn’t know what to expect, and was pleasantly surprised to find that each “class” contains about 40 people, but basically, it’s just like going out to an amazing restaurant, with a set menu, which a person on a microphone talks you through, while plying you with exceptional beer.

For the foodies, Drew and I did a Mediterranean course, which looked a little like this:

Entree:

Torn baby bocconcini, roma tomato and herb oil, Oatmeal Stout, dill and eschalot marinated octopus and Baltic Porter and shiitake mushroom moussakka

w/ Irish Red Ale.

Pino’s prosciutto chargrilled pear, beetroot leaf and shaved black wax parmesan salad with agro dolce

w/ Honey Ale.

Main:

White Pyrenees lamb rump, marinated in lemon, garlic and oregano, served with kale, vegetable casserole, smoked eggplant relish and Oatmeal Stout reduction

w/ Aussie Ale [which had hints of lemon myrtle and a Tasmanian wild pepper].

Dessert:

Redoak’s Birramisu with raspberry coulis and wee Heavy Ale and chocolate icecream

w/ Readoak’s BIG Stout.

We followed this up with a sample of Redoak’s Special Strong Bitter and, in my case, a Blackberry Hefeweizen.

We also had a beer before the course started, so after seven beers, the Lensbaby did a good job of illustrating how I felt … warm and fuzzy:

If you ever get a chance, take the course, it’s really fun and there’s no pressure to get all chummy with your fellow beer scholars, unless you feel the urge [we had a very lovely Stout fan sitting next to us]. I will be going again, fo’ sure.

* may or may not have said ‘KILL’, I was too busy trying to look like I didn’t want to take his photo to be able to read it.