overwatering » photos

Selecting for an Exhibition

giles — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:48:01 +0000

In a potentially vain attempt to improve my photography I took the Australian Centre for Photography’s introductory Camera Craft One course. I enjoyed it, learnt a lot and, at least it appeared to me, my photography did improve. If you’re considering taking a course, I’d recommend this one.

At the end of each term at the ACP, a student exhibition is run. And as I was a student this term, I get to enter a photo. One of these here. Help me pick. Which do you think I should enter? Presented in the order I took them…

swan with food

blue mountains balcony

between the cascades

stairs

v is for verisimilitude

a flower under a bridge

Thank you. Comments greatly appreciated.

Where have all the photos gone?

giles — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:33:00 +0000

I’ve stopped posting my photos on my blog, they go straight to my Flickr.com feed now. It’s just easier to post to and have the photos look reasonable. Sorry Google, but Picasa just isn’t there yet!

Anyway, here’s my feed: overwatering.

And here some recent sets of photos that I kind of liked. Follow the photos for larger sizes and the rest of the sets.

I will post other links to some other photos I like in the future, but if you’re interested, probably best to subscribe to my Flickr feed.

Apoise

giles — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 01:24:00 +0000

This mega-yacht, Apoise was moored in front of the Park Hyatt at Circular Quay over New Year’s; they would have had a pretty good view of the fireworks.

Apoise is 67m long, which just pushes it out of the top 50 yachts in the world; the shortest yacht on that list is 72m. It’s impossible to tell who owns Apoise. The owners are listed as some Cayman Island company called Apoise Holding, Pty Ltd. Which tells you nothing.

Darwin, December 2007

giles — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 12:38:00 +0000

Just a random set of photos from Darwin, while there over Christmas 2007

First, three photos looking off the Dripstone cliffs at Casurina beach. This was not a particularly low tide.

I was impressed by the growth in Darwin city; it feels like a very vibrant centre.

Darwin Wharf for a casual dinner of fish and chips with a great sunset.

Our Old Home

giles — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:50:00 +0000

Our family moved to Darwin in mid-1986, after migrating from Wellington, NZ to Katherine in May of that year. Sometime between my birthday (5th December) and Christmas we moved into 4 Cunjevoi Cres, Nightcliff. I can’t remember exactly when; I was young. From then on, my Dad worked on improving the house and garden. Over the next fourteen years the garden evolved into (in my opinion) one of the better examples of a tropical garden you’re likely to find in Darwin. A couple of points:

There was a noticeable difference in temperature when you walked through the front gate: it was at least a couple of degrees cooler. And in the middle of the Darwin wet season, you appreciated that.
No grass. The green cancer is woefully unsuitable for all Australian climates, but tropical gardens with large expanses of lawn are virtually uninhabitable.
We had a continuous set of native residents: skinks, possums, blue-tongue lizards, green-tree snakes, honey-eaters nesting off the balcony: we had it all.

I haven’t been back to Darwin since sometime in 2003. My Dad finally finished and sold the house at the end of 2004. I was the first of our family back in the city since then, so I made sure to visit the old house. The owners weren’t home, but one of their tenants were. She opened the gate; I circled the house and took some photos.

Overall, Darwin was something of an experience after so many years. I always knew I didn’t quite fit in, but you need to live somewhere else before you can really understand why. Fun fact: the local Darwin dialect has no equivalent word for Bogan. Make of that what you will; I know what I make of it.

From the street.

A pergoda, with a formal fish pond.

Old fig with a home-made aviary: they’re using it now to care for injured possums.

Looking across the pool.

A variegated pandanus.

The natural pond.

The natural pond: closer.

Lilies and water plants run wild.

Front garden with Alexandria and Betel nut palms.

Falling Pots

giles — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 11:57:00 +0000

As you walk around an inner city suburb with high apartment buildings, you may see many balconies with pot plants sitting on the ledges. You may also wander if those pots ever fall onto the street below.

The answer is yes, yes they do.

This is another photo from the large ex-Mark Foy building across the road. This ceramic pot fell from a balcony on the fifth floor, through some trees while people were on their way to work.

I was too slow with the camera to get a shot of the two terrified guys who were walking past when the pot landed. The street was full of fragments of pot for a couple of days.

Fire

giles — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 08:37:00 +0000

Across the road from our building is another old warehouse converted into apartments: one of the Mark Foys buildings. This is not the original store, that’s now the Downing Centre. This is the brownstone Mark Foy warehouse.

It’s a very large building, with a lot of apartments in it. Lots of apartments means lots of ’stuff’ going on. A recent trick has been triggering the fire alarm. It’s loud, the whole building needs to be evacuated and it requires two fire engines each time.

Two fire engines, just in case…

Some evacuees, and a lot of people just trying to go home.

The Observatory

giles — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 05:03:00 +0000

Back in October last year, we spent a weekend at Sydney’s Observatory Hotel for our anniversary. A very nice weekend; their restaurant (Galileo) is highly recommended.

Here are just some random photos from spending time wandering around Miller’s Point, Walsh Bay and looking off the balcony of our room.

Funny story: the weekend was kind of a present from me, so I was in charge of the organisation. I think you can see where this is going. We were going to make a whole weekend of it, so we also bought tickets to the play Don’s Party at the Sydney Opera House. Come the Friday afternoon as we were about to leave for the hotel and then the play, I went to check the booking for the hotel: and found the booking was for a Wednesday and a Thursday about two weeks later. Oh.

I called the Observatory’s reservations centre, and they managed to change the booking to that Friday and Saturday night, in the same kind of room. Fortunately for me. Weekend saved.

New Years Eve 2007

giles — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 09:29:00 +0000

We moved to Sydney at the beginning of 2007. This city is quite renowned for a reasonably good fireworks show on a pretty nice harbour for New Year’s Eve, and as everyone agreed that you need to spend your first Sydney New Year’s down on the harbour, that’s where we went.

We got to Milson’s Point at about 9pm, but still managed to get a pretty good spot right on the water with views of the bridge, the Opera House and the city.

Getting back onto the train to get home was… interesting. Maybe a rave at Bondi, next time?

Mandarin

giles — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 13:21:00 +0000

Some places and people really ain’t worth remembering, but hey! At least I got some cool time lapse photos out of it…

Kind of a symbolic progression, actually.