Don't forget to stop and smell the flowers
I don't recall the very first time I heard the expression 'Don't forget to stop and smell the flowers'. I have always loved flowers and blooms, their myriad colours and forms ... and scents. My love of flowers has stayed constant while the way I look at them changes constantly. When I learned about plants and what flowers are for, the way they entice and mimic ... the way the look different under ultraviolet or infra-red. The way we use flowers to say things ... from red roses for love through a whole spectrum of colours to black roses for death ... 'say it with roses' indeed! Flowers as symbols of the transience of life. Fake flowers ranging from the trashy to the profoundly elegant. I learned about flowers as genetic markers, indicators of weed species, the passing of seasons, their rarity and their basic commonality. The sound of bees in trees in Springtime. The carpets of riotous colour beneath flowering camellia. I learned their smells ... I'd like to retire somewhere where I can smell the scent of frangipani blossoms ... the heady scents of Spring and warm breezes. Native Australian flowers whose scents pass into honey, bulbs, trees, bushes dripped with rain or dew. And then I started to take photographs of them.
And sometimes I don't see them, or smell them, or sense them ... I'm busy doing something else, preoccupied. Sometimes I sit and just watch them and think as I'm doing now about all the different ways I see them. The day I saw my children learning to sniff their first flower nearly made me cry. My advice ... don't forget to stop and smell the flowers :-)
2012 Royal Canberra Show - Clean Sweep
The Royal Canberra Show is held every year to celebrate and showcase the very best that the region has to offer. I have been entering photographs into the Canberra Show Art Prize for the past three years. There are four classes in which to enter photographs;
- Open
- Landscape/Places
- People & Portraits; and
- Black & White
I always try to enter a photo into each class and I have picked up several 1st places over the years in various classes. This year though something quite remarkable happened: I won every class! I still have not quite gotten my head around quite what this means but really it's an excellent result! The photos and their classes are presented below;
Organ donor? I have decided. Have you? Does your family know?
I was reminded by Ally over at her blog everyday miracles that it's Donate Life week - an initiative by the Australian Government to promote awareness of and (hopefully) increase the number of people willing to donate their organs. Organ donation in Australia is low. In fact, Australia has one of the lowest donation rates in the developed world.
I have always rationally believed in organ donation ... although I admit to finding the subject a little disturbing at first. I found that if I turned it around... if I thought about how I would feel if someone had donated to me and given me what amounts to a most precious gift ... then signing up for my card would be a lot less disturbing. So that's what I did. I figured if I'm not around to require it any more then someone else would be free to use it. I signed up, I had my discussion with my family who thankfully agree with donation and are (for the most part) organ donors too.
Some facts about organ donation in Australia (from the donate life website)
- One organ, eye and tissue donor can save or enhance the lives of 10 or more people.
- Australia is a world leader for successful transplant outcomes, yet has one of the lowest donation rates in the developed world.
- Around 1600 people are on Australian organ transplant waiting lists.
- On average, people on the transplant list can wait between 6 months and 4 years. 4 years!
With a majority of Australians generally willing to become organ donors it is vitally important that people willing to donate their organs have a memorable discussion with their family about their wishes. In Australia, the family will always be asked to confirm the donation wishes of the deceased before donation for transplantation can proceed. Less than 60% of Australian families give consent so it's again vital that your discussions are had and that they are memorable.
I carry my card, my family knows.
Organ donor? I have decided. Have you?
http://www.donatelife.gov.au/decide
Sweet White Noise
When I first published this self portrait of me sleeping like a bat, I was listening to the album The Sound of White by Australian artist Missy Higgins.
Listening to the title track got me thinking about the sound of white noise and how relaxing I found it. About how white noise is the sound made by all the frequencies randomly occurring together at an equal or flat power. About how the sound is there but there is no discernible frequency or signal that stands out (because there isn't one!). It's like experiencing thick fog, an aural isolation chamber. Listening to white noise I find my mind exploring it, looking for a handle, something familiar. Rationally I know it's not there but my mind searches anyway, fumbling and groping. Then comes a strange feeling of floating with in the white noise as it surrounds me with no detectable source ... the sound comes from everywhere - omnidirectional.
White noise gets its name from the term white light which describes a light where all the frequencies are of equal power. I like exploring that too.
Wikipedia has a more thorough and technical description of white noise and it's myriad uses.
Flying foxes with lightning - Elizabeth Bay Sydney
Here's a lucky catch! A crop from a 30second exposure during a twilight thunderstorm at Elizabeth Bay in Sydney.
I didn't see until post-processing that I'd caught two flying foxes. Cool huh?
So ... Flying foxes with lightning - Elizabeth Bay Sydney :-)
In the Garden: jumping spider
Found this little one on the curled leaf of a lime tree in the backyard. A cutie huh? Very inquisitive critters ... I'm not overly fond of spiders (the larger ... the less so) but I like these ones.
D80 - Tamron 90mm SP Macro
In the Garden: jumping spider
'The New Year' a poem by Rudi de Jong
I see this poet in Civic standing tall and somewhat dishevelled asking passers by if they'd like to buy a photocopy of one of his poems ... yesterday I did and I liked it ... here it is....
The New Year - by Rudi de Jong
Time passing
the old becoming new
new hopes
new visions
a royal tapestry
old ways
resolutions forgotten
home, sweet, home
the golden handshake
the spoken word
prayers said
midnight joys
the economy in trouble
friends hard to find
the word spoken
another year
the future unknown
"Sufficient unto the day the evil there of"
the New Year.
Tidbinbilla Trip
Took a trip out to Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, near Canberra on the weekend with some friends ... always love going out there. This was a quick trip to get out of Canberra for a while and one of our favourite destinations is The Sanctuary - a large wetlands ecosystem surrounded by bushland and protected by a predator-proof fence providing sanctuary for a range of native animals in a natural setting.
A pair of Red Belly Black Snakes (Pseudechis porphyriacus) basking.
On one of our first visits to the Sanctuary, a volunteer guide showed where a colony of Red Bellied Black Snakes - Pseudechis porphyriacus or 'red bellies' for short. On that day there were perhaps 6 snakes in two groups nestled amongst the tussock grass by the side of the pond. On Saturday there were maybe 9 snakes in 3 groups including this pair basking in the sun. I think they must have shed recently because their skins and colouration were beautiful. I took this with my 18-200mm and was about 5m away from them. Black snakes are generally placid if left undisturbed ... I likely wouldn't try a shot like this with a brown or tiger snake. Just quietly walk away ... quietly walk away :-)
Gallery: wall works - more images from the ANCA Show
'wall works' - a show opening tonight at The Australian National Capital Artists (ANCA) Gallery in Dickson, is the final show for the 2011 season at ANCA. Here are some more shots from the session I did in there last Friday while the artists were setting and creating their works.
An earlier post with more images from this session can be seen HERE
ANCA Gallery is located at 1 Rosevear Place, Dickson.
'wall works' (a preview) - ANCA Gallery
'wall works' 7th - 22nd December 2011
Last week I was given a heads-up by friend and artist Nicci Haynes about an exhibition on at the Australian National Capital Artists (ANCA) Gallery in Dickson. Apparently ANCA are repainting the gallery over the new year period and have invited a select group of artists to use the walls of the gallery as their canvas. The show is called 'wall works' and I went along on Friday afternoon to take some photographs and was impressed by the scale and quality of work going on in there and I present a selection of images below. I highly recommend anyone interested to do the same.
The show opens officially on Wednesday 14th December but is open to the public now for anyone interested in the creative process. Of particular interest to me were the wall size works by Byrd and Hanna Hoyne, the intricate musings of Paul Summerfield, the 'there but not there' figures of Nicci and the vibrant etchings of Tesss Horwitz.
From the ANCA website "Six local artists transform the gallery by working directly on the walls. Byrd with Hanna Hoyne, Mariana del Castillo with Gus McGrath and Alex Asch, Nicci Haynes, Tess Horwitz and Paul Summerfield. Curated by Narelle Phillips"
A second post with more images from this session can be found HERE
'girl on the floor' by Nicci Haynes
Hanna Hoyne
Byrd applying some fine detail
Entry Designs by Paul Summerfield
'fire extinguisher surrounds' by Paul Summerfield
'white crouching figure' by Nicci Haynes
Artist Byrd
Hanna Hoyne
Tess Horwitz
Fred Smith’s Dust of Uruzgan CD Launch - in review
I think the gig marked a real step-up in the stage-craft and production of a Fred Smith performance. As always, his songs were passionate and rendered well and his band (Liz Frencham (double bass), Lachlan Coventry (pedal steel and electric guitar) and John Jones (drums)) supplied excellent and solid support. The addition of projected images of Afghanistan worked well too. The audience was made up of an eclectic mix with many folk attending their first show after hearing a couple of tracks on the radio. ABC Canberra’s Virginia Haussegger introduced both sets with great gush. I never realised she was such a fan. I had the privilege of attending the soundcheck to get some stills of Fred and his band prior to the show and am attaching a couple of them for you to have a look at. There is a larger set to be found at Fred’s page on Lushpup Images.
B+W ND110E 10 stop filter - testing
I recently tried out my B+W ND110 filter on some coasty water. I liked the results. These were shot using a Sigma 10-20mm on a D80 body using a tripod. Exposure time was around 30seconds each. I shot in Manual because the camera kept underexposing by a long way ... I had this idea that the body would adapt to the 10stop reduction in light and adjust shutter speed accordingly but it didn't seem to. Anyways, I liked the results. Read more