They say it's going to be 36 degrees tomorrow - that should be fun. Only music can save us now - here's one of my favourite Australian songs, the Go Betweens and Bye Bye Pride:
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Bye Bye Pride - the Go Betweens (mp3)
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
The Minilux days of summer ...
I thought summer had arrived last week, what with the beautiful weather we enjoyed on Saturday (see these pics from Shark Bay/Nielsen Park) ... but what happened today? Had to bike to the station in the drizzle, which got me soaked by the time I'd done the 10 minute ride. I guess that's the Sydney spring for you.
The next few pics were taken with the square old Leica Minilux using cheapo Kodak Elite Chrome slide film. I should use the Minilux more because it has that nice Summarit lens and is quite handy - but most of all because it allows me to do fill in flash, which I've learnt is essential for outdoor portraits in Sydney's glaring sun - otherwise faces just turn out as shadows. The two things I don't like about the Minilux are a) its boxy shape and sharp corners, and b) its loud mechnical film autowinder, which makes it sound like Robocamera. And unlike many Minilux users I have s far escaped the dreaded E06 shutter error.
Me at Glass and Bottle Point, Shark Bay, Nielsen Park
Leica Minilux and Kodak Elite Chrome slide film.
Paul at Glass and Bottle Point, Shark Bay, Nielsen Park
Leica Minilux and Kodak Elite Chrome slide film.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Sydney Surfing - Harold Cazneaux, 1929
I'm a bit short on images at the moment so I'll post this golden oldie from 1929, by that genius Harold Cazneaux. It really sums up the Sydney summer, I think - and that's something I'm still looking forward to.
And while I'm on the subject of golden oldies, I love looking at old portraits and wondering what the people were like in person. I had a revelation once when i went to the V&A on a rainy day and saw their old miniatures from the middle ages and Tudor times - they were just like Blackadder come to lilfe. I had the same feeling on my last trip to the National Portrait gallery about 18 months ago - I just loved the portraits and felt I got a real impression of the people. And I really wanted to take home some copies, but there was no book that included a roundup of of my favourite portraits. Fortunately I was able to pick up an old out of print compendium of NPG portraits from a second hand bookshop in Glebe for a mere $40 and love to browse through it at the breakfast table.
One of my faves is this one from the 16th century: a portrayal of Sir Thomas More's family:
And in particular I like the image of the woman who is second from the right - she looks so lifelike and contemporary, even though she lived more than 400 years ago. She is Marie, wife of Sir Thomas More's grandson.
Some other old favourites include this one from Harold Cazneaux, of two orphan sisters from 1906:
Monday, October 27, 2008
The other Kings Cross
Phew, it ain't half hot mum here in Sydney. I'm really missing our old flat which was nice and cool and airy - and had wooden floors instead of this carpet rubbish.
So here I am sat in the heat listening to It's Immaterial playing Driving Away from Home - a song I'd forgotten about until reminded by the excellent "Crying All the Way to the Chip Shop" blog that I mentioned earlier in the week. I used to listen to that song when I lived on Lark Lane, Liverpool 17, and dream about getting away from Liverpool. Now I'm away I wouldn't mind going back! (At least for some cool drizzly weather)
But I might as well be back in England for the number of cockneys and southerners in our office. They're really getting on my tits some of them, too, with their cock-er-nee blagging etc about football.
So to appease the gods of Larndan, here are some pics of the other Kings Cross, taken with my old Contax IIa on my last trip back to blighty 18 months ago.
This week's bit of totty is Maureen Dunlop of Argentina - as pictured in 1944 when she was a ferry pilot for the ATA. Scanned from a very dull book on this subject ...
And I will leave you with a drawing by Paul of me telling his older brother off tonight (for teasing Paul). Quite good I thought - he's got Linda's hair off to a tee, and you can definitely see the Beano/Calamity James influence:
Sunday, October 26, 2008
The last days of print film
I got my bag of film out last week and counted how many rolls I have left. The answer is about twenty of print film - mostly Kodak 400 and a few 100s that I got for $2 when collecting my happy snaps - and about thirty or so rolls of slide film that I'm saving up for my Christmas holidays. But I'm now tempted to switch totally to slide film for two reasons: firstly because I am running out of storage space for my photos - I have six or seven cardboard boxes full of stuff from the last the last decade (how many digital photographers will have that much stuff in archive?). Slides/trannies will save a lot of space.
Second reason is that it's just getting too hard to get film developed in a timely and cheap way these days. There is one chemist who is still taking my snaps to send to QFL in Melbourne: it's supposed to come back in 2-3 days but they don't come back for about a week now - and how long will that service be running? It's self defeating - the service is getting so bad that nobody will use it. There are some professional labs that still do film print processing - like Vision Graphics - but they are two to three times the cost of the chemist service - not something I can afford with my rate of going through three to six rolls a week.
It's a pity because although I prefer slide film in many ways, there is still something so good about a print that comes out well - much less contrast and more muted colours than the stark colours of Ektachrome.
Here are a few prints from my recent trip to North Head - compare them to the much bluer and bolder slide snaps from the same place, posted a week or two ago... I still like the prints a lot (even though these needed some Photoshop colour correction to get rid of a horrible sepia/brown cast that made Sydney look like smoggy LA.
I guess this is the end of print film - so I am literally using up my film like's it's going out of fashion
Most of the pics were taken with my Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar 28-70mm lens with Kodak Gold 100 film. A few are from the Leica IIIa and the Elmars: 35mm and 50mm.
Eastern suburbs cliffs from North Head
Testing the Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar 28-70mm lens with Kodak Gold 100 film.
Sydney Harbour from North Head
Testing the Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar 28-70mm lens with Kodak Gold 100 film.
Sydney Harbour from North Head
Testing the Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar 28-70mm lens with Kodak Gold 100 film.
Sydney Harbour from North Head
Testing the Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar 28-70mm lens with Kodak Gold 100 film.
Ferries passing at the Heads
Not quite 'ships in the night' but sailing away and forever our pleasure is blue ... (thanks Bill Neslon and Be Bop Deluxe) Testing the Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar 28-70mm lens with Kodak Gold 100 film.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
A not-so grand day out
Having a bad day, despite the lovely weather. With the nearest and dearest doing her new business, I was forced to take the kids to their Saturday morning class, which they hate and I think is a waste of time. So we went through the motions and then set off for a belated day out at the beach. I was determined to get away from the arsehole of the world that is Burwood, even if it meant sitting in a traffic jam on a blazing hot day in a car with malfunctioning aircon and a dodgy engine that keeps misfiring on one cylinder ... which is what we had to do to get down to Vaucluse. Bloody traffic. I was not a happy driver - I never am. I loathe driving.
Anyway, we eventually made it past Double Bay and parked up unsuspectingly under the lovely fig trees at Nielsen park, and headed off to the lovely kiosk at Shark Bay for lunch ...
Had some lovely views ...
And after my bacon and egg thing, and a coffee I dragged the kids outside to smear them with suncream and let them play in the surf while I sat under a tree reading the paper. It was great to just sit there in the still of the middle of the day, watching the squadrons of yachts glide past and tack, like shoals of fish:
The boys also played around on the rocks and climbed the trees:
And when they got tired of that I took them over to see the Bottle and Glass Point rocks, with the usual great views of Sydney over the water:
The only fly in the ointment was getting a parking ticket for $81 for not parking with the rear of the car to the kerb. They're having a laugh, aren't they? I vow to get revenge on Woollhara council for this. And yet more reasons to hate driving.
Friday, October 24, 2008
On the edge
Just found a wonderful blog by a guy who has a similar background to me - British expat, left school in 1980, and into music. 'Crying all the way to the chip shop' (www.londonlee.com/chipshop.html) also has loads of links to mp3s of the music he describes so well, though most of the links are now dead - it's not too hard to find them if you use Skreemr or Limewire. Well done that man.
He describes himself as an 'ageing expat', which made me think - I've never thought of myself as ageing. The old cliche of you're only as young as you feel, I suppose, but I feel like the world is ageing around me but I'm still the same naive kid, still not quite understanding what's going on around me.
Maybe it's because I'm quite shy. When I was a kid I thought that one day I would one day be grown up and be able to do all those things that other more extrovert people did. But now I'm getting near to fifty and I'm still a diffident loner, still tongue tied and awkward when I meet strangers. But at least now I'm comfortable with that. The great thing about getting older is that you know your limitations and who you are. As a kid I was always trying so hard to be someone I wasn't, just to try gain popularity and acceptance. Now I don't mind being thought of as an antisocial bookworm!
Monday, October 20, 2008
Music from arcadia
I've also discovered new avant garde bands from the US like Bodies of Water (listen to Under the Pines here) and My Brightest Diamond (listen to Inside a Boy here).
On the whole, however, I am moving more towards discovering classical artists like Ravel and Vaughn Williams. I suppose because works like Gaspard de la Nuit conjure up those idealised images of classical England that I miss so much: the wind stirring the branches of a tree, cloud shadows over heathland, skylarks, Constable skies and all that. Pretty much the spirit embodied by a few of the old Powell and Pressburger films such as A Canterbury Tale. One band whose music I really would love to track down is Cook Da Books - the Liverpool 80s band. If anyone out there has stuff like I wouldn't want to knock it etc ... please let me know.
Above Garie Beach, Royal National Park
Leica R7 and Elmarit-R 28mm and Kodak Elite Chrome slide film.
Above Garie Beach, Royal National Park
Leica R7 and Elmarit-R 28mm and Kodak Elite Chrome slide film.
View of Sydney skyline from Thompson's Corner, Pennant Hills
Leica R7 and Elmarit-R 180mm with Kodak Elite Chrome slide film.
View of Sydney skyline from Thompson's Corner, Pennant Hils
Leica R7 and Elmarit-R 180mm with Kodak Elite Chrome slide film.
View of Sydney skyline from Thompson's Corner, Pennant Hills
Leica R7 and Elmarit-R 50mm with Kodak Elite Chrome slide film.
St Matthew's Church, Windsor, NSW
Rolleicord Vb and Kodak Ektachrome E100G slide film
Observatory, Windsor, NSW.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Summer's here
It's either very hot in this new house or I've caught the sun again. I thought I'd escaped the hot and humid weather when I flew back down from Brisbane to Sydney but it's been a real hot one today.
And talking of hot, that is probably one of the most overused words of the noughties - as in something being hot and sexy - where we would have said cool in the 1980s. I first noticed this last week when I was mooching through the backwater of Windsor and noticed that an employment agency was advertising "Hot Jobs" of which the first was admin temp. Now I don't want to denigrate those temporary secretaries and typists but being a temporary office clerk is not and never will be a hot job. Pole dancer, perhaps, but not someone who is tapping away at data entry or shuffling spreadsheets.
The second time I came across it was yesterday in the taxi on the way back from the airport. Riding in taxis is one of the few times I get to hear Aussie radio (I listen to Maconie and Radcliffe on t'internet Radio 2 most nights). In Brisbane i was most impressed with their local ABC station, which had a breezy and very down to earth female presenter talking to the two guys off the Gruen Transfer. I marvelled at how relaxed and witty they were. When I hear shows like that I really appreciate the laconic Aussie informal way of doing things.
The other side of the coin, though, was hearing one of these mindless commercial stations on the way back into Sydney - something like Triple M. It was just a wall of cliches and commercial crap. Everything was Hot and Awesome, and the music was all hot rock licks or rap with a silent c - the whole raucous spiel left me cold and feeling it was completely lacking in awe.
Maybe it's just a Sydney thing ... I found the people in Brisbane to be friendly to the point of being intrusive. There was the guy who came to shift the tea and coffee machine in the lecture room, because it was making too much noise. "I've come to fix your gurgle ..." he laughed. It's that kind of Aussie humour that you really appreciate in faraway tropical countries when everything's going to hell.
As usual I visited a few bookshops in Brisbane and they all seemed to be staffed by helpful and polite people. There was the academic looking guy at Archive Books, and a very forthright "G'day mate" guy at some other place down Vulture St. The only blot on the record was the over-friendly woman at a place near the Mater Hospital who insisted on giving me a guided tour of the whole place when I enquired about books on China. She only had about seven, and I felt really awkward making my excuses to leave as she tried to interest me in the Chinese politics books ...
There was something distinct about Brisbane people that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I was blown away by how many attractive women there were in the city, until I realised it was probably the climate making them all wear very loose and revealing summer stuff. They certainly look nice in it, though, and there is a certain Brisbane kind of tribe - perhaps it's the flighty Irish Catholic thing, but you see a lot of dark haired grey/green eyed women, which I find very striking.
There also seemed to be an inordinate number of cyclists and joggers in Brisbane - surprising given the heat. And perhaps it was just me but I also noticed loads of what seemed to me to be Scandinavian blonde backpacker types.
I still couldn't put my finger on what it was I felt about Brisbane until I got back to Sydney - then I realised: they were virtually all white people. I've become so accustomed to living in multicultural Sydney that it felt quite novel to be among predominantly white Anglo-Celtic people like myself again. And I have to admit I quite liked it! Well, at least the women - I was walking round with my eyes on stalks on Friday evening when everyone came out to party.
Did anyone notice I was gawping at them? The hotel receptionist in particular, as I checked out - she had the most beautiful nose I've seen for ages. I felt like going back and checking out again just so I could stare at her for a bit longer while she said "anything from the mini bar?"
The other female who really caught my attention was a 20-ish woman I saw sitting alone amid the bar crowds and scurrying commuters on Friday evening along the waterfront, where the ferries dock. She was sat on one of the outdoor bar benches at dusk reading a book and it was getting a bit windy and blowing her hair about a little. The scene was such a cliche I thought for a second that it might be posed for a film - but no, it was the real thing.
Unfortunately nature gives and nature takes away. The young women of Brisbane certainly were attractive but I have to say the hot weather and strong sun don't do the older folk of the city any favours. Just about everyone over 50 looked like tortoises.
What else did I get up to in Brisvegas? Well the conference dinner was certainly better than the recent RACGP waxwork fest. Just a few of us gathered outside this posh traditional place in the city centre (Augustines?), knocking back Stella. I got sat next to this addiction specialist who had some really interesting stuff to say, and normally I would have been rapt. But I felt like I was in off duty mode, and after a while I just tuned out and found my attention wandering to the bosom areas of the female company present. Speaking of which, I noticed that the conference was predominantly female - can blokes not write or are they just not interested in the crap pay?
I was glad I'd had that awful meat pie at 6-ish because the food took forever to arrive. Then we had a very English prof giving quite a good spiel about language and pain, but I took exception to what he said about the Chinese taboos on it, and after he sat down I darted over and started disputing this with him, in what I hoped was a friendly way. Am I getting too cocky? Would I have done this in a previous life? Well, probably yes, given my track record in London gatecrashing Ben Elton's after show BBC party.
The prof seemed to take this pissed interloper in his stride and even took down the details of my website in his notebook. I also got a jab in the ribs from that Yorkshire female editor from a certain other magazine, and it would have been good to catch up with her, even though she did do a runner on me last time.
Ah well, I relished my brief 15 minutes of fame while it lasted. Things were obviously going too well for me in Brisbane because when I got a cab to the airport the driver couldn't get my Cabcharge card to work, then he didn't have change, and worst of all, when I eventually escaped from Ecab car number 819 I found he'd dropped me off at the international terminal. The security guard told me I could walk to domestic, but when I looked out of the window the cluster of buildings was barely visible on the horizon, shimmering in the Queensland heat haze. Luckily I was able to persuade another taxi to take me there.Thank you driver!
Anyway, back in Sydney riding in the cab on the way back from the airport I tested out my new eugenic theories by counting how many young white females I would see on the way home. None. They were all Asian or of "Middle Eastern Appearance". So there you are.
Nice to be back, though, and to be welcomed by the boys. After not speaking to them for a couple of days I notice that I have a kind of 'dad voice' which is quite Yorkshire - in contrast to my work voice, which is kind of Aussie-inflected neutral. The cab driver asked me if I was from Melbourne!
But after my star turn in Brisbane it was back down to earth with a crash when I biked down to the bottle shop to pick up some Mountain Goat ale and a bottle of cheapo Penfolds. I found I only had $25, so I had to return the beer and the suspicious Indian woman on the till obviously took me and my stubble for a ne'er do well and asked to check my bag. Ah well, the Penfolds was OK.
Early start this morning to get Andrew to his newspaper stall outside the church. I then made the mistake of going into a Michel's cafe in the mall and ordering a croissant from the Chinese owner with the phlegmy cough. It was like eating microwaved cardboard.
Lovely hot day, though, and I took Paul and his mate Nicholas down on the train to the Olympic pool under the Harbour Bridge. My recent stints in Melbourne and Brisbane have made me realise how lucky we are to have Sydney Harbour only a few minutes away by train. It was so nice to just chill out under the big tree in Bradfield Park as the two boys played, watching the ferries and yachts splicing across the blue sparkling waters - and then to do the same by the poolside as Paul and Nicholas whacked each other with those polystyrene foam noodles. That must have been when I caught the sun. And now I'm sitting here, feeling like I'm glowing in the dark.
PS All these following pics are from last week's trip out to Manly to test the new Leica 28-70mm zoom. Not bad is it?
View of Sydney from North Head
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
View of Sydney from North Head
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
View of Sydney's eastern suburbs from North Head
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
View of Sydney from North Head
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
View of Sydney from North Head
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
View of Sydney from North Head
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
View of Sydney and Watsons Bay from North Head
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
Eastern suburbs cliffs from North Head
Leica R7 and 180mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
North Head lookout, Sydney
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
North Head lookout, Sydney
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
North Head cliffs from Fairfax Walk
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
North Head cliffs from Fairfax Walk
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
North Head cliffs from Fairfax Walk
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
Manly Norfolk Pines
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
Manly The Corso
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
Candy's cafe, Manly
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
Manly ferry jetty
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
Manly ferry jetty
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
Manly ferry jetty
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
Sydney Harbour yachts
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
On the Manly ferry
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
Manly ferry on Sydney Harbour
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
Sailing ship Svanen on Sydney Harbour
Leica R7 and Vario-Elmar-R 28-70mm lens, with Kodak Elite Chrome ASA 100 slide film.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
The Brisbane trip
Just back from humid and hot Brisbane, where I went to do my first ever conference presentation for some medical writers. I was nervous as hell, even though I knew half the audience and it was almost like talking to a group of friends. It looks so easy when you're in the audience, but once I got up there to the lectern and pushed the button for the first Powerpoint slide I was like rabbit in the headlights.
I managed to get through the 20 minutes without fluffing too many lines - and I spoke without notes, using the slides as my cues. It definitely hlped to have rehearsed it about four time the night before, so I could go into almost automatic mode when speaking.
I was pleasantly surprised by Brisbane this time round as well. My previous flying visits gave me a rather negative impression of a dull city, but this time it seemed to have a lot going on and the people seemed friendly. Maybe that was because I took a little time to walk out of the city centre to places like Fortitude Valley and West End.
Having said that, I didn't find much that I thought was worth photograhing except the Story bridge and bits of the river ... which is called ... I don't know!
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
A grand day out in Windsor, NSW
Out to Windsor today to see the "historic Hawkesbury" district. I have to say I'm a bit underwhelmed.
Last week in Melbourne I picked up a delightful old guide book from the early 1970s about Sydney by Ruth Park, author of Harp in the South and Poor Man's Orange. In it, she describes a trip out to the Hawkesbury region in glowing terms as " ... a land of silvery landscapes, wind ruffled crops, ruined windmills and brindled inland skies (what does brindled mean?) .. . rimmed by the navy blue and cobalt of the Blue Mountains. Great cloud shadows move over the bush and farmland ... " Sounded very restful and good for the soul, so I decided to go and have a look.
Things must have changed since the 1970s because I found the places she described to be dismal suburbs filed with tasteless McMansions, Auto-Fitters and tacky real estate agents.
I first stopped off at Carlingford, where my map showed a lookout with views over Sydney and the west. But like so many Sydney lookouts, it had been allowed to become overgrown, with trees blocking all the view.
The same problem occurred at Pennant Hills, which Park describes as airy and sunny, and talks about there being a flag signal in the colonial days to notify the governor's travels between Windsor and Parramatta. Now there's a grinding four lane highway, a Coles supermarket and more tree-blocked lookouts. I stopped for a coffee after snapping the little bit of view I could see of the Sydney skyline from under the huge flagpole, and realised I was in the deep white bread suburbs ... real Aussie housewife and retired old feller territory, with all the barbers shops and hardware shops.
I then followed Ruth Park's suggestion to go visit the site of the Battle of Vinegar Hill in Castle Hill. This was where some Irish political transportees had started an uprising against the British colonial soldiers, but been tricked by a treacherous army captain, who opened fire on them during a truce for negotiations and had the rest of them hanged.
Sounds interesting, but the actual Heritage Park was rubbish - a featureless grassy slope with a few pines, surrounded by housing developments and caterpillar diggers. I was really miffed because the map marked another lookout - 360 degrees this time, but when I hauled myself to the top of the hill it was blocked off by fences, and the only view was of the surrounding suburbia.
I drove the last 15-20km to Windsor non stop, realising that I would never be a true blue Aussie at home in this environment of Fruit Barns, Red Roosters, Exhaust Fitters and Supa Centas. Instead of sunny, business-dominated suburbs, I daydreamed of dreary English high streets with gothic Victorian buildings looking drab in the rain.
At first, Windsor was better. I parked the car in some shade and wandered down by the slow river, admiring the colonial buildings:
Then, following Ruth Park's recommendation, I drove down to the old Francis Greenaway-designed church of St Matthews, sitting pretty by itself at the end of town in a serene old graveyard. Now here was some real style and elegance:
I walked around the building, anti-clockwise, pulling different cameras out of my bag to capture different aspects - the Leica R3 with the wide angle 28mm, then the Leica IIIa with the 50mm Elmar to get more cropped shots. It was a beautiful spring-summer day and the blossom was out and it felt almost like Olde Englande - so much so that it came as a shock to see the postman buzzing up the lane on his Honda, and the Aussie tradesmen scooting around in their utes.
As the noon day bell sounded, and having captured the church from all angles - including the beautiful gum trees, I then repaired back to the town centre, where I got myself a pub lunch at the Macquarie Arms:
Ruth Park describes it as a most historic pub - the oldest in the country, in fact, having first been built in 1811 as the Royal Hotel and also serving as the local barracks and officer's mess. There are tales of the Nepean river in flood and people floating by on tables and bales of hay ... and Ruth park recommends the English lunch they served.
Well, they still did do fish and chips, but I opted for Thai chicken salad. I'd been forewarned by a breeze through Flickr that this pub was now a favourite haunt of the bikies and their hogs, and there were a few in evidence this Monday working day. But otherwise the pub was a fairly unremarkable local - without even any interesting beers on tap. I sat outside with my VB and ate my lunch next to a table full of Aussie 'blokes' - what would you call them - larrikins? 'F****in this' and 'Shit that' ... Out front was a sort of village green that was pretty in it's own way. It would have been a lot nicer of the main road wasn't running right past and the air filled with the groaning and roaring of semi trailers and the hissing of air brakes.
In a good mood after my lunch, I wandered down the main street, which contained quite a few nice old colonial buildings. but they seemed out of place in the tastelessly refurbished pedestrian mall filled with $1 made-in China trash shops, closing down sale book shops and the usual big four banks with their laughable garish invitations to take out home loans.
Things just got worse as I carried on along the road. What could have been a main street full of character and bustle, had become instead a lost side alley of struggle street. The Op Shops, the tat emporiums, the grand old Regal Theatre converted into Home Loans 131010 . I stopped off in a bookshop but it was all sci fi and New Age stuff - and that seems to be the popular culture in these outer suburbs. The New Age Bikie chic - all purple and black frills, pachouli oils, crystals and fortune telling by someone caled Narelle.
My guidebook said many of the locals were descended from the first settlers, the yeoman of England. But almost everyone I saw looked like white trash. One bikie chick accosted her mate with the opening phrase: "Where the fuck have you been?"
I retraced my steps, got back to the car and drove half a mile to the old courthouse. 
Again, another exquisite building - and still in use. A nice lady nodded at me as she emerged from the negotiation room and legal-looking fat bloke was having a cig on the doorstep at the back. They had a court list on the notice board, with a Rosemary Somebody due for an AVO hearing that very morning.
My last port of call was the old Windsor Observatory - just round the corner, but as I drove there it was like I'd suddenly entered another world - flat green farmland like that in North by Northwest. 
The observatory was on a slight knoll and looked other worldly:
I took a few pictures from a distance as a farmer raised clouds of dust from the field he was tilling with his tractor. Then I got up close to the Peninsular House, home of the meek astronomer John Tebbutt, according to Ruth Park. Now it was a function centre and restaurant, but still looked very nice and unspoiled. The observatory itself was like something out of a Rupert annual. I half expected an eccentric inventor with a white beard to step out:
And just before I left, I had to take one picture of the old barn. The locals probably thought I was crazy taking a picture of this everyday structure, but to me it was the great Australian farm symbol. So funny to still be in Sydney and to see this.
The rest of the afternoon was an anticlimax: driving past the Richmond RAAF base and seeing the great grey Hercules taking off. Their last view of Australia as they take off for foreign climes is the Richmond branch of World of Pine, at the end of the runway.
I had a quick look round Richmond but didn't see anything that made me want to hang around. An old mansion called Toxana looked interesting, but it was closed for renovations and you couldn't see much of it for trees and fences and walls. Otherwise, Richmond was more drongoes driving round in souped up family cars playing boom-pish music. I tried another Op Shop, but nothing doing. Friendly people, though, out this way ... but time to go home.
The car was playing up and I had a nervous ride back to Sydney coaxing it along as it was not firing on all cylinders and kept threatening to stall. I got lost somewhere near the aptly named Blacktown (African migrants pushing prams and looking lost) and almost sighed with relief when i got back on the M4 motorway ... I felt like I'd been to another side of the world.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Thomas Walker Convalescent Hospital, Concord (Rivendell Adolescent Unit )
Thomas Walker Convalescent Hospital, Concord (Rivendell Adolescent Unit ), originally uploaded by jiulong.
I think this was with the Leica R7 and 28mm Elmarit-R
HMAS Newcastle
Not sure what happened at the lab but all these prints are underexposed and look like they've got a sepia filter on full blast.
Strathfield station
Scan of a negative (the prints came out really bad - thanks QFL) and touched up in Photoshop.
