Straya Day

The Australia Day weekend, or Invasion Day weekend as it seems to be called frequently, was a delight, and is in fact still continuing for me. A public holiday and two RDOs means a five-day-weekend and two days at work this week!

The long weekend began with an earlyish night on Friday – a long week of lack of sleep had me in bed by midnight, and woken several times in the night by the neighbours before rising bright and early at 8am. Two loads of washing later and a friend was coming over for lunch. We went to Grandma Funks in Richmond, which I’ve been to a couple of times before when I worked in the area, and is still pretty good. I had the Cajun chicken burger with fries and a caramel milkshake. Delicious. I also tried my first chai latte and chai milkshake – my friends are a little obsessed.

For Saturday evening, I went to comedy with a friend at the Comedy Club in the city – three names I didn’t know, but for free, I was willing to try it! The first, Danny McGinlay was a fresh-faced young comedian, and had some pretty good material. The second, Terry North, I’d actually seen at last year’s comedy festival as part of an Edinburgh Fringe round-up. Unfortunately most his material was the same as when I saw him – and it wasn’t funny the first time around. The main act, a George Smilovic, was very popular and although I found his material, for the most part, funny, there was some stories that were too common an observation to be funny. It was a decent night all up.

Sunday brought something I’ve been meaning to do for a while – visit the Melbourne Aquarium. I was excited about their new penguin exhibit, but I found the place as a whole, good but not brilliant. The penguin exhibit itself was quite disappointing, with only a few, quite poor looking penguins. It was a small habitat and I can’t imagine the birds are all that happy.

The rest of the aquarium was quite enjoyable – a wide range of fish and plenty of information. The only thing I couldn’t stand was the children. Some parents did the right thing and would tell their children to say, “excuse me,” to get to the front – and I’d let them through to reinforce the good behaviour, but other parents just gave their kids a push and thought everyone else irrelevant. I pity these children and what they will become with such an upbringing.

Monday, Straya day, was brilliant for the weather – not too hot and a nice breeze. The Melbourne Silver Mine group on Flickr was having their Australia Day meet, to finish off the competition they’re running, which I mentioned earlier, with the theme ‘girt’. I did manage to get a few shots of different things, but nothing I was particularly happy with, and mostly just wasted the rest of the roll in the city that morning. I didn’t make it to the ’shooting’ part of the meet, but turned up later to the rooftop bar on Swanston Street where, thankfully, there was space under an umbrella for everybody.

After listening to the Triple J’s Hottest 100 and establishing I knew less than 5 of the 50 songs we heard, I headed off to organise myself for an evening shoot. A friend and I headed down to Docklands to take photos at the Southern Star wheel fireworks. This was my first fireworks shoot, but I’m happy with a couple of the results and hopefully I’ll be confident enough to do it again.

On a political note, I understand and agree that Australia Day’s date should change in the future; we do need a public holiday between June and November! I can understand how it is perceived that it is invasion day for the Aboriginals, but at the same time, these days it is, in most groups of people (bar a select group around Cronulla), a celebration of culture and roots for all Australians, whether immigrants, first generations or Aboriginal. By changing a public holiday are we really going to have peace? I think there is a huge problem with medical and school funding in certain communities too. Perhaps look into that K-Rudd.

Anyway, the rest of this weekend is going to be lazy with errands to run and some swimming – nothing too important. I need to rest up for my two days of work this week!

Etiquette

As I went swimming today I was reminded of the continuing confusion of etiquette and manners in public places. And not so public – the pool changing rooms.

At the pool I go to, there is a larger communal area and 4 cubicles to get changed in. As I use a cubicle unless unavailable, I only pass through the communal area and use the lockers there. However, I’ve been lost a few times on what to do when making eye contact with people. It’s different to visiting the toilets at a restaurant or shopping centre, when making eye contact is normal and usually accompanies a nod of acknowledgment. When someone is in various states of undress though, the rules change.

Just after I had started, the pool changing rooms were shut for a few weeks and the gym ones were used by everybody at the centre. This area had no cubicles, so unless you braved a small and dirty toilet cubicle, you had to use the larger communal area. When I was in there, I felt it odd for someone to make eye contact with me. Generally people would look at their own belongings or face the wall, but if someone looked at me, it was hard to do anything. Looking away seems rude, but smiling implies it’s OK – and a nod of acknowledgment could lead to a conversation between strangers in the changing rooms. The last, by most accounts, is wrong I reckon. Perhaps I just have low self-esteem though. I don’t want to cause anything that will make then continue looking at me.

I admire that people can strut through the changing rooms completely starkers, but I need some set rules on what to do if eye contact is made. Granted, I’m usually looking at the floor to make sure I don’t slip or step in anything, but when that split second occurs, what am I meant to do? I guess looking away with a blank expression is all I have until the rules are made.

Fashion..turn to the left.

Sometimes I really don’t understand fashion. Yesterday I saw a girl walking down the road in what I thought was a mini-skirt. As I got closer, I became more and more confused as they looked like shorts – but baggy ones. On closer look, they weren’t too big for her, as the waist was actually digging into her sides. Maybe I’m just not cool enough, but they looked terrible and were probably quite uncomfortable – from digging in and being too loose in all the wrong places.

When I see people out and about, it makes me think that, “Sure, I’m unfashionable, but at least I’m comfortable”. I usually only wear comfortable, practical clothes, and how it looks comes secondary to comfort. If it looks great, then it’s a bonus. This is particularly true when it comes to shoes. I’ve had bad feet, and leg joints for quite a while, so for me try to wear high-heels or strappy sandals is just plain stupid. Walking boots, well-made sneakers and well-made flat work shoes are the go for me. Perhaps I could do with a few lessons on how to match them to my outfits, but once again, at least I’m comfortable! I don’t come home from a night out, kick my shoes off and sigh with pleasure at being free before nursing my blisters; I come home, take off my sneakers and go to bed because it’s past my bedtime!

Occasionally I will wear something simply because it looks good but rarely is it uncomfortable – it’ll still be a simple style and well made, and hopefully cheap! Fashion just isn’t my passion. I usually have a camera or two to be carrying, and a book, and my phone will preferably be in my pocket so I can feel/hear it, so wearing a little lace-up top, a tiny skirt and shapeless unsupportive pump-style shoes is the last thing I want to be doing. Add to that all the makeup and hair time that is apparently required before you leave the house and it’s barely even worth going out before you come home to start removing it.

Having lived and stayed with certain types of female, I’ve seen them spend up to 2 hours putting on makeup and doing hair. When I go into the bathroom, I consider spending that long in there too just to annoy them – but after doing some makeup and perhaps tousling my hair, I get bored. I don’t have enough makeup to spend that long on (if my skin would allow me to) and my hair is too thick and heavy to do anything with.

I guess I’ll never understand some things.

So last weekend held excitement for me. On Saturday I managed to get down to Vanbar in North Melbourne to get all I need to do some black and white processing. I’m starting to shoot more and hopefully soon I’ll have my first results! I’ve gone for ID-11 and Tetenal Superfix Plus to start with, but I might jump on the Rodinal bandwagon that most of the Melbourne Silver Mine group seem to be on. I’ll have to check out the results I get from ID-11 first.

Later on on Saturday, the Melbourne at Night group on Flickr went on a photo-walk in the evening around Docklands to take some photos. I went along and although I felt very uninspired at first, by the time we were heading down to the Bolte Bridge at sunset, I had my camera out and was taking some photos. For our entertainment, Vermin Inc did a little bit of swimming down at the bridge, which had all of us with our cameras out.

This was one of my first night-shoots, and I’m fairly happy with the one shot I’ve uploaded of the bridge.

Perhaps this is the start of many more to come.

Since then, it’s just been work and swimming really. I’m happy with my swimming progress – running half-laps in the deep end, focusing alternately on arms and legs. I do feel the need to mention how much I hate the pool at the moment though! Obviously, the beginning of the year is busy as people decide to lose weight, pay a membership and attend for a few weeks. So most of the lanes are full of people who are quickly learning the etiquette.

The other group of people who have invaded the pool are kids. Obviously it’s school holidays, but do the kids really have to come at the peak time after work when people are trying to do lengths? Because the lap-lanes are full, I use the ‘aqua play’ lane (essentially just for leisure), and although that wasn’t a problem before Christmas, apparently the more kids there are, the more selfish they become. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve seen kids dive-bomb into the pool directly next to mature, well-groomed women who are content just paddling around. I understand that the women and the children can’t avoid each other entirely, but it seems that they could just a few seconds until the woman is out of the way, or move up further.

I had my first encounter with a group of kids today. There were 3-5 young boys who were in the deep end, holding onto the wall and pushing off then holding on the lane ropes, then back again. After my first 2 lengths I noticed that they’d only do it in front of people. So without goggles and expecting it, all these people, including me, were getting face-fulls of water, as well as a child in their way. It strikes me as ridiculously discourteous, and although I told them to watch out a few times, it took until the life-saver told them to return to their parents watchful eye in the children’s pool that they stopped disrupting people who were enjoying themselves.

It takes me back to the days when I used to swim at the Adelaide Aquatic Centre with my brother and dad at the weekend. Although I was a couple years too young, I’d swim in the ‘big pool’ (2-5m deep, diving and swimming). If a lifesaver asked, I’d have to prove I could swim 25m into the middle without assistance and back again – thankfully never getting asked to go back to the crowded and warm ‘kids’ pool’. Oh the good days.

Summers have changed too much – the amount of times I’d frolic under the sprinkler in our backyard when I was young. I also have vague memories of my dad filling our sandpit with water – perhaps to make up for not having a pool? Our paddling pool, once it had a hole, was destined to cover the compost heap. These days though, kids have to come to the public pools and cause a nuisance for everybody else.

I’m looking forward to when school goes back and people give up on their gym and pool memberships!

Facebook and the weather

So over the past few weeks, I’ve been getting a little bored with the usual websites I frequent (or found myself with more time), and so have spent more time on Facebook that I used to. However, there are two main qualms that I have with this increasingly popular website.

The first is the friend invite tool. Since I’ve been a member, probably coming up to 2-3 years, I’ve had countless friend invites from people I either don’t know, or don’t know well and don’t care too much about. Primarily, friends that I went to high school with ask to be my friend but mostly I’m not interested. Facebook, to me, is a tool to keep in touch with people I’ve known or know and wish to catch up with again in the future. If I have people I have barely spoken to for several years add me to Facebook, despite other methods of keeping in touch, I feel the need to ignore the request. On the few occasions I have added someone I knew in high school, there has perhaps been a ‘hello’, and then no further contact. Perhaps I have a tendency to be less social than others, but if there’s nothing to say, then that’s it. Another person becomes part of a count to see who has more friends than another.

My second problem with Facebook are the application requests. I enjoy online games and quizzes as much as the next – you’d just have to check my ‘boxes’ page on Facebook to see that – but why do people feel the need to inflict them all on me and their entire friends list? I’ve looked at some applications, and perhaps I want to do a quiz, but if it involves sending an invite to everybody, I’ve not done the quiz. If there is the option to do so, I click to skip sending invites to everyone, so that I don’t send an invite to everybody to talk about books when I know most of them aren’t interested in it. Just a little consideration means I don’t piss everybody off, so they don’t feel like I do.

Another rant that I have today is about the weather. Not the actual weather, as I have actually enjoyed the last couple of days of 30+ temperatures. My problem is the way that everyone reacts. When I left England, I felt that I could be leaving behind monotonous whinging about every kind of weather. However, after a cool start to summer, people can’t keep quiet about the heat after one day at 35+ degrees. When it rains, there is some complaint and discussion of umbrellas, and that’s it, but every conversation I heard today was about the heat, the third-hottest-night ever and the cool change that might be coming or has come. It began to grate after the first few conversations I overheard.

With the coolness of the next few days, hopefully conversation subjects will change while I dig out a hoodie to keep warm.

Just a quickie..

At some point I’d like to have a rant about Facebook on here, about a few things that have struck me about it in the past few weeks while I’ve been bored and online. But this is just a reminder to myself until then.

My excitement today is that I finally won a film developing tank on Ebay! This means that once I pick up a few other bits and pieces – bottles, measures, chemicals etc. – I’ll be able to develop my own film at home! Hopefully this will be the inspiration I need to shoot more, and more regularly.

The latest inspiration (or lack of) has been the Melbourne Silver Mine’s competition for the subject of ‘girt’. As in ‘girt by sea’. As yet I’m unsure as to what to shoot for this (I have until the 29th Jan) with the disposable camera, and I have a few ideas but nothing that appeals to me. Hopefully something will come up and inspire me so I can shoot and submit something at the end of this!

So the beginning of 2009 has been quite busy so far, even if work has been thankfully quiet.

Having taken Friday 2nd off work so I could have a four-day-weekend, I arranged to see someone from the Melbourne Flickr group to hand over some Ilford photo paper which I no longer has use for. Meeting in Borders was not a great idea, as I arrived early enough to look at a lot of books. With some self-control, I didn’t buy anything, had a coffee with Zaeem and went on my way.

I headed down to the NGV as I have been meaning to do for many weeks, to see the Andreas Gursky exhibition. Despite being $15 to see a handful of photos, I was rather impressed. When photos are so big that you can stand directly in front of it and see detail of hundreds of faces (his picture from Pyongyang) and the detail of item in stores (his 99c store, probably his best known shot), you can’t help but feel inadequate. Having to strain your neck to see more detail in a photo as large as that is so unusual, but it’s definitely worth it and has made me want to enlarge my work more.

After that I just relaxed and saw some friends until Sunday 4th. A group of us from Flickr were meeting at the Belgian Beer Cafe in Southbank for a few drinks. It was a warm but relaxing afternoon and I came home earlier than usual so that I could catch up on sleep before going back to work on Monday. The four-day-weekend felt more like a week off by the time I got back at work.

During the week I tried out a small restaurant in Richmond called The Rainbow-Silent-Heart, a small vegan/vegetarian place. The food was cheap, delicious and different to what I usually eat. I had the Bliss Burger and my friend had a peanut satay stir-fry, which was more like a curry. I found a voucher in the Entertainment book for it, so thought it a good a reason as any to try somewhere new.

Thursday night was my chance to see Atmosphere with Brother Ali and Murs. I hadn’t realised that the main set was Atmosphere feat. Brother Ali, and as I didn’t know any of Brother Ali’s work, it was a little alien. Murs’ set was fantastic, and really livened up the crowd. When Slug came out with Brother Ali doing his thing, he couldn’t stop smiling, and they both seemed to really enjoy themselves. Alternating a few songs each, with Ant doing the DJ work all the way through, the show lasted a while but probably felt longer because I had a headache!

At one stage I noticed that some people around me were smoking some joints and was a little surprised that the guys collecting the glasses didn’t really care – they walked past and just smiled at the guys even though they were obviously the ones smoking. It was interesting to see that they cared so little about flouting of laws.

There were some other interesting people there including a girl who was dancing in what she though was a sexy manner, but was so out of time with the beat that she just looked a bit stupid; there was a guy who I think was limping, but could have just been doing the ‘cool’ gaited walk that a lot of hip-hop kids seem to do and some people who looked around 12 years old and had either snuck in with a fake ID or just had a baby face. All in all, a great night with a varied crowd and some new music for me. Very enjoyable night, although I could have done with a little more sleep!

Friday night I was at a friend’s place again, so still lacking on sleep, I went out on Saturday to another Flickr meet. We met a little earlier to take some portraits of each other, with most of us being reluctant models! It was successful though, and then we moved up to Section 8, a small outdoor bar setup in a lane. Thankfully it was a great, sunny day and under the trees and shade, it was a beautiful afternoon. It was a much bigger turnout than usual with some new faces and old faces coming for the first time in a while.

They had some good music on: hip hop, followed by jazz and blues, but it did get loud later on and a bit too much for the mellow mood we had set during the afternoon. It was a brilliant afternoon though, and although not the cheapest, I could easily go back there again soon.

With the rest of the week staying warmer than the last few, I’m excited that summer is finally here.

Into 2009

So, 2008 has finished. I’ve been pretty happy with what I’ve done through the year – kept the photography going, gained a full-time permanent job, planned my first holiday alone and have been enjoying an active social life!

The next year will obviously bring a lot of new things. The main one that I’m excited about at the moment is a trip to New Zealand from the 6th-12th March. I’ll be flying into Wellington and out of Christchurch, so I’ll spend a few nights in each town and hopefully take plenty of photos while I’m there. This is my first trip on my own, and although I’m looking forward to the isolation, I’ll probably be staying in hostels just so I don’t lose all social skills while I”m there!

Other than that, I have a few shows booked in already. This week I’ll be seeing the American hip-hop act Atmosphere at their sideshow. I’m really excited about that, being my first hip-hop show and my first of 2009. It should be a good one.

The next is only slightly embarrassing, Human Nature with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. I’ve liked them since I was little, but never seen them, so this is something new for me. Even though I’ll be on my own, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it!

The next show will be one of the Comfest shows; Dylan Moran tickets went on sale a month or so ago. So tickets have already been booked for that, and there is much excitement for Danny Bhoy and Adam Rozenbachs who are both at this year’s Comfest! Can’t wait!

The end of 2008 also saw me finish reviewing all books I read. Along similar lines, I’ve decided to try and watch more movies this year instead. I only watch a new one every month or so, and yet watch ones I like more often. I’ll be trying to watch more classics, as well new popular and less popular ones. I doubt I’ll review them as I have the books, but I’m looking forward to it nonetheless.

Besides all of this, I plan on continuing with both film and digital photography. I’m still looking for a developing tank so that I can develop and scan my own negatives at home. There is also a chance my parents will be sending me an old Brownie box camera at some point, which will give me a chance to use a different format of film (I’m not sure which yet).

So hopefully 2009 will be enjoyable for me, with new things to see and learn, and plenty of new movies.