Tourism and fundraising

Last Saturday I managed to do another tourist activity in Melbourne which I hadn’t done yet. The Entertainment Guide contains vouchers for many things, and I noticed one for a Yarra River cruise. So a cold and windy Saturday afternoon was ideal, right?

On the way down there, my friend and I stopped at Fed Square for the Buddha’s Day festival. The performances and shrines were of little interest, mostly due to lack of time and preferring to move to the food on offer. Mainly vegetarian or vegan, the variety was quite impressive. There were many ‘meat dishes’ made with substitutes (mostly soy I think), and after trying the duck, calamari and chicken, I concluded that the texture was very realistic and all tasted delicious.

Next, the boat trip! The voucher entitled us to buy-one-get-one-free on either a one way (down or up river), or both ways (down and up river) – we decided on the latter, because we could. The trip down river, towards Docklands, was more interesting, and provided more photography opportunities. It was definitely windy and cold, but the views were ones I hadn’t seen before and well worth it.

The second part of the trip went up river, past Richmond. This wasn’t as interesting, but had some nice views of the botanic gardens and Herring Island. The late afternoon light was lovely and golden by this time, and I’m sure the hen’s afternoon cruise ladies were enjoying themselves!

During the last week, I’d been out for a night shoot at Flemington Bridge, and I had taken both my DSLR and my Olympus SLR. I did shoot with the digital, but also used it as a lightmeter for the SLR – I began to shoot my first roll of colour slide film. I’d chosen Fujifilm Provia 100, after seeing how it came out at night, but had only fired off a few frames. With the help of a warming filter however, I finished shooting that roll on the ‘outward’ boat trip. Results are back tomorrow hopefully.

After disembarking, we tried an Italian restaurant (upstairs on Swaston Street – not very good), and another early night was on the cards.

Sunday morning required an earlyish start. As some of you may or may not know, I work for Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. Each year, during the AFL season, there is a game between Collingwood and Carlton known as the Peter Mac Cup to help raise money for the hospital.

This year being the first year I’ve worked there (coming up to 11 months), I volunteered to help fundraise at the game. This involved getting there mid-morning to be briefed and assigned a location (Jolimont station) and moving into position for the first attendees coming in on the train.

This is one of the first fundraising events directly for Peter Mac that I’ve taken part in, and it was definitely enjoyable. The spirit of people coming through is quite astounding. Obviously a lot of people are there just for the footy, but there were also people getting off the train with coins ready to donate – knowing that we’d be there. Some people would stop for a few words, others just donated and kept moving, but all in all, it was interesting to see all the different faces coming.

Although we were given free general admission tickets to the game afterward, we couldn’t find a seat, and after standing for over two hours, my legs needed a rest. We headed home and caught nearly the whole game on the TV (one time I’m grateful for a delay), in the warmth and comfort of my lounge – and I for one was delighted to see Collingwood lose!

New things

So this post is of all the new photography related things I’ve tried recently.

First up was the Kershaw, my first folding camera, and first camera that took 120 film. Despite the watermarks, I’m happy.

Next up I had my new Dacora, which worked fine despite being an Ebay purchase.

And lastly, shooting at 1600 – I think I’d only shot at 400 before, even digitally. Melbourne Museum was perfect to try this!

The weekend just past got off to a bad start.

Due to my dizzy spells and ear ache, I had Friday off to go to the Alfred Hospital for a balance test. They extensively test hearing and balance, in the hope of finding the cause. Despite the many warnings, I was optimistic that I’d feel OK and wouldn’t be too put out by it.

The hearing tests were harmless and other than an instrument to check my ear drum going in slightly too far (briefly), there was no problem. Hearing is fine, I still have mild tinnitus and the ear ache but there was nothing showing up which we should be concerned about.

Next came the balance tests. These were the parts I weren’t looking forward to! There were several different parts – all designed to induce dizziness while my eyes were being monitored by a little camera. I believe the basis for this is that in vertigo, the body is trying to right itself, displayed by movement of the eyes trying to find a focus.

The first part of the test involved sitting in a small booth with a light on the wall in front of me. while the light moved to different positions, I was to follow it with my eyes while keeping my head still (strapped to the chair, this was easier that you’d think). The next part involved being in darkness, the chair would move at different speeds while I focused on the light (keeping my eyes open for the recording). This is one of the most unpleasant experiences I have had – being in complete darkness and spun around at unexpected speeds and direction is not my idea of fun. At least with a roller coaster you know you’ll be going forward.

The next part wasn’t too bad and involved sitting on a bed with goggles on (for the camera to attach to) and dropping from sitting to lying at different angles.

The last stage was almost as unpleasant as the dark booth. Similar to when excess wax is syringed from your ears, both hot and cold water are pushed into your ears (separately) and again, eye movements are monitored. Both temperatures were equally uncomfortable in temperature and both induced dizziness (wearing blacked out goggles).

The outcome of all of this was that there was evidence of eye movements while I was dizzy. This means I’m not imagining it! The results will be analysed by the otoneurologist at the Alfred before they’re passed on to my ENT. I’ll be seeing him in a couple of weeks to discuss the results.

After that, I could only have a relaxed afternoon involving TV shows, knitting, editing photos and generally trying to mentally stop the room spinning! Unfortunately I also tried to go to a concert – Daughters of the Rich and Burn The City, but only managed to stay for Daughters of the Rich before I was too dizzy and needed to go to bed.

Saturday morning dawned raining and miserable, which of course was a good time to go shooting in Docklands. Only an hour and an early pint later, we were off to Armadale to see an exhibition of rock and roll pictures – including photos by Pattie Boyd and paintings by Ronnie Wood. A very impressive collection, worth a lot of money and altogether very interesting.

After that we headed down to Prahran to the Borsch, Vodka and Tears bar. There we indulged in some food (the Big Breakfast with Polish spiced sausage!) and some vodka (subtly ginger infused) which was quite delicious!

The Railway Inn was our next port of call, where we settled in for the rest of the evening in their delightful rooftop bar. Many beers and G&Ts later, we disbanded and had food and a relatively early night.

Sunday being Mother’s day, most of my friends were busy, so I had a quiet day for a change. It was a chance to catchup on some photography editing, watching True Blood and knitting a baby cardigan. I also processed the first roll from my new folding Dacora. It was successful (well, judging by my first scans) and I’ll upload some soon.

Buzzing like a busy bee

As I’m currently looking for a new place, I’ve been trying to divide my time between doing that, work and taking/processing/editing photos. It’s a hard juggle!

So far no luck on the house-front, but am about to start looking with fellow housemate Kat for a two-bedroom place. It’s unlikely we’ll stay in East Melbourne, but we’ll hopefully stay in the inner suburbs as neither of us want too far to travel to work.

I rarely update about work, and that’s because I suppose there is little to update about. It’s the daily grind, which is rewarding and interesting enough to get me back there each day. As a colleague is leaving on maternity leave in a few months’ time, I will be taking over most of her work until we find a replacement. Although I’m not looking forward to the drastically increased workload, there are a few new skills and tasks to learn which should be interesting.

Photography, on the other hand, is getting interesting. I’ve just shot, processed and am now scanning my first ever roll of 120 film. I borrowed a friend’s Kershaw folding camera and shot a roll of Neopan 400, and processed in the DD-X I have at the moment. It’s come out relatively well, and despite high potential for light-leaks when it was taken out of the camera (it wound loosely), all was fine. Uploads to come.

Leading on from that, I used a small part of ‘Kev’s cash bonus’ (the $900 economic stimulus plan) to purchase my own medium format camera, a Dacora, which is also a folder. I only received it today, but with more manual settings I’m hoping to get some better results with it!

Since I’ve gotten into the swing of processing my own film, I’ve found myself to be shooting a lot more black and white just for the convenience of it. I have been quite ’snap happy’ with it, but I’m starting to settle and get more quality too.

Recently I also bought a 50mm f/1.8 lens for my 10D. I’ve only shot with it once, and apart from minor focusing issues, it’s a good buy (it was dirt cheap) and I’m glad to own my first (hopefully of many) prime.

This was from the shoot with the new 50mm. The video of Little Boris, created by the North Melbourne FC, provided great amusement for those of us who weren’t shocked and disgusted. Finding a rubber chicken in the following weeks was slightly difficult, but thankfully we managed and had a good shoot.

A toy panorama camera up the Rialto, with a roll of (ick) Tmax, is surely the best way to shoot cityscapes? I thought so at least.