Surely not a massacre?

 

 

Leaving the bar of the Avoca Surf Club on Saturday afternoon Rosie and I were confronted with this appalling sight. Body parts scattered around the floor of a side room. Had there been a silent massacre -perhaps a mass shooting?

Fortunately the explanation was straightforward. A class on CPR -cardiopulmonary resuscitation and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation- for surfguards had just ended and the training dummies had been left on the floor.

Taken with my iPhone - the camera lenses obviously needed a clean. 

 

 

Boys with a motorbike-Myanmar

All quiet here on the photo front. It's just over two weeks before I head off to Morocco so here's one of my all time favourite photos from my archive-two boys with a motorcycle in Pathein on the the Irrawaddy Delta region of Myanmar.

The photo was taken in the late afternoon of March 2018 on my last visit to Myanmar . The two boys exude attitude. The setting could be anywhere. Only the registration plate on the motorcycle says it was taken in Myanmar.

The photo was taken with my Leica Q. 

More Myanmar

 The previous post- the photo of the girl riding her bike with an umbrella /sunshade has been well received so I have been diving into the library again looking for more photos from Myanmar and I found these two for starters. Both taken on 24th December 2012 at the same temple in Mandalay.

Although they were taken nearly 13 years ago I can remember the exact circumstances where and when I took them.

We were with a small group who were travelling down the Irrawaddy River on a small riverboat starting out from Mandalay the next day. We had already visited two temples and I was beginning to experience early symptoms of "not another temple" fatigue. So I hung back from the group and by luck spotted these two photo ops.

The photos were taken with my Leica X1 which even today I would still rate as one of the best of the many cameras I have owned. Small, light, with simple controls/menus and superb image quality it is still a star 16 years after it was launched.

 

Girl on a bike-Myanmar

 Another photo which has laid unoticed in the  Pictures library on my computer until today. Taken in September 2018 on a very hot afternoon in a small town in the Irrawaddy Delta region of Myanmar. 

Myanmar was one of my absolute favourite countries to visit. Sadly it is a very different story today. Tourists are not welcome. The democratically elected government was overthrown in a bloody military coup in 2020. There is an ongoing civil war and to add to to the misery there was a devastating earhquake earlier this year. So sad and such beautiful people and such a beautiful country.

Photo taken with my Leica Q. 

Before the storm

 A photo from 1998. Taken on the edge of the Tanami Desert in Western Australia, just before a rare event out there -a thunderstorm. A downpour which fortunately did not last long.

Photo taken with my Leica M6 on Ektachrome 64 slide film using an Elmarit 28mm lens.

I was never enthusiastic about using the M6 in the desert as keeping sand away from it -and everything else-was a constant battle. I should have come home with dozens of photos but I did not. Taking good photos in a desert is not easy. 

Tasmania revisited

Regrets- I have only a few but one is I wish that I'd done more walking in Tasmania when I was young enough and fit enough to do it.

In my fiftieth year I did the three day walk of the Milford Track in New Zealand with two friends. It was wonderful but although it made me want more it never happened.

I took just a few photos on that walk, but as I found out then, it's not easy to combine serious landscape photography with a demanding trail walk particularly when, as is almost always the case, you are walking with others.

I do envy the brilliant Australian photographer, Peter Dombrovskis, his exploration of Tasmania's wild places. His photographs are superb. He usually walked alone carrying carrying camping equipment and heavy photographic gear because his style of slow considered photography meant carrying a tripod and a heavy camera which used sheet film.

I am very fortunate to own a copy of Dombrovskis's Photographic Collection -a mighty tome with beautiful prints on art paper. It is now out of print but I managed to buy a mint copy from a book dealer in Hobart, Tasmania last year. The photos are works of art and so is the book.

Looking at it earlier this week prompted me to take another look at the previously unseen wilderness photos I took in Tasmania last year. I am no Peter Dombrovskis and we did not venture off the beaten tracks so my photos are a pale imitation of the master's but here they are.

 Leica Q2 photos

Tragedy in Lisbon

 

A terrible tragedy in Lisbon yesterday on one of the three funiculars in the city, the funicular Elevador da Glória, which climbs a steep hill from Restauradores Square and the Avenida da Liberdade to reach panoramic views in the Bairro Alto neighborhood.

Sadly, 15 people lost their life with many others seriously injured, when according to press reports a cable came loose on the up cable car sending it crashing down the steep hill in a narrow cutting.

We rode that funicular on 30th May this year when this photo was taken.

It's a beautiful day

 

After weeks of unusually cold and wet weather winter seems to be showing signs of retreating. Today is a beautiful day. So warm that I did my early morning walk wearing shorts and I took my camera along.

I came home with a few photos which hopefully show what a beautiful day in Terrigal looks like.

Photos taken with the Leica X1. All straight from the camera jpegs. Leica obviously put a lot of effort into the colour tuning of the jpeg output from the X1.