The man in black

 A previously unseen photo from my Lightroom library. Taken late June in Paris with my Leica X1.

The EXIF data says it was taken at 3.39pm but that seems very unlikely as no Parisien cafe would be that empty at that time. More likely the time in the camera was still set on Sydney time so the time in Paris would be 7.39 am  but as it was a Thursday I have no explanation as to why the cafe was so empty with just the man in black enjoying his cafe.

Out of the cold wind

 

 

I found this photo quite by chance last week. It was taken in 2013 at the Ocean Baths at Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia on a sunny winter's day. It reminds me of days this winter in Terrigal when the sun was shining but the wind off the sea was icy.

The man and his little dog found a sheltered spot. The fact that he is reading a newspaper and not looking at his phone dates the photo.

The photo was taken with my Leica X1. Last week I entered it into the Leica LFI Gallery and it was selected to appear in the gallery.               

 I quote from the LFI email 'This means your image now ranks among the top representatives of this genre within the LFI Gallery. Congratulations!'. A nice plaudit for a photo taken 11 years ago and passed over by me until last week. 

Herons

Another beautiful winter's day here. Nothing else to do outside due to the lockdown but walk so I drove over to nearby Kincumber and walked on the track beside Brisbane Water for a 6km round trip. I took a camera and came back with just the one photo of a gaggle. or maybe it's a flock, of herons at the edge of the mangroves.

There are worse places to be locked down and I was counting my good fortune when I saw 5 carers pushing 5 severely disabled children in wheelchairs along the path for an outing in the sun. It made me both sad and even more grateful for my good fortune.

I also reflected on the young carers. Poorly paid with emotionally taxing work. How did we design a system where incompetent fools-mainly overweight white males- are highly paid members of parliament and dedicated, committed care workers are paid a pittance?

Forbidden in the hermit kingbom.

 

Again Australia is facing a covid-crisis. One limo driver taking incoming flight crews to their quarantine hotel has become infected with the Delta virus variant and has very effectively spread it around in Sydney so now we have a total lockdown in Sydney and surrounding areas and state borders closed to NSW residents. Because our forever smirking, Pentacostal prime minister, Scott Morrison, and his crew of incompetent muppets have sat on their hands in a bubble of "no covid here" complacency and not actioned an effective and orderly vaccination policy Australia is now the 49th of 50 in ranking of the world's richest nations in terms of the vaccination rate.

We are rapidly turning into the hermit kingdom. Travellers and Australian citizens cannot come in and those of us who are here are forbidden to leave.

All this suits a substantial portion of the population who are all in favour of keeping us "safe" with closed  international borders-perhaps for ever. As Mr Smirk's only objective is to get re-elected and keep his fat Pentacostal arse in the white armour plated BMW 7 Series government car he's only too pleased to go along with this as it surely will be a vote and election winner. The rest of us are in despair. See Lack of Leadership  from today's Sydney Morning Herald.

It's time for the f'ing around to stop Australia. The government has to procure enough vaccine to vaccinate us all rapidly-no more rubbery figures on the vaccination rate. Also all the anti-vaccers and vaccine shoppers  ("if I have the Astra-Zeneca jab there is a chance I will die-I must have Pfizer") have to shut up and get inline otherwise we are all f'd and destined to live forever in a hermit kingdom with a shrinking economy and ruled by small minded incompetents.

And yes I am fully vaccinated. Two doses of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine and yet I still cannot go anywhere. What a fiasco. Find me the nearest guillotine and some handcarts.

Header-a photo from 2012. St Helens, on the east coast of Tasmania. A place in my own country I cannot visit currently due to the incompetence and lack of leadership of Mr Smirk and his team of muppets.

The photo is a Photoshop panorama stitch of two photos taken with my Leica X1.

Off the sheep's back

Seen on my morning walk -strands of sheep fleece on the wires of a fence. Not just on one wire but on every wire. Hundreds of wires where over many years hundreds and probably thousands of sheep have rubbed themselves to relieve itching and they have left a little piece of fleece.

I also found an intact sheep's skull but decided against putting it on the Mini's grille.

Loud exhale....

 I've just spent some time looking at posts of joyful celebrations of Biden's victory in US cities on Instagram and in news media. A lot of people are certainly breathing easily again in the USA and across the world. The wicked witch has gone.

Congratulations to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on a very sweet victory. Decency and honesty and respect for science will be back where it should be.  No more running America by mad midnight tweets. 

I loved travelling in the US.and have been there many times for work and pleasure. I have driven all over and seen the country away from the tourist trails.

As Trump's rheoteric became uglier and uglier and his behavour became more unhinged into his presidency Val and I decided after our 2017 Mississippi River Road trip that we would not/could not visit the USA again whilst he remained president.

With Val very sick,  the pandemic raging in the US and the travel restrictions, a US visit in the forseeable future is not going to happen anyway but at least one restraint has gone.

Good riddance, orange man. You will not be missed by us and millions of others although I understand that your good mate, Vlad, is a tad upset at your demise. 

A collection of American snapshots from a wonderful visit in 2015. Wonderful smiling, welcoming people and a beautiful country. Let's hope sanity really has been restored.

The PITS again

 For the first time in many months I managed to join the Porsche 356 and other car desperates for the monthly gathering at the very scruffy Pie in the Sky biker's cafe at Cowan for a lunchtime pie today.

The Pie in the Sky is in a great location-it's good drive to get there- and it is a big site with plenty of bike and car parking and it overlooks national park but it is a dump. The pies are ok and the staff are friendly but that's it. It really could do with a big make over. Still it is an institution and it has a following so there we are.

A few regulars and a few newbies in the cars there today. No interesting vintage bikes but plenty of Ducatis and other late model crotch rockets. And it was a beautiful warm day. Roll on summer.

Photos taken on my newly acquired 'spare' Leica X1-its first outing in my hands.

A very large Siddeley Special

An aluminium bodied sports Bentley special. A staid, upright Bentley was probably sacrificied to make it

A

Vintage Hotchkiss .

On my walk

For years I took my little Leica X1 on my early morning walk. But then I wanted to walk faster and I decided that I had exhausted the photo ops on my walk so I left the camera at home most of the time.

Recently I have been using my new series iPhone SE to take photos on the early morning walk. The image quality is really impressive but still I am not happy using the phone as a camera. It is a matter of haptics-touch and feel and handling generally. It just does not feel right. I find composing and framing the photo on the camera's screen difficult. Maybe it is a matter of what I am used to over many years. Maybe I am just stuck in a groove but I'll take a proper viewfinder any day over a LCD screen.

Having said that here's a photo I took with the iPhone earlier this week. The bird in the tree is a kookaburra-the Australian laughing bird. It's unusual to see a kookaburra in scrub on the cliff top walk. Usually they are in the gumtrees just a few hundred metres in land.There are dozens in the trees around my house and the kookaburras start their demented laughing in unison at around 4.30am at this time of the year. The reason they get away with it is that they look such a jolly, friendly bird. They are the quintessential Australian icon-along with the kangaroo, the koala and the emu.

They have quite extraordinary eyesight. I have watched a young kookaburra sit on the power lines outside my house and spot a tiny skink in the garden 10 metres away and swoop straight down on it and then devour it.

Velocette at the PITS

Classic Velocette, classic location, classic Bristol in reflection, modern photo.

The best of friends....

 The best of friends...snuggled together in the boot of a hatchback at Jerry's Cafe, Kulnura yesterday. Usually these two roam the forecourt of the cafe checking out all the bikers and other customers. At 8.30 am yesterday things were quiet, after a very hectic weekend, so they took the opportunity to get some rest.

Farewell USA?

I seem to recollect that photography was not permitted in the glorious, Frank Lloyd Wright designed, Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York but anyway I managed this one photo back in 2012. I vaguely remember security guards asking patrons not to take photos of the paintings with their phones. They have probably given up on this hopeless task now.

I last visited the US in May 2017 when we drove the Mississippi River Road from New Orleans to Memphis and then on to Chicago. I fear that may well have been my last ever trip to the US. I cannot see Covid-19 free travel being possible before 2022 and I foresee getting travel insurance for the US at my age may well be impossible or at best prohibitively expensive. 

I also fear that the US may be on the verge of imminent collapse. It sounds melodramatic but four years of the Trump presidency have totally undermined the rule of law and the institutions of government. Extensive civil strife or even a civil war is a real possibility if Trump does not win the forthcoming election and if he does win I see the US rapidly becoming an authoritarian neo-fascist state. This would have terrible implications for the US and the whole world.

I was bought up to look upto the USA as a shining example of democracy-a beacon of freedom- and this was a widely held view. Uncle Sam was the strong and benevolent leader of the free world. That view has certainly changed. Now the USA is seen by the citizens of many countries as a tragic, failed state unable to contain the Covid-19 pandemic and apparently willing to let its citizens die from the virus at a rate not equalled almost anywhere else the world and presided over by an appalling narcissist who delights in insulting the USA's friends and allies and who actively courts the affection of leaders of authoritarian states. It is beyond tragic.

So sadly I fear that my days of visiting the USA are behind me. It's not all bad news. At least I won't ever have to face waiting in a line for two hours at immigration control at Los Angeles Airport to enter the USA again.

 

Holiday snapshots from Stockholm

It seems like years ago but in fact only 15 months have passed since I was in Stockholm for just a week. A week was too short -I did not even manage to find time to visit the Abba Museum!

I did manage to take a vintage steam ferry to delightful Vaxholm passing beautiful summer homes on the islands. 

I have visited Sweden three times over the years and would like to see more of it but I suspect that I am running out of time. I may have to be content with just my memories and travel photos.

Last week I received an email from a British travel company advising me that I could visit Sweden without quarantining. Sadly the advice was for UK residents-and I wonder if it still applies anyway. For Australians we are still prisoners on our island continent. Not permitted to leave to go even to New Zealand yet alone Sweden. 

A few holiday"snaps" from a week in Stockholm. Memories from the time before Covid-19 changed the world.

For all the photographers who stress about their cameras and who have attacks of gear acquisition syndrome (gas) on a frequent basis all these photos were taken with my 11 year old Leica X1. The world is often full of surprises.

 

One for the wall

On the wall in a prominent position in the living/kitchen area of the house is a large framed photo of a lion taken by me in Zimbabwe 26 years ago. In its day it was a great photo but sadly the strong sun has faded it and it should have been replaced many months ago. The problem has been finding an acceptable replacement. We are not spoilt for choice with literally hundreds of photos from our travels as possible replacements but it has not been an easy task.

Finally we have made a decision and have selected a photo taken in 2013 showing our three grandaughters, Poppy,Ellie and Scarlett, after they had their faces expertly painted at Avoca Beach Sunday Markets. The photo is colourful and joyful and of course it's family. It's also technically very good and should make an excellent big print. Now I have to organise the printing and framing but hopefully the most difficult part is behind me.

A bleak day

Fortunately we don't have many days like today in Terrigal. It was bleak-cold and with a strong biting wind. The surf was big so the many surfers were happy but as for the rest of us we were happy to stay indoors if possible. I ventured down to beach late afternoon and grabbed this photo. It reminds me of a scene from an English seaside resort.

Good morning, sunshine.

One of the joys of life, for me anyway, is an early morning walk and particularly an early morning walk in an unfamiliar place on a bright sunny morning. The walk is even better if a photo presents itself.
This photo was taken in Portland, Oregon just a hundred or so metres from my hotel. It's just an ordinary scene transformed by the low early morning sun. If I had seen this later in the day I would not have given it a second glance.
The scene could be anywhere. I don't go out looking for photos-they present themselves. I invairably take my Leica X1 on my walks because it is unobtrusive and easy to carry. I guess that I could just use my phone but for me at least it's not the same. When I have the camera in my hands and am looking through the viewfinder my mental approach is different to when I use the phone. Maybe it's just a matter of what you are used to. Anyway the camera works for me so why change?

At the lolly shop

 A blast from the polar region hit us on Saturday. It was very windy and cold and the temperature with the wind chill was in single figures. Very unusual for here. The good news is that mid to high 20's(C) temperatures are forecast for the end of the week.

I cannot take the cold like I used to be able to. My blood must have thinned living here. I was watching a British TV travel program last week where a railway worker at a Scottish station was waiting for an SMS on her phone to say that she had approval to remove her tie as it was so hot. It was 19ºC !  At that temperature I'm starting to think about putting on a sweater.

In an effort to shake off the lockdown blues we drove the 13kms to The Entrance on Saturday morning. There were very few people around and with most shops shut-many permanently unfortunately-it was a gloomy place despite the sunshine. It reminded me of an English seaside resort out of season.

To escape the gloom I dived into a lolly shop-Lollies N' Stuff-and found Taylah and Sophie resplendent in their Minnie Mouse outfits stacking shelves and generally radiating good humour despite the lack of customers or maybe because of the lack of customers. Luckily I had a camera with me and the result is above. Thank you for being such good sports girls.

With a shot like this of strangers you have just one chance to get it right. If you start directing the subjects or taking multiple shots and fiddling with the controls the spontaneity rapidly evaporates and you end up with the Instagram pout.

Salute to New York City

Covid-19 has hit New York City as hard as anywhere else on the planet, The daily death toll currently averages 450 and over 16000 have died so far. It is an unprecedented catastrophe for the city.
This awful situation makes me so sad. I love New York. It's a city I have visited many times and which I have always found to be exciting. It's difficult to envisage NYC in lockdown with empty streets and empty subway trains because I can only think of the city as a massive human ant hill teeming with life and activity. It is the city which never sleeps-arguably the capital of the world.
My chances of ever visiting NYC again are slim. Who knows when the travel restrictions will end and when they do will international airtravel be accessible?
In my travels to NYC over the years I have taken a few photos. Below are some of the more recent ones hopefully conveying some of the flavour of NYC and its people.
Here's to you New York. May you overcome your sadness and bounce back soon-better and even more lively than ever.

Hot dog vendor

Dog walking, Broadway

Time out for cooks at Grand Central Station, Oyster Bar

NYC skyline

Lunch time, Chelsea Market

From the High Line

Strawberry Fields. John Lennon Memorial, Central Park

Staten Island Ferry

Morning cyclists, Central Park

Girls on the avenue-Madison Avenue

NYC Gentleman

Columbus Circle subway station

From the hotel window

Farmer's market 1

Farmer's Market-2

Farmer's Market 3

Farmer's market 4

Reflected kitchen

Central Park taxi