Day 146 2015: Blink...

Day 146: ...and you'll miss it

We have reached that point of the year where half the day is actually night. Less than twelve hours after yesterday's long exposure experiments in the dark at Moffat Beach, I was well awake and getting ready for the day. In an instant the sky turned on one of its glorious pastel greetings. Literally, an instant. How long is an instant you ask? 

Well, just long enough to interrupt what I was doing to grab the cam and head outside to try and capture the softness and the light. 

Clouds and treetops

Colours, leaves

All over within three minutes. It looked kind of like that. I might try and explore the possibilities with my recently acquired pastels later. There's not much else that beats an early morning start like that (except the equally brilliant sunsets...). Pics now have an additional criterion by the way: pastel potential. 

[Camera : Canon EOS 60D, 28-80mm, around 6.13-6.14am, because camclock is still out]


And then...

Photo by Debbie Green (@debbie_green19)

Some weeks ago I noted Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea were to play in Brisbane tonight. Now, this is jazz royalty. Imagine if you will, grabbing the opportunity to see Mozart and Chopin together on stage, exchanging notes and bon mots over a keyboard or two. By the end of the work day, and with the tai chi class cancelled, I read the signs and hurtled down the highway after work. So glad I did. Even as I sit here writing, I still have that 'unreal' feeling of having finally seen them, together...at last. And we got to sing with them too. They were also playing in Chicago back in March when I was due to attend the conference...

I also met, finally, in real life, long-time tweepster friend Debbie Green (@debbie_green19). She shared some pics of the event, one of which I have 'borrowed' for show here, since she was much closer to the stage than I was...

Just marvellous. 

Day 145 2015: A chance to stay back at the office...

Day 145: ...or go to the beach

Monday after a concert...the early, early starts are a bit challenging after a long play day but it also means no rehearsal. That means I can stay back in the office and catch up on work...

~OR~

Inspired by the long shutter exposures I experimented with last week at the uni lake (Day 141), I could try the same down at the beach. 

So I did. 

When I arrived it was dark, very dark. So, I got to work with 4secs, 8secs, 10secs, 15secs and varying the ISOs between 125 and 3200. The philosophy was 'the dials are there, the numbers are there, give it a go'. 

So I did. 

This is what happened...

Wave in motion

Ship on the horizon

Movement on the shore

Footprints to the fore, Mooloolabah to the rear

It starts to move the idea of the photograph as record into a different space, which we have discussed before. I haven't altered these pics in any post-production sense (except for a crop on the first one); the waves don't 'look' like waves, the sand, lights, rocks similarly are not what they seemed tonight when I pulled up at the beach. 

I'll leave you, dear reader, to make up your own mind. I may have to return for further investigation.

[Camera : Canon EOS 60D, 28-80mm, 6.23pm-6.39pm*, *except now I can confirm that the camera clock is out by about 11 minutes...but then, the photos aren't accurate either...are they. Or, are they?]

Day 144 2015: Ducks are the perfect concert metaphor...

Day 144: ...cruisy smooth on top, crazy movement down below

Every Monday night, I go to band rehearsal. Just about nothing else gets in the way. And then, nine or ten times a year, we actually go on and play. Concerts. Proper concerts with programs and stages, lights and audiences. Very excellent audiences. 

It is a pretty full-on day, from the 11.00am soundcheck through to curtain down at about 4.00pm, then packing up (we are our own roadies) and then...

Well, when we play out at the University of Queensland campus, it gives me a chance to spend a little time around the lake area. It was a little dark but that still gave us the opportunity for a few interesting shapes in, on and perhaps under the water...

Duck 'n' lilies

Quite a bow wave there

All the work underneath

No, not on the water...a duck out of water?

Still lake with turtle

There was also a fellow there, who despite the signs asking people not to feed the birds, he, well, fed the birds...and you just know it was with the 'tude that if I'd said anything, he'd have broken my camera I reckon. Oh well. 

Next week, we're playing at Mt Mee. That is a marvellous day out. Can't wait.

[Caamera : Canon EOS 60D, 75-300mm, 4.52pm-5.10pm, or thereabouts...]

Day 143 2015: Time, time, time...

Day 143: ...is rarely on my side.

It takes a lot to make me miss my music rehearsals, be it orchestra or clarinet choir. I either have to be too sick to move or interstate or overseas. Unless there is something on related to my other passion, work, er, I mean the work part of me that works towards encouraging a better public conversation about our politics. It is that fuzzy area where work and life cross over, or blur. 

This morning was one such morning. There was a meeting in the city to which I'd been invited as part of my work with the Australasian Study of Parliament Group. The Social and Citizenship Educators Association are planning a conference in Brisbane next year and this morning was the first planning meeting. It was nice to be asked. It coincided exactly with my clarinet rehearsal...

Some weeks, I wonder how I fit in everything I need to do. My weekend work to-do list has seven items on it--articles, essays and lectures to write, read and prepare...then there was today's meeting, a concert attendance tonight and a concert performance tomorrow. I takes me hat off to colleagues who have all that plus child commitments. 

Anyway, knowing I would be passing through King George Square, I thought it a good opportunity to capture time, as it were. So many terrific pics of the clocktower have turned up in my social media feeds of late, I figured it might be a good subject. 

City Hall portion 

Clocktower

Petrie Tableau, detail (Stephen Walker, c. 1988)

Every urban landscape pixster's favourite juxtaposition

And it was. I do enjoy the urban landscape, wherever I am. And a clocktower. This time, I have captured time; it was, for three minutes or so, on my side after all. 

[Camera : Canon EOS 60D, 18-55mm (yes, time for that one again), 12.35pm-12.38pm*]
*At least, according to the timer on my camera...but look closely. Does this mean the clocktower is...wrong??

Day 142 2015: A little unseasonal...

Day 142: ...frangipani

Life is interesting. Of course. Obvious statement. Sometimes good interesting, sometimes not so good interesting. Take today for example. Long list of work things to do. Blue skies. Coldish temperature. Strong winds. And frangipani!

My work demands that I think outside the usual parameters of life. We need to do so as researchers, in order to come at the world's problems in different ways, to get better results...

And maybe that's all this frangipani was doing today too. The frangipani is a summer flower. At this time of the near, the tree itself is shedding all its leaves. It should be bare until spring. 

State of Origin colours

A touch of yellow

Dew drop

With a stunning specimen like this though, what else is a pixster to do, on a day like this. Go frangi. Define your own seasons. Inspired. 

[Camera : Canon 60D, 75-300mm, 3.34pm-3.37pm]

Day 141 2015: We can see the end of the fog...

Day 141: ...a euphemism or otherwise, perhaps

For the second day in a row, Brisbane awoke to fog. Well, actually, I awoke at about 3.35am and it was foggy then and in the end remained foggy for most of the morning...actual meteorological fog, we're not talking euphemisms here. 

Or perhaps we are. It is week 11 of the teaching semester. We have two weeks left of teaching. I'm down to two early early Mondays and two late late Thursdays left. But it is not as if I can't wait. I love* my job. (*It has its good points.)

Anyway, this morning it was interesting to watch the fog lift early on and the effect of fog on the street lights is always interesting. 

Fogged street light

Early fog

Bird in later fog

Later in the evening, returning to the car, I just thought I might have a bit of fun with long exposure. Actually, the light from Caloundra caught my eye over the trees on the lake. I experimented a little with speeds and ISO and a fifteen second exposure gave us this: 

Night Lake
(top right 'streak' might be a bird)

I'll try again, I'm becoming a little braver when it comes to experimenting. Perhaps the fog is lifting after all. 

[Canon : Canon 60D, 75-300mm, 6.11am, 6.16am. 7.17am, 9.07pm]

Day 140 2015: A little cloudiness...

Day 140: ...goes a long way, photographically-speaking

I don't have any classes to teach on Wednesdays although there are usually meetings, seminars, consults and the like to attend. Usually. Not always. Occasionally I have to use the time in Brisbane to attend other meetings, seminars or consults as required, part of our 'engagement' responsibilities. It saves a trip to the SunCoast so...

Today was one of those days: a meeting at Griffith University for one of the think tanks to which I contribute. It meant a trip to Griffith though, by buses, plural which, ironically, takes almost as long via public transport as it takes for me to drive to the SunCoast...but that's for another post...

So there was a little bit of time to admire the clouds...

Cloud watch, with stark building

But the rest of the time was taken up with discussion until I was home in time to see just a sliver of moon, with the clouds. Moon, cloud, sunset, a bit of a fave combination.

Crescent

Crescent moon with clouds

It was a spectacular cloud day today. In the sky. Photographically-speaking. A bit cloudy elsewhere, however, metaphorically-speaking...but that might be subject of another post, down the track. Another day.

[Camera : Canon 60D, iPhone, 11.49am; 75-300mm, 5.36pm, 5.42pm]