Hey! Stop that smilin'!

Well, it's 9.15 pm and still very light outside. I've just walked home from Zacutto, a little Italian Restaurant near the apartment I am staying in. In fact it's my last night here and I have to pack. Soon I'll find out if those things I can't find are really lost.

Early tomorrow we catch a train to Cambridge, then Wednesday night we drive to Swansea for a few days. After the weekend there's one more day shooting in London then on to Canada.

I've really enjoyed my free time in London as well as photographing the two Universities I've done so far for the client. London is more than four or five days can do justice to as I'm sure most of you will attend to.

The weather has been mostly fine but nearly always cloudy with some moments of nice light. Here's some pictures I took when I wasn't otherwise experiencing as much as I could fit in my free time.

A prize of a signed print of your choice of the pictures for the first 10 people who can identify at least five of the scenes!

There's so much to tell you about my short visit here but I have that packing to do. Besides my stay here is best summed up by the back story to the title of this entry.

Whatever I have found to have lost in London the most consistent item has been my way. So, there I was in Notting Hill asking a local where Portobello Road was when he politely pointed to the street sign I had just walked past.

I thanked him and turned around smiling to walk back to the corner. Just a few steps later I noticed a tradesman in his van eating some take away. We made eye contact, he swallowed his mouthful and said with a grin, "Hey! Stop that smilin'".

At least I think it was a grin - it didn't matter I was having a very good day.

Cheers

Paul

Travel is just more interesting places for me to lose things...

No, it's actually more than that but those of you who have experienced first hand my propensity for misplacing things (hi Rachel and Michael) will not be surprised to hear that I left my wallet in the taxi that dropped me off at the Fairmont Hotel in Singapore. The trip was maybe 10 hours old. The taxi driver chased me through the foyer to return it with such enthusiasm that the check in staff could be excused in wondering if their late arriving guest was in fact a fare evader.

Singapore was a bit of a blur. The days were taken up with photography at Curtin Singapore then it was back to the hotel to do those tasks the "freedom" of digital photography has bought to a professional's life... uploading, downloading, processing, backing up.

Still, I did get to join Louise, Tony and Jeremy for two memorable meals. One at an Indian restaurant where the food is served on a banana leaf instead of a plate. Interestingly the place is called The Banana Leaf. The other meal featured delicious, messy crabs. As I can't recall the name I'll call it the The Really Delicious Messy Crab Place. It is a textbook example of the Crab/Mess Rule which states the quality of the crab is measurable by the quantity of the mess created in eating it. I made a significant mess.

Dubai, in summer is hot and dusty. Apparently, in winter it's not as dusty. Each of the three days I was there were 40 plus degrees. Quite a dry heat but so more bearable than the high humidity of Singapore.

The town planners of Dubai seem to have a single over riding criteria when giving permission to build anything. It must be big, preferably the worlds biggest, no matter what it is. Australia's idea of building big things is usually limited to sheep, various fruit and gumboots. While I didn't see one I am sure there is a gigantic camel being planned in Dubai somewhere.

Dubai is a 3D graph of modern, distinctive and very amazing architecture. Essentially, it is a desert sprouting glass towers growing in breadth and height daily. One of these, The Burj Dubai pierces the skyline like a syringe. It is due for completion this September and will be over 800 metres high. At present it has three cranes hanging off different levels bringing stuff up in stages to complete the top bit. I have no idea how they will get them down.

Meanwhile, just offshore, more desert is being planted to create islands for a seemingly insatiable desire for luxury homes and resorts.

The city is traversed by 12 lane freeways and a new "on top of ground" way (as opposed to subway) Metro which is also due to open later this year. Dubai is under constant construction and would be finished tomorrow, should tomorrow ever come.

Spent a long, hot day walking around the souks (markets) that sell gold, spices, textiles and everything electronic. The Hilton Dubai Creek, where I stayed, looks over the wharfs where tons of stuff is bought from India on the traditionally made timber dhows. The boxes are just stacked in the open waiting for the mostly Indian traders to pick them up.

Dubai is a great place for a culture watcher like me. West, East and all in between wander the malls and drive the streets in air-conditioned comfort. Even the bus stops are enclosed and air-conditioned.

I spent my last afternoon at the Dubai Mall which, surprisingly, is not the biggest in the world. (That honour goes to the one with the Ski Slope in it.) It does however have the world's largest indoor Aquarium featuring a coral reef, sharks, stingrays as well as fish of all sizes. Three scuba divers entertain the passing shoppers and are hopefully not too tempting to the wandering sharks.

If watching fish in a enormous bowl gets too tedious you can always go shopping or, perhaps, skating on the Mall's Ice Rink. What ever you decide, it's just as well there are seemingly hundreds of food outlets because with a layout borrowed from the Ikea School of Labyrinth Design finding your way out can take a little time.

I'm not sure about how I feel about Dubai, I really enjoyed visiting it and hope to return to see other parts of the UAE one day. There is a lot more than metropolis and desert. But it does take an incredible amount of energy to create the freshwater and cooling that makes living there possible.

I had a haircut in the Mall before attempting a final breakout. The barber was a young Turk who told me the price was 75 Dirhams but to me 50. Perhaps he felt that, in my case, even this was too much. Because, after setting fire to my ears with lighter fluid, (apparently they do this in Turkey as means of removing those hairs that choose to grow there rather than on the scalp) he ended the service with a violent head, neck and finger massage.

Suitably coiffed and assaulted I wandered off into the teeming mass of shoppers only to be tracked down a few minutes later by the smiling barber holding my reading glasses. Yes, travel my style is an exercise in discovering new places to lose things. Thankfully, it seems the world is full of kind, determined people to look after me.

I have been in London for a few days now and will update you on what I lose here soon.

Cheers

Paul

True confessions from a (once) pixel snob

I have been a pixel snob. Didn't mean to be. However, as a photographer spoilt by film I always compared digital files to Kodachrome II, Kodachrome 64 and eventually Velvia. Mega megapixels were never enough. Eventually though, I had to use digital capture to make my pictures (and a living).

So, I became a pixel snob. The more the better. I was a pixel believer and planned that when I died with the most pixels I won. hooray.

Then, I began looking at pictures made by other photographers with "ordinary" cameras (you know the ones that cost less than $40,000!) and thought that some of them (maybe) looked ok (maybe). Some were even made by amateurs. You know, those people who just take pictures because they love photography.

Ok, let me take my tongue out of my cheek. The truth is many of those pictures were fantastic expressions of imaginations unfettered by the cost and delay of shooting film. But would they print to 1 metre square? Well, the answer was no.

More importantly though, it didn't matter. Sadly, for us with pixel fixations, we were missing out on so many opportunities to just take a picture because we weren't using every device available to us.

Then, a blog I subscribe to, raved on about all the iphone pictures he was taking every day. I have an iphone and it has a crap camera. Really crap. It's a brilliant phone and communication device but an absolutely hopeless camera. Still, this guy is a respected pro and his work is ok (actually it's much better than ok!).

I have a link to his blog later because I know you won't come back if you go there now.

The other evening I was on a ferry heading to the city for the opening of the Canon World Press Photo exhibition. It had been one of those beautiful Autumn days. Sunny, blue, blue aussie sky and not cold. That evening, as the ferry left the wharf on its way to the city, a full moon rose above a few bulging clouds on the eastern horizon.

By the time we passed the Opera House the sky was a deep blue/black and its sails were white with light. All I had was the iphone with its crap camera. Then I remembered that blog from Chase Jarvis.



Ok, you can go look his stuff now :-)

http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2009/04/updated-iphone-portfolio.html

Cheers

foley

The Big Picture

In June 2006 I was contacted by the respected and often awarded architectural firm Suters Architects to supply an image for a feature wall in the King Street headquarters of the Newcastle Permanent. An aerial image featuring Nobbys with the city behind had been selected from my website. While the view and composition suited the design for the wall, it would be very evident when enlarged to 12 metres wide that the city’s skyline had changed a lot since the time the picture was made.

As we had some time till the image would be needed and the building activity across the city had nearly been completed I suggested they wait until I re-shot it. After consulting with the pilot who flew me for the original shoot and checking tide charts it was decided that sometime in August- September would have the sun hitting the front of Nobbys at the right angle. Because this only happens for about 2 hours a day and we needed a good sized mid to high tide to coincide with clear conditions I knew that, even with all the planning, I needed nature and the weather to be very co-operative.


With an understanding pilot I was able to hold the helicopter on standby for the  8 days when the best tide matched the 2 hour window. Opalescent, who were producing the panels, wanted the image ready in September to meet the builders schedules so, even though we had a good lead time, shooting opportunities were going to be limited. In reality, there are probably only about 16 days in a year when the sun and tides coincide to present Nobbys in its’ best light.


There were several 4 am starts where the pilot (Clive Lipscombe from Rotorway) would check the weather as I drove from Sydney and he drove from The Lake to the helicopter base at Nelson Bay. As it became light we were able to decide if the sky was clear enough to shoot. The first time I turned around at Hexham, the next time I got to Williamtown before we canned it. Another time I checked the the sky at Stockton while Clive readied the helicopter - the skies in Williamtown were clear but it was muddy over Newcastle. Finally, we got clear skies and beautiful smooth water - just a perfect Newcastle day. Using a small print of the original image as a reference we made several flybys of Nobbys to get the right angle. The large format camera I used had only four frames per roll and was very hard to reload with the wind rushing in through the helicopter’s open door.

I moved to Sydney two years ago for work and these spectacular views were making me quite homesick. I am also very proud and appreciative of everyone's contribution to the final result.

Suters Architects (Rob Macindoe) idea for the panel, Opalescents production and installation as well as Josh Fullerton (of The Carson Group - the project managers) were sensitive to my desire to capture Nobbys and Newcastle in it's best possible light. NPBS, who originally had intended to use an existing image, fully appreciated the planning and logistics that the shoot required and were prepared to wait to have an image that suited the grandeur of the refurbishment.

My bed and other places

After I type this I am heading to here.


I made this picture (before I made the bed) with a Canon 24mm Tilt Shift lens. It's a great lens for squaring up buildings or rooms and for getting the near and far of a landscape in focus without having to use a small aperture to increase the depth of field.

So, for this picture, I completely reversed the settings to minimize the field of focus. I've had some interesting results using this lens incorrectly - I even based an exhibition on this method which I will tell you about in another post.

For a number of years the only camera I owned was a Sinar 4x5 (you know - tripod, big box, lenses you could buy a car with and the old black cloth over your head when composing the picture). Well, the Tilt Shift lens replicates some of the movements the large format camera can do (sort of).

It's manual focus and the more you tilt and shift the more the exposure is affected. It probably works best at around f8 - 11 and you always need to check that you haven't bumped the setting while using it. So it's a bit fiddly, but well worth the effort.

You can also shift the lens from left to right (or R to L) and stitch the two frames to make panoramas like this.


I have also found this method handy for shooting in tight spaces like this bathroom. You can get most of the room in without resorting to a distorted ultra wide view. One thing to be careful of though. If you find yourself set up in the shower cubicle (as I was here) take care not to bump the cold water tap as you position the tripod and camera.



'til next time

Paul

Shanghai, 2004

I took this picture from a hotel window in Shanghai. As I scanned the scene with the telephoto I came across the guy you may just be able to see in the top right hand corner. He seemed to be looking straight at me. I quickly reframed and set the exposure for a slow shutter speed and hoped he would remain staring while I made a picture - which he did.

The words below were part of an email I sent back to family and friends...

Seven Days in Shanghai (well 13 actually but seven sounds better)

No matter how many, there would always be something new to discover about this fantastic city. It is giving NYC a huge nudge as my favourite big city. And this place is big – I visited the Oriental Pearl Tower early in the visit and from its 263m viewpoint there have 360 degree views of all Shanghai (allowing for clouds and smog of course). It’s sobering to think that you can “see” the population of Australia during a short walk around the tower.

The Pearl Tower looks like it was lifted right out of The Jetsons – in fact much of the Pudong Financial District would qualify for any movie set 100 years in the future. To view it at night from The Bund waterfront is a surreal experience. The tallest hotel in the world is there beside what will become the world’s tallest building when it is finished. There are two giant globes that are illuminated, as are all of the other skyscrapers. One becomes a giant TV with over 2/3rds of its 60 plus floors showing pictures of birds, wildlife and advertising (of course).

While watching the lights last night I was so engrossed with the view and chatting to a uni student who was practising his English on me that it was well after dark when I turned around to face the old colonial buildings of The Bund. These were also lit up so as to emphasise every nook and cranny of the elaborate architecture of times past. It was an electrical face-off between old and new at one billion watts!

Throughout Shanghai most buildings are lit and everywhere are bright neon advertising signs. My room (in the Seventh Heaven Hotel) looks across to other hotels and down Nanjing Lu and its famous Walking Roadway (mall to the rest of us). At the moment it is holiday season – celebrating the Mid Autumn Moon and China’s national day. Nanjing Lu is packed by day and even more crowded at night. It’s a big friendly crowd of families, teenagers and chic young Chinese. The big thing at this time of year is to buy large inflatable bats, hammers or gloves and engage in running battles of bopping people. In most places this would develop into violence, here it is just fun. You don’t so much walk down Nanjing Lu at night – you flow along with a river of people, from time to time slipping from the stream to enter an interesting shop or bar.

So I guess you can tell I like this place and there is plenty of it to like. What’s not to like about being invited to a Chinese family’s home for the Autumn Festival (like our Christmas). We arrive as the chef (loaned by the University where Chung, our host, works) peddles up on his bike with a box of goodies on the back and are graciously welcomed into a small but modern high rise apartment. 30 courses later – all produced in a kitchen smaller than mine) we are offered still more.

Life here, like the other parts of China I have visited is full of paradox and contradiction. It is noisy, almost manic at times yet friendly and helpful to even a gringo who should know more of the language than he does. I went to the inaugural F1 last Sunday (alone) and though armed with instructions written in Chinese to show to bus drivers and taxi drivers, ended up a long way from where I should have been when I got back to the city. It was impossible to get a taxi so I headed to where I thought I would find the Metro (subway). I don’t know why I thought I would have any idea which direction was which but I plundered on regardless. I eventually did find a station and stood at the steps, my Lonely Planet open and with real trepidation about entering the void below when a young woman with good English asked if she could help. I explained and she took me down the stairs to what was not just a subway station but also a massive underground shopping centre. The walk to the line I required was about a kilometre out of her way but she took me anyway, helped me buy a ticket, explained how the maps worked, where I would have to change trains and which exit I would need to use at my destination. Using the wrong exit at some of the subways can bring you to the surface many blocks away from your intended street. I thanked her with profuse and badly pronounced xiexie’s – she just smiled and went back to her shopping.

I like to travel with an open mind and you need to do that in a place like China – things that are polite in Oz or of no consequence can be highly insulting to a Chinese person. The people who have organised the trade mission (which finished a few days ago) have been so professional in teaching us the ins and outs of communication, customs and eating manners – I wish I had had some of this info for my first trip. I have had several meetings that have gone well and show promise but things hurry slowly here and the Chinese need to respect you to do business with you. So far I seem to have made the right impressions (according to our Chinese contact here) – of course I mainly kept quiet and tried not to make too much mess with the chopsticks!

Since the others have left I have been eating mostly at local eateries – sometimes I get what I think I ordered at other times I have to take the approach of if it tastes good and smells good do I really need to know what it is? Of course this is how I came to enjoy ningshi shanyu (stir fried eel and onion). Across from the hotel is the best wonton and dumpling breakfast place in Shanghai.

These last days I am busy making pictures so I am travelling by taxi a lot. Ni the local businessman who has lots of contacts throughout Shanghai has written all the places I want to visit in Chinese and I just show the driver. Fares are mostly 15 Yuan (around $2) so it’s an affordable way to get around. I also use the subway but haven’t tried a (always crowded) bus yet. Road traffic is a writhing, honking jumble of cars, trolley buses, trucks and bikes. No one indicates or obeys lights – pedestrian crossings have no status, lanes are meant to weave across and no one stops to enter traffic. It all just happens – much like the rest of Chinese life. A taxi ride will be the best 15 Yuan you will ever spend! The honking is mainly a courtesy hardly ever a demand - cars weave around bikes and pedestrians with the fluid grace of the ballroom dancers who can be found every morning on The Bund or near the spectacular Opera House. Oh- I didn’t mention the ballroom dancing did I?

I also haven’t mentioned possibly the worst bar in Shanghai – which is its actual name and it lives up (or down) to it. Of course with a name like that we had to go in and if you are ever in Shanghai and accidentally wander by you probably will too. Look for my business card (Chinese version) on the ceiling.

Cheers

Paul

Lone Tree

I found this tree on a ridge line in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Australia. When I made the picture (about 10 or so years ago) I saw it as a stoic, if singular reminder, of what the landscape in the valley had once been like when many thousands (millions?) of eucalyptus trees covered the land.

Later, when I looked at the print, I also saw in it the determination of the individual and at the same time the futility of the "last stand". The almost vacant, sparse landscape that attracted my eye and excited me photographically now caused a deep sadness. It was as if my forebears had cleared the land of so many trees to give me my picture and by bearing witness with my camera I vindicated the thoughtless waste.

These days I prefer to see the Lone Tree's symbolism more positively - the "last stand" may not be futile. At least it has me taking responsibility for the mark I make on my part of the planet. Not a perfect or complete solution, I know...