Fogged up

What a difference a bit of patience makes! Having rode all the way to the cliffs at Kangaroo Point in hopes of capturing the sunrise, I was disappointed to see the fog I had seen was so thick you couldn't even see all the way across the river.

Sitting around for a bit over half an hour, I decided to go a bit further along the river to see if there were any better vantage points, and stumbled across a spectacular diffraction effect with light bouncing off one of the CBD's glass buildings a bit further downriver:

CBD light diffraction

After grabbing some snaps there, I headed to Wilson's Outlook to see what effects were to be had from there. While they weren't nearly as spectacular, the ND1000 filter made for an interesting landscape, including a blurred CityCat:

Morning fog from Wilson's Outlook

So the mantra of patience definitely paid off!

Brisbane city lights up for IDAHOT!

For the second year running, International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia advocates managed to get the council to light up the city with rainbow colours. There was a flag ceremony at Brisbane City Hall, but the main attraction was undoubtedly the multi-coloured Story Bridge:

Brisbane IDAHOT celebrations

Another shoot done!

Really excited to be finished with my shoot from the Central Coast. I went down for a few days for work and my other work asked me to take some photos while I was down there! It was really nice to be able to go and see some touristy parts of Newcastle, like the Art Gallery and the Museum, as well as Fort Scratchley and its giant main cannons.

But mostly it was the outdoor attractions in Newcastle that I liked. The ocean baths, in particular, were mind-blowing. The tide would rise about an hour after sunrise and every wave would pound over the edge of the baths and into the pool.

Here's a selection of photos from the trip, you can find a complete collection of the photos on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1433693700263810.1073741835.100008695801908&type=1

Highlights from a week in Newcastle

Epic week of exercise

Has finally come to an end. I rode the pushie just about everywhere, and carted everything but the kitchen sink around on my back, including AFL goal umpiring flags, my camera bag, a tripod, umpiring clothes and groceries. Not all at the same time of course! My totals for the week: 146km on the bike, and 21km of running. Tuesday was my only exercise-free day.

Thursday through Sunday was the U17 Youth Girls' State AFL Championships at Yeronga. I rode from Morningside to Yeronga and back all of those days... except Friday, where I also made an additional cycling trip to work.

Oh, and I also had a PT session on Sunday afternoon. You know, because I hadn't tortured myself enough.

I've scouted a couple of photography locations in Brisbane, could be some shots uploaded in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!

Does this count?

So maybe this blog will now be redefined as a combined travel/photography blog. I guess I did travel, albeit only 6 kilometres this time around.

Tonight I went down to Kangaroo Point Cliffs and took some photos of the city at sunset. I met a couple of other photographers at the same time, one who was living out of a motorhome and a Brit who was here for 3 months with his Australian girlfriend.

I was also able to give my new wide-angle lens a run. I took some shots and converted them into sort-of panoramas, they're included in the gallery on Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157648850768936/

Some of the highlights. Until the next voyage!:

  Brisbane CBD highlights

Second bite at the cherry

Back in Brisbane now! That was a full day as well.

A few more photos added to the Flickr set, now completed:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157647944491370/

First job of the day was to head back to Brighton Jetty and take some photos in daylight, with the sun shining and the clear sky. The colours of the arch and the sail are much nicer as the focus of a photo during the day. They turned out well too:

Brighton second time around

I then headed off to run a couple of errands, including printing my boarding pass for tonight from Officeworks. Yes, despite the fact that Tigerair finally introduced web check-in, they failed to introduce mobile check-in. Give it a few years perhaps.

After about 90 minutes of mad packing, I headed off to get a train and bus to the airport. I also got on one of Adelaide's famous trams. The city section of it was a bit tedious as it navigated the traffic lights.

After walking up to Tigerair's single, solitary bag drop queue that was longer than both Virgin and Qantas (which had MASSIVE spaces), they said "would you like an exit row today sir?". They offered me one on the way down as well! To be offered an exit row on both sectors of a return trip is highly unusual.

An hour and a half later and boarding time rolled around. Not only did I have an exit row both sectors, but the seat next to me was empty on both sectors. Well, until the seatbelt sign came off and some guy claimed that he wanted the spare seat so he could sleep. I seriously had half a mind to say "ah, no, if you needed the space you should have paid for it?", but decided against it. It was after 9:00 and I was just too tired to argue.

We arrived in Brisbane a whole 20 minutes early, thanks to the ridiculous airline policy that says "we were on time because the flight was 2 hours instead of the 2 1/2 hours we said it would be". So after a fairly eventful flight, I headed back home, where normal service will resume again. Except it's a public holiday tomorrow for Labour Day. I really don't think I would be in any shape to go to work anyway, landing at 10pm.

Well, that will be the end of travel blogs for a while. Unless the chance arises to go on another short trip, which I very much doubt it will until at least the end of the year. It's been fun, no doubt, and I will miss travelling. See you on my next adventure!

There's the siren! It's full time!

Wow. I am categorically glad that is over. I had three enormous games of footy today, all involving running, back-to-back-to-back. First up on field, then two more on boundary. I was still able to run hard all the way to the end though, something I would never have been able to do back in my first Masters Carnival at Maroochydore in 2011.

After collecting my 'Team Orange' photo of all the umpires and assorted crap that I had used for footy over the last week, I had a bit of a chat with some of the other umpires, sitting down to alleviate the 25.4km of running I did today, before heading back to Seacliff.

Some more photos on Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157647944491370/

As the sun went down, it stayed fine and sunny, with small scattered clouds. I headed down to Brighton Beach and Jetty to catch some sunset and night photos. While I got there about 10 or 15 minutes later than I had planned, the sunset photos still came out well:

Sunset in Brighton

Once the sun had set, I got the tripod out and started taking some long exposure shots. I joined some Japanese tourists at the end of the pier who were doing the same thing, with much better lenses and filters. I still think I did a fair job though, I had some space to myself once they left, and again on the beach there was next to no-one at night:

Brighton Pier at night

I think I'll head back here again tomorrow, and run a couple of errands to round out my stay. Catch you then!