This tree was ring barked. I presume the leaves that fell each autumn upset the occupants of the house since it fell on their precious carport.

What I do not understand is this constant worry about carbon and carbon trading which is meant to reduce carbon pollution (what a load of rubbish) and then the constant destruction of trees because they drop leaves onto carports, driveways and into backyard pools. I'm not saying these people give a care either way but does anyone?
I've always liked trees, I feel most myself when I am outside walking or doing things amongst them. I don't feel that many people feel the same.

Tell the truth the first time, then move on.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Walking in the mornings is usually a quiet, personal affair.
This morning differed.
While walking looking for pictures to take, my camera still in my bag, on a quiet suburban street a man almost knocked me over while he sped in his car around the corner.
OK, maybe forgot something at home, having a bad day or just another idiot.
But then 5 minutes later at other end of the street, pulls up hard directly in front of me (I am about to cross the road). My camera had just been pulled from my bag, set up exposure ready for a picture I knew was around the next corner.
"WHAD R YU DOIN MATE? TAKIN PITURES!"
"good morning, I have not taken a picture yet this morning. I'm a photographer, pictures are what I do."
I turned and walked away as he reached for something on his front seat.
Around the next corner I took my picture I knew was there.
8:15am 15/12/09.
Just another idiot.

From here to here to here.

This is the same trolley as seen here. 10 meters in 10 days.

Rules can be very freeing in art. They focus your mind. They eliminate distractions. They get you to narrow down on what's really important...and get things DONE.
Anthony Allen

my favourite photographer and yet I do not have one of his books, and I have plenty of books.

It never felt right. The dentist did not test for metal sensitivity. Now that it is gone things should eventually feel better.

The X1 sporting a Nikon D300 sensor in a very small package.

The Leica S2 was surprisingly small and easy to handle for such a huge sensor camera. For me this camera was the highlight of the night.

Every camera seems to have taken miniturisation as its main design aim, successfully I may add.

It is a blessing to governments, that human beings do not think for themselves.

-- Adolf Hitler

So a few weeks ago I had a dream, I was running in a field with a beautiful mare. She was a light grey colour (silver) and was galloping with the type of powerful happiness that only a horse seems to give off. My mother was watching on and seemed happy as well.
Later that day my father rang to tell me my grandmother had passed away in her sleep that night, a week short of her 102nd birthday.
I'm just saying.

On Thursday the 9th of July

Dear Sir/Madam,

at 5:10pm this afternoon I saw a fluorescent green creek running from 33°45'37.74"S, 150°59'21.21"E, End of Conie Avenue, Baulkham Hills, NSW, 2153. The strongest smell ( of fuel) was at the drain point on the attached picture. Upstream of this point was clean water.

I have no feedback as to what came of this event other than being told that they would investigate. Ofcourse the filthy pigs that dumped these fluids in the creek chose a period of heavy rainfall.
My biggest concern is that this minor creek feeds into Toongabie Creek which then feeds into Parramatta River which then goes into Sydney Harbour. We have/had a healthy amount of frogs, eels, lizards and ducks along this stretch alone.

All is quiet now.

Pigs.

a quote by Chuck Swindoll about attitude:

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes.

They were fun but ultimately not used as much as I thought they would be.
Mamiya RB67 + Sekor 127mm f3.8 + film backs + polaroid back + polaroids + film.

...when your ears prick up if any of the following words are mentioned in your vicinity:
...picture
...camera
...photo
...picture
...painting
...drawing
...crafts
...arts
...perfection
...excellence

...friends save pieces of photographic "junk mail" thinking you are interested (and you are).
...when friends show you their pictures to you and you enjoy seeing them no matter what level they are at.
...when friends show you pictures and you find several ways in which they might improve.
...when you realise that spilling forth with ideas on how others might improve their photography is not going to work and keeping your ideas to yourself is OK.
...when you always have a camera with you.
...when the look of sodden, trodden on paper on a footpath visually interests you. As does twigs, rocks and the like.
...when lens talk no longer interests you.

I'm not taking pictures of twigs, rocks, leaves, water, trees or whatever else you see here.

When the items in front of me look right together, when they meet the edge of the viewfinder and look like they are meant to be there, the shutter goes click.

I beg to differ, plenty to see here.

You may of noticed I enjoy going for walks. There are a few resons for that and I will list the ones I can think of here but they are in no means in any order of importance.

You know that those times when you'd love to bring your decent big camera along with you but you have no room in your bag for something that big. Well here is the camera that gives big camera performance in a small compact camera package.
On my wish list.

Uncooked; unripe; in unwrought or untreated state; not (completely manufactured); undiluted; crude in artistic quality; lacking finish.

Why is it that in photography we must write RAW instead of raw? Does the word really need such emphasis? as if being yelled at us.

"Oh so you use jpg files, you fool, use RAW".

It's been a while since I have taken pictures of strangers, it took me a very long time just to get the courage to lift the camera. Then the friendly local camera store let me borrow a new Leica 18mm and a Zeiss 18mm as well. I had to shoot to get the feel of the 2 lenses, there was no dawdling. Suddenly I was back, not caring who looked and who didn't. So once I got my lens back and thanked the salesman I was happy to point and shoot at people with a lot less dread.

For those of you planning on printing your sofobomo projects you may like to read this from Jonathan.
While you are at his site take a wander through his pictures, I enjoy most of what I see there.
What is sofobomo? go here.

Robert Frank took 27000 frames with his Leica for his book The Americans which contains 83 of those pictures.

I'll be back in a while, SoFoBoMo starts tomorrow.

The picture I last posted is out of season and is a part of a backlog of pictures I have. But then it is out of season like a picture taken 50 years ago is out of season, yet I still buy books full of these old pictures. I don't understand why season matters when viewing a set of pictures, like viewing Trent Parke's Christmas Bucket pictures in a gallery when it is not christmas.

I'm sure Winogrand was always a touch out of season as well :o).

Excepting sofobomo or when I send a set of 200 pictures to my mentor I am usually behind by several months, my flash cards fill and wait for me to empty them, my film is stacked up ready for scanning and more is sitting in the freezer waiting to be developed.

My children, under the direction of my son, are planning on creating another Bionicle movie. I will post last years effort here soon.

prohibiting photography was something we used to ridicule about the USSR

I like the people from RedBubble, the type of humour I expect only from an Australian company.

Hello again Robert,

As you know you recently made a sale on RedBubble and now we've just shipped this order to your customer, this means we have to send you another slightly uninteresting looking email filled with more important data.

Please find attached a receipt for the fee RedBubble charged to manufacture the product(s). But please note this receipt has been paid in full and you do not owe any money.

This invoice is purely for your records. We'd suggest filing it under 'R' for Reasons Why I'm Brilliant.

Big love,

Mr Baxter - Head of Numbers

Working late has done strange things to me, hopefully I will get more time to get back into my photography (not that I don't always have a camera with me) so that I am all limbered up and ready to go sofobomo 09.

"are you taking pictures for the council?"

"they need to clean this up"

"the bush is nice but it is such a mess, someone needs to clean it up" - passerby

"Did you find a lizard?"

"have you seen the wildlife photos at the museum?"
"you'd love them, they are amazing." - passerby

You are told to take pictures in beautiful light, let the subject glow, light is the tool with which to illuminate your subject, the golden hour of light, make your prints glow.

Then they take the work, they hide it behind glass, they show it in dark galleries, they use small point sources of light that reflect off the glass no matter where you stand, they light you so you are reflected in every picture, you have difficulty appreciating the picture due to the obstructions.

An oil painting is not so delicate that it requires glass, and it is set in a brighter room, and you can see the print unobstructed.

Please take away the glass and let me see the pictures.

"The American reading public is fast becoming not even a looking public, but a glancing or glimpsing public."
a quote from an essay by Lincoln Kirstein in American Photographs, Walker Evans, published in 1938.

available here, http://5b4.blogspot.com/ and very highly recommended. Having such close access to material like this is priceless.

Bricks at Night, Baulkham Hills Shire Council

It's too hot here, 42C and expecting just as high tomorrow. Melbourne and Adelaide got it even worse last week. Europe is having some of the coldest weather in a long time.

It may be global warming which may or may not be triggered by our carbon emmisions. Most of us have been swayed by the media that this is global warming and we have triggered it.

So I have a question, who out there that believes in what we are being told chose not to create more carbon emmisions by leaving their airconditioners off? Who left all of their windows, curtains, blinds, doors shut for the day and did as little moving as possible to keep cool? Who ate a simple salad that required no cooking and very little preperation? Who made sure that they only bought in season fruit and vegetables that required no storage and short transport distances?

Who made an effort to care about their actions and choices?

I need to get out and take more pictures, it has really cut down lately which is a bad thing. Problem currently is that I feel I have no focus (haha) on what I want to show people, what do I have that is interesting enough to show others.
No one at my new place of work knows I take plenty of pictures so carrying a camera there seems like an awkward thing to be doing. I'll hang plenty of my work around my dilbert cube and see if any comments come my way, an ice breaker and possible way of having a camera nearby accepted.