Little Eveleigh Street - Redfern (Tue 19 Oct 2010)

Little Eveleigh Street - Redfern (Tue 19 Oct 2010)
Walked past here on the way to the Gym. Noticed the red marking on the road. Quickly snapped this. Just like the colours.

Democracy: We Deliver - Newtown - (Jan 2004)

Democracy - We Deliver - Newtown - Jan 2004 (picasa)

Dog UB77 - Newtown (Wed 11 Feb 2004)

Dog UB77 - Newtown - Wed 11 Feb 2004 (picasa)
Following on from yesterday's post featuring a purple and green cat, here is a dog photo.

I drove past this the night before I took the photo. Thought I saw a dog painted on the wall in the darkness and made a note to myself to come back on the way to work the next morning. Surprisingly, in the daylight it revealed itself to me as a ripped poster for a band UB77, I am guessing. For some reason, I have always seen in this photos a dog with attentive ears and a wagging tail.

We Are Raw Meat - Newtown (13/17 Oct 2010)

There is always something new to look at when wandering around the Inner City and Newtown. Thought these go together nicely ..

We Are Raw Meat - King Street/Newtown - (Sun 17 Oct 2010)
Cat - Soudan Lane/Newtown - (Wed 13 Oct 2010)
Cat - Soudan Lane/Newtown - (Wed 13 Oct 2010)
I have seen the cat in various places - from Newtown to Enmore. This is the first to go beyond black.

Quote: Half a Life - NYT Book Review (12 Sep 2010)

Dani Shapiro writes in her NYT Book Review (12 Sep 2010) of the book, Half a Life by Darin Strauss:

What life delivers to us forms us all, but as surely as random .. events shape our lives, so too does our response to those events. Something happens, something tragic, immutable and unfair (whatever that means). So what are we going to do? Cave in? Become controlling, rageful? Shut down? Live lives of quiet desperation? At the center of this elegant, painful, stunningly honest memoir thrums a question fundamental to what it means to be human: What do we do with what we’ve been given?

An interesting observation and question. Maybe Petria King's quote might be one way to look for an answer.

Chaos - Shopfront Advertising - Singapore - Tue 29 Sep 2009 (picasa)
The Book was reviewed in last weekend's Spectrum. Will track it down and have a look. Found the review quite useful and informative.

Saturday Night's Alright (For Paddling) ..

Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting) (wikipedia) - Elton John and Anastacia
We all had to come up with a song for our 2006 HCC paddle. This video inspired my hopeless attempt, which follows ..

Saturday Night's Alright (For Paddling)

Music by Elton John
Original Lyrics by Bernie Taupin (Butchering done by Me)
Available on an album in all good record stores ..

It's getting late have you seen my mates
Steph tell me when the Windsor Start gets near
It's six o'clock and I want to paddle
Want to get a night full of cheer

Gav's funnier than a barrel full of monkeys
And Julia she does really care
Betty looks cute in her paddling suit
An orange scarf in her hair

Don't give us none of your aggravation
We had it with your discipline
Saturday night's alright for paddling
Get a little steering in

Run about as smooth as the best paddling boat
Gonna set this river alight
`Cause Saturday night's the night I like
Saturday night's alright alright alright

Well we're packed pretty tight in here tonight
I'm looking for the finish that'll see me right
I may use a little muscle to get what I need
I may sink a little drink and shout out "almost here"

A couple of the sound that I really like
Are the sounds of a smooth running paddling boat
I'm a product of the PD's paddling class
Whose best friend McGinty floats around in a paddling boat

Original Lyrics ..

Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)
Music by Elton John
Lyrics by Bernie Taupin

Available on the album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

It's getting late have you seen my mates
Ma tell me when the boys get here
It's seven o'clock and I want to rock
Want to get a belly full of beer

My old man's drunker than a barrel full of monkeys
And my old lady she don't care
My sister looks cute in her braces and boots
A handful of grease in her hair

Don't give us none of your aggravation
We had it with your discipline
Saturday night's alright for fighting
Get a little action in

Get about as oiled as a diesel train
Gonna set this dance alight
`Cause Saturday night's the night I like
Saturday night's alright alright alright

Well they're packed pretty tight in here tonight
I'm looking for a dolly who'll see me right
I may use a little muscle to get what I need
I may sink a little drink and shout out "She's with me!"

A couple of the sound that I really like
Are the sounds of a switchblade and a motorbike
I'm a juvenile product of the working class
Whose best friend floats in the bottom of a glass

Photo: Wilson Street Lock - Newtown (Sun 14 Apr 2002)

Wilson Street Lock - Newtown - Sun 14 Apr 2002 (photo.net)
The above photo was taken at the entrance door of an Anitque Factory called Original Finish (thanks Charlotte) on Wilson Street in Newtown.

I drive past here on days I do outrigger training. Often walk past here on weekends, as the area has unlimited parking and is convenient to the Cafes and Shops of King Street Newtown.

I had seen quite a few photos of this type on photo.net, and for some reason I noticed the lock and decided to photograph it up close using macro mode. It seemed to be more interesting cropped to a square format.

Surprisingly, a few days after uploading it to photo.net, I noticed that it seemed to be getting more views than my typical photo uploads. Normally, I would get the occasional viewer and would be lucky to get 20 to 30 views in the first week and hopefully a couple of comments. Somehow this photo found itself rotating on and off photo.net's home page and this explained the surge in views.

When I looked at this photo tonight after many years [1], I was surprised to see that it had reached almost 63,000 views. This has to be my most viewed photo on photo.net. Not a lot by popular photo.net photographers standards, but good for some one like me.

Some memories follow. I bought a small digital camera in Decmeber 2000 just before we went to the Cook Islands for a Holiday (see picasa). It was an original Canon IXUS. It cost $1,600 duty free and was all of 2 Mega Pixels (1,600 by 1,200 pixels). A small, cheap and out of date mobile phone camera would easily surpase this IXUS's pixel capabilities.

It was a great little camera and I used it to capture our memories.

I did not know anything about photography. When I overheard someone at Lunch talking about a web site called photo.net, I quickly found it and after I had figured out how the site worked, I joined up as member on Fri 16 Mar 2001. The site was a community that allowed the uploading of photos for comments, rating, and written critiques. There were also forums to discuss all things about photography, cameras, accessories and technique. It was the original photo sharing community. I can recall even the founders of flickr being ordinary members of photo.net just like me. They created flickr to develop a community that photo.net struggled to move to.

I met some great people. Also learnt a lot there and had just as much fun.

[1] I have not been really active on photo.net since late 2004 - ran out of quota to upload photos, but still lurk there.