a roll of the dice » photography

flat(iron)

Paul — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 11:46:08 +0000

Any serious travel is looking like it’s some time away at the moment – I’m thinking of New York (and looking through old photos) and wishing I was over there.

This is a remarkable building which still holds its own in a city full of amazing skyscrapers.

melbourne

Paul — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:05:04 +0000

Studying in Melbourne this week.

yellow

Paul — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 10:11:35 +0000

Near Kapunda, South Australia.

botanic gardens

Paul — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:30:29 +0000

Sorry for the lack of posts of late. Meanwhile here’s a photo of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens.

currently reading: on the road

Paul — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:00:38 +0000

Shamefully, I have never read this before.

Needless to say, it’s a fascinating insight into a strange American era. The book is filled with tension between the sudden possibilities of life in the postwar United States – the trajectory hinted at in the Great Gatsby followed through to its logical conclusion where cars, sex, alcohol, divorce, travel and the wild, strange sound of jazz are unexpectedly available – and the purposeless drifting and nihlism of living without any great force of history or pre-determined role or destiny to drive one along. The 1960s were about to shake American society to its core, and the real life characters portrayed by Kerouac hum with the barely contained energy of the coming explosion.

In San Francisco we stopped in at Vesuvio for a beer – a bar visited by Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac:

Arizona/Nevada Border

Paul — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:22:53 +0000

We were stuck in traffic going through the Hoover Dam for nearly two hours – the Nevada police were operating some sort of mysterious checkpoint on the way into the state which slowed traffic to a crawl. Behind us Arizona was covered with scattered thunderstorms. As the sun set the stationary traffic was treated to this amazing light.

tools of the trade

Paul — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:41:25 +0000

My new toy is one of these. With virtually no zoom, a decent wide angle, a very fast lens for a compact and some great in-camera ‘film’ modes its a perfect camera for not f*cking about, just taking the damn picture. I am very much looking forward to travelling with it, and to the challenge of living without the 400mm equivalent zoom I am used to having at my disposal.

At the moment, as you can see, I am addicted to the excellent high contrast black and white film mode.

mclaren vale

Paul — Mon, 11 May 2009 11:34:28 +0000

more on the grapes of wrath

Paul — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:30:26 +0000

I came across this amazing photo of a dust storm hitting a town in Texas during the Dust Bowl, the cataclysmic climate event which caused a huge migration of people out of farming areas of the U.S. and Canada in the 1930s:

Poor farming practices, drought and wind combined to strip the land of its topsoil and blanket everything in endless dust for several years.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons).

amazing photo of obama inauguration

Paul — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:30:04 +0000

This picture is incredible – I haven’t done the maths to work out if it’s actually the claimed “1474 megapixels”, but it’s a highly detailed panoramic photo of the Obama inauguration. You can zoom from the whole scene in close enough to clearly see what each member of the crowd is doing, and guess at what they’re thinking.

George Bush looks bored. The Supreme Court looks extremely cranky. The Clintons look like they’re listening but don’t look all that happy about the whole situation. Dick Cheney looks like Darth Vader. Al Gore looks like an alien…

(thanks to Joe)