I understood that the full moon would occur on the morning of 26 April 2013, which would provide a good opportunity to observe the moon-set close in time with the sunrise in the morning, and the moon-rise close in time after the sunset later that day. At the full-moon phase, sunrise-moonset and sunset-moonrise observations can be made at about the same time in the morning and evening, respectively; for more, see notes about moon phases here.

I obtained the following sun and moon data from timeanddate.com. All times are in Australian Eastern Standard Time (UTC+10); azimuths are measured with 0° North, 90° East, 180° South, and 270° West.

In the quiet morning hour, I watched the full-moon set before the sun bathed the Central Business District in golden light. The full-moon was also in partial eclipse, as there’s a visible “shadow” over the lower-right portion of the full-moon (2nd image in the sequence above). Ten hours later that afternoon, I returned to watch the sunset behind the Sydney Harbour Bridge, followed by the full-moon rising over the Tasman Sea.

With a bit of luck, a bit of dedication, and a good warm fleece to hold off the morning and early-evening chill, I enjoyed making this sequence of photos on the same calendar-day.

With a Canon EOS450D (XSi) camera, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II lens, and Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens, I made all of the photos above on 26 April 2013 without tripod or filters. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.

As I continue to click away, I’m aware of the grind on both camera and lens(es). But with some luck and care, I’ve flipped the “number counter” on my camera a seventh time with over 70000 exposures to date.

I headed out to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Australia in Sydney to visit the “JEFF WALL Photographs” exhibition. Jeff Wall is also from my hometown of Vancouver, Canada, and while I was in Vancouver earlier this year, I’d seen a number of his photos on display in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s collection. With the exhibition in Sydney, the opportunity arose for a coherent perspective of his work.

The following is one of my favourite Jeff Wall pieces, called “A sudden gust of wind (after Hokusai)”, which is on loan from the Tate London for the MCA exhibition. Wall’s work is based on a Japanese woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai, Ejiri in Suruga Province (Sunshû Ejiri), AC 1830-33, housed at the British Museum.

Beautifully constructed and a wonderful homage to Hokusai’s original, Wall’s photograph is presently mounted in one of the last rooms of the exhibition; so, there’s plenty of room for people to wander into the space and to admire the scale and movement of the photograph. With that in mind, I stood towards the back of the room, and I began photographing people standing in front of the photograph. It didn’t take long to find two people standing in the right place and leaning towards each other in conversation – the visitors providing complementary well-timed superposition to the photograph.

The “JEFF WALL Photographs” exhibition is free of charge at the MCA Australia from 1 May to 28 July 2013. The MCA Australia can be reached with CityRail to Circular Quay station or with Sydney Ferries to Circular Quay Ferry Wharf.

Previous rollovers :
•   15000th photo in Berlin, Germany
•   25000th photo in Vancouver, Canada
•   50000th photo in Berlin, Germany
•   60000th photo in Vancouver, Canada

I made the photos above on 5 May 2013 with the EOS450D and Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 lens. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.

I was in Berlin on Christmas Eve 2010, and with the city already covered in snow, I set out into the evening under additional heavy snowfall. I wanted to photograph the quiet conditions in the capital city, and I stopped at Potsdamer Platz station, normally a busy transfer station in the Mitte (or central) district.

My spontaneous visit and photographs resulted in something more profound.

In S-Bahn (suburban services) Potsdamer Platz, there on platform 2 was a woman; she was the only person along the entire length of the platform. I guess she was waiting for a train to take her home, or to visit friends for Christmas dinner, a party, or gathering. I hope she arrived safely that night.

The Christmas and New Year’s holiday season can be a rough and tumultuous time, even for people in the best of situations. It’s easy to consider how some might feel lonely and depressed, and it might even lead one to associate the number of suicides peaking around that time of year. However, some studies have shown that springtime is generally the peak period for depression, with extreme cases leading to suicides.

•   2005 article, from The Guardian
•   “Seasonal spring peaks of suicide in victims with and without prior history of hospitalization for mood disorders.” Journal of Affective Disorders, 2010 February, 121(1-2): pp. 89-93

As (northern) spring is in full swing with this posting, please take a moment for the people about whom you care, and let them know you’re thinking about them.

I made the photos above on Christmas Eve 2010 at Bahnhof Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, Germany. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.

From my desire to photograph sunsets here in Sydney, Australia, I knew that the setting sun would soon intersect the crown in the arch of Sydney’s Harbour Bridge as viewed from Dover Heights in the eastern suburbs. Frequent “reconnaissance” visits to Dover Heights (and getting to know the 380 bus-route very well), I had worked out how much the position of the (setting) sun would change in the sky with every passing day.

There would be an occasional day when a part of me would reject the notion of heading out to try again. The reasonable side of me wouldn’t hear of it. “It’s sunny, it’s +25C, you have to go through Bondi Beach (awww); so, get your butt out there before you regret it.” Aaaah, because regret and me, you know we’re … “this” close.

With a successful experiment to photograph sunsets (and the full moon) in late-April, I have no regrets.

I made the photos above on 18, 25-28 April 2013 at the Dudley Page Reserve in Dover Heights, Sydney, Australia. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.

As parade marches proceeded through Sydney’s Central Business District later that morning, I departed from the crowds, and I wandered over to Martin Place. An elderly man with a green suit jacket, green tie, and a green beret was describing the Commando Memorial to a number of visitors from Asia.

Had I not strayed from the spectators lining the parade route, I wouldn’t have had the great fortune of meeting Ken Curran: Australian Army Commando and Military Unarmed Combat (MUC) Instructor.

For about thirty minutes, we sat on a bench and talked. I asked him about his service in the Australian forces, and I told him about how in Canada the focus is on Remembrance Day (11 November). He remarked that for late-April, the mid-autumn weather was bright, sunny, and warm, unlike some of the colder wetter ANZAC Days in past years. But it was mostly hot and humid in places where he had served in the war.

Kenneth Roy Curran was born on the 9th of September 1925 in Waverley, New South Wales (NSW), Australia. He joined the army at age 18 in 1943; by 19, he was eligible to serve overseas, and transferred from Infantry to Commandos. By the end of World War 2, he would serve in Moratai (Indonesia); Labuan, British Borneo (Malaysia); and Rabaul (Papua New Guinea). He returned to civilian life and among a number of jobs, he worked in the NSW police force and the NSW railway. He reenlisted into the Citizens’ Military Forces (precursor to the Reserves) in 1955, and stayed until his retirement from the military in 1975.

In two decades with the 1 Commando Company, he directed annual MUC training for his unit and other military personnel. Over time, he also began to train police including members of the NSW Tactical Response Group, as well as members of the NSW Corrective Services, Australian Protective Services, and Sheriff’s Department.

In official recognition of his expertise and services related to MUC training activities within the military, and for service to the public community, Curran was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM).

After retiring from the military, he continued to conduct self-defence and training courses for security companies. Even at the age of 85, he still carried out training for security officers and taught personal self-defence techniques to the general public. Now (of posting) at 87, he admitted he’d slowed down some, but we agreed there was still a lot of life to live and there were many lessons left to teach. Ultimately, he was happy, if not relieved, that most Australian children today did not have to experience first-hand the deprivations and ravages of war.

More details of Ken Curran’s biography are found here.

Martin Place can be reached by CityRail at Martin Place, St. James, or Wynyard stations. At Martin Place, the Cenotaph is located at the west end (George Street), and the Commando Memorial is found at the east end (Macquarie Street).

I made the photos above on ANZAC Day, 25 April 2013. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.

In Australia and New Zealand, ANZAC Day is a national day of remembrance to mark the 1915 landing at dawn of ANZAC troops at Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey in World War 1 (WW1). The Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) saw their first WW1 military action in Gallipoli as part of an Allied expeditionary force whose aim was to free passage for allied shipping through the Dardanelles, a narrow strait connecting the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara, and onwards to Constantinople (now Istanbul). Instead, months of heavy fighting became a stalemate with major losses on both sides.

The importance of this date for both countries has ensured that ANZAC Day takes place annually on the 25th of April. In the present, ANZAC Day is a day to remember Australians and New Zealanders who have represented and served their countries in combat and peacekeeping efforts around the world.

Most veterans from the two great world wars of the 20th-century are gone, and soon, they’ll all fade away; the last surviving Australian participant at Gallipoli died in 2002. If ANZAC day has become an excuse for consumption and frivolity, the historical context for present-day commemoration is in danger of becoming lost. Michael Brissenden of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation wrote:

… It’s clear now that Anzac Day has grown to become our most important commemorative day. But is that in itself enough? Should it also spark more of a national conversation? And shouldn’t we at least try and invest the day with what historians like Clare Wright call “historical authenticity”? Along with the mass patriotic sentiment, the huge crowds and even the football grudge matches the day now inspires, some are still searching for more.

My photographs of ANZAC Day 2013 provide only a small cross-section of people, memories, and the feelings of loss.

We won’t forget for tomorrow; the guns are silent today.

(In another post, I write about Ken Curran, an Australian WW2 veteran and medallist of the Order of Australia.)

I made all of the photos above on ANZAC Day, 25 April 2013, in the Sydney CBD. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.

From the west looking east, the sun is behind the viewer, and the setting sun illuminates everything in front of the viewer; that’s a way to describe “front illumination.” From the east looking west, the sun is in front of the viewer, and anything in between the sun and the viewer will appear (mostly) in silhouette; this is an example of “back illumination”.

That’s all very wordy to be sure, but I have above photos of two sunsets in Sydney, one sunset seen from the west and another sunset seen from the east.

In the first case, I boarded the Parramatta River ferry and headed east towards the City as the sun set behind us on the boat. In the second case, I wandered over to Dover Heights in the eastern suburbs to watch the sunset directly in front of me.

In both cases, the Sydney Harbour Bridge is the centrepiece for the setting sun.

Addendum: this photographic experiment became a complete success two weeks after the first photo I made on 14 April …

I made the photos above on 14 and 18 April 2013. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.

Standing a few metres away from the water, I saw a woman standing alone in front of the surf. Although it was windy and some surf was reaching the ruins, the woman stood still for minutes, looking out into the ocean.

Briefly, I feared she was contemplating a jump into the ocean. But my fears were unfounded, as she eventually walked away and back up the slope towards the parking lot.

Whatever she was thinking, I hope she found what she was looking.

I made this photo at Ocean Beach in San Francisco on 18 March 2012. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.

The Hockey Hall of Fame is the “Cathedral of Hockey”, a place where fans and followers pay their respects to the “Holy Grail”, one of the most beautiful and storied trophies in North American professional sports – the Stanley Cup.

Since 1993, the Hockey Hall of Fame (HHOF) has resided in an old Bank of Montreal building at the northwest corner of Front Street and Yonge Street in downtown Toronto, Canada. To the uninitiated observer, it might be easy to dismiss the Hall of Fame as no more than a bunch of keepsakes collecting dust in an old building.

The HHOF is more, so much more.

For hockey, this place houses beautiful trophies, valued memories, and childhood dreams. Dreams of …

Street hockey …
Roller hockey …
Inline hockey …
Junior hockey …
Women’s hockey …
World hockey …
Tournament hockey …
Olympic hockey …

Hockey history with players and builders inducted into the Hall of Fame.

For hockey in North America, the annual National Hockey League (NHL) competition provides one of the most historical trophies in professional sports: the Stanley Cup. For many, it’s being able to lift the trophy on high, while skating around the ice as champions.

The Stanley Cup is named after Frederick Stanley (Earl of Derby), known also as Lord Stanley of Preston, who served as Canada’s sixth Governor-General between 1888 and 1893. Lord Stanley wrote:

“I have for some time been thinking, that it would be a good thing if there were a Challenge Cup, which should be held from year to year by the leading hockey club of the Dominion. There does not appear to be any such outward and visible sign of a championship at present, and considering the interest the hockey matches now elicit and the importance of having the games fairly played under generally recognised rules, I am willing to give a Cup that shall be annually held by the winning club.” (18 March 1892)

In England at the time, Stanley’s aide, Captain Colville, purchased a gold-lined silver bowl on an ebony base, which eventually became The Stanley Cup. In recognition of the championship trophy, Lord Stanley was inducted in 1945 into the Canadian Hockey Hall of Fame in the “Builders” category.

Any one who visits the HHOF is likely to think the same thing, when childhood memories return, of dreaming about hockey, and about winning the Stanley Cup.

I found myself back in Toronto in April 2012 as part of my around-the-world journey. Since leaving in late-2001, I hadn’t been back to Toronto, a city I’d lived for 7 years. As much of a fan I was of hockey, I knew I was going back to visit the HHOF again.

The Hockey Hall of Fame is just steps away from Union Station, which provides connections to TTC metro-rail and GO Transit suburban and intercity train and bus services.

I made the photos on 9 April 2012 with a Canon EOS450D (XSi) and a 4th-generation iPodTouch. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.

Why not the number four for April? Among Chinese, there is general consensus of an “unlucky” use for “four”, as the word “four” (四) sounds very much like the word for “death” (死). That’s the case in Cantonese at the very least.

On the other hand, the word “eight” (八) rhymes with “success” (發), a word which is used prominently in a New Year’s greeting to express “congratulations and be prosperous” (恭喜發財).

The following are a few photographic examples of memories representing my time in Hong Kong, and of things likely to be seen only in Hong Kong.

Happy birthday! 生日快樂,啊妹!

Except the final photo from my sister, I made the other photos above in Hong Kong between 6 and 21 June 2012. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.