Australia | Fotoeins Fotografie

Posts from the ‘Australia’ category

My Sydney: 2 Caffeinated Highlights

Here are two more great joints in Sydney for a delicious cuppa joe …

Ampersand, Paddington

During the German film festival, I’d been up and down Oxford Street between the two cinemas, and one cafe in particular near the Palace Verona cinema was a standout. The Ampersand Café Bookstore is a cozy place with fresh coffee, friendly staff, and a lot of books; there’s seating inside and outside. Had I stayed for long, I would’ve gotten lost in a large mug and many books on art, cinema, and photography.

Ampersand Café Bookstore, 78 Oxford Street, Paddington.

Ampersand Cafe and Bookstore, Paddington, Sydney

bRu, North Bondi

While at Bondi early one April-morning to photograph the morning light, I found a tiny café called “bRu coffee”. The café is at the corner of Brighton Boulevard and Campbell Parade, near the bus loop where some bus-routes from the CBD terminate in North Bondi. A warm lifesaver on a cool morning, this place is a definite fave among local residents. There aren’t many seats inside or outside, and given its location, many get their takeaways for a morning walk on the beach or for their work-commute into the City. I liked this place so much I returned to Bondi two weeks later to photograph the surf. Over a large flat white, I chatted with the staff and with “Mr. Vitamins” himself, Mr. Abraham James.

bRu coffee, 101 Brighton Boulevard, North Bondi.

bRu coffee, North Bondi, Sydney, Australia

I made the photos above on 12 and 19 May 2013. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.

BlurbOZ Sydney Photowalk

As part of a week-long period of activities, Blurb Australia sponsored a photo-walk through Sydney’s Hyde Park and the Domain. Leading a group of about 40 to 50 interested photographers was Daniel Milnor. He assigned two tasks throughout the afternoon. First, we had the option of photographing back-lit situations, or making a set of photos with different textures as the theme. The second assignment was learning how to make portraits: how to prepare by looking for suitable light, how to approach people, how to connect with people, and how to frame people in a portrait. The day ended with drinks at the nearby Arthouse Hotel for conversation with photographers and bookmakers with a variety of soft- and hard-cover photobooks on display.

BlurbOZ Photowalk, Sydney, Australia

Backlit

BlurbOZ Photowalk, Sydney, Australia

A boy and his balloon

BlurbOZ Photowalk, Sydney, Australia

1st portrait try: R.

BlurbOZ Photowalk, Sydney, Australia

2nd portrait try: E.

Another thing I learned was advice about the present state of photography; the necessity of hard work, perseverance, and patience; and about the disconnect between what’s popular and what’s important. I gained a great deal of encouragement by what I’ve learned over the last few days.

Disclosure: Promotional. I received promotional consideration in the form of coupons from Blurb Australia. I made the photos above on 21 May 2013. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.

Sydney’s April full-moon: fall and rise in a single day

Previously I wrote about how I tracked the path of the setting sun over four consecutive days, until I captured the setting sun at the crown of the Harbour Bridge’s arch in Sydney.

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.

Sun/Moon	Rise time	Set time	Rise azimuth	Set azimuth	Other
SUN	0626h	1720h	74°	286°	day-length 10hr54min
MOON	—	0632h	—	253°	full-moon 0558h
MOON	1735h	—	109°	—

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.

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70000th photo, at the MCA in Sydney

I’m making good progress with my five-year old Canon EOS450D camera.

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.

Jeff Wall: Photographs exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney

Photo of a photo: “A sudden gust of wind (after Hokusai)”, by Jeff Wall, 1993.

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 with the photograph.

Jeff Wall: Photographs exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney

Quiet discourse by visitors, and quietly, my 70000th exposure. At least his hat’s still on …

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.

PostScript: after posting, I realized I made a dumb mistake with counting; what’s discussed above is the 67000th click. The actual “rollover” occurred a few weeks later with the following set of photographs at the VIVID Sydney festival.

Previous rollovers :
• 15000th photo with the 450D/XSi in Berlin, Germany
• 25000th photo with the 450D/XSi in Vancouver, Canada
• 50000th photo with the 450D/XSi in Berlin, Germany
• 60000th photo with the 450D/XSi in Vancouver, Canada

I made the photos above on 5 May 2013 with the 450D along with the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.

Sydney’s sunset heights: a golden crown at the Harbour Bridge arch

It’s late-April, and the days grow shorter in autumn here in the southern hemisphere. That also means that with each passing day towards the winter solstice, the sun’s path across the sky drifts a little bit northwards. The 23.4-degree tilt of the Earth’s rotation-axis with respect to the Earth’s orbital-plane around the Sun ensures that most of the planet experiences four seasons with every full orbit or revolution around the Sun.

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.

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