Back in December last year, you might remember this image - panorama of a big old tree.
Well, the other day, about a week ago I guess, galen and I heard an enormous cracking
sound - we thought it was a limb coming off one of the trees on our side of the
fenceline, but it wasn't - it was the right limb of the main tree in that image -
here's a crop of the bit I'm talking about, it's the right hand limb.
This is how it looks today, same angle as that crop, or as close as I could get to it.
This is another angle, moving around to the right of where I took the first one.
Husband is overseas at the moment, visiting family for their 50th wedding anniversary.
He got this photo at Melbourne airport, pre-takeoff:
1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit "random" or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random.
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 - Go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations" or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3.
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.
3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days.
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.
1, I got http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_L._Johnson
2, The quote I got was "The entire economy of the western world is built on things that cause cancer," from the 1985 movie Bliss.
3, The image I got was http://www.flickr.com/photos/yonpol/3325973413/
And, you can see they all come together amazingly, freakishly well.
I like penguins, so we were always going to go and see the penguins at the Melbourne Aquarium.
There's a long tank, you see, and I was down the end. The penguins (and gentoo penguins are the fastest birds underwater) come belting down the tank, do a sharp turn around the rock and then go belting back up the other end of the tank. Very difficult to get a good photo because of less-than-optimal lighting and the thickness of the acrylic tank wall, so I put it on motor drive and hoped for something that might work out like this.
This one just illustrates why I like penguins so much. From a design point of view, I mean. They're wonderful: very sleek, clean lines with very definite colours.
They're actually kind of art deco in a way, don't you think? Oddly graceful in appearance, until you see them waddling.
Then, when you do see them waddling, all you can think is that they look incredibly like grumpy old men. Any moment now, one of these king penguins was going to shake his fist and start yelling at the kids to get off his lawn, dammit!
But then you see them underwater again, and they're just torpedos with feathers. Incredibly graceful once more.
The penguins weren't the only things on show: left to right, lionfish, underwater in one of the river tanks and ray.
The jellyfish are always fascinating. I love trying to photograph them; it's a real challenge, it's very dark in that area of the aquarium, and they're in constant motion. I think I like the black and white photo on the right the best.
Probably spotted that one yourself, right?
This is through tinted glass looking over the Yarra River: between the tint in the windows and the storm clouds and general greyness, it's actually kind of menacing, I thought.
Did a bit of wandering around the Rosalind Park area in Bendigo's CBD.
The Chinese Precinct (Golden Dragon Museum, the gardens, Kuan Yin Temple and the gates with guardian lions) is close by.
The Conservatory was built in 1898, one of the oldest of its kind in Australia.
Statue's just outside the Conservatory.
And the Fernery's over Bendigo Creek, a little area in Rosalind Park that's...well, a fernery. Dark and cool, water running through it - nice spot.
I was driving to work this morning; the moon was setting, way down low, pretty much full.
It was an amazingly serene scene.
Serenity has been hard to come by in recent days, what with the fires.
Between getting one good photo before the batteries in my camera crapped out and some decent music during the day...