One of the photos from Abney Park:

(It looks best Viewed large on black)

Others are linked here (or at least the most recent ones are from this trip)

There are also a couple of shaky handheld infrared pics from Cambridge.


Sleepy now.. It's been another big weekend - Shane's "surprise" birthday party on Friday; then epic packing on Saturday; then today (Sunday) went up to Ballarat for the Foto Bienalle (sic) exhibitions.. then back to Melbourne and hit Earthdance at 6pm in time for Sun Control Species' live set.. hung around until about 8pm then headed off home for dinner and photo edits.

Today was Melbourne Open House day, and I was excited at the prospect of seeing inside the Russell Place power station. I even fought my hangover and went out of the house by midday with lots of camera gear with that objective in mind.

I arrived at the location, where there was a huuuuge queue, all the way down the alley and then down Burke street. Not a good sign. After a while an official came by to say that people at my point in the queue could be expecting a two hour wait, maybe a bit more.
OK.. so I'll wait. At least I have a couple of friends, also hungover, to talk crap with to fill in the time, and hold places in the queue while we take turns buying snacks, coffee, juice, etc.

Nearly three hours later, we're told that the people who started queueing at 11am are only now at the front of the queue, and there's only an hour and a half left before they close. A gentleman in the queue near me asks the official guy how many people are going through.. it's 20 every 20 minutes, or 60 per hour. He then enquires how many people are in front of us in the queue, and whether there are more than the 90 that they still have time for..
The official has a "oh, that's a good idea" look, and goes off to count. He comes back a while later and announces there are well over a hundred people in front.. so everyone behind number 90 may as well go home now.

Damnit! Couldn't they have worked this out, like, two hours earlier? I stood around in a windy, cold alleyway for half the daylight hours for nothing?? Gnnnrgh. Rather disappointed, all in all!

Retail therapised with a new pair of jeans and a shirt, looked at potential carry-on luggage without success*, and then came home tired and grumpy. Am now making bolognese with veggie mince; last attempt ended up rather dry and meh, but am hoping second attempt works out better. (With addition of a glass of wine into the sauce).

[* My previous carry-on bag has fallen to bits, annoyingly. Black/grey canvas satchel. I suppose I could just repair it.. But it wasn't that hot anyway.]

loz_vovin kindly agreed to sit for me while I tried various portrait techniques.
This is my favourite photo from the shoot - and was the first I took. Strange how that works out.

I also liked:

Ah-hah!
It seems the Nikon D700 is much better for infrared photographer than the D200 was; at least on par with the D70. How curious.. I suppose Nikon changed the strength of the IR-blocking filter or something?

A terrible photo demonstrating it is true IR, here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wintrmute/3465116548/
Those blindingly-white trousers are actually black in normal light. Curious that they changed, but the black t-shirt remained black.. Guess it's the synthetic material or something.

In other news, I felt a bit crappy today (and the last couple of days), but today I called in sick, and had a haircut. I still feel headachey, but now my hair will dry faster in the morning. :P

I've had a very busy weekend; In the last few days I've been to see four comedy shows at the festival, and friend's band last night. There's been the usual property run-around going on too. I'm going to bail out of PubStandards tonight and just get a quiet night in I think! I need it.. Next weekend looks mammoth as well. Two more comedy shows, and an epic motorcycle ride.

PS. If you're watching the ANZAC day televised ceremony from France, look out for my dad in the brass band! :D

Sunset over Cape Otway.

More of Cape Otway (slideshow)


In other news, I'm liking the Nikkor 24-85mm (f/2.8-4) I picked up 2nd hand last week. Easter was rather a lot of photography, and I still haven't uploaded the photos from the Melbourne at Night session on Saturday night. The pics from Chinatown in particular seemed to come out well.

Melbourne became cold suddenly! I have been glad to have new jacket of doom, especially when getting lost riding around Briar Hill trying to find some random guy to buy a second hand lens from, who has a surprisingly large collection of exotic Nikkors actually, given he claims to have been working behind the counter of my local bottle shop for the past five years.

I am now wondering if I can combine new favourite jacket with continuing-to-be-favourite green woollen hoody.. although prior trial and error has proven that hoodies and motorcycling don't really go that well together, what with the former item acting a bit like a miniature drag-chute.

I'd like to have one of these in my bedroom now, please:

(from Sunday's rained-out Flickr meet, which was mostly spent drinking for a long time in the Wesley Anne, a converted old chapel in Northcote.)


In my never-ending quest to work my way through just about every lens ever, I now have a Nikkor 24-85mm f/2.8-4 to play with, and thus am probably looking to sell off my Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8. The latter is not a bad lens at all, though.

I had a fairly quiet Saturday night, in a way.. Got an early night, but prior to that.. Headed along to the Roller Derby match in Reservoir, and took some photos from the sidelines..
Click through for the set or the slideshow.







Crazy stuff. I still don't understand what the hell the rules are..

I'd like to take more photos of people.. I'm not particularly interested in fashion/glamour/modelling work, but rather more classical monochrome portraits.

Would anyone like to sit for some portraiture sessions for me?
You don't need to be beautiful or in costume or even in make-up; just come as you are, and I'll try to capture you. (I also think it'll be interesting to capture an array of my friends too, just for the future.)

I'd like an hour of your time (preferably during daylight) and some patience, and in return I'll provide high-res copies of the best photos, and can arrange prints at cost price if you like. I will expect that you grant me permission to put a few online publicly, since, you know, I like to post stuff on LJ and Flickr, but I'm not going to use them commercially.

I can travel to your location if its suitable, ie. has a medium-sized room which has neutral-colour walls (or a way to hang a backdrop) and can be cleared of stuff such that there's at least 4 to 5 metres of space to work with.

Contact me by email if you'd like to discuss more details, or in the comment thread below.

Thanks!

[Edit: The I-come-to-you clause is limited to reasonable distance; as much as I'd love to jetset around the world taking photos, somehow I don't think I have the fame to do that ;) ]

Hi all,
as is customary, I tend to post here before ebaying something..


Anyone interested in buying a Tokina AT-X Pro 80-200mm f/2.8 zoom telephoto lens in Nikon AF mount?
Looking for AUD$650 or near offers..

Example photo taken with it: http://flickr.com/photos/wintrmute/2254645706/

It's a beast of a lens, but weighs about 1.6kg and doesn't fit in any of my bags, and I think I'll replace it with a 180mm f/2.8 prime or a 70-300mm VR zoom. (The 180mm Nikkor ED is verrry nice.. Borrowed one over the weekend.)

I went out shooting with the Flickr at Night group, last Saturday evening.
Here's one of the photos that resulted..
Looks best Viewed Large on black background.


I also quite liked this shot:

Click above for the set, or Watch a Slideshow.

Hey, it's only a month late!

Edit: Fixed link to slideshow, sorry!

The usual "before it goes on ebay" post..
Anyone after a Nikon D200 and/or Nikon MB-D200 grip?
Excellent condition, only light amateur use.
It's a semi-professional 10.2 MP digital SLR, with magnesium alloy body, weather-proofing seals, support for all Nikon lenses released in the last 40+ years or so (unlike the D40/50/6070/80/90!), 5 fps shooting, and a bunch of other features I'm sure you can google for yourself. :)

For what it's worth, this is the camera I've been using for the past what, 3 years now? So if you've seen photos I've posted, they were almost certainly taken on this camera.

Looking for $1000 ono for the body, which I think is fair; ones in worse condition go for about that on ebay.

Reason for sale? I'm thinking of upgrading to the Nikon D700... My shares and funds are all doing terribly, and not bringing me much love, so perhaps I should call it quits on the sharemarket and just spend what is left of my money on an overpriced toy I lust after? It'll bring me more happiness than watching a sea of red numbers that seem to get worse almost every day.
Hell, a D700 will depreciate, but it can't depreciate as fast as my shares have done! It'll take years for the shares to recover, and frankly, I'd rather have enjoyment today, tomorrow, and for those years, rather than having more money at an unspecified time in the future.

Fuck it all. Toys FTW.

If you like photos of huge rusted gears, check out the whole set by clicked the pic above..

You might also want to check out the rest of the photos from the mental asylum, by clicking the pic below..

Just another couple of images from last week.. there are more in the set, from other parts of Melbourne at night too.

More mental asylum photos to follow tomorrow..

Oh dear.

It has been another really hectic weekend.
Friday: Drinking on companies' tabs from 12:30pm to late, with a two-hour alcohol free window from about 3pm to 5pm.
Saturday: Recovery. Shopping. Attempt to take photos of "world's biggest time warp". Fail. Gelati and coffee instead. Then onto an outdoor party miles away. Get home v.late, pass out before turning lights off.
Sunday: Recovery. Shopping. Finally manage to stop that speaker in my car from rattling, with judicious application of bolts, washers and an old sock. Hurrah! Then, onto an old mental asylum to wander and take photos. Then dinner, sake happened, and am now about ready to collapse into bed again after an impromptu party.

Total vanity.