Pictures Posted!

Finally put up some photos from the trip to Canada on Web albums

There are also some on Flickr.

Also, but not from Canada, but Australia Day on Zooomr

Photos - Landing in Sydney

Normally, we end up landing in the dark when we get back to SYD, so it was a real treat to have pretty clear conditions (and light) coming in.

These haven't been digitally manipulated in any way, so they are still a bit flat with the early morning light.

The photos are here, on Flickr.

Picture in the SMH

Here is the picture that Simone sent in to the Sydney Morning Herald.

The boy (at left) really tried very hard to defeat his nemesis (the girl, at right), however she seemed to be much more practiced in both manoeuvring her bucket and playing to us tourists.

Setting the scene:

This picture was at the floating village near Siem Reap. I don't know that the village had a name other than "the floating village." The name is remarkably appropriate: if other villages followed the same nomenclature, there would be many "villages on land", perhaps a few "villages near trees"...

But I digress. There is a really big lake near Siem Reap - I think I remember the name, but I'm not going to embarass myself in front of the Internet by guessing wrong. For eminently practical reasons, every structure in the village floats, simply moored where the homeowner wishes. Every structure is thus situated: the mosque, the church, the store, the school and the separate basketball court (courtesy of the Japanese dev-aid folks), and of course, the tourist centre, from whose gently bobbing decks this photo was snapped.

The tourist centre is about the furthest structure out into the lake (it is a REALLY big lake - goes on past the horizon), and us tourists drive into the sort of shore-based gateway to the village, hire a boat (and driver, plus a young guide), which then putters out to the centre, as we gape amazedly at the village. Once at the tourist centre, one can continue to gape at the expanse of water, thrill to the crocodiles caged just below deck, be surprised by great big fish leaping out of their live wells (and thus consigning themselves to the warm part of the café), eat fresh coconut, and buy souvenirs.

Alternatively, one can seek a quiet corner of the complex, marvel at the whole experience and try to convince oneself that one is a traveller, rather than a tourist.

The kiddies pictured quickly put paid to that bit of self-delusion: one is not a traveller, one is not even a tourist. One is a mark, an ATM if you will, and all they have to do is figure out the code. In this case, it was showing off their alacrity paddling a round vessel with a single paddle, and insisting on remuneration in exchange for permission to take their photo. This approach is employed when the traditional technique of paddling up beside where the tourists are sitting in the shade snaffling up cool liquids and sweet treats, and then begging for scraps. (The girl was good at this: she scored an almost full coconut. The lad, on the other hand, was either not pitiable or not cute enough. I think he got a couple of nuts.)

35 degrees today. Whew

It's been a while since I've been in front of the ol' Blogger dashboard. Looks just the way I left it.

Finally got a bit of a break from work - 10 market international study, things going wrong, working in Indian, GMT, and AEST timezones means being online from about 8 am until 3 am. That sort of sucks, but after three weeks of it, it's all over. Director's gone and presented the findings and recommendations while I take a couple of days off in lieu of something else, like say overtime pay. (Being on salary has its downsides.)

I did read a few books during the past few weeks, but I can't remember what they were, and I've thrown out the library receipt too, so no joy there. They clearly didn't sink in.

What I do remember is that there are heaps of interesting podcasts over at the ABC's Radio National. The Science Show is good, though a little stodgier than Quirks and Quarks, and Counterpoint is a delightful forum for battling viewpoints and ideologies. (Psst, Gov't? Stop spending money on innovation, and just cut taxes to let people have more money to be innovative with. Innovations are driven by the market, you know.)

Anyway, also started posting pictures on Flickr and the Goog's Web Album thingy. Should be here and here.

And now it's lunch time.

The Negative - Ansel Adams

Part two in the series, and every bit as useful as the first one. I was reading this on the train, and a guy sitting next to me couldn't contain himself when he saw it, so we ended up chatting about the book and photography in general.

Again, I marvel at how applicable the stuff in this old book is to modern (35mm and digital) photography, even when he's talking about 8x10 cameras and 22 inch lenses. The basics don't change. It's much more helpful too, than "The latest collection of everything you need to know about using digital cameras", where step one is explaining how a CMOS sensor works compared to a CCD; but not the implications for shooting. (Maybe there aren't any; afterall, Photoshop can cure all, right?)

Anyway, I don't pretend to be a purist nor a particularly good photographer, but I can appreciate Adams' skill both as an artist and craftsman, not to mention as a teacher.

Photography exposed - the story behind the image - Life Magazine

A whole bunch of famous pictures, with little stories next to them. Pretty, interesting, very suitable for the coffee table.

I think the descriptions are often too short, but then again, I like words as much as I do pictures.

The Camera - Ansel Adams

Now, this is a book on photography. Not only is Adams a pretty legendary photography, he talks about it really intelligibly (and usually intelligently, too). All the little electronic gizmos on a digital camera are pretty nifty, but I can imagine working with an 8"x10" view camera would be really cool.

#1: Composition, #2: Technical mastery of the medium to do the composition justice. Simple as that.

Digital Photographers Handbook - Tom Ang

I questioned my own judgement in picking up a book on digital photography printed in 2003. Apparently, 3.3 (and greater) megapixel cameras were in the realm of professional photographers.
Righty-o. I must be a real professional photographer then.

Conclusion: there really isn't a whack of difference between digital photography and film photography. The only thing is that if you stuff up a shot (technically), you can fiddle with it on the computer to recuperate the mistakes. Still, a fixed up boring shot is still a boring shot.