O'Reilly's, Lamington National Park

We've just spent a couple of days at O'Reilly's with a few friends from the Birthday Bear Group. O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat is in the Lamington National Park on the Gold Coast Hinterland. It has a lot of interesting birdlife and I was able to see (for the first time) a couple of Whip Birds and a Rufus Wagtail, on a walk early one morning.

Here is the (re-edited) version of a short movie I made.

Photographer Ansel Adams

I've been into monochrome photography ever since I was in my early 20s in Switzerland when I had my own darkroom. An interest, I recently redeveloped, when our camera club discussed the subject of Black and White Photography.  We looked at the works of Ansel Adams. What a surprise then when we got to the National Maritime Museum recently on my visit to Sydney and discovered they had an Ansel Adams Exhibition, 'From Mountains to the Sea'.

Ansel Adams was a gifted American photographer and passionate conservationist born in San Francisco in 1902. A solitary and shy child, he left school at the age of 12 to be tutored at home where he could also explore the nearby beaches, sand dunes and waterways of San Francisco Bay. In his 20s, Adams became interested in photography, attending camera club meetings and visiting photographic exhibitions.

In the picture below, one of the most epic of Adams's landscapes, humanity is signalled by a field of scattered crosses in the foreground. The settlement itself makes an irregular rhythm from left to right, in contrast to the fling horizontals of the mountain range and the swift, painterly markings in the sky.

Moonrise over Hernandez, New Mexico 1941

Adams is famous for his photographs of the vast and dramatic landscapes of Yosemite National Park he visited for the first time in 1916. In 1919 he became a member of the Sierra Club, a group of dedicated to wilderness conservation and activism, an important influence in his 60 years career.

Water was one of Ansel Adams favourite subjects. He photographed it consistently and repeatedly from his first picture in 1915 until his death in 1984. He became fascinated in shipwrecks he discovered on the Pacific headlands and in crashing waves and seascapes.

With his pictures of water, Adams pioneered new directions in photography. he was a leading figure in a groundbreaking group of Modern artists who believed that photographers should embrace the mechanical qualities of camera and lens, making pictures that looked like no other art form

Seeing this exhibition alone was worth the trip to Sydney

Sydney Maritime Museum

I'm in Sydney for a couple of days. Saturday Carol and David took me to the National Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour. We took a ferry from Rose Bay to Circular Quay where we changed to another ferry to Darling Harbour.

We sailed past Sonya's old workplace 'The Sydney Opera House'

Then under the Sydney Harbour Bridge

After lunch at the Museum Restaurant 'Yots', we boarded the 'Onslow', an Oberon type submarine, open to the public.

HMAS Onslow is anchored next to HMAS Vampire, a destroyer

The Onslow was commissioned during the Cold War, a tense time that called for a submarine to watch, listen and collect information without detection. The most secretive work was tracking Soviet submarines moving into the Arabian Gulf from Vladivostok via the Coral Sea and the Great Australian Bight.

The sub was steered by the Coxswain, usually a NCO

A very impressive engine room

On the way out of the HMAS Onslow, we explored the Destroyer HMAS Vampire, Australia's largest museum vessel, which is the last of the country's big gun ships. After this, Australia's fighting ships were equipped with missile weaponry. The Daring class were the largest destroyers built in Australia. These powerful, fast ships were designed principally for the machinery and weapons of war. One look at the cramped living spaces onboard and you will see that comfort came a poor second!

Control Panels

Full Steam Ahead, Coxswain.

Able Seaman Dave and Able Seaman Bill

Point the Guns at the City

I have a visitor

Diane is over in Los Angeles on grandma duty. As luck would have it, Carol had to come to Brisbane for a client conference on Friday, so the dear girl decided to stay the weekend with her lonely dad. Everyone, 'Isn't that nice…  Aahhhh.'

So today we drove down to Cleveland for a steak at the famous Hogs Breath Cafe. It was great.

We came across this piece of art in the park

We're doing silhouettes at the camera club, just trying

Looking forward to lunch

Cheers, Dad!

Nothing like a slow cooked steak and curly chips

Cheers, everyone!

A Quiet House Again

Just dropped the Blogger off at the airport this morning. She's on the way to Los Angeles, once again on another stint of babysitting.

I followed her flight, QFA16, a Boeing 744 (747-400 really) on Flightradar24, until they disapeared over the ocean, out of radar range.

Engines started

Taxiing past the International

We're up 3,575 ft over the city

Turning right over Alderley

Heading north

And out into Moreton Bay

Over Straddie into the bay

and out over the Pacific

Now! What am I going to do????

A spot of lunch I think, then I need to get some beer...

Bye bye love, have a good trip.

More Than 50 Shades of Grey

The topic in our camera club at the last meeting was Black and White photography, something I've been interested in for many years. In my younger days I had a darkroom where I developed films and prints. Of course nowadays it's much easier to do with digital camera settings and computer software. My daughters gave me NIK software last Christmas to do HDR pictures. Imagine the surprise Google gave me recently (Google bought out NIK), when they presented me with complementary upgrades to the entire range, including this little gem:

Silver Efex Pro 2
This is the program you use to manipulate monochrome images. It's amazing what you can do with it. I went through my Archives and converted some of my photos.

Rainforest walk at Paronella Park, Innisfail

Waterfall at Paronella Park, Innisfail

The old Barn

Brig O'Doon, Ayr, Scotland

Scene from the Sunlander

Dog, Hunter Valley

Brisbane Open House

It's the weekend of the year when a lot of public buildings are open to the public. It only happens once a year and we investigated which buildings we wanted to visit. Top of the list was the old Boggo Road Jail, infamous for holding people like the Postcard bandit and the Whiskey-A-Gogo arsonists. Alas, the place is now closed and became a museum. It was worth a visit.

Unfortunately when we got there, we discovered we were not the only visitors and there were very long queus only just to put your name down for  a tour later on during the day. We discovered that the tours are on all through the year, so we'll do it some other time.

It was coffee time and right next door is a new complex housing the Ecosciences precinct, which also has a coffee shop. So we decided to visit that building instead (for two reasons).

The old Boggo Road Jail from top of the Ecoscience Building

Boggo Road precinct from Google Map (left is the old jail)

The Ecoscience complex

Inside the foyer

View from the roof, just as an Ipswich train passes Yeerongpilly

Modern sitting room

Looking down into the foyer from Level 5

One of the labs that was open

And another

The building was designed by 'Hassle Architects', the company, our daughter works for. As it happened, the Hassle Studio was open to the public as well, so that's where we headed next.