Circles were created in Paper 53 for iPad, grunge film and fisheye lens applied in Kitcamera.
Winter thoughts
July has begun;
Unfinished projects silently calling.
Cold blue skies and sun;
Days spent, body of heaviness, hauling.
Mornings are chilling;
My get up and go has got up and gone
Unable unwilling;
Inner fitness battle needs to be won.
Clear chill evening air;
Eight weeks ’til Sydney starts to warm again.
Inspiration; where?
Revisiting, revising; learning reigns.
I had to be quick to snap this sunset behind the UNSW Library Tower.
The Opera House sits on a piece of land called Bennelong Point. Looking left to right there is a reasonable gap between the Opera House and the first building in the colonnade on the western Broadwalk. The entrance to the concert hall and the opera theatre is under the multitude of steps seen in the picture above. The Opera Bar is a popular vantage point to sip a drink while watching the ferries coming and going in Circular Quay.
The Opera House is just as impressive from the other side. Many people go to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair to take pictures of the Opera House with the Harbour Bridge in the background. This picture was taken from the back of the ferry to Manly.
The other SOH post.
I have a new regime when editing pictures for the posts here. Rather than relying on the app that came with the iPad I have taken some tips from Life In Lo Fi.
In a nutshell I take the following steps:
The above image is the after version of the original below.
Sydney Opera House
Morton Park, Sydney, Australia.
When I was at secondary school it was totally uncool to listen to, let alone like ABBA. I spent many hours alone in my bedroom listening to music that transported me to far away places. It’s funny how things turned out for the shy boy from Birmingham. Who would have thought he would move to Australia 20 years after buying ABBA: The Album. It features music from the documentary film of ABBA’s Australian tour, ABBA: The Movie.
We used our father’s redundancy money to go on our first overseas trip by aeroplane to Jersey in the Channel Islands. It was 1978, my parents, two brothers and I stayed full board for ten days at the Golden Sands Hotel. This is my first memory of live entertainment. I remember the soulful sound of a young woman in the bar, singing and strumming the guitar, while disco music pulsated from the ballroom.
I look back with embarrassment at a naive 14 year old proudly taking his brand new vinyl album down to the ballroom because the DJ had not played any ABBA. Thankfully one of the tracks was played and this holiday was filed away in the recesses of my mind as a happy memory.
I was filled with nostalgia as I read that last weekend was the 50th anniversary of the musical duo of Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson joining force and the first time in 30 years the group had performed together.
I now say with pride that I was and still am an ABBA fan, thank you for the music!
Do you have a happy ABBA memory you would like to share?
Loud country silence is heard.
Distant sounds; insects and birds.
Transition from day to night,
Air hinting of chill.
Softly bathed in Autumn light,
The landscape is still.
This peaceful moment was captured during a recent trip to Orange and Mudgee, five hours’ drive inland from Sydney.
I have a thing for bandstands. As I child I remember the difference in sound as I climbed the steps and entered these magical structures. The cold metal columns soaring up to an impossibly high ceiling were a place to play statues. They served as the starting and finishing posts in creating invisible crisscrossing patterns on the floor.
Today I see them as accessible follies. They are a welcome blot on a park landscape. A happy reminder of times gone by, seldom used for their original purpose.
Coincidentally the Sydney Urban Farm is being constructed in the background of the picture. It is on the site of another folly in today’s faster paced world; Camperdown Bowling Club.
