Streetnights, Australia #17

Collaroy, July 2013

Pics & Video: Dirty Glass, Water, Fan, Rose

Continuing this theme.

Swallow

From the balcony of the Zorro Hotel, Batemans Bay, NSW:

Also got this shot, which is out of focus, yes, but I think it's still pretty cool. Although I think the shadow shot is better.

Batemans Bay

Christine and I went south for a few days, saw sooty oyster catchers, manta rays right under our noses, and beach kangaroos, just to mention a few things. Got some really nice shots. One, of Christine, at Pebbly Beach in Murramurang National Park (click to make bigger, click again for bigger still):

Much more to come soon.

Night at the Pool

Every beach in Sydney has a large concrete pool, fed by the ocean, bashed by the ocean, right on the edge of the ocean, where you can go for a swim without being thrown about in the surf. You go down there any time of the morning day or evening and there are old folks, young folks, kids—there'a very shallow kiddie pool. Three shots.

Canada Goose, Black and White

Southern Oregon, ponds on I-5, between Talent and Ashland, 2010.

Fuzz

Southern Oregon, 2010.

(Click pics to make huge.)

It's almost time for a new camera. Our Kodak Z650, which we got for $300 or so in 2006, has gotten us some surprisingly good shots, like these (no crops, no filters, no nothing, just one color and one black and white shot of the same plant), but I cannot wait to step up a grade, or several, and take this whole photography thing much more seriously.

Cabramatta—"A Taste of Asia"—New South Wales [updtd]

Took about an hour drive due east (edit: west, not east - we were not in the Pacific Ocean) of Sydney to the city of Cabramatta (which actually feels like a suburb of Sydney). During the 1970s, during the Vietnam War, a wave of immigration from South Vietnam began to Cabramatta, and it today has a very large Vietnamese population, mixed in its own particular way with Australia's own particular way.

Anyway, I got some photographs.

First, the restaurant: Thanh Binh, 52 John St. Cabramatta. Fantastic. Recommended. Great food, nice people, laid back—crowded at lunch time. The specials: (As always, click to enlarge photos; click again for closer.)

For those interested in pictures of food—king prawn spring roll with a peanutty sauce; soft-shelled crabs in tamarind sauce; scallops:

I've just learned that tamarind sauce is made from the tamarind tree—which is native to Africa. It was so popular in ancient times, apparently, that it was continuously transplanted, and is now all over Asia (not to mention the Americas).

We had more, including a pork dish that was great, but every time they brought something out I just wanted to eat it and kept forgetting to photograph it.

We shared a cold tea drink that had barley, agar, and seaweed in it, which was good, very refreshing, but I wasn't crazy about the agar texture. And we had a durian smoothy, which managed to be strangely nice while leaving an aftertaste like you just had a mouthful of gasoline. (I say this with more than a little experience.)

Lunch cost about $110 for four. Not bad. Kevin brought a bottle of wine. No cork fee.

We went for a stroll on John Street.

Fruit shop:

My Tin.

Just one of the many delectable things to be found in this pastry shop:

I wish I knew what type of lobstery things these are. [Update 4/21/11: They're Eastern Rock Lobsters, a type of spiny lobster, which are not closely related to what we normally call lobsters!] Look at the beautiful shells on those poor buggers:

Thanh long—"dragon fruit"—which I've just found out is the fruit of a type of cactus:

I let my arm dangle at my side for a while, and clicked the button when I glimpsed something interesting:

A pastry machine:




Look at the women in red at the very, very end of this short video:




Vertu cell phones—only $12,000 or so a pop.

The family:

My Tin:

On our way to the car, I found a piece of paper just off the sidewalk:

Cabramatta, NSW.

Stick Cocoon Creature, Banksia Man, and Singing Tree

The eagle-eyed Christine stopped us yesterday on our hike in Ku-Ring-gai National Park, saying, "Thom, look at this."

I looked at this:

It was about four inches long. It was soft: you could squeeze it, like it was an empty sac. It smelled resiny.

"It's a cocoon," Christine said. "I remember them from when I was little."

I've just looked it up, and I quickly found a remarkably similar photo—even down to the way those outer sticks are configured: it's the cocoon (empty, pretty sure) of the caterpillar of a case moth, possibly the Saunders' Case Moth, Metura elongatus. Oh, you have to go here, too. And holy crap, here, too. (I've just realized, this is related to the "Walking Turd" from December, but a different species, clearly.)

Good eye, Christine.

Now here's Christine and a scary Banksia  Man. (Guess which ones which.)

Aren't she perty?

And a tree:

Oh, Vienna!

***

Christine suddenly burst out in song on the way home, singing along with a song on the radio that I'd never heard in my life.

Then and Now: The Photography of Irina Werning

Saw this on Roger Ebert's Twitter feed: Back to the Future:

I love old photos. I admit being a nosey photographer. As soon as I step into someone else’s house, I start sniffing for them. Most of us are fascinated by their retro look but to me, it’s imagining how people would feel and look like if they were to reenact them today... A few months ago, I decided to actually do this. So, with my camera, I started inviting people to go back to their future.

Stupor Moon

One and just one shot of the March 2011 full moon that made many, many people dumber than usual, with ringing and witty commentary.

Feast your eyes on this brooding number, for which I chose a cottony, hazy quality I like to call "eight-seconds exposure and crop the holy hell out of it." (Click to en-huge-en.)

Brings to mind some of Rembrandt''s darker work, doesn't it? I mean if Rembrandt were a lot more dull than he actually was, and only painted while tremendously drunk, and after repeatedly bashing himself in the face with a hammer, it does—doesn't it? Hmm?

Tawny Frogmouth

I came to Australia for the first time in 2006, with Christine. Walking through the suburbs of Sydney one night on that trip I heard this "ooo ooo ooo" sound:



Too dark to see, I flipped open the flash, pointed the camera at the sound, and snapped. And got what has to be the luckiest shot of my life:



It was a Tawny Frogmouth, probably about 16 inches from tip of the tail to head. They're owl-like—but they are not owls, nor are they closely related to them.

Here's a closer look:



More here. And more images of the messy-faced Frogmouth here.

• Fromouths are classified as belonging to the order Caprimulgiformes. The name means "goat-sucker," because of the mistaken belief long ago that another bird in the order, the nightjar, sucked milk from female goats.

Night Lake

This photo makes me want to play with flashes and water. This is a nighttime image of Narrabeen Lake (Northern Beaches, Sydeny), and that is very clear water. With the flash it appears to be dirty and milky.

And we apparently have two small moons down here.