photography – Page 48 – helenthura.com

January 3, 2007January 3, 2007

Woodford Review

Well we arrived back in reality yesterday and it is certainly a change from what life was like for the past week.

Woodford was everything I imagined it to be and a hundred times more. The music, the food, the people, the vibe. I had a blast and would happily go back tomorrow working 5hr shifts in the little grocery store, cruising round discovering new bands and kicking back to old ones, eating good food and finding all sorts of cool things in the shops the only problem might be that I would probably run out of money at one stage. mmmm Woodford Rocked!

Next year I want to camp in a better place with different people (read:not my brother and his friends) and change my mobile provider because my much loved Vodafone does not love Woodford much at all (why can’t the mobile providers be nice people and co-operate and share coverage). Though I did survive without a computer for the week, having a mobile with extremely patchy reception was not fun because it was chewing the batteries searching for reception all the time and I am still yet to receive a message from Clare that she sent on the 30th. mmmm.

Music wise I had a blast, I only missed two or three bands that I really wanted to see but I can go see them round here anyway and if not I will see them at Blues and Roots in April

I will quite happily admit that the one of the major drawcards (actually probably the drawcard, the tipping stone) in making me go to Woodford this year was the fact that Women in Docs(WiD) were playing a couple of gigs and oh what a delight that was.

It was great seeing them play and it is hard to believe that it took me what seven years? to see them play and get a couple of CD’s. I missed one of the shows as I was working but the other two I caught and they finished their set with the most delightful cover that I have not been able to get out of my head – Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show. They have two gigs in Brissie in a bit less than a month’s time so we will of course go and check them out. Hopefully there will be some Tin Roof action at one of those because there wasn’t at Woodford 🙁

In terms of music there was so much to see, Women in Docs of course, Tim Freedman, Pablo Discobar, Kristina Olson, Emma Dean, Herb Johnson-Armstrong and the Jazzy Cats, The Audreys, Kate Miller-Heidke, The John Butler Trio, Beautiful Girls, Kaya, Kaki King, Blue King Brown, Roz and the Wayward Gents, Kafka, Troy ‘n’ Trevelyn (now known as Banawurn), Max Judo, Jodi Martin, Stringmansassy, De Jah Groove, Leo, Sensitive New Age Cowpersons, Po’ Girl, Paul Greene, Ash Grunwald, David Essig and way many more.

Tim Freedman

Over the years I have seen Tim and the Whitlams numerous times, but this relatively smallish gig at the Grande tent topped the list. It was Tim, a keyboard and a mike doing what he does best singing those songs. He made small talk with the crowd at the front and played requests as people yelled them out to him. Though he didn’t get round to doing Kate Kelly.

For me the music I saw pretty much divided into two broad categories of folky/rocky/vocal centered and then the funky/roots/fusion jazz/designed to get you shaking that tail feather. Pablo Discobar and De Jah Groove, Blue King Brown and Troy ‘n’ Trevelyn (now known as Banawurn) in the funk pile along with some others. Very much prefect music for some late night hip shaking.

One of the highlights had to be the 80’s Singalong, the Concert tent was filled with people singing, dancing and laughing as we were lead by a merry group of singers on the stage.

Whilst most of the songs were on the poppier side of the 80’s, the closing song Livin’ on a Prayer went off and I think the whole tent started laughing when Roz decided rock out and go for the stage dive. This photo actually for some reason reminds me of Joan Jett, can’t quite place why but it does.

Ms Clare came up to Woodford with her friend Katie for the couple of days that Katie’s band was playing and then departed. It was great fun to meet Katie though and to cruise the streets of Woodford with the both of them plus the various people Katie collected along the way.

Sporting their hippie head bands

Ms Clare trying to tempt me with a piece of Sushi (it didn’t work).

The two food highlights for me at Woodford would have to have been the Byron Bay Organic Doughnuts and the Hungarian Langos place. The doughnuts were so so good and pretty darn cheap. The cinnamon one was classic and a good snack but the chocolate filled ones were just like heaven in a little hunk of dough. mmmm but messy, I had melted dark chocolate all over me. The Langos were also so good and I am going to try my hand at making them at home. mmm tasty!

I also picked up a skirt, a dress, a couple of scarves, a couple of bangles and some other assorted trinkets. Plus a whole stack of CDs and quite a few gigs to go to in the coming weeks and more CDs to buy from the stores here.

Matthew and I are still wearing our wristbands and are having a mini competition to see who can leave it on the longest :). Oh and a gumboot report is coming, so watch out!

December 16, 2006

The Graduate

Well, I now have a piece of paper that says I ~~rock~~ ok it says I can now add letters after my name if I wish and that I am permitted to tell people that I have a Bachelor of Arts in Asian and International Studies. There was a 11 of us graduating from that degree this year and 7 of us were at the ceremony which was nice. We were also the first cabs off the rank so I was the fifth person to walk across the stage 😀

awww, don’t I look pretty? Pity you can’t really see my rocking dress, so I guess I will have to take some photos of the dress so you can see how much it rocks. And look, I am wearing heels! I own one pair and have had them since 2000 🙂

Michelle, Martina, Lydie, Kate and myself. Some of the girls I have had classes with over the last two years

Helen as a Jedi Knight or perhaps I am really a Sith Lord? No. I think I prefer to think I am a Jedi Knight. When Matthew graduates and if he goes to his ceremony I will buy him a light saber so I can take a photo of him as a Jedi Knight.

I don’t think there is really much else to say about the ceremony. I rocked up, picked up my robes and was dressed by the uni staff, sat in a seat, walked across the stage, I doffed my trencher at the Chancellor, received a fake degree paper, walked off stage and was given my real degree paper, walked back to my seat and cheered and clapped for the other people we knew, walked out of the theatre and had photos taken, de-robed, picked up my free drink and went home.

December 8, 2006January 18, 2007

Signs of the Time

Just a few photos from around the garden yesterday.

The African Tulip Tree is a tree that has provided children all over the world with hours of fun, from using the flower buds as water pistols and boat races with the open seed pods. I was reminded of all this as the tree up the street has just finished flowering and the seed pods have started to make their journey away from the mother tree. You often find them in gutters as the summer rains have carried them like the boats they resemble down the streets. This fellow however must have grown a pair of wings to end up in our backyard as he would have had to fly over a couple of houses. Whichever way he went to reach our backyard, I welcomed him with reminiscing hands as I picked him up and turned him over inspecting for any structural damage he might have obtained in his journey. His boat load of passengers had long flown away on the breeze searching for some fertile soil and he was left to slowly decompose on our lawn.

Look at how the lines in the dead Agapanthus flower head match up with the dividing line between the cement and the grass. As a child and even now I like to pull out the dead stalks and swing them round pretending to be I guess a swashbuckling pirate or perhaps a club.

This is the sign of the drought and water restrictions in our garden. The hand fork lays in the garden bed begging to be used but until the rains return (if ever) the garden is left to run wild and survive on what rain does fall. The days of planting new plants in the front garden beds are left to our memories and we have all forgotten what it is like to actually go to a nursery and pick out new plants.

December 4, 2006

3 months in a leaky boat

or perhaps I should say 3 months is a little late but then it is my party and I’ll cry if I want to.

Yesterday, I had a party. There was rain, friends, food, fairy lights and good times. Leading up to yesterday evening I knew it was going to rain at some stage but I was wishin’ and hopin’ that it would hold off. It didn’t and it rained as people arrived and it rained as we ate nibblies and it rained again as we had dinner. By then all I was wishin’ and hopin’ for was that it would clear for dessert so we could bathe in the speckled light of 928 fairy lights strung up on the verandah. It did clear and we then finished off the night in a magical atmosphere on the verandah under the sea of fairy lights. As we eat the leftovers and take photos of the food I will post them. I can say now though that I was happy with the food and Karl’s Sangria recipe is very very very nice indeed.

I wanna sit and talk and laugh with you all

sugar and spice and all things nice
This was my birthday cake, but we didn’t sing Happy Birthday so is it still birthday cake or just a celebration cake? Hailing from the wonderful pages of the Dec 03/Jan 04 issue of Delicious is this very yummy Rosewater Cream Berry Meringue Stack. Raspberries, Blueberries, Strawberries, Cream and Rosewater, need I say more?

Out on the patio we would sit…

We’d watch the lightning crack over canefields

singing hail, hail, the gangs all here
From the school girls to the Indo Girl, to the 2nd year girls and then the 3rd year girls, these are the girls (plus a few absentees) who have in some way or another had an in influence into me growing into who I am today.

side by side one for all together we grew
Five years in bottle green, soccer/cricket/football games, sitting on the hill, playing music, doing group assignments, laugh central. Where else but in high school do you form a group of friends where the girls all have boys names for nicknames and are still used today? Fred/Candy, Doug/Kaliope and Guido/Dina and myself as Bill, I don’t think those times will ever be forgotten.

Hey Joe
Concerts, Movies, and lots of chilling and chatting. One year of Indonesian together, four years and counting of fun filled adventures and laughs.

they’re fun to have around
Really where do you start? The sweet little Nural who is both a 2nd year and a 3rd year girl who can always say something cute or Andrea, the girl who is me but not me (in her own words) or Rachy Rach (Marky Mark/Richie Rich) who is always up to having a rant about something and a good time.

one and one and one is three
Some say she’s from Mars, I just say she does Law, Swinin’ down the street so fancy free, I just say she always has a smile. Clare and Georgie, the perfect pair to share my last year of uni with and the laughs have just kept coming since exams have finished.

It wasn’t so much a 21st birthday party 3 months late but a celebration of where I have come from and where I am going now, a celebration of the end of schooling for the current time, for the girls who have I have met along the way and for the old to meet the new and to kick back and have a nice time.

Well the clock says its time to close now
I know I have to go now
I really want to stay here
All night, all night, all night

(3 months is a leaky boat is of course a of course a play on the title of the fabulous Split Enz song Six Months in a Leaky Boat)

(and big props to anyone who knows any of the the songs where the captions come from)

October 8, 2006October 8, 2006

Camera Obscura

I had a book out of the library the other day of the most coolest camera obscura photographs by Abelardo Morell funnily enough called Camera Obscura. I can’t descirbe how much eye candy was in this book, so you should race straight down to your nearest library and borrow the book out (Dewy Decimal – 779.092 MOR, Library of Congress – TR268 .M67 2004). Most of the photos in the book are eight (8) hour exposures!

My original plan was to black out one of the rooms at home and observe the world but following what was set out on this page, I just grabbed a cardbord box and some tracing paper/vellum for my first trial. I figured our pretty quickly that I needed a couple of blankets over the top of me to block out stray light so I could see the projected image better.

The resulting projected images whilst simple, upside down and dim are so cool!! Go grab a box, some tracing paper and a couple of blankets and play with it yourself, fun for the whole family!

September 18, 2006

POTN in the City

I spent the better half of yesterday tramping round Brisbane with a tripod on my back and a camera bag on my side with nine other like minded people who I met through Photography on the Net, which is a Canon-centric message board. It was such a delightful day spent chatting, sharing tips and of course taking photos that I was sad to leave after lunch when the others were heading over to the Roma St Parklands but I had books to read, notes to make and granola muesli to cook.

We had arranged to meet at 5:30am at Kangaroo Point to take photographs of the cityscape in early morning light and we were all wishing for clearish skies and sun. We were not that lucky but at least we didn’t have rain like we had been having for the last couple of days.

Once we had had our fill of the view from that area we boarded a cross-river ferry and headed to the Eagle St Pier/Riverside area to play along the boardwalk and between the buildings in the morning light.

The Jogger

Every morning she pounds the footpath,
Every morning she takes the same route.
She sees the same thing day in, day out,
Perhaps she notices the changes that appear,
Or maybe she doesn’t.

By now it was close to 8ish and we hopped on a CityCat to take us up to New Farm Park and the Powerhouse where we explored the industrial elements of the Powerhouse before sitting down for a warm beverage and hoping for the clouds to part again and give us some sun.

The Magnificent Seven walking through the park with the Rose Garden in their sights. Three of us were not in the shot.

In the Rose Garden I spent my time searching for fairies but yet again they let me down, I did find evidence of their life though in the following photos.

First we have some Fairy Tables.
Since the rains have finally started to come to Brisbane, the fairies have been praising the clouds as they bring mushrooms with the rain; growing in little clusters they are just perfect for a Fairy cocktail party.

Second is a newly opened Fairy Fabric Store. Have you ever seen a flower where a petal might be missing or a branch with a few missing leaves? This is prime evidence of Fairy life. Petals and leaves are excellent sources of high quality fairy cloth. This Rose store I believe might be a special occasion fabric store as the petals were all intact. Perhaps they are waiting for more mushrooms to pop up and then they will have a Fairy Ball.

After more chatting and photographing we hopped back on the CityCat and cruised the Brisbane River up to Bretts Wharf, pointing out good spots for photos along the way and then exploring the river bank at Bretts Wharf.

Then it was back on the CityCat to head back into the city for lunch and the Roma St Parklands. However, myself and three others started on the trip home after lunch instead of going to the parklands :(. As we walked through the city streets back to the ferry stop to take us back across the river to our cars I snapped this last one of the Brisbane buildingscape.