We rented a Ford Mustang and hit the road out of town. When we accelerated onto the freeway, the look on Pond’s face was priceless as she exclaimed “oooh!”
I queued some appropriate songs. The landscape sped past. Moving onto some side roads, we pulled the top down and enjoyed feeling like ... somebody else.
We had a quiet lunch in a popular country town and, returning home, felt like the world had taken on a slightly different quality – just for a day.
I hadn’t considered just how different it would feel, though, and I wonder how we might experiment like this in other ways to bring other little sparks of joy into our life.
The “morning person” part of my brain never lets me sleep too long – it was up and out of the house each morning of this long weekend, onto a tram or a train or a bus, and off to some other part of town while everything was still peaceful. I took photos with numerous devices, and would've walked over 25km in total.
One morning, I spotted somebody's Christmas remnants and heard Fleetwood Mac leaking out of a popular cafe before resting in a park while a pair of masked lapwings patrolled the grass near me. Another morning, a wafting smell of food grabbed me as I crossed a railway bridge, and just nearby, a friendly cat talked to me from somebody's garden. The cat had so much to tell me, in fact, that it jumped the fence into a neighbouring garden to continue meowing to me as I walked away.
The streets remained quiet, though, for which I'm grateful. My restless mind craves a chance to breathe, to listen, to explore without the stress of a crowd. Sometimes, I'm revisiting memories; Sometimes I'm thinking about conversations I need to have, and it's all part of a never-ending battle to Remain Present. Music helps, and often it's the soundscapes that really help.
I like drone music. I'm trying to get to like drone photography but it feels like a harder slog so far. My resting father, a glider pilot, may have enjoyed it moreso, but only if he couldn't do the real thing.
I did the necessary registering and certification stuff, which wasn't too onerous for Australia, but moreso in Thailand when I took it along just in case I'd be able to use it. The 150m limit (generally, around where I am) doesn't feel like an issue – I've never gone higher than 100m so far, and still had pleasant-enough results. It feels like I have to go through that “the first 10,000 photos are going to be terrible” process all over again in order to feel like it's part of my overall mission.
I love the vistas I see from travellers like Yan, but accept that I probably won't be travelling that much or that far. There've been occasional moments, though:
It'll be a slow burn, this one. The hard part is finding a diversity of times and places to practice – it's much less immediate than the camera in my hand, but the payback is the opportunities that I'm hoping it will open up. All said, I'm grateful to my prior employer for the 10-year tenure gift card that prompted me to consider this at the start of last year.
(click through to see the original photos in their full panoramic glory, BTW – they're getting squeezed in this blog)
We visited Ueno Station one cold, grey morning, entirely because of a memory of an old song, as you do – or, well, as I do.
My wife found it odd. I couldn't really explain how songs seep into your bones over time, but it related to how I needed to experience a more random nature of Tokyo beyond other people's top-N lists.
We could've seen anything at all here, and it would've helped a few more connections form somewhere in my brain. That's what I'm looking for – the joy of less-conscious discoveries. After all, it's up to you what the image means.
Stopping off for a mid-morning coffee after dropping off some slide film to Vanbar for development, I noticed that if #Marios on Brunswick St in #Fitzroy can make it along for another four years it'll be 40 years old! It's been a reliable source of Eggs Benedict and/or coffees for me for much of that time.
The entryway hasn't changed – from 2005:
One strong memory is from when I bought my very first brand new film camera, in 2008 – a Bessa R4A with a 28mm lens – and my first photos with it were taken there after running into a couple of Flickr friends:
I since took other cameras there (2010):
But also took other lovely portraits outside other, nearby cafés – this one on Smith St in 2013:
In the process of digging, some other good café window views came up:
from the northern edge of Thornbury in 2010:
from South Preston with a pinhole camera in 2010:
from Fremantle in 2009:
from a long-gone café in Xi'an in 2013:
and from South Preston in 2017:
Nothing beats the window at Captains of Industry in the heart of the city, though – I have countless photos of it:
Earlier this year I found myself in #Huế, a city full of pre-20th-Century Vietnamese history – to be fair, I found myself there because I'd read up on that stuff, hoping to get a little more from my trip than the usual “American War” fare and see some remnants of the Nguyễn dynasty and such.
Having some time on my hands is a gift – I've been using it to just get out and spend time on my feet, each day. I might struggle to suggest that I'm making the most of my time, but that's the point – I don't have to! The main battle has been to disconnect myself from the constant need to feel productive, and to just let it happen. This includes photographic opportunities.
When the pandemic hit and we were stuck with just being able to walk in an N-km radius from home, I assumed it’d all be fine because I’d still be able to pursue my #FilmPhotography and find plenty of things to take photos of. Somehow, though, it didn’t work out like that.
