Paris Eye 1/30 - Rue de Bourgogne

After negotiating my way out of CdG airport and into Gare de Nord, I then had to grit my teeth and deal with the myriad steps in the Metros. From La Chappelle to Place de Clichy, through Gare Saint Lazare, over the Seine and into my 'local' which is Varenne.

I like my apartment. It is small (yet expensive, for me anyways!) but it is in a lovely area with all daily requirements on the street within 100m. I can see the top of the Eiffel Tower behind the opposite apartments and down the end of the street is the National Assembly.

I meet my first blogger for coffee tomorrow. I am staying in today as I am weary and wobbly on my feet. The last five days have been mega.

Au revoir

Je vais par avion à Paris pour quatre semaines. J’ecrit. Je lit. Je fait photographie. Je travaille davantage sur mes antécédents généalogique. Je promenade. Je boit cafe creme. Je boit vin rouge - un peu. Je ne mange pas trop de la fromage ou trop de la pâtisseries. Je m'assieds dans le soleil et je pense, mais lentement.

J'ecrit le blog 'Sydney Eye' mais à Paris avec parisien photographies. Je vous vois en deux jours. Au revoir mes amis.

Marked for posterity

For the last ten months, two cousins and I have been organising a family reunion. Yesterday was the big day: 80+ relations, covering four generations, met in a venue in Western Sydnay. We were all descended from someone in one particular photograph taken in 1924.

Our gift to the gathering was a scroll which they were all invited, nay dragooned, to sign - even those among us who were not up to the writing stage.


My grand-daughter watched intruiged as her father held her and her mother painted her hand with black paint, and squeezed it down upon the canvas surround of the photograph. In another 87 years, I hope she will feel a thrill to look at this imprint and acknowledge those who came before.

Yum cha

'Emporer Garden' in Dixon Street for early Yum Cha on this extraordinary day for state poliltics. Good to mooch around with brothers and neices and nephews. Not forgetting my wonderful sister-in-law.

Seniors Snap & Click

Ferdie was acclaimed for the best portrait. I have this theory, that the longer a couple stays together the more they come to resemble each other. I see a resemblance in character between Ferdie and his subject. His subject was sitting down at Circular Quay last Tuesday week.


Although I forget her name, I will not forget her joy and her enthusiasm on having her photograph acclaimed for composition. She was so chuffed at getting off 'P'.

And below is the Tuesday group of Seniors with yours truly. Now, I seem to have the task of contacting all by email and sharing the shots of the ceremony. If only one or two of us keep getting together for shooting expeditions it will have been well worth it.

Cabbage Tree palm

These are Cabbage Tree palms - livistona australis. When Sydney was settled by Europeans in January 1788, there were healthy stands of CTP around the area. However, within a few short months, there were very few within 10 miles of Sydney Cove. The fanned leaves were sought after for thatching daub and wattle huts.

The City of Sydney is replanting these palms at a great rate of knots. They are not my favourite. I gather the inner part of the fan develops a fruit in the shape of a cabbage. It also has long brushes of white flowers.

Look at me ... look at me

In front of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), I was lining up the park benches and the gnarled trunks of the peppercorn trees, when this chicky-babe strode across my stage. She knew I was setting it up; she knew she would be in the frame. So, I adjusted my expectations ... with this result.


As I wandered between the benches, shooting along and across, alternating directions up then down, she acknowledged me and hoped she had not gotten in my way.

The bridge that stalks

Apropos of absolutley nothing, when I was a kid I was a fan of two comics: Caspar, the Friendly Ghost; and, Phantom, the Ghost who Walks. I thought to share that with you when concocting a title for this post, because what sprang to mind scanned perfectly with 'the ghost who walks'. As you were ...

In the inner city, everywhichway one turns, one sees either the Sydney Harbour Bridge or Centrepoint Tower. Centrepoint kapows you in the eye, whereas the bridge sneaks upon you around corners.


These shots were taken on a walkway over the still-being-renovated Pitt Street Mall. The first two shots are looking north toward the harbour, and the final shot is looking south. I was walking from Myers, across the walkway, through Westfield and then into David Jones, hunting for a pair of grey-checked Converse sneakers. Need to wear them when negotiating the jungle with Phantom and Diana.

Wasted on the young

Love is lovelier The second time around Just as wonderful With both feet on the ground It's that second time you hear Your love song sung Makes you think perhaps that love Like youth, is wasted on the young Love's more comfortable The second time you fall Like a friendly home The second time you call Who can say What brought us to this miracle we've found There are those who'd bet Love comes but once and yet I'm oh so glad we met The second time around. Sammy Kahn & Jimmy Van Heusen (1960)

Seniors' Week - Keeping the grey cells ticking over

Getting old is a lot of fun. A lot of fun if you are physically active. A lot of fun if you are mentally active. These two attributes work in tandem to keep one young. Yossarian would be proud of that!

This week is NSW Seniors' Week and I have been celebrating/participating for two weeks already. Where are the rest of you?


The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) down at Circular Quay, and the Australian Centre for Photography (ACP) up here in Paddington, have been running three parallel photography workshops for seniors over three weeks, four hours each workshop. This week is the final workshop, where they walk us through Photoshop. Friday coming is our exhibition at the MCA. We are encouraged to submit 5 shots. I have shown you some of mine over the last few days.

The top shot today is panning with a slow shutter speed, and narrow aperture. My stats were: F18, 1/15, ISO100, 55mm. The jogging figure should have been frozen ... but hey ...

Tom is our tutor from the ACP, and Jill is one of the other participants. Each workshop has 10 seniors, so 30 of us all told.

Don't bellyache over the impossible

Not being one to avoid the hard queston, I asked John if he'd had a stroke. Nope, he responded: when I was 31 I raced motor cars and took one risk too many. Totally his fault, he added.

We chatted about life choices over the intervening 41 years, he with his camera, me with mine, he with his chair, me with my cane. Two oldies road-testing d-SLRs in the manual setting, and struggling with layers of post-processing. Two oldies just getting on with the possible.


He is part of a research project to look into how people respond to catastrophic events. Why do some people condentrate on what they have lost, while others use what they have left to simply get on with it? John said that the black-dog can overwhelm at times, but the organism has a propensity to clang back to its positive trajectory.

Groundhog day

Lunchtime, the forecourt of the Overseas Passenger Terminal, Sydney Cove

Three figures in a landscape

Photograph by Julie, processing by Kirsten

Taken from the top walkway of the Overseas Passenger Terminal looking south into the financial hub of the CBD with the Cahill Expressway lower front.

Lines to shapes

Some lines go up and down; some lines go round and round.

The Overseas Passenger Terminal on the western side of Sydney Cove, with the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background.

Greenhouse by Joost

This 'pop-up' restaurant occupies prime real-estate on the harbour until 27th March. I was absolutely smitten by the 'terrace' of wild strawberries. It is down in Campbell's Cove, which is between the Opera House and the Bridge, around from the Overseas Passenger Terminal.


'Green-house by Joost' is a bit of a foodie-fad, so I have given you a link to a review rather than to the hype from the creators of the concept.

Originally a Melbourne initiative by Dutch-born florist, artist, builder and environmentalist Joost Bakker in 2008, Bakker has chosen a pop-up as a vehicle for hard messages about how we should be constructing buildings, sourcing produce and materials, working with others and interacting with our planet.

Some of the comments on the review are not particularly flattering.

Snap!

India Bhari was infusing the mall with his own form of soul balm, when I irritated him. I smiled broadly for his video, then went up, bowed and added $5 to his collection bowl.

Slippers and hot cocoa - not!

Whether tramping the mist-shrouded hills of Borneo, or assisting in the mosquito-infested camps of central Africa, Helen goes at a pace few people half her age could sustain. Not for her the afternoon serials on 'the box', or the blather of the 24-hour news cycle. Not for her rocking on the back porch in her pearl-buttoned cardigan, cat in lap and hot cocoa to hand. Helen's desire is to go out with her boots on.

Taboo

In her exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Annie Liebovitz contronts the taboo of death head on, and with a clear eye. She stares death in the face twice: once with Susan Sontag; and, again training her lens on her dying and dead father. I was accepted into a three week (three day) photography course for seniors at the MCA, and our first session was a tour of the AL exhibition with two experienced guides. The most emotion and discussion arose whilst viewing this category of image.


Some of my classmates were confronted, some were disgusted, some were outraged, and yet others wounded personally. Some could not look and walked off to look at the shots of Kidman or Jagger, instead.


My father is not dead, but he is into that final straight. In three months he will be 90 - if he makes it. Today he mostly slept through my visit. He took a few mouthfuls of a ripe plum. Ate one piece of Cadbury's Dairy Milk. Took the tiniest sip of lemon Solo through a straw. But mostly he slept as I stroked his forehead, or rubbed his hand. His eyes fluttered to see who it was. Let's hope he is stronger on Monday when I next visit. This is selfish of me, for I know he does not want to be stronger.

Body language

Often there is an instant reaction to a stranger - whether in the positive or in the negative. Where do YOU get your information from about people? Is is how they look, or what they say? Or do you have 'cats' whiskers' that pick up more subtle vibes?

Discretely scarlet

Paddington Town Hall

Paddington no longer has a Lord Mayor (but is part of the municipality of Woollahra) and so the town hall which has a commanding position that overlooks both the harbour and the CBD, is now both a library and a series of cinemas known as The Chauvel. There is also an ornaate great hall that is available for hire.


The foundation stone for the Town Hall was laid in 1888 by Sir Henry Parkes, with the 32 metre high clock tower being added in 1905.

In comparison to Victoria Barracks (commenced in 1840), the town hall is but a whippersnapper. This imposing colonade of Vic Barracks is off the main parade ground where the young man was playing cricket yesterday.

More boys out and about

Oh dear, International Womens' Day and here I am featuring boys - again! Well that is the way the cookie crumbles. Not sure that I agree with quotas to correct imbalances.

The climbing tree is a Fig down on the foreshore at Watson's Bay. The cricket pitch is on the main parade ground at Victoria Barracks. Both shots taken this past Sunday.

For young boys, summer never fades

This boy and his younger brother had a wonderful time, flicking sand and water at each other, and trying to run like billie-oh through the shallows to escape - with predictable, and eagerly anticipated, results.


Once again, taken at Watson's Bay, but this time closer to the wharf from where the smell of fish'n'chips was sending me beserk!

The last gasps of summer

I did not know if my figure in the landscape was male or female. I did not know if the gulls were being whispered to, or the harbour swell. What I read was the 'oneness' between man and nature. We can do it sometimes, you know.

Taken, on this first weekend in Autumn, at Watson's Bay harbourside beach, which is immediately inside South Head.

Lord Howe Island - Castles in the mist

Out in the streams of the Pacific Ocean, the weather can change on the head of a pin, and a wily tour operator has plans, rather than schedules. No sooner had we tossed our bags through the guest-house door, than we were clambering onto a charter vessel taking a dozen of us the 6 kms down the lagoon, and then another 23 kms through open waters to Ball's Pyramid, the eroded remnant of a long-gone volcanic island which rises 551m above sea-level.


Both the light and the peace were magical. Shearwaters dipped and waved around and across our bow. Masked Boobys kept pace as we ploughed through the swell. Petrels soared magnificently overhead riding whe upper atmosphere. Eventually the sated camera finger was stilled. The camera of the mind's eye whirred on.


Follow my Lord Howe Island escape on Hither & thither as from today.