Red Rattler

Where   : Central Station, Sydney
When    : Thursday 11/10/07, 8-30 pm
Weapon : Sony Cybershot P72

My daughter is doing a BA in Graphic Design at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, so I am forever driving up and down.  Last night though, she popped back to Sydney for the weekend on the train. There's a concert on tonight ... "Good Charlotte" ... whoever they are ! Seems like a long way to come for some apple pie crusty bits, but I guess I'd go to Wagga for the weekend to see Blondie, Led Zeppelin, Martha Davis & the Motels, Roxy Music or Bob Kerr's Whoopee Band !

I took the camera into the station to capture the architecture, and the contrast between the new and old. However, I was captivated by this old train on Platform 1, because ...

... the colours got to me; the blood and gold; they reminded me of the robes over the armour of an old Crusader. It rattled my memory - and took me to the magnificent colours of the effigy of Robert, Duke of Normandy in Gloucester Cathedral.

Robert was the eldest son of William the Conqueror .. interestingly, this type of medieval effigy inspired the design of the tomb of T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia). 

This has the warrior in the crusader position, dressed in arms, legs crossed, right arm over the heart resting on the sword, indicating he had fought in the Holy Land.

Back to the train ... I was intrigued by its great condition, leather seats and woodwork ... and this romantic, defiant glow. It's not a real "red rattler" of course, the sort that was used on the city network here in Sydney even in the 1970s. I think this is an inter-city or outer suburban express train. I am not a real "loconut", so I stand to be corrected.

This old train was resting in the mainline station, in full colours, wheels well-greased, proud, defiant and shining. Ahhh .. what is it about old trains, cars and ships that makes us so nostalgic !

Rock Tossers

Where   : F3 Overpass, Wahroonga, NSW
When    : Today, 9-00am
Weapon : Sony Cybershot P72

This is what it has come to. These cages have been created to prevent idiots chucking rocks from pedestrian bridges onto the cars and trucks passing underneath on our motorways.

Evidently, it is no longer vogue to set alight to old people's homes. The advent of mobile phones is removing public telephone boxes from our streets, so the opportunities for kicking in the side panes or trashing the coin boxes has diminished. It's tough being an irresponsible youth these days.

It is very hard to understand why people might drop rocks onto cars and trucks.  Where's the buzz in that ?

We have had several very stark and sad examples recently, one in particular resulting in the removal of part of the cranium of a young woman. The tossed rock smashed through the rear windscreen of the car in which she was travelling as she sat in the back seat. The missile crushed the back of her skull.

The alleged perpetrator, a mature young man, is currently before the courts. What do you do with people like this ?

I Hate Chatswood

Where   : Chatswood Station, Sydney

When    : 9/10/07, 4-30 pm

Weapon : Sony Cybershot P72

Chatswood gives me the irrits !  The development (shown here in - many levels, horizontals, verticals and dimensions) is all around the station.

The opening of the over-capitalised, short-changed and truncated Chatswood-Epping Line (it should have included a station at Ku-ring-gai CSU Campus and go all the way to Parramatta), is scheduled for 2008.

Pigs.

In any case, Chatswood is a mess. It has no soul. It is getting worse.

Disembarkation at Chatswood, now means that after you descend from the train, there is a journey of adventure. You can  see a train stationary at platform here.

You are forced to descend a staircase to go under the track.

Then you go up the stairs into Help Street (yes, I know !). 

Then you have to walk around the site in Help Street.

After that, you now go up the stairs and then over the top of the track.

Now, you are at the point where this photograph was taken as you go down the steps and into the shopping precinct of Victoria Street, (Hay Street North as we call it). Hey, you are here. Then you are presented with a ribbon shopping strip - a series of mostly grotty unconnected precincts; yes, it's a mess.

I hate Chatswood; there are several shopping complexes, including the rather grubby and tired Lemon Grove, an even more grungey Wallace Centre - PLUS two typically lower-end Westfield meat markets called shopping centres.

However, to be fair, I do quite like the space and the quality shops in Chatswood Chase including DJs, but then I am snob.

Having got there and traversed the complicated complexes looking for the shops you need, it's then back to the snakes and ladders of Chatswood Station.  I hate Chatswood.

St Ives Craft Show

Where   : St. Ives, Sydney

When    : Sunday 7/10/07, 1-30 pm

Weapon : Sony Cybershot P72

SWMBO and I went up to the St. Ives Craft Show on Sunday - this is a great show as it is ONLY craft and homemade stuff. 

There are some 250 stalls, no second-hand wares and no label products.

So the usual load of sharks flogging copper arts and old books, crap watches, tattoos, fabricated paintings and dud door bells like you get up at Nimbin, Uki, The Shannon and places like that are nowhere to be seen.

Here's a couple of characters ... the Brian Brown look-alike on the right is a card - makes garden furniture out of old fence palings - we have some of his stuff, namely a wishing well, a bird feeder and a sort of low, garden coffee table.

The bloke on the left was running this rustic stall, and I thought his face showed an interesting perspective on life. I think I have been there.

Natural Rain

I was out this morning, trying to get an hour's strenuous walk in before the school traffic and 4WDVs hit the tarmac, whilst enjoying the Spring through the beautiful and affluent streets here in Turramurra, Warrawee and Wahroonga.

Everywhere is so green.

This could be partly because many homes in this area may have some sort of water conservation facility in place. This might be as simple as grey water capture, or as serious as whole systems of networked and swithchable tanks.  There are also lighter versions of home-made roof and tank systems and assorted reticulation garden processes. This is good to see.

However, this new wave of aquaphilia has led to a whole new lexicon of garden and fence signage ... and, oh dear ...

Some of the notices and signs are laughable.

Many signs are obviously aimed at advertising the brand of tank or the name of the plumbers. A lot of it though is not so altruistic, it is pathetically the epitome of the full North Shore posturing and chest thumping - a shallow gratification evidently achieved by sentiments such as :

• "Look at us, we are saving water"; or


• "Don't you dare ask why my lawn is so healthy"; or


• "Dob me in and you'll look like a right arse"; or


• "We're using teardrops from heaven, why aren't you"; or


• "I'm actually not using rainwater at all, I thought I would just put up this nice, trendy sign as all the neighbours in this street have got one"; or


• "This notice fits nicely over the faded fence palings previously occupied by the old Neighbourhood Watch and This Is a Safe House signs".

Accordingly, I was delighted this morning to see the sign above, on a fence in Braeside Street, Wahroonga. I thought that the naive hyperbole probably demonstrates that the silly owner was in one of the categories above. Tankers !

Abutilon

This is one of the first photographs - an abutilon in my garden.

Yes, I know it is overexposed - I am just getting to know this camera, and there are so many settings, I am confused.

I am also at last starting to dump my old copy of Paint Shop Pro, which I have been using since 1995.

My daughter is disgusted with that - and has convinced me to now use Photoshop.

Another challenge.

Photography and Mountain Bikes

I am so bored in my youthful dotage, with nothing to do, that I am thinking of messing around with photography, which I know less than 2/3rds of the square root of Sweet Fanny Adams about.

I have this Sony Cybershot P72, with 3.2 mega pixels ... had it for 6 years I think, but never really used it, so now I have been shooting off all sorts of photographs, trying to understand how it works, apart from point and shoot.

I may be able to summon up enough drive now to get my Trek Mountain Bike back in order, and perhaps get out more, as I can no longer run too well (you know the old adage "the older you get the faster you were"), but need the exercise. As I live very close to the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, a railway, the Pacific Highway, the F3 and to Bobbin Head on the Hawksbury River, I can see that this may open up into a whole new field of interest.  We shall see. 

Any comments on my stumbling efforts in photography and how to organise them in a Typepad environment will be well received.  What I need to receive are your suggestions on how I might have made the photograph better either in the camera settings or the composition, as I really am a Philistine here. You can make your comments in private if you wish.

The results of my efforts will appear on this blog from time to time up in the right hand corner. I hope you find them interesting.