Blue Peru

 

Where : Hornsby

Weapon : Fuji S3 Pro

Paddo Patina

 

Where    : Paddington, Sydney


When     : Thursday 22nd April 2010
Weapon  : Fuji S3 Pro

This is a typical street in Paddo ... where the bizarre meets the bohemian meets the bazaar.  Old Victorian balconies with their wrought iron and ponced up terraces housing boutiques. Love it.

Sunset Over Junee

 

Where   : Mad Mile, Olympic Highway

When    : Wednesday 14th April 2010

Weapon : FujiFilm FinePix S3 Pro
Window : AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II

This was taken close to the JailBreak Inn on the road from Wagga Wagga, just before the turnoff to Junee at about 6-10pm ... sun sets a bit later than Sydney down here.

I was using the Nikon 18-200 Zoom, handheld at 1/125, ISO 1600 and f/4.  Quite a pleasing result for a clod-hopping amateur.

On Manly Beach

Where    : Manly, New South Wales

When     : 3-40pm Monday 12th April 2010

Weapon  : Fuji S3 Pro

Calm day today, with not much surf. Don't be fooled - this is not a beach to be taken lightly as the rips can be vicious. I know.

The Manly Surf Club Lifeguard is looking towards New Zealand, just 2000 kilometres away, but his concentration will be on the revellers in the water.

The Taj

Blah 

What     : Taj Mahal
Where   : Agra, Rajasthan
Weapon : Sony Cybershot DMC-P72

A recent visit to the Tandoori and Curry Club (one of the best Indian Restaurants on the North Shore) in Hornsby reminded me of our visit to the Taj Mahal in ????????.

The Taj of course is neither a mansion nor a palace at all, it is a place of death, a mausoleum, and was built by the Moghul Emperor Shah
Jahan in memory of his third and favourite wife, Mumtaz
Mahal when she died giving birth to his 14th child. 

Even on the hottest of days, with the sun radiating off the white marble, it is cold and sort of creepy. The Emperor himself wrote these memorable words about this deathly place ....

Should guilty seek asylum here, like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin.

Should a sinner make his way to this mansion, all his past sins are to be washed away.

The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs and the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes.

In this world this edifice has been made to display thereby the creator's glory. (Emperor Shah Jahan)

The Tandoori and Curry Club is neither deathly nor cold.  The food is great and the service excellent.

Paterson's Curse

What     : The Curse

Where   : Rose Hill, Cootamundra

Weapon : Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3

Paterson's Curse, Echium plantagineum (known as "Salvation Jane" in South Australia) is an introduced winter annual from the Mediterranean. Free of native insect communities, it has become a dominant pasture weed of temperate Australia. A prolific seeder, each plant offsprings in the thousands. Each seedling in turn develops large taproots which out-compete other native and cultivated germinating plant species.

Paterson's Curse can completely dominate a paddock and contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids that are poisonous to livestock, destroying the liver, reducing weight gain in beef, impacting on wool clip and in severe cases leads to death.

Not nice.

Ugly Magnolia Seeds ?

 

What     : Magnolia soulangeana

Where   : Turramurra

Weapon : FujiFilm FinePix S3 Pro
Window : AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II

The Saucer Magnolia,  Magnolia x soulangeana, was bred
about 200 years ago by a Frenchman, and now there are hundreds of
cultivars that have resulted from this initial hybrid, with Magnolia x
soulangeana ?Rustica Rubra? being a most popular specimen.  Some say the seeds are "ugly", but I think these in my garden are quite spectacular.

The Year's Best Sunflower

 

Where : Turramurra

Weapon : Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3

Best Double-Decker Train in the World

Where   : Sydney Central


When    : 12-30am April 1st 2010


Weapon : Fuji FinePix S3 Pro

This is "the best double-decker train in the world - there's no two ways about that" according to John Brown, Director, Design Resource/Transport Design International (TDI),

It looks nice.