Summer fishing trip

I went South for a few days for an annual pre-Christmas fishing trip.

Fishing wasn't good, but it was nice to be on my packraft and explore a few places.

Perspective

We were all saddened by the loss of people's life as a result of the Sydney siege early this week. Then, there was another news of tragedy at the school in Pakistan.


Our students had their first photo exhibition at a local gallery last week.  On the wall of the gallery, we put an information sheet to describe what photography means to us. On this, I wrote,  

"through photographic images, we can experience a perspective of those behind the lens, which can help us to learn and to see the world differently. By learning how other people see, we can be more forgiving and tolerant towards those having different views and values in life. I believe this is the biggest benefit of students learning photography at school".

Tetris

Everyone was crazy about Tetris when I was in high school. As I remembered, the game was developed by the old Soviet as an education program.

I saw piles of containers in Fremantle yesterday. They reminded me of the Russian music that was playing in Tetris, and Perestroika, which my friend and I thought was a type of Russian bread at that time.

Little afternoon visitor

It was something like 34 degree today.

I went outside to see if I should go fishing, but it felt too hot, so I went back inside.

As I was closing a door, I saw a tiny cricket hanging on the door frame.

Perhaps our visitor was taking refuge from heat as well.

Fishing at bridge

I went out fishing on Friday evening with my friend.

We are hoping to catch some tailors, but they didn't show up.

We saw a few big black breams at the bridge, but they were too smart for us to catch.

What I scored today

To finish off my holiday, my friend and I went to do a treasure hunting at a clearance sale of a local outdoor gear whole seller today.

I bought two pairs of trekking poles at a super bargain price for start (I think buying a piece of aluminum tubing at a local hardware store would have cost more). 

I also got a bag of tent pegs which I have been thinking to replace my old Macpac original pegs (they bend easily).  I believe that the set of pegs was for a tent that they used to sell, and I only paid for a couple of dollars for a bag of ten.

The last items that I bought were a few pairs of merino wool hiking socks and base-layer, and again they were very very cheap.

What a score!

Once in a red moon

The river and sky looked spooky because of the eerie moon eclipse last night.

Canon's auto white balance is usually great, but it was producing a strange colour cast.

We went home before vampires were coming out.

Richard Avedon at the Art Gallery of WA

I went to see an exhibition of Richard Avedon's work at the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

I thought a photo of a female model standing in front of elephants was interesting. The model looked very graceful in a beautiful dress while elephants had a chain on their legs, and they were looking rather sad. The animals had lost their wildness and freedom while the model stood with her chin up with her pride and elegance.

I don't know what the photographer's intention was, but to me, the image was showing an ugliness lying behind beauty. Something we tend to overlook in our society. 

I must say other images didn't appeal to me much partly because of a terrible lighting that the gallery had set up. Almost every image had a spot light at it from a wrong angle and wrong height I guess, which was creating a terrible reflection not only on that image but also onto the image sitting next to it.

I moved left and right like a crab facing an enemy fish to find a better angle of attack, but my effort was fruitless. How I am meant to enjoy an art work if I just can't see the image properly?

Anyway, I picked up two brochures before I left the gallery, and it was ironic that these looked far better than what I saw in the exhibition.

Monday Public Holiday

Yesterday was a public holiday, and my friend and I went fishing to catch some whitings in the Peel Estuary.

We didn't see any whiting unfortunately, but I hooked a good size bream in a boat harbour. I was dropping a shrimp pattern from a jetty, and the fish came up to grab it as the fly was falling down to the bottom.

The angry bream was trying to go around the jetty pylons, and I thought I was going to loose it knowing the 4x tippet won't have any chance against those sharp barnacles clinging onto the jetty.

In the end, I managed to steer the fish away from pillars and rocks to bring it to my landing net. It was fun.

Spring flowers

Flowers are blooming. It is Springtime in Australia.

梅の花が咲き始めています。西オーストラリアは、春になりました。

カレーパン

Who would have thought we would be able to eat an authentic Japanese curry bread in Perth?

Not only kare-pan, you can also buy yakisoba pan and cream pan as well, thanks to the cafe / bakery called "Mighty Manna" in Southlands Shopping Centre.

They were so yummy.

Banzai!

Winter is over, I think

Some photos of my fishing outing on Saturday.

It was nice to be out, and by the look of it, winter is over, I think.

A dolphin was going up river to look for snacks

I saw a sea eagle coming down to sit on a pole

I got a few small fish in the end

Silver print

My friend and I tried digital silver print yesterday.

First, I created a negative by printing out an image onto a sheet of OHP film with my Canon printer. Then I took it to my friend's darkroom to develop images using silver printing technique.

It took us a whole afternoon to figure out what we were supposed to be doing, but in the end, we got some ideas of the process.

I am not sure yet about if there is  any big benefit of the old printing method against printing images with a top quality ink jet printer where I got a huge selection of paper to choose, but it was fun at least.

Colourful flowers on a winter day

I was busy on the past two weekends as I was taking our guests from Japan to do some sightseeing around Perth. 

They left here on the last Monday, so I had time to my self on the weekend.  I went to camera shops to buy some photo paper, and catch up with my friends at a park.

The weather has been good for the past few days, and flowers are looking to be enjoying warm sunny days.

Ditch your car and walk

Every time I drive around to take photos, I end up getting annoyed for not being able to stop my car and take photos. Seeing something interesting, and all I can do is to keep driving with a flow of traffic. 

It will be OK, if I was on a country road, but in places like Perth and Fremantle where free parking spots are as rare as car drivers who can merge, the best option is to ditch my car and walk. If I was to cover a larger area, I would rather jump on my brompton and pedal along instead.

Going slow is probably not a good thing, if I was a pizza deliverer. For photographers, it is a different story, I think.