Darwin at Work

Stacker: A remotely operated conglomeration of metal structure and conveyors, mounted on rails. Controlled from a central location, the stacker moves without warning to pour out coal into different stockpiles as it is recieved by train at the dump station. As the ships arrive, the coal is reclaimed by another machine and moved by a series of conveyors over the road to the ship loader.




Plover: Candidate for natural selection.

The Family Extended

Ah, that ever-evolving process of change that is life. I’ve taken on a flatmate, known as Country. He’s a fellow Scumbag Industries worker and a true champion. To my home life he’s brought hours of supermarket indecisiveness He’s a fellow Scumbag Industries worker and a true champion. To my home life he’s brought hours of supermarket indecisiveness, a brilliant excuse to cook more often, and of course, several too many hangovers. It’s only been a couple of weeks.

Another addition to the Groove Shack is Jonah. A kitten who is both frustratingly loaded with testosterone and unmeasurably cute. He’s perfect.

Jonah came into my life in a typically weird way. Every day the Scumbags stop at a particular bottleshop on the way home, to grab a beer after a long day of dealing with grime and grot. Consequently, we all know the staff by name and have a good relationship with them. One day my favourite staff member showed me the stray kittens that had been born out back of the shop.

Marg, I want one.

I didn’t get one that particular day, but about a week later. I was working alone, so I had a whole dual cab ScumbagMobile all to myself, and nobody else in a hurry to get home at the end of the day. Perfect for kitten-catching.

The kittens had holed up at an abandoned shop next door to the bottle shop. I made my way through the overgrown yard, plucking blackberry thorns away from grabbing at my work clothes as I went. For the first time this summer, I was glad for the heavy thickness of our uniforms. The trek through the yard behind me, I climbed onto the verandah of this abandoned shop and peered around for these supposed kittens. I spotted one, a black and white little cutie with blue eyes who looked scared to death - like he’d never seen a human up close before.

I made a diving lunge for this kitten over boxes, milk crates and old shop shelving. Missed. Nowhere to be seen. But then… I spied the tips of a pair of little black ears. I reached in and snatched. Hauling him up by the neck, we stared each other down. He was incredibly scared but bold. Too young to figure out what his claws were for, he waved them around in the air and instead leaned in and latched onto my thumb with his teeth. Little fucker drew blood.

Meanwhile, old Marg is peering over the fence. She’s pretty short, so all I can see is her eyes and the top of her head.

Did you get one? She yells.

Holding my little trophy in the air, still by the back of the neck, I showed her. There was blood streaming out of my thumb and running down my right arm.

Fucker bit me Marg!

Here, put him in a box she says, and flings an empty beer carton over the fence at me.

It doesn’t end there. I grabbed a beer from Marg, still bleeding and laughing uncontrollably about the whole adventure, then proceeded to try to make my new little charge a bit more comfortable for the long drive home. I’d grabbed a bunch of rags and the plan was to put them in the carton with him so that he had something to snuggle up on and feel comfortable in. I’d keep the box at home as a bed for him, something familiar.

Nice plan. Thankfully I’d thought enough to roll up the windows on my ScumbagMobilebecause as soon as I opened the box my little guy made a leaping dash. Smack! into the window. He then Made a run to hide somewhere in the back of the truck.

Ah well, I thought. I’ll find you when I get back to the yard.

It must have looked great on the security cameras at the vehicle yard. It’s about nine o’clock at night and there’s Vic crawling around the back of this truck for a while and then coming out hugging a beer carton! Not only that, but talking to this beer carton.

Ah well, the things you do to build a family.

Backyard Snail Relocation Program*

*also known as "Photographing a Better Snail"



Meet Mister Gastropod, our relocation test subject for today. Mister Gastropod tends to hang out on the fence. He'll move by gliding along on his foot, making his path slippery with mucus on the way. With this slippy gunge making movement easier, Mister Gastropod conracts the muscles of his foot in waves in order to reach amazing land speeds of 1mm per second. When he hangs out on the fence, though, he doesn't get into the movement thing very much. He becomes boring. He washes out onto the colourbond background too easily. He is not particularly photogenic. Hence, he becomes an ideal candidate for the Backyard Snail Relocation Program.

Mister Gastropod adapts to a change in location very easily. Unsuspecting, he will be hanging out on the fence and The Hand of Vic will descend, plucking him from his inphotogenic slumber and relocating him to a more appealing location. He will wait a few seconds in order to ensure that the Hand of Vic will not intervene and relocate him again. Then he will extend his stalks and check out his new home.

In this picture he's following his nose. Mister Gastropod has two sets of retractable "stalks" that he uses for his sensory needs. Much like us humans, the eyes are at the top and the sniffers are below. So here he's sniffing out any danger through the hole in his new leaf environment before he pokes his eye stalks through to get a look.

And after the shot was taken, The Hand of Vic rested, and will remain at rest until further relocations are required.

I've been messing about in Flickr groups quite a lot recently. Through a local contacts group I've come across a few interesting people. There's also plenty of ones that I would never bother meeting, but that's the same in the wider world as well, I guess.

Anyway, one of the better local contacts invited me to join another group. It's sadly addictive - a group where a theme or technique is decided by anyone, and then three photos need to be submitted to match that theme. After that, the members vote on the submitted photos. To me it's a great way to review other works and learn more about what I like. Also I've submitted a few and been surprised by some of the results. You only need to get five votes to win a round, but that's five votes that I had no idea were out there for the things I see and take pictures of.

Most of the challenges are decided by the first person to post a photo in that round. Usually somebody pops up and chooses "sunset" or "rocks" or "rusty" and really doesn't put too much thought into setting a real challenge. Everybody has sunset photos. We all think they're brilliant. Probably most are pretty good, but come on. It's not difficult to get a good sunset shot. The sky is doing the work for you there. That said, though... I still love a good sunset and I'll shoot them as much as I can.

I jumped in first on one of the challenges in order to be the person who decides what it's going to be. Here was my challenge:

BONES



The moderators removed it, and changed the theme of the challenge.

Seriously.

What the fuck???

So it's not your happy clappy shot. So? It's a fucking skeleton. There's no maggots (though if there were some around I would have shot them, too). To me it's a visually interesting combination of hide, skull and grass. If you wanted to be completely trite about describing it you could say a celebration of the continual cycle of life in nature or something similarly profound.

Close-minded arseholes, I say.

At least I didn't post this one:



The whole thing amuses me more than pisses me off. But it gets me to thinking...

If we approach photography, as well as any other art form, as a means of historical documentation why the hell are we always obsessed with recording the happy bits? Do we seriously want a historical record that says everything was peachy for us? What the hell will the next generation learn from that?

I would much rather see photos of destruction and things that are not readily available to my eyes than pictures of your gappy-toothed grinning sprogs with ice-cream smeared on their faces. A picture of a screaming child is more emotive, and more informative about that child than a posed-up PixiFoto Santa session. Do your kids seriously spend all year grinning hopelessly? I fucking hope not. They'll end up more shallow than Paris Hilton.

When I introduce music composition to students the first thing I discuss with them is intent. If you want to write a piece that inspires your audience to visualise every nightmare they ever had, go for it. If that's your intent. If you want to write a piece that makes people get up and leave the performance in disgust, go ahead. If that's your intent. If you want to write a piece that makes your audience visualise skipping down streets lined with picket fences, bursting blooms of flowers and bright sun, go ahead and do just that. You're most likely to find though, that the pieces that have more depth of emotion have more impact.

So why expect any different in photography? Give me reality any day.

Bones and all.

For future reference:

When attempting to photograph the slow mutilation of a butterfly caught in a spiderweb by the spider inhabiting said spiderweb, a few simple guidelines will avoid disaster, embarrassment, and realisations of grand dickheadedness.

Guideline #1 - If you are unsure of the make and model of the spider, and therefore it's capacity to be scary, it is best not to approach it while alone in a remote location.
... too late.

Guideline #2 - Thoroughly suss out all web attach points. These things are in essence a suspended snare. They have to be tied down somewhere, and severing one of the ties is likely to bring the whole intricately woven contraption (containing spider with possibly unidentified levels of scariness) into a state of being sprung and wrapped around the unwary photographer's entire body, with variable and unpredictable placement of the occupying spider.
... close. Accompany a brush with an attach point with a loud FUCK! Oh thank FUCK! Sneaky little FUCKER! and you have an accurate representation of events.

Guideline #3 - Use a long lens to get in close rather than put yourself in the firing line.
... too late.

Guideline #4 - Make sure it's not windy. Either this or bring some marvellously fat friend with you to conveniently provide a wind break. Otherwise, two disastrous things could occur... One, ninety percent of your shots could be a waving blur of unrecognisability. Or two, you could be in as close as you possibly can with your short lens and end up wearing half the intricately woven snare. In this case you will resort to dancing around in bodily jerks, slapping and grabbing at every available surface with your hands in an attempt to remove the sticky web and the occupying spider (possessing unidentified levels of scariness) from any possible resting positions.

... too late.

Slow and Steady

Believe it or not, this little guy* was moving too fast for me to get the shots that I wanted. I had to pick him up, move him back into the sunlight, and hope the hell he went the right direction when he took off again. At least the little sucker behaved enough for this one.

[* Actually, most species of snails are hermaphrodites and when they shag, each snail with fertilise the other and they both will reproduce, so both pay the price for shagging. I think that's brilliant. Also they can mate themselves, so one snail alone in a pond can still reproduce.]



What I like about wildlife photography is that it's bloody difficult to get your subjects to pose up. There's so much chance involved, you're always going to get a different shot. I don't have a nice big fuck-off lens for my camera, so getting close is an issue. Wildlife, unless it's a variety of wildlife that's incredibly dopey or incredibly slow, tends to elude me quite often.

It's become a bit of a personal challenge to capture the wildlife at the local wetlands. Frankly I suck at it. Part of me says give up until you get better equipment. Then there's this other part, the inner teacher in me, that says for years I have urged students to get past these very sorts of obstacles. Don't give up. Be patient and persistent. Your improvements may be slow and steady, but consistent effort and thought about direction will always bring improvement. You wanna be a superstar overnight? Ain't gonna happen, buddy.

Patience, and you'll get there. Slow and steady.

Sunday adventures

I got new toys today - a couple of filters for my camera. Naturally all I wanted to do straight away was go out and play with them. I decided to stop on the way home from the store and reef them out of the packet right there in a carpark at the nature reserve.

What did I find? Kids. Plenty of the little buggers everywhere. In prams, running around kicking footballs, throwing bread to the already fat ducks in the pond. So I wandered off in search of seclusion and nature, only to find that nature has kids too.

Air Guitar: Aussie Style

Coming to you from the Stroud International Brick and Rolling Pin throwing contest.

Project Black #4

Meet Joey the Turdlet, also affectionately known as BlackTurd. This boy is the biggest sook known to caninekind. He will stand at the back door, bouncing up and down and barking, causing a menace until he is let inside. From the second he is inside he turns to butter. He just lays around sleeping and begging affection.

PhotoHunt: What IS that?

Yes, it's a bird.
In fact I'm pretty sure it's a Crimson Rosella.
But why the hell does it have something pink in it's mouth?
What the hell IS that?



The answer? Chewing gum.

Cat blogging

This is one of my parents' cats - actually my sister's before she moved overseas. Now they consider it theirs until they want to hold it against her.

The washing basket, however, is mine. She was desperately trying to make herself comfortable, but it didn't end up working out for her. She left the basket with a look of disgust toward the idiot with the camera.