I don’t know why, but I never ask the questions I want to ask at the time I can ask them. We were there as a rather large group – with five of us inside the observatory at a time, and the others waiting out on the lawn. There was question time afterwards. I asked Barry what model camera he was using (turns out its a Canon EOS400D, basically the entry level Canon DSLR – so nothing special required!) but other than that… no further questions. No questions about how he got into it, how he learnt what he needed to learn, how he kept motivated to continue… the kind of questions which could result in answers that could well motivate me toward something….. whether it be working out what I want to do with photography or just something completely arbitrary.

I could have asked him a bunch of questions and then came back home and wrote up a piece on this man and his observatory. I could have done it in a journalistic way. But instead I just stood there listening to what he had to say and remained uninquisitive.

Perhaps I’m just tired. Maybe that’s all. I was maybe too tired to be really interested enough, but nonetheless, something about tonight I found fascinating… maybe it’s the fact that the creation we were talking about and looking at truly is… indescribable. We had been watching Louie Giglio’s Indescribable DVD at our guys group (it’s in two parts and I missed the second and didn’t pay much attention during the first) which is why we went out to see the observatory tonight. My attitude was something of the sorts of….yeah, it’s just about the sky. I know God made it, I know it’s pretty amazing, but that doesn’t mean I necessarily want to listen to a sermon on it. But tonight, I realised I might be missing something. Perhaps it was the enthusiasm of the other guys. Or perhaps it was, as Barry was speaking, when I realised that this is geography, astronomy, and photography all coming together – knowledge from all three fields all being applied – at once.

Let me explain. I have a bit of a wide variation of interests. I like IT, the media, politics, psychology, language, photography and geography to name a few. And I get excited when I can bring together what I know as a result of having these interests. I can report on the workings of a political party by photographing politicians and watching the way they interact with each other, then put that together on a webpage. That’s five of those listed interests working together. And as I was listening to Barry tonight, realising that if you want to photograph star trails you need to have geographic understanding to know whether you want to shoot to the north or south depending on the type of star trail you want and where you are in the world, I think I got excited that this is another link between the things I enjoy.

What does that mean? That I might enjoy astronomy? I don’t quite understand yet why I seem to be interested in such a wide range of activities. I used to be set on IT – no way is that my life anymore. I’m expanding, learning new things, almost trying to know a bit about everything. Sure it means I’ll never get bored, but what am I moving towards? Am I just keeping my options open? I think I’m heading towards something so unique and exciting that only I can do it with the exact set of skills and know-how I’m picking up now. The exact…but very varied set. I’m not going to be an expert at one thing, but rather I’m going to know a bit about a lot that will come together and let me achieve something that no-one else can achieve. That’s what I think I want to do. I just don’t know yet what it’s going to be.

Fascinating.

This week’s photo was taken on Wednesday (20th February) at about 11am in the morning from the Snowy Hydro SouthCare Helicopter over Tuggeranong, in south Canberra. Over on the right you can see part of the Tuggeranong Town Centre (including a Bunnings store), with the suburb of Oxley below it. Monash takes up the majority of the bottom half of the photo, with Isabella Plains and Bonython in the centre left, and Gordon above them in the distance.

You can click it to enlarge. The original is here.

But this week’s photo was taken just outside Bungendore on the same weekend as recent photos of the week.

You can click it to enlarge. The original is here.

You can click it to enlarge. The original is here.

And that’s the simple story of how I came to be at the Canberra School of Photography this evening. I’m hoping to refine what I’ve taught myself over the last few years and learn the way that the real professionals do it, so that I can take better photos of people I know or things I see when I’m away, and so that I can put the skills to use as they’re needed at work.

Because it’s late, and I’m tired because I was out late for my birthday last night, I’m really not in the mood to write more, so I will just post a few photos that I took tonight. I promised those at the course that I’d put up more of my other photos – they will be here sometime later this week. In the meantime, the first photo you could have a look at is my first photo of the week. I would be very keen for your comments – especially from those of you who have had more experience than me!

And these four photos were taken tonight. They really don’t need much explanation. Click them for a slightly larger view.

I once tried the photo a day thing, but I gave up when I realised it was too much work to find and edit a good photo every day. Doing it once a week leaves more time to find a truly good photo, and hey, I then only need to do it 52 times a year rather than 365.

When possible, the photo of the week will be a photo that I have taken that week. When not possible (if I’d had a rather normal week), it’ll be a photo chosen from my library (which dates back to my first digital camera in November 2003). The new photo of the week will be released around this time every Monday morning.

This week’s photo was actually taken last weekend (on 6th Jan) at Pebbly Beach on the New South Wales south coast – between Ulladulla and Batemans Bay – and, uh, it’s of a bird. I’m not sure what kind of bird, but it was quite pretty! It’s on the right – click it to enlarge. The original is here.

Oh, by the way, I’m no longer a teenager as of today!

Photos

There’s a few places you can look for photos. There’s my Black Stump 2006 photo gallery, the official photo gallery, or other stumpers’ photos posted on the Stump forums.

Things I remembered

The first thing I remember about the weekend is hearing from Donna Mulhearn. She talked three times, but I only heard her third talk, last thing before leaving on the Monday (probably why it’s the freshest in my mind). She spoke about Pine Gap – the military facility 20kms out of Alice Springs – and how she and three other people from the Christians Against All Terrorism group broke in to the facility in December last year. They were arrested and their trial started yesterday; you can read about it on PineGap6.org. I’m not too sure I agree with what they’re doing; it’s certainly way out there…

Other than that, the weekend gave me a good chance to have a short but well deserved break from work, and just to sit back to listen to some great music. My favourite bands would have been Antiskeptic and Compliments of Gus, and my favourite venue the Genesis Lounge. The Genesis Lounge was a new venue this year, and it provided a quiet place to sit and reflect, with live acoustic worship every night.

I also received more enthusiam for working on improving our small group at church. I won’t write about all that here, but it certainly needs some work and someone to do it.

Next year

Next year I might try to get into an IT support role. If not, then I still enjoyed security so I may try that again. I much prefer doing something there rather than just being a participant! (And it’s not only because I get in for free )

And that’s about all I have to say for now!

See also

• Korske’s Black Stump writeup

It has died down though, which is great!

So yes, I should probably get to the point of this post: I had my first car accident on Saturday! Now I’m only happy because it wasn’t my fault and no-one was hurt. It did mean I lost about 4 hours out of my Saturday afternoon, but at least I now know what to do if it ever happens again.

So this is what my car now looks like:

Unfortunately it isn’t drivable, because the tyre flattened, the rim bent, the door doesn’t shut properly, and some black thing fell out (don’t ask me what it is). Basically I don’t quite understand what’s wrong, but there’s no way I’d drive it.

The car was hit on the passenger side – luckily there was no-one in it (although they probably wouldn’t have been hurt anyway). It happened while I was coming through a roundabout – the other party failed to give way as they entered. Luckily, they have comprehensive insurance with NRMA, so everything is covered. They were nice people as well – it wouldn’t have been fun to have an accident with people who would try to get out of everything they can even when it was their fault…

So basically what it means is I have to catch the bus to work for awhile. The car was towed away for repairs today, so hopefully (fingers crossed) I’ll have it back by mid next week.

And that’s the story of my first accident.

Now, that is something I’d love to do at some point in my life. What an adventure – physically exerting, potentially tough living conditions, fantastic photo opportunities, real friendship building, a chance to meet many great people by staying with couch surfers, and simply just the opportunity to do something different.

Unfortunately, the industry I’m in at this point in time won’t allow something of that sort. In the IT industry, taking two years off will render you useless when you return. You’ll be doing things that were “so two years ago” and that would have been far surpassed by newer and greater technology. Yes, in IT, two years off would be career suicide – unless you spent awhile catching up on what you’d missed.

Isn’t it unfortunate, having probably my two biggest interests (IT and travel/photography/adventure) in conflicting areas? And so begins another thing in my quest to find out what I shall do in life.

Here’s a few of my recent attempts:

The first two were taken at the Australian National Botanic Gardens, and the third was taken at the Australian War Memorial.

It’s amazing how much of your own city you realise you haven’t seen before when you’re showing around a tourist.