pink, blue & white

These are photos of the Dowerin Drive-in. Just taken from the side of the road. Hard to explain why, but I think these are two of my favourite photos, maybe ever. The sun had just gone over the horizon. Everything had been bright orange, then suddenly it was pink. I couldn't tell if someone was living in this caravan and the little shed next to it, or if it was abandoned. There were signs of life, but it was so run down you just couldn't tell. I felt rushed, and only took a handful of pictures, but sometimes that kind of pressure makes you look really hard and think fast. And then when you look at that handful of pictures its like, wow, thank god I stopped and took those.

Today is the first day in ages, weeks, I don't have to go somewhere or do something. I want to catch up on xmas stuff - making some kind of decoration and wrapping presents. I don't have a tree, but every year I make something, some kind of shape that is decorated. Last year I did the spray painted branch, before that I had a chicken wire and red tinsel thing for a few years. One time I had a pink tinsel cone, that was awesome! Will put up photos of this years when done.

H.

yellow & green

This week just gone was testing to say the least. I'm always glad when its the weekend, but this weekend particularly so. I think this time of year in general people are hyped up on the anticipation of xmas, holidays, nice weather, relaxing etc. Everyone is impatient to just get festivities happening, myself included.

This week my patience was tested by another work trip, where I took these photos. I really wasn't in the mood for spending 7 hours in a car and being in the middle of nowhere. I've seen some interesting things while traveling for work, and taken some photos I love which has made it worthwhile, but its really not my scene. I have things to do. In the city. Where I live. In the time after work which should really be my own time.

On a more significant note someone very special to me died this week. He had been unwell for a long time. I've spent a lot of time this week thinking about how lucky I was to know him, how the last 10 years were made better for having him around. He was my teacher (lecturer at uni) but more than that, a mentor. He was also a colleague and a friend. Its not very often someone in your life ends up being all those things at once, and it made it kind of hard to explain to people why I was crying. He wasn't just one of those things, he was all.

He had this knack of always making me feel like my ideas were valid, even though he was the teacher with years and years (and years!) of knowledge and experience, he made me feel what I had to say was just as important. He had an amazing life, knew amazing people, traveled, studied, taught, communicated. He was there for several significant events, or phases really, in my life - finishing uni, getting my first semi-real job, then the first real-real one, and buying my house. He held my hand at things I was nervous about, like one time when I had to go to a thing at Parliament House, and when we went traveling way up north. He always gave out compliments about my work (at uni, and then at my job), but the best compliment he ever gave me, that I will never forget was saying I had a highly attuned "bullshit detector", meaning I don't tolerate jargon, spin or general wankery. I like people to get to the point. This is true!

Thanks DD. For everything.

H.

xxoo

brown & white

Work trip to Pingelly again yesterday. Pingelly is nice, I've said that before. About an hour and a half out of Perth, nice buildings, lots of trees. I think it has a bit of character because its on a little hill, when most of WA is flat as a board, and its managed to hang on to lots of its older buildings, pubs, banks, shops, cottages etc. Lucky for it, it appears not to have gone through any booms in the 60s and 70s so has avoided having its older buildings replaced by new, naff, ones.

I like the font in this signage, it reminds me of a certain world-dominating soft drink brand. I expect at some time this sign read "Pingelly Butchers" or whatever this shop is, as opposed to just telling you where you are. Even though its looking a bit tatty, I hope they leave it as it is.

H.

blue & white

here's just a few scenes from bencubbin, where everything was painted the same colour blue. it was kind of pretty! it might be kind of boring, but i feel the middle picture here sums up the trip. whatever it is or was, it's closed basicially. its just kind of a remnant of something else. maybe it still has a function, i don't know. the locals would know. the pub (last pub for 203kms) was closed too, but it was a really nice building. a little worn down, but with some really good features.

H.

white & black

these were taken in wyalkatchem. i'd been so excited to go there, the place with the strange name. but there's not much there at all. this shed/shop had some interesting shapes to it. i did some editing of the colour and contrast of these, which i hardly ever do. hope its not too weird.

H.

black

australia post letterboxes in bencubbin. i did some more traveling last week, this time to a place called bencubbin which is here on a map, about 3 1/2 hours out of perth. to get there i went through several towns of varying interestingness - northam, goomaling, dowerin, wyalkatchem, and traying. northam was bigger than i expected, and was very pretty. trayning made me nervous - i felt like i was in the middle of nowhere and we weren't even where we were going yet. everything was closed, it was like a ghost town. no humans. scary.

H.

green

also from pingelly. this probably the building i liked most on my recent travels. its window signage says that it sells "fancy goods - jewellery - books" (or sold at some stage of its life... not sure if it still does). it is/was the newsagents, where you could have purchased the west australian, the broadcaster and the western mail. according to the heritage council website, it is the former union bank (see here but it doesn't say anything about it other than it was built in 1910). here's a photo from the state library of the whole building, taken c.1920s. from the outside its still very intact, except the verandas at the side have gone and there is a shop attached now.

i would like to get myself some fancy goods.

H.

pink, green & white

just a few from pingelly, which is about an hour and a half from perth. didn't have much time for photos because the sun was going down, and i was supposed to be in a meeting. happy friday everyone.

H.

green

driving home from carnamah a huge, nearly full moon came up. it was a pretty awesome sight.

blue & brown

well after that minor drama yesterday, here's some photos from the town of carnamah. i was lucky that the sun was just going down, so the light was really nice. the main street has quite a few cute buildings, and a hotel which is a real mish-mash of styles. it was very quiet. just a few dogs barking and kids playing.

am mighty relieved the problem with my pictures was resolved yesterday. it was just a tiny thing, a wrong setting that i had been playing with, but it threw me into a world of helplessness.

despite having no dramas with this blog for a whole year, and very cleverly (i thought) figuring things out, learning how to do new stuff, i was suddenly stumped and desperate for someone else's help. someone who knows what the hell they are doing! someone smart and nerdy.

in the end, the solution was as i suspected, but i'd just been too scared to do it in case i stuffed things up worse. i posted my problem on the blogger help forum, and someone replied with a very blunt one-liner (thank you!). i suspect they think i was stupid. but having them give the answer gave me the confidence to do it. and it worked. phew! i'm not sure if the lesson learned is a) never touch any settings on your blog because you clearly have no idea what you are doing and could loose all your work or b) go on take a stab at it because you might be right after all... you might be the smart and nerdy one. confusing!

H.

yellow

on the drive to carnamah the other day, we stopped so i could take some photos of the canola fields - oceans of them! going in this direction (pretty much north) i mostly saw wheat and canola, and a few sheep. its a good time of year for long drives, sunny but not too hot yet. was a good chance to play around with depth of field settings. we were listening to coldplay (driver's choice, not mine, they make me miserable) and about 5 minutes after i took these that song about yellow came on. goes something like "and it was all yellow..." and i was like yes! it is all yellow!! yellow madness. yellow canola dreams for days.

H.

blue

greetings from carnamah, a town (pop'n 400) three and a half hours out of perth. well i'm not there anymore but i was on tues. here's a map. i was pretty much in the middle of nowhere. well, it could be worse, there are far more isolated parts of wa, but it was enough for me.

was lucky enough to conclude work related matters just as the sun was setting, so went for a little wander down the main street. well, the street really. got some good photos, more soon.

H.

blue, brown & white

found this very cute building in brookton today while i was there for work. it looks like someone is in the process of renovating it... but it looks so pretty the way it is now.