The no longer existing Sydney Monorail, photographed two years prior to its demise. Described by the ever droll and sadly no longer with us Australian writer Clive James as running ".......from the middle of downtown Sydney, to the middle of downtown Sydney, after circumnavigating the middle of downtown Sydney."
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Captured on a street in Valletta. A woman takes a photograph of another woman's bag. I take a photograph of the woman taking a photograph of another woman's bag and a guy in the distance watches me taking a photograph of a woman taking a photograph of another woman's bag. And I also take a photograph of a guy in the distance watching me take a photograph of a woman taking a photograph of another woman's bag. A loop of observers. Washday captured in the village of Tai O, Lantau Island. I've been to Hong Kong several times. The first was in 1995 when the majority of people I knew didn't own a mobile phone. Not because they couldn't afford one, more because the infrastructure was in its infancy and outside of major urban areas, such as where I lived, non-existent. The first person I knew who owned a mobile phone couldn't get a signal unless he drove almost 100km. So what I particularly noticed in Hong Kong was the prevalence of mobile phone use. And, of course, people seemed comfortable with technology in general. I was equally surprised, then, when I came across this scene fifteen years later. It brought home how wide the gap can be between the poor and the not-so-poor in even well-developed economies. People washing their clothes at a standpipe in the street was not something I expected to see in such a technologically advanced place like Hong Kong in the 21st century. Minus the plastic stool and bucket, this image could have been captured a century ago. The ironic thing is, although I embrace some technology, I would jump at the chance to capture this scene using century old photographic technology. I much prefer a washing machine for my own laundry, however. Walking upward to the Tian Tan Buddha in the village of Ngong Ping, Lantau Island. The umbrellas were shelter from the sun, not the rain. Although it was only about 32C, the 80%+ level of humidity made walking up the 268 steep steps very unpleasant. Surely three equally spaced pigeons in a row alongside a church cross is an omen of some kind? I encountered this scene in the historical town of Taree, South Australia. Giant, fluttering canvas faces in Sydney watching everything and everyone. No idea why they were there, maybe art, probably advertising, but my first thought was they seemed not so benign, a little Orwellian, a bit Big Brotherish. The 34m high Tian Tan Buddha at Po Lin Monastery, Lantau Island. The second largest in the world. A visual metaphor, perhaps, of the potential fate of small low-lying islands and their inhabitants as a result of climate change. Captured in Mui Wo, Lantau Island. Springtime vineyard scene with old grape cart near Langhorne Creek, South Australia. |