After watching some show on the ABC t'other night that had Bernard Fanning and his new band on, I was thinking about this song he / Powderfinger wrote, Black Tears, it was a nod to Cameron Doomadgee, the Aboriginal man that died in custody, or not... depending on which story you read.. Anyways, I just like it.. Here's my #oneTakeMondays version... [mp3t track="http://gtvone.com/music/black_tears.mp3" caption="by Simon" ind="n" vol="75" style="bigger2" bold="n"]
When I come to you for a cup of coffee and you charge me $4.30, I don't want half of the tiny glass to be foam... I want it to be no more than a centimeter, ever... It needs to be hot but not too hot, fresh, strong... You prove to me often that you shouldn't be allowed to serve coffee and certainly not for $4.30... Here is what I like. Print it out and stick it on your wall.
I've not been able to get out of the house to really give the new baby a run... Seb, the older baby, asked if we could head to the park today - a boys day out - so of course, I was "that dad" the one with the 120-300mm f/2.8 lens... at the park... I'm not going to blabber on... All images shot with the Canon 5D MKIII at ISO640 or above. One or two of the photographs of my little man made me really smile.. that, to me, is the sign of a great lens that I'd be very happy to own full time. Ha. Bias dad? Maybe...
Moments later, Seb dropped onto his head. He was OK and asked "did you get that"
This is called #Fail - By me. Focus point spotting, anyone?
That's better... Little bit of dust kicking up action with the Tonka!
Inbound!
Babies be cryin' I be driftin'...
Dad... this way! Into the spooky forest! #thatswhathesaid
Melbourne on sun down...
Seb in his element.. Tonka, Milkshake, Swishy stick...
And in Black and White.... I love this photograph of my little man.
His Milkshake brings all the mud to the yard.. damn right.. 
See... here's the mud! 
Damn right... its better than yours.. he could teach you etc etc blah
Just one more run through, dad! 
I may have splashed mud on my squishy face!
And my socks are also squishy!
Do you like what the mud does for my eyes... (300mm @ f/2.8)
Yeah... so that's what a kid, his dad and a sweetly ace Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 EX DG OS APO HSM (Err, Sigma.. less letters? ...or more! Go for the whole alphabet!) do on a cold Tuesday...
Sime
Anyone using Vine? Twitter owned, short video sharing app for iPhone. Plus: More going on than that of a single image, fun and easy to express something that takes more than just 140 characters / one word.
Minus: Damn slow to load via your regular 3G iPhone connection whatever.. even via Wifi.. Speed it up, buffer the other videos in the stream, I don't know.. it's almost enough to make me use it less. Almost.
I've posted a couple of videos on Vine recently, nothing life changing. But there are some fun ones up there.
That's my friend Jill, when I say friend, I mean I've never met her, she's a writer from the other side of the world.. I've watched her photographs on Flickr for years, now she posts crazy vids the oft make me chuckle, thanks Jill.
That's a new take on dinner via Vine. Asian Sea Bass... I'm certain my friend Alice would have LOVED the fish head.
You can get Vine on the app store.
Think of the many things you can do with this... A crazy stop motion type thing.... maybe...
...and, um, she doesn't really want to do it in this voice!
I was thinking I might produce a podcast tonight - then I had a nice cup of coffee and decided that this would have been simply daft. Instead, whilst watching the first 20 minutes of the Bombers getting thrashed, I decided that, these days, we need to be more versatile... Like photographers wasting their time complaining about convergence rather than learning how to shoot a bit of video, like film photographers saying that they're not switching to digital... Or am I confusing stubborn with versatile there, anyways, doesn't matter - I'm rambling!
What I think I mean is this... If we're not willing to try different things then we may become stagnant... I was only into photographing live music until a couple of years ago, the music was what I was after, those moments... I didn't want to really try anything else, I mixed in a little bit of boxing, a little bit of corporate portraiture, some of this, some of that..., but nothing "serious" I was happy with music...
Meanwhile, I was firmly in the "I'm never photographing a wedding!" camp - that was tooo much like hardcore pressure! Seriously! One shot at getting someone's photographs right?! no thank you very much....
I penned that I am constantly surrounded by inspiration, and that this is both a good and a bad thing - sometimes.. Well, that inspiration is also responsible for me wanting to try new photographic things. Recently I signed on as a second to Elise Garner to photograph an Ironman event, it was lots of fun and a great learning curve all at the same time...
And, amidst all of this I was pushed to be a second photographer on a wedding or two, too, and I'm really glad Katie persisted! I've had a lot of fun with weddings and I'm off to shoot another in just over a week - I don't do a zillion... Recently I did my little brother and his lovely bride's wedding - special.
A lot of people specialise, me, I've sorta gotta mix it up to keep it interesting. Life is too short to be bored, right?
-- Sime