Mar 24 2013
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Evening thunderstorm, Brisbane

Sunday 24th March 2013, 6.20pm (day 577)

Thunderstorm, Brisbane, 24/3/13

Does a photo have to be sharp? This is the most blantantly out-of-focus shot I’ve put up here, but I dunno, I think it works. I don’t mean to cast Brisbane as the rainy city – in fact it was a very warm and sunny day today for all but this hour between 6 and 7pm, in which it hurled it down with intense lightning and thunder. I was sat in a bar at the time and just did my best to get a shot that gave a hint of the atrocious conditions outside.

By the way this is the 11th consecutive day on which the shot has been taken in the same town/city – so Brisbane takes the record on that front, as even Hebden Bridge, my home town, has not yet got beyond featuring on ten daily pics in a row. There’ll be a couple more yet from Brisbane, as well: I’m not planning to visit anywhere else until at least Thursday. I think it’s still got things to offer the camera.

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Mar 23 2013
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Daily Post, Family Member, Portrait

Light Render

Saturday 23rd March 2013, 1.55pm (day 576)

Light Render, 23/3/13

Light Render is an art installation by Caitlin Franzmann, currently on display at the QUT Art Museum. According to the blurb for this exhibit, in which a video camera is pointed at a mirrored cube and the image displayed on the wall behind, the point is to allow visitors to the gallery to insert themselves into the art work in various ways by interposing themselves into the camera’s line of sight and/or the feed itself. So that is what I have done here – the two man-shaped shadows you see here are both me.

And seeing as this blog is my own ‘work of art’, an extended record of my life, here Ms Franzmann’s work of art inserts itself into my own work of art and everyone’s work of art becomes a small part of everyone else’s…. in some giant recursion. Or something like that.

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Mar 22 2013
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Daily Post, Interior

Old Government House, QUT

Friday 22nd March 2013, 9.45 am (day 575)

Old Government House, 22/3/13

This building sits within QUT’s campus. It was the first seat of government of the state, built between 1860 and 1862 and in use as the state parliament until 1910. It is now mainly used as a cafe and a nice place to take the weight off one’s feet, sit in a shady spot and check social media (or whatever). Which is a decent way to evolve as a building I guess.

And yes, though I like this photo, I know it would have been even better if I had centered the doors at the back exactly between the pillars.

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Mar 21 2013
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Daily Post, Interior

Working at home, kind of

Thursday 21st March 2013, 10.35am (day 574)

Kookaburra workspace, 21/3/13

It’s not exactly home, but I’m here often enough at the moment. And I was working. Honestly. All the trappings are there – Mac, cup of tea, the essentials.

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Mar 20 2013
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger, Urban scene

Queensland, the Sunshine State

Wednesday 20th March 2013, 3.50pm (day 573)

Umbrellas, 20/3/13

Irony warning…. I don’t mean to suggest it was like this all day, just this one heavy shower, but this is the only place I have seen rain in the whole 8 weeks I’ve been here, including in New Zealand.

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Mar 19 2013
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Daily Post, Friend, Interior, Portrait

Network launch, QUT

Tuesday 19th March 2013, 3.55pm (day 572)

Christine, HERN launch, 19/3/13

Feel like I should feature on here some of the nice people at QUT (Queensland University of Technology) who have set up this academic visit of mine and are doing their best to make me feel at home. This is Christine, speaking at today’s launch of the HERN (Higher Education Research Network), in the atrium of one of their impressive new buildings (in fact, on the floor above the Digital Barrier Reef which featured back in early February). There are actually a couple of hundred people in this room at this point, but I like the sense of emptiness in the shot.

Incidentally, I think the following universities have featured on this blog at some point, in no particular order: Manchester, QUT, Charles Sturt, Helsinki, Otago, Alabama, Leeds, Birmingham City, Bergen, Bergen University College (these are two different institutions) and the Academy of National Economy in Moscow. The nicest campus? Er…. probably Alabama.

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Mar 18 2013
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Butterfly on a paperbark tree

Monday 18th March 2013, 1.50pm (day 571)

Butterfly on paperbark tree, 18/3/13_low-res

I’m trying to resist the temptation to overdo the ‘Flora/Fauna’ theme but don’t seem able to kick the habit. This was taken in the Boondall wetlands, where I wandered, around lunchtime. I needed some headspace so took my laptop and finished off the paper I needed to write while mainly sitting in a birdwatchers’ hide at the mouth of the Nundah creek. Memo to self though – if visiting wetlands, take insect repellent.

Some great insects however, including more butterflies than I think I have ever seen anywhere. Have no idea what this species is specifically, but there were lots of them, and this one is definitely resting on a paperbark tree – called as such for obvious reasons.

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Mar 17 2013
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Daily Post, Interior

Gilhooley’s Pub

Sunday 17th March 2013, 11.50pm (day 570)

Gilhooley's pub, 17/3/13

I was working (teaching online) until nearly 10.45pm today so it was rather late once I got to the pub, and with it being St Patrick’s Day, it was like, come into the party late but sober, or just go home and ignore it all. I went in for a drink. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I started talking to someone only to later have her friends basically tell me to piss off, for no reason other than they were wankers. So much for the legendary hospitality of denizens of the Emerald Isle. But Brighton beat Crystal Palace 3-0, which restored my faith in the rightness of the universe.

Why this shot? Because it’s green, because it amuses me that the cardboard leprechaun behind the customer has collapsed in a state of drunkenness, because I worked for 13 hours today (on a Sunday!) and didn’t get much chance to take much else, and because this now takes the record for the latest shot yet in any given day.

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Mar 16 2013
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Flower with water droplets, Tropical House

Saturday 16th March 2013, 10.55am (day 569)

Flower and water droplets, 16/3/13

Taken in the Tropical House of Brisbane’s other Botanical Gardens, on the slopes of Mount Coot-tha. Seems a little unnecessary to go to the expense of building a Tropical House in a place that is, at worst, sub-tropical, but what do I know. There were two other candidates for today’s photo, one of a giant lizard (but I did that theme on Thursday) and one which could well have just been an excuse to take a pic of a blonde in a short skirt, so let’s go with this more ideologically-sound option.

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Mar 15 2013
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Daily Post, Interior

Windows at the Kookaburra Inn

Friday 15th March 2013, 9.55am (day 568)

Windows at Kookaburra, 15/3/13

Unlike most days I didn’t take my camera with me when going out into the city tonight, for my Friday night out – so all pictures that could have been taken were taken in the Kookaburra Inn, my hostel, where I stayed all day working. I like the frosting on these open windows, and the way the light is catching them, their different colours and so on. And there’ll be plenty of chances to take photos of Brisbane at night over the next couple of weeks, I’m not going anywhere particularly.

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