Early Morning Light

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Stupidity Hole

This is a photo I took almost a month ago.
It is my submission for the weekly photo challenge.
The theme for this week is “Early Bird“.

I took this one morning for the purposes of sending to a friend.

It was early in the morning and on my way to the bus stop so there was little effort in getting the shot.

I like this photo for a few reasons.

Firstly, it was taken at 6:20 A.M.
Even though daylight saving time was still in effect, I found how dark it was to be surprising.

Secondly, it is one of the few times I’ve been happy to have used my phone to take a photo instead of my camera. The picture doesn’t look amazing but the light comes through in a really strong way that, whilst my camera does capture light strongly, it would appear differently.

Thirdly, I like how strong the contrast is between the light and dark. Whilst the light is strong, it only illuminates enough to reveal the edges of shapes.
Everything else is just beyond it.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

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Napalm Death: Live at the Factory Theatre 19/04/2015

Posted on April 19, 2015 by Stupidity Hole

I don’t know how Extortion were as I arrived at the venue too late to see them.
I’m going to assume they were good as the rest of the gig was good.

Carcass were great fun. I find it hard to fault them. I think there was one point where the crowd was told they want camels.

I think.

They were very good musicians and I would be happy to see them again.

Napalm Death were excellent. A great live sound without any intensity lost.

I would be happy to see them again as well.

It was saddening that Mitch Harris couldn’t be playing on this tour and I hope the reasons preventing him from attending lead to positive conclusions.

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Boats

Posted on April 14, 2015 by Stupidity Hole

This is a photo I took during the evening yesterday.
I took it intentionally for the weekly photo challenge (the same that I submitted to last week).
This week the challenge is “Afloat“.

I was unable to go into work due to various reasons.
At one point Ewe (who was ill) and I went for a walk.
We walked through Jubilee Park which allowed me to take a few photos of the bay.

I like this one in particular as there are so many boats in it.
In a way they appear to be huddled together, like birds on a cold day.

I also like it for how the colours in it look.
I think they add a lot of strength to the image without overwhelming everything.

Lastly, I also like it for having both Anzac Bridge and Sydney Harbour Bridge in the shot.

I think it addresses the challenge in a very literal way, which in a way is (to me) good and bad.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

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The Man who Wants

Posted on April 14, 2015 by Stupidity Hole

This is a picture I took of Ili looking into his fridge.
He was looking for something in there. I’m not sure if he was looking for food.

I took the picture quickly as I thought it was great that he was looking in his fridge and sitting at the same time.

The picture seems a bit saddening.
I’m not sure why.

I think that it might be due to Ili sitting there and staring into the fridge.
He isn’t reaching in. He’s not moving.
He’s only staring.

He seems to want, but not know what he wants.

This is my fifth entry into Leanne Cole’s Monochrome Madness.

I hope you enjoy.

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Five-hundred Word Challenge 12: The Best Part of my Sunday

Posted on April 14, 2015 by Stupidity Hole

Today I’m going to write about my Sunday (predominantly) as it was a pretty good day and I think I can get to my word total fast with it.

On Saturday night I went to a house party and didn’t get home for a while.
I don’t go out too often so it was fun.

I woke up on Sunday quite tired as I have a habit of waking early.
I studied for a while when on Facebook one of my friends posted about how he saw a guy with a popped collar and tagged me in the post.

I told him I was on my way.

During Saturday day my friend posted about seeing a guy wearing an orange v-neck. He was working at the Fish Market as a volunteer handing out flyers regarding a few sites that had been opened around the bay for the weekend and some free cooking classes. I was studying at the time and was in dire need of a break as it was becoming a bit too much to absorb so I said I would go there as I wanted to take photos of the person wearing the v-neck.

I was also bored.

I missed my chance so I continued studying.

Anyway, on Sunday I ended up going to the Fish Market to get photos as well as hang out for a little while with my friend (who went there with three hours of sleep) before going back to studying (he had also made the offer to hang during Saturday night).

I did take some photos and we talked for a little while before I joined him in handing out flyer.
It was probably a lot more fun than it should have been.
We would hold them out behind our back very suddenly to passing people. It caught them by surprise and put a smile on their face.

Every now and then we would run up to people that just walked through the entrance, stop right in front of them and hold a flyer out. This worked most of the time.

My friend did a forward roll to a couple and held out a flyer. It didn’t work (I think they already had one), but an onlooker took one after the display.

I would run up to people, get on a knee and hold one out and if they refused, I would let out an anguished sound.

We tried offering some to dogs but they were not interested.

We would occasionally say “zwack” and “unicum” to people as we were handing them out (I’ll explain some other time).

One person my friend said “unicum” to stopped and started asking for directions. We tried hard not to laugh but my friend continued to occasionally say it throughout the conversation. We began to laugh as we found the situation funny. Neither of us were prepared for someone to ask for information.

I didn’t get back to studying for a few hours.

It was great fun.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 12:29:08

My fastest so far.
I think I’ll be able to beat that tomorrow.

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Prepare to Stop

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Stupidity Hole

Here’s a picture I took last week whilst on the way to work.

It’s another picture that, to me, makes for an interesting juxtaposition between dark and light.
The sky is clearly lit up yet there is still the early morning darkness about as the sun has not fully risen yet.

I think it had been raining throughout the night as well which made the area feel sleepier than usual (somehow).

There weren’t many cars around so it was quiet which probably added to the area feeling sleepier.

I like how the sign saying “Prepare to stop” is sitting in the corner, as there appears to be nothing to stop for.

I hope you enjoy.

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Five-hundred Word Challenge 11: We’re Playing Live

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Stupidity Hole

Fe and I are going to be playing live next month.
This is, for me, very exciting and I’m sure it is for Fe as well.
We’ve been working on our music for almost two-and-a-half years now.
We could have performed a lot sooner and were aiming for the middle of last year at the latest, but things got out of hand.

I’m working and studying and Fe also studies.
There have also been a lot of personal stuff that’s taken up time as well.
We practise a lot though.

We’ve also been slow when it comes to writing lyrics.
Some songs we’ve worked feel like they’d be more appropriate with them than without.

I think being slow with lyrics has caused us to postpone playing live a bit as we want the songs we’ve been working on to be in something close to a complete state as I imagine they’re going to be shaped further by how well they come across in front of an audience.

Another thing that has slowed us a bit is a lack of a drummer.

Originally I didn’t want to have one as I didn’t see much of a point but Fe convinced me otherwise.
We tried to get Ili to join us but we didn’t gel as a unit (he didn’t like our songs much which is understandable as everyone has different tastes) so that put a slight halt on performing live but we didn’t try much after that.

But now it’s happening. We’re going to be performing.
I’m elated.
We still will be working with programmed drums but I’m trying to make them somewhat interesting instead of the basic programming we’ve been playing to.
We may be able to get a drummer for some songs though. Hopefully we can.

It’s put us in a position where we have to write lyrics.
We have very little choice at this stage.
I want to make sure they’re decent but Fe has told me not to worry about it as it’s something we can work on later.
I’m going to do my best not to worry and write things that work for what I’m going to be singing and I imagine he’ll be doing the same for what he sings and once we’ve performed live we’ll work on it further from there.

We haven’t locked a specific date in but we do have the venue and month.
We do also know what date we’re looking to play and we’re pretty sure the people who live in the place we’ll be playing in (it’s a house but there are gigs run there on occasion) will be fine with it.
We just need to let them know first.

We’ve been getting much better since we decided on the month.
It’s not that we were bad; it’s that there has been plenty of room for improvement.

Fun times are ahead. I’m looking forward to this.
I don’t know how good we’ll be, but we’re going to enjoy it.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 14:17:63

Much faster than last night and I managed to be faster whilst writing about life.
That makes me happy.
I’m still going to try and go faster.
I’m going to aim for under ten minutes.

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An Early Morning Adventure

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Stupidity Hole

About two-and-a-half weeks ago on a Sunday I decided to go on an early morning adventure to try and find a high location near my place to get photos of the sun rising.

I wasn’t able to find anywhere and I didn’t travel very far but I did end up taking a few photos that I think are interesting.
These were taken on the same weekend as the photos of a tree I put up recently.

I like how they turned out.
Some of them don’t feel entirely real to me.
They feel more as though I’m on the outside looking in.

I think that they also come across as a bit empty.
I don’t mean that in a bad way. I think that sometimes it’s nice to be able to get pictures of places around Sydney without people in them.

On a quick side note, I’ve just found out that the building in the last shot is a concrete batch factory run by Hanson.

Whilst I wasn’t successful in my goal, I had a lot of fun taking pictures before many people were awake so I’m going to try and do it again soon.

I hope you enjoy.

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Five-hundred Word Challenge 10: Bowling Story

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Stupidity Hole

Today I’m going to write about an event that many would consider humorous. I myself consider it to be so, hence why I am going to write about it.

Part of the birthday event I attended roughly two weeks ago involved ten-pin bowling. I don’t go bowling too often but I generally enjoy it when I go. This night was no exception.

So we were bowling, having fun and enjoying ourselves (as one usually does when they go bowling). We played two rounds. For the second round, one of the people there and I were continuously close to each other score-wise. We reached the tenth frame and our scores were the same – both on sixty (It might’ve been sixty-one or sixty-two – I can’t quite remember anymore).

The person bowled first.
Their first ball went into the gutter.
Their second ball took out one pin.

I knew I could beat them easily.They said to me something about how funny it would be if I bowled two gutter balls. I shrugged it off as I knew in my heart that I was going to beat them without any issue.

My first ball went into the gutter.

I suddenly felt the pressure despite it not being competitive. I wasn’t certain I could get more points. The person said something about how I’d be fine (I can’t remember what was exactly said).

I calmed myself and began to focus as much as I could.
I turned to the person and told them I could do it.
I then began to bowl my ball.

I enjoy bowling as it’s something I find fun at times.
I also like how the ball can appear to not be moving as well as the anticipation of how many pins will be knocked over.
I find it interesting that it can get intensely competitive at times and everyone involved can still remain jovial about what is happening.
Maybe that falls down to the experiences I’ve had with bowling but that’s how I find it to be.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad time bowling and aside from being sore the following day due to overdoing it, have always wanted to do it again sooner rather than later.

Maybe there’s something about how recreational it is that I find appealing.
It’s hard not to enjoy yourself when you’re playing with a bunch of friends.
Your get to socialise a bit and with enough playing, you become a better bowler.
It’s easy to get a few people together for bowling and have a really satisfactory experience with it, even if you end up losing horribly.

My second ball went into the gutter.
I let out a loud scream of anguish and fell to the floor.
I was beaten by one point.

I lay there for a few seconds before I pushed myself back to the seats until I reached carpet and decided it would be better to be standing on the ground instead of lying on it.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 23:03:82

Slower than yesterday. Oh well.
I think I do better when I’m not writing about life.
The next one will probably be free-form so I think it will be a faster time.

 

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Feet and the Cables that Lead us

Posted on April 7, 2015 by Stupidity Hole

These feet belong to Fe.

I took a few pictures of him when we were working on music in the middle of March. I think this is the best one.

To me, it evokes structure and strength in some ways due to the angular positioning of his legs whilst the cables seem to be flowing around them, heading off to some (possibly unknown) destination.

I decided to submit this as my fourth entry into Leanne Cole‘s Monochrome Madness as I’m enjoying being a part of it and I find it to be a very open way of coming across the work of many other photographers.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

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