Last Saturday, Sydney gave us a sunny winters day for sailing on the harbour, even if it was a bit icy on the water with the wind chill. We ate. We drank, not too much mind you. There was a bit of work to be done, but not a great deal - of course.

Captain Tom and crew

Postcards from Sydney

View the photos from the day on Flickr.

An amazing amount of hype and fanboyism surrounded the opening of the new Apple store in Sydney this week. About three hours before the opening, with my new camera in hand I went down to take some photos, and to get a taste of the buzz.

The Apple store occupies the lower three floors of a new office tower at 77 King Street (however, Apple note the store as being on George Street as the entrance is there). The façade consists of sheets of plate glass — which according to Ron Johnson, Senior VP of Retail for Apple, are made in Munich and are the largest sheets of plate glass in the world at more than 15 meters in height. There’s no question, it’s an impressive building, and it’s great to see new development bringing some interest to George Street, a street quite bereft of any thing of interest — after all, isn’t World Square a fantastic destination!

I was also curious about the hype — I could understand the fuss, but not get “into it” I’ve never been a huge fan of Apple products themselves, in fact I’ve only owned an Apple iPod shuffle which was a gift, and I don’t use it - the main reason being that I loathe iTunes (oh… and I recently purchased Quicktime Pro - does that count?). However, I am a fan of everything Apple does from a marketing perspective, from advertising, the experience, the website (for its excellent usability).

View the photos on Flickr.

This reminder me of Ubercoolische - a site that took great pride in playfully pisstaking Ricardo Villalobos, Richie Hawtin, Magda, and Sven Vath amongst others. Unfortunately, the guys have put it into retirement and now launched Cubercoolische as a play on Hawtin’s new box project.

Anyway, back to the point of this article - how to be a cool photographer.

1. The first rule of a cool photographer: Do NOT show your photographs.
2. The second rule of a cool photographer: Do not show your photographs! If somebody asks you to show them - make an excuse. Tell about terabytes of raw images on your computer, being busy, copy and other rights, agreements with “Harper’s Bazaar”, “Esquire”, and other fancy magazines and advertisement agencies.
3. If you have a blog, post there a few photos of renown photographers with moderately positive comments such as “That’s how one should do it!”. Theorise a lot!
4. As an exception, you can post 2-3 abstract-looking photos with a note “I am just fooling around” or “these are my juvenile experiments”. No more than that!
5. Register on all possible forums, mailing lists, websites devoted to photography. Post often, criticise moderately, without fanaticism. Use expressions like “so-so”, “boring shit”, “the horizon level is off”, “faded colours”, “is there an idea?” “is there a concept?”, etc. Really cool photographer can always find something to criticize. Never praise. Mock newbies until their full destruction.
6. Learn the terminology. The words “expocorrection”, “bracketing”, “crop”, “polarisation” should always be in your arsenal. Use them!
7. Learn the jargon and use it fearlessly.
8. Disdain the rules, but ridicule those who disregard them.
9. Learn names of 2-3 famous photographers, and know the Cliff’s notes description of their work. Use this when theorising and criticising.
10. Install the latest version of Photoshop. Master the “stamp” tool. Tell everybody that you don’t use Photoshop on principle. Ridicule all who uses it.
11. Photo filters are crouches for disabled. Universal lenses are suitable for handless and footless. A really cool photographer uses different lenses for each situation, and uses his feet and head for moving objects closer and farther away.
12. Buy a camera. Remember, Canon belongs to cheap pop-culture; Panasonic, Sony, Olympus and Konica are all garbage. In the worst case, buy Nikon or Pentax, but you’d be better off with Leica or Hasselblad. If you don’t have enough money, buy a wide-angle “Kiev”. You don’t need to put any expensive film in it - just carry the camera with you.
13. The more lenses, flashes, filters, exponometers are in your photobag, the cooler you are!
14. Cool pros use film or the most expensive digital SLR’s. If you don’t have enough money for 1D Mark, carry an old film camera, motivating it by the fact that digital is inferior to the film. Argue about wrong colour reproduction, low resolution, and the young age of the technology.
15. If you are using a DSLR, claim that you ignore the screen and even the built-in exponometer, setting everything based on your vision and expertise.
16. Get a friend with a photo-studio and drink with him regularly.
17. Every so often, disappear for a couple of days. Claim that you had a large-volume contract and you were stuck in the studio, or that you flew in the “National Geographic” helicopter to shoot geysers in Kamchatka.
18. Display on your desk a certificate of some photo-school, but don’t forget to mention that you have outgrown your teachers.
19. Memorise Ken Rockwell’s article. Disprove it or substantiate it depending on the situation.
20. Learn all the camera models back to the 40s. Read the new releases, and know all modern cameras, lenses, flashes.
21. Be aware of photo exhibitions. You don’t need to attend them, familiarising yourself with the reviews would suffice.

Getting your groove on for the last First Blood. Here’s the pictorial recap.

A four day long weekend, and what better way to start it with some dark techno dancefloor action courtesy of Alex Smoke at Minimal Fuss.

I hadn’t heard any recent material from Smoke, in fact the most recent was his Paradolia album which I thoroughly enjoyed. Buoyed by positive reviews from a recent visit to Sydney when he played at Chinese Laundry, I was certainly keen to check him out.

I quite enjoyed his set, even if at first it felt a little stop start. A different sound to Paradolia - and I’m not going to use that much overused term “minimal”, he chugged along on his techno groove using Ableton Live and Logic Pro, a dancefloor most appreciative to his sounds.

Declan and Ben Korbel played in a tag-team style prior to Smoke. Perhaps Declan is going deaf as he absolutely murdered the mid and high ranges when was on with Korbel bringing them back to an acceptable level. Korbel’s sound has changed to contain much more techno these days, yet, it still contains the floaty remnants of his progressive headspace. Whilst not my bag, it was far from offensive.

Hats of to the Minimal Fuss crew for a solid party, and no, I didn’t make the dawn service.

View the photo set.

Sunset over the southern end of Sydney’s CBD.

Centrepoint Tower

So, what’s Earth Hour?

Earth Hour was created to take a stand against the greatest threat our planet has ever faced, Earth Hour uses the simple action of turning off the lights for one hour to deliver a powerful message about the need for action on global warming.

From smh.com.au:

Sydney embraced its second Earth Hour tonight, as hundreds of thousands of citizens turned off their lights across the city between 8 and 9pm to make a statement against climate change.

Most skyscrapers in the CBD were darkened, though if the groups gathered in harbourside parks were expecting a sudden blackout, they would have been disappointed - the majority of high-rise buildings had flicked the switch before 8pm.

The Harbour Bridge was a couple of minutes late in joining Earth Hour, but all non-essential lights were shut down by its chief electrician Justin McInerney by about 8.05pm.

By 8.15pm, only a handful of electronic signs and a sprinkling of apartments still appeared brightly lit around the central city, although Star City Casino defied Earth Hour for “operational reasons” and continued to power its thousands of bulbs.

More than 370 locations around the world joined Earth Hour this year after Sydney pioneered the event in 2007.

Sparklers in Hyde Park

I took my camera out last night across the eastern fringe of the CBD, and whilst an effort had been made by some businesses, I still feel that many couldn’t care less. Many floors in the MLC Centre still illuminated and Oxford Street not looking any different at all, so much so I didn’t even take any photos. However, like last year, the famous Coca-Cola sign at the top of William Street, Kings Cross was turned off. Yet, walking past the St. James Hotel on Castlereagh Street - its lights all blazing, I almost felt inclined to go inside and find the manager.

View the full photo set.

A clever (albeit tacky) use of a street spray for the new television drama Underbelly, currently screening on Channel 9 (in all states bar Victoria).

I saw this one on Foveaux Street, Surry Hills. In any event, with all the media hype, Channel 9 barely has to do any advertising.

Ok, so I’ve been slack. This gig was at the end of January. Ages ago. I know.

He played some fun records. He played some curious ones. He rambled on the microphone. He wished us a happy new year. He wished us a happy Australia Day. He put his “hand on the muthafuckin’ record”. He drank some vodka. He had a light-hearted approach to his music. He didn’t play any of his own solo productions. He talked about rollerskating jams.

Respect.

Riders on the storm

He played Tyree Coopers “Video Crash” - an old house favourite of mine, to J Dilla and The Doors (yes, you read that correctly!) featuring the The Coach House Rhythm Section - it was eclectic, yet entertaining music. Old school funk james and more minimally influenced techno also pervaded the air - a melange of sounds that kept everyone wiggling on the floor. Yet, as I mentioned - he didn’t play any of his solo works.

I had so much fun, I went back the second time to see him at the “unofficial” Mad Racket gig at the Mandarin Club. It was darker and had less people who had been given corporate promo free tickets, which meant more headz and thankfully, less wank.

View the photo set.

Boom! Did Spank Rock deliver the goods at their Sydney Festival Becks Bar performance or what? High energy, fast and furious, bumping and bouncing Baltimore beats. The new “Lindsay Lohan’s Revenge” was wonderfully tongue in cheek. Amanda Blank’s lyrics and delivery were as tight as her black spandex catsuit. New tracks and old - from “Bump” to one of my favourites “Rick Rubin” - it was an electric performance.

Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for Peace Out who supplied the warm up. In 17 years, I don’t think I’ve seen something so bad, both musically and attitude wise. Terrible music selection, below par beatboxing, and a sub-standard attitude that was more in place with ‘wiggers’ hanging out in fast-food carparks on Parramatta Road. Please, tell me when it’s appropriate to yell out “Let’s get fucked up Sydney!” Hopeless. Talentless hacks.

View the full photo set.