Summer in Sydney is a test of how well you can avoid the harsh sun. We haven’t had any days over 40° (yet) here this year, it’s still possible though.
But what I find fascinating about those days when the sun beats down is the absolute starkness of the light, the contrast it creates—and its effect not just on people but the whole environment…
I got a message recently from my sister in Toronto, to say that our dad’s gravestone had been installed in the cemetery where we laid him to rest one snowy day last year, before the pandemic began.
She’d also found an older family plot, in a different part of the same cemetery, and had spent a day there cleaning up the monument—and unearthing the stones of some of our ancestors that had been covered in dirt and grass, over many years…
A little while ago I found an essay online, written by my grandfather.
I never met him, he died in 1960, almost a decade before I was born; but through an accident of timing, he spent WWI in a German prison camp. Instead of becoming a concert pianist, which is what he was studying there at the time, he became a psychologist and professor, and wrote a book about the society that sprang up in the camp in the years he was held.
Later, while working for the Canadian government during WWII, he wrote for Maclean’s magazine about how difficult it was going to be for the soldiers and prisoners returning from the war, the trouble they would inevitably have returning from that experience to “polite society”, and how their imaginations of life back at home after all that time away would inevitably lead to disappointment with the real thing.
I think that’s what the return to relative normalcy will be like for all of us, as the pandemic starts to get under control around the world…
We’re coming up on a federal election in Australia; so it’s safe to say some people are on edge.
But it’s hard to discern left from right out on the streets - unless they’re standing next to a sign in a t-shirt, handing out ‘how to vote’ cards, of course.
Will we continue on the conservative path that’s seen three prime ministers (and two deputy prime ministers) in the past six years? Or return to a more liberal - though that word means something else, here, as the Liberal party are the conservatives - some would say progressive, considerate way of running the country…?
What does it take to recognise someone you know?
I wonder sometimes about this - about how little information you could be given about someone, and still know them; from a description, a sound, a gesture they always use, a certain way of doing things.
And it’s what I find I miss about people when they’re gone, too…
You hear a lot about ‘common wealth’, here: this is, after all, the Commonwealth of Australia - which is part of the Commonwealth of Nations (along with Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and many former British territories around the globe). We have a Commonwealth Bank, with branches everywhere, and Commonwealth St is just a few blocks from where I live and work in Sydney.
I like to imagine that all of this adds up to something, that the principles of the country are that good fortune is to be shared; and yet what we see more and more isn’t a collection of boats rising with the tide.
It’s funny sometimes, living in my third home country.
My first home was Canada; I grew up there, studied, worked in theatre, then took a ‘one year working holiday’ to come to Australia - which became a fifteen-year side trip to New Zealand. Six years ago today, I found myself back in Sydney, which has turned slowly into home, too.
Once in a while though, I’ll catch sight of something, or there’ll be a story on the news; and the feeling of those places will return…
The first Tuesday in November is something of a sacred day, in Australia; it’s the Melbourne Cup. Offices close for the afternoon, staff hold betting pools, and nothing gets done while the nation watches.
Of course, things happen outside Australia too - but, with the date line, US elections land on a Wednesday for us; and for some of us, they get in the way of work even more than the horses did…
Really, photography is about the questions we ask ourselves as we’re deciding what to photograph.
My background’s in theatre; and the key questions I ask myself when I see a production (or decide to work on one) are these: “Why this? Why here? Why now?”
By which I mean, why this story, at this time, in this place - what particular, specific resonance does a show bring to an audience? We interpret everything in the context we experience it; so what is it, in particular, that makes the script relevant right now, to the people of this place? The answer isn’t always obvious; and, sometimes, the context arrives just as the show hits the stage…
Sydney’s a city.
Sure, there’s a harbour, there are beaches, there’s the Opera House - but there’s also all the things that come with a large population trying to coexist on a small amount of land.
Traffic, construction, development - history getting plowed under for renewal and development, with little pockets saved by determined campaigning that, once in a while, succeeds in protecting the past…
