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A friend and I had a fun time at the book launch last week of political cartoonist Jon Kudelka and writer Jim Jeffrey’s book. Mike Bowers, Guardian Australia photographer also came along and facilitated the conversation. The three kept us entertained about their adventures with parliamentarians in Canberra. Their little book is called The Wonks’ Dictionary. This book is very much for Australians as the federal election has been called for the 18th of May. It was an enjoyable evening as they related tales of the Ausssie pollies we all love to make fun of. The jokes about Michaelia Cash’s hair in windy interviews had many wonderful chuckles. It never moves. I won’t even mention the pages they read about Eric Abetz. Let it suffice there were snorts and chortles.

Another note is our book group read and discussed The Everlasting Sunday by Robert Lukins. This story of the English blizzard of 1962 involved teen boys who were placed at a school/home for “boys who trouble had found”. The reader senses an ominous start to this book from the beginning. The combination of the personalities, leadership of the school and the ongoing blizzard made me a bit on edge. At first I couldn’t adjust to the writing style but others in the group weren’t bothered by it. Too many adjectives and “try hard” descriptors for my taste but I thought the second half of the book was much better. Members disagreed widely on this novel that is the author’s debut and up for several awards. Some loved it, one wanted her money back. I liked the concept for the story. It held my attention and I worried about a couple of the boys. However there was one girl character the group all thought had not been developed enough and we wondered why she was included. A couple of the characters were developed well while others weren’t so much and the inconsistency bothered a couple of our members, myself included. I thought it quite a good book as a debut and would read more by this author. His previous works have been short stories in several literary magazines. I thought the novel began like a bit of a short story that got away from him but settled down into a novel again. I could feel the transition.

I continue to peruse photography books and magazines in anticipation of my trip in May. The latest one being Why You Like This Photo by Brian Dilg. It opens with a lovely quote by Werner Heisenberg:

“Nobody sees a flower-really-it is so small it takes time-we haven’t time-and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”

Until next time.

I’ve not done a wordless Wednesday so here we go. I’ll just say, it’s not entirely wordless. Being wordless is not in my nature…..

Tasmanian Wooden Boat Festival- February 2019

This festival is held bi-yearly.

I’ll post up some other areas of the festival in future.

All the best to everyone from the Penguin and me.

 

This weekend has been very busy with photography.  Getting ready for the Wooden Boat Festival on Friday (see my last post if interested) and several of us photographers participated in a Saturday Photojournalism course for the day.  We had some theoretical information and photos on the screen (wall) as examples.  Then we split into three groups and off we went amongst the millions are Salamanca market. This market is large enough but with tourists pouring into town and a cruise ship emptying about 3000 more tourists into the area it was full on.

Our team had a brief to photograph. We were assigned a task to develop a story of jewellery or fashion.  Our team just could not get it together. Five people on the team and five different directions people wanted to go.  I don’t feel we satisfied the brief of showing beginning, middle and end photos that told a story but we had fun and did get a few good shots. Overall we were just concentrating on photographs that tell a story.

 

Then today was the Chinese community festival on Parliament Lawns. So much good food. I’m glad I left my money in my motorbike a couple blocks away as I could have eaten a lot.  The smells alone were worth money.  I got a few photos but I could have had more if I hadn’t of fudged the settings on my camera and drastically overexposed several. Was kicking myself once I got home.  I’ll share a few here from the weekend that weren’t so bad.

This coming Thursday our book group meets and we’ll be discussing the book The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. It will be interesting what our group members thought of it. I’ll do a post about it once we’ve met.

I’m reading the Newspaper of Claremont Street by Elizabeth Jolley now and really enjoying it. Quite short and I should be through with it soon.  So more on that later too.

Well the whole weekend is about trying to get the perfect shot and there have been lots of laughs along the way. A good distraction from the fires which are still going.  But I’ve decided not to think of them today. Nothing I can do about it anyway except support those wildlife organisations I like.

More soon, enjoy our weekend efforts.