Highlight of my day, and every day.

Written by . Posted on August 17, 2011. Filed under The Blog.. No comments.

It’s just SO satisfying when I read a bulletin the whole way through and it hits the 3:30 mark. Simple things.

Nothing suss: motivational gym posters.

Written by . Posted on August 13, 2011. Filed under The Blog.. No comments.

I’ve joined back up to a gym.
The Rockhampton Fitness Centre, aka “Norm’s Gym” is the oldest gym in the city, and dudes have been coming here to lift heavy things since the 1960s. It was built in an old bank on the river, and they even have the old steel safe door open.
While it’s cheap and the staff aren’t creepily cheerful, it is a bit run-down. Sure, it has the equipment I need, but they haven’t updated the “inspiring fitness posters” since the 1980s.
As a result, they’ve gone from inspiring to hilarious. I tried to grab pictures of as many as I could… I didn’t want people to think I was some weird sort of pervert taking pictures of my fellow gym members.

The happy couple.

Hello boys! This is in the "ladies only" area of the gym.

Thank god my shitty phone camera couldn't capture the full bald patch and camel toe glory in this poster.

This man has exceptional flexibility and core strength.

We even have Arnie! Pre Terminator, Governator and Sperminator.

G’day, Rockhampton.

Written by . Posted on August 10, 2011. Filed under The Blog.. No comments.

I really like Rocky. Even though I grew up a couple of hundred kilometres west in Emerald, I see the blue mountains of the Berserker (pronounced Ber-SICK-er) Range and feel like I’m home.
This is the view from the top of Archer Street, directly opposite my old boarding school.
William and Charles Archer discovered the muddy brown Fitzroy river which runs through Rockhampton.
Their brother Colin was the first white settler to sail down the river to the present site of the city, where William was waiting for him on horse back. Obviously William won the race! Ha, I’m so funny.
After all that, the Archer family had one of the city’s main streets and the biggest mountain in the range named after them.

Living in the future.

Written by . Posted on August 2, 2011. Filed under The Blog.. 2 Comments.

Check it out – my little sister  is doing her maths homework by writing on her computer screen. HER COMPUTER SCREEN! WRITING ON IT!
Her whole grade was given these laptop computers as part of a Kevin Rudd education revolution scheme and apparently they’re pretty shitty, aside from the whole writing on the screen thing.

I’m nearly eight years older than my sister and when my mind is blown by stuff like this, it really shows.

In other futuristic stuff, I watched Queensland Premier Anna Bligh deliver the interim findings of the flood inquiry LIVE ON THE INTERNET.

It was pretty exciting to hear our Premier announce the findings of the inquiry, which were:
a) the Brisbane flood occurred because it rained a lot and nobody thought to let some of the water out of the Wivenhoe Dam;
b) it flooded everywhere else because it rained a lot;
c) Brisbane got flooded, and that’s what’s really important here.

I’m hoping the full report might be a bit more useful. Bring on February 2012.

Cemetery Gates.

Written by . Posted on July 19, 2011. Filed under The Blog.. No comments.

 

There’s a cemetery near my house. Not one of the new-school lawn cemeteries, with manicured grass and brass plaques set in concrete, but an old cemetery. The kind of cemetery where the graves have pointy metal fences around them and the markings on the tombstones wore away long ago.
It looks particularly nice at sunset, so I decided to go for a walk.
The cemetery was built on some sort of marsh, with a creek running through it. The creek had turned into a torrent during the summer floods and graves were disappearing into it as a result. Very creepy.
I did a bit of a Google search and found out that there has always been a stream running through that bit of land and the founding fathers of Rockhampton decided to put a cemetery there anyway. Clearly the Europen idea of a creek was quite different to the reality of an Aussie creek – the poor buggers probably thought it’d be a nice garden-esque touch. They weren’t very good at finding suitable cemetery sites -  their first cemetery got washed away in the summer rains, bodies and all.

So, if I could give one tip to the Rockhamptonites of days gone by?

Don’t purchase a plot in the lower south end of the cemetery. Oh, and fork out extra for the marble tombstone. Sandstone just doesn’t cut it with Queensland’s weather.

Something to do on the weekend.

Written by . Posted on July 13, 2011. Filed under The Blog.. No comments.

When I told my doctor I was moving back to Rocky to work a job on the Brekky shift, he was concerned about two things. 1 – whether I’d be a good girl and get enough sleep; 2 – what I’d do between work and sleep, and on the weekends.

The answers were “yes” and “whatever I like, but probably something music-related.”

I first heard Jimmy Asher’s band early last year, back when they were called Cat Rapes Bat. I really dug their music, so I blogged about them on whothehell and kept meaning to see one of their shows while Jimmy was living in Brisbane.
I never got around to it and Jimmy moved back to Yeppoon to finish his teaching degree.  He changed the band name to something a bit more friendly, inspired by a piece of Brisbane graffiti… and so This Isn’t Paris was born.

Being the retiring type I am, I decided to convince Jimmy that the band needed a bass player and that bass player needed to be me.

We had our first band practice on the weekend, at some random shed in the middle of nowhere that the drummer Brett’s family owns.

This is Jimmy and a couple of Brett’s relations helping to load all our gear into a four wheel drive. Told you the shed was in the middle of nowhere.

We drove along what was pretty much a goat track carved into a hill, and eventually made it to the shed.

Emptying out the truck, with a bonus elderly dog.

Us practicing in the shed/Brett’s sister’s house.

Anyway, I’m having a blast.

Here’s the current demo, sans bass of course. You can also check us out on Facebook.

Demo by This Isn’t Paris

Nesting.

Written by . Posted on July 8, 2011. Filed under The Blog.. No comments.

You know what’s great? Having a house for the first time in three months. You know what’s not so great? Doing all the stuff you need to do to obtain and live in a house.
Dealing with real estate agents, buying draw liners and spatulas and outdoor brooms, locking doors, you know. That kind of stuff.

Luckily my little sister Issy has been staying with me and helping me set up my life because let’s face it, I’m hopeless at domestic stuff.

This is her being patient while I try out my new speedlight (camera flash).

This is her, totally over being my slave.

I’m going to try to be more domestic now that I have a nice place to do it in. I even bought some plants for a veggie garden and I intend to keep them alive. Just watch me.

Thanks sis. Other than doing boring domestic stuff, I’ve been working hard and catching up with old friends.

Last week Big Will and I went on a trip to Five Rocks, which is in a national park on the ocean about an hour and a half out of Rocky.
It’s only accessible by four wheel drive, and the road was so bumpy I had to stop for a vomit break on the way home.
Still, it’s just beautiful. I would’ve taken more photos but I was too busy enjoying myself.

This is Big Will on the top of a gigantic sand dune.

 

This is the view from the top of said gigantic sand dune. Big Will’s car is at the bottom right, for scale.

The classiest street in town.

Interrupted transmission

Written by . Posted on June 22, 2011. Filed under The Blog.. No comments.

Oh hey internet, how’s it going?

Sorry I haven’t been around much. I’ve just moved to Rockhampton and started a new job which involves being conscious at 3AM and reading the news for three central Queensland cities. I also don’t have home internet at the moment.

I just wanted to let you know that my new zine is finally on sale!  There are photos, an interview with photographer Pat Ruggles, a rant about how shitful it is when your favourite baristas get fired and why I miss The Gifthorse.

You can buy the physical zine online from Smells Like Zines distro.

If you have no patience/not much money/an iPad or smartphone, you can download a cheaper interactive digital version here.

I’ll be back soon!

Bridge climbing for photographers.

Written by . Posted on June 11, 2011. Filed under The Blog.. No comments.

Along with the Stefan Skyneedle, the Story Bridge is one of my favourite parts of Brisbane’s built environment. You can’t (legally) climb the Skyneedle but you can climb the Story Bridge, so I bought a ticket to a photographic climb as a present to myself for the anniversary of my first year out of hospital.

Story Bridge Adventure Climb is one of just three bridge climbs in the world and the only one to run photographic climbs where you can bring your own camera with you.  I’d prepared myself for the height (80m above sea level at the summit) but hadn’t factored in the 1138 stairs I had to climb to reach the summit! My calves are aching today.

Climbers are required to undergo a breath test and a safety brief before starting the climb. The whole experience goes for two-and-half hours.

It was a great thing to tick off my bucket list and I’d recommend it to tourists and locals alike.

See more photos over at my Flickr account.

Experiments in medium-format film.

Written by . Posted on June 5, 2011. Filed under The Blog.. No comments.


Homer Simpson once said, “Every time I learn something new, it pushes something old out of my brain.”
I’ve spent the better part of the last two years learning to wrangle expensive DSLRs, and all this new knowledge pushed out the quiet fact that cameras are essentially quite simple – a box with a hole to let light in, and a surface to capture the light.

I’ve been wanting a lomography camera ever since I saw my first Hipstamatic photo, and when Tori Amos released a limited edition DianaF+ camera I couldn’t help but pick one up. Yes, I am tragic.

So, here are my first attempts at using the camera. I used one roll of Kodak Ektachrome 160 and a roll of Lomography 400 which came with the kit. Once I got used to loading up film (what, you have to thread it through and then keep winding?!) and trying not to ruin it when I took it out of the camera, my biggest struggle has been resigning myself to the fact that I can’t immediately review the picture I’ve taken and re-compose it if I’ve stuffed it up.

There’s a magic in it though.