sharleenstuart30 Minutes in the Life: October 2023: Sydney
Posted on October 30, 2023
We’re back in Sydney post the Bondi walk and I had things on my list that I wanted to see. In 1846 the Customs House (below) was built near the Sydney city center. Over a period of 10 years from 1837 to 1847, convicts worked to reclaim the land to form Circular Quay. The Customs house form the solitary symbol of British power over the land and sea, with custom officers checking for contraband and smuggling.
Towering over the customs house is this very unique building. Again I am fascinated by the juxtaposition of old and new buildings and grateful that Sydney has maintained it’s unique history with the upkeep of these interesting old buildings.
We were not the only people taking pictures of the city that day.
Below is a mix of new and old that we found on our walk back into the city center.
Below is the Sydney Sky Tower. We did not go up but it stood tall amongst the buildings and was pretty neat to look at.
The building that impressed me the most, and one that I had researched and also been told to visit was the Queen Victoria building. I loved the old dome roofing and the beautiful arched windows, along with the intricate scrolling on the outer façade of the building. Walking inside this gorgeous building is a shopping mall. And I wanted one pic, but I did get a few more.
The pastel window in the ladies bathroom was gorgeous. In fact, the ladies bathroom was impressive.
In the center of the mall was this tall clock with historical images in the center of the clock.
There were also some incredible stain glass windows.
This was the photo I wanted showing all the levels and the beams of the roofing.
We’re back out on the street again and the first thing I saw was this vibrant burst of color.
Last but not least I was out of time and added to that super tired. I will explore the clock tower on another day.
We’re back at the hotel, ready to put our feet up, but there is still the repacking to do. We have to switch up the contents of the suitcases because we are traveling Qantas in the morning to Melbourne, and honestly my camera back is equivalent to a small suitcase. So I am going to be booking my two suitcases and Richard’s one, and he will take clothes for both of us in his small suitcase, just in case.
My nerves are already getting the better of me. We are off for a quick dinner and then it is off to bed. We have an early start in the morning back to the airport. I am looking forward to seeing family again. We have not seen our nieces since they were 5 and now the one has a little girl who is 5. Crazy how time has flown. I am so glad that we are doing this trip now.
Check out my friend Lupji Photography to see what he has to share this month.
Until next time …. stay well.
30 Minutes in the Life: August 2023: Sydney Opera House
Posted on August 28, 2023
This blog is probably encompasses the 30 minutes, plus a few add on’s. The Sydney Opera house is an impressive sight to see. Unfortunately we timed it badly because 10 days after we left there was a light up Sydney event and the opera house looked stunning with all these lights on them. However, it is what it is. The fact that I was there makes it so much more impressive.
An unknown fact, maybe, is that I love different kinds of architecture and I have to be honest you just have to be impressed by this incredible building. In fact there was a lot of different architecture in Sydney that appealed to me.
So what is the history to the opera house. From what I have read Sir Eugene Goossens, conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra believe that “all people, regardless of their class or background, had the right to enjoy fine music”. In 1956 a competition was created for the proposed new building. In 1954 the beginning stage to support an Opera House began. In 1957, Jorn Utzon, an unknown Danish architect was announced as the winner. The estimated cost of the design would be around 3.5 million pounds It was believed that this design would become on of the greatest buildings in the world. In 1959 the construction began. Stage 1 was completed in February 1963. Stage 2 began in 1063 and took 2 years to complete. Due to a number of issue the cost of the building had now increased to 13.7 million pounds, In February 1966, after some conflict Utzon quit the project, blaming the then Minister, Davis Hughes, of forcing him out. In April 1966, a panel of Australian architects were appointed to complete the job. In 1966, Peter Hall was asked to complete the Opera House. Initially he declined, but later accepted the request. In January 1967, stage 2 was completed. Stage 3 focused on the interiors. On October 20, 1973 the Opera House was finally opened by Queen Elizabeth 11, and on September 28, 1973. the Opera House’s first productions opened. I have radically summarized the story. Credit is given to https://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/our-story/peter-hall-and-completion-opera-house for this information. There were 6 pages of interesting reading, which if you are interested in architecture and in this incredible building it is well worth visiting the website.
Sadly we did not get to go inside, we were out way to early in the morning and nothing was open, but I enjoyed every minute of this architectural masterpiece.
One of the other things I wanted to get was some images from the ferry both day time and night time.
These were taken on our return to Sydney were we headed out to Watson Bay on the Saturday evening to meet up with a cousin of mine and his family. Here are a few night shots coming back into the Harbor from the moving ferry.
These images were taken the last day of our Australian trip. We headed out to Manly via the very efficient ferry system. Although there were tourists it was a little blustery, and so most of them headed inside. I on the other hand was determined to stick it out.
Next stop will be the some of the downtown area that we got to walk through, so look out for the posts.
My friend Lupji from Lupji Photography is co-blogging with me today. Don’t forget to check his blog to see what he has been up to.
You can also find me on Facebook, and Instagram.
Stay well.
30 Minutes in the Life: Augutst 2023: Sydney
Posted on August 7, 2023
We postponed 30 Minutes in the Life last month as Lupje had a conference and since it is just the two of us blogging these days, we are open to being flexible. That said, I have been editing for the past 3 hours. Friday I spent most of the morning making a birthday cake with intricate flowers and fondant icing. It takes a while to get that all together. Saturday was a memorial service and then it was Lukie for a sleepover. We took him home after his sleep today and had enough time for a swim and hang out and then it was back home to edit. Life seemed really busy this weekend.
That said, it was back to editing our time in Sydney. These photos come from a short walk from the Oversees Passenger Terminal point along the green walk way, under the bridge, around the corner and back again. Seems short but I managed to find a lot to see.
As I have said before, is that I love the fusion of old and new. You will see it in so many pictures. I love that they have preserved the old buildings while adding in new development. We often see historical buildings torn down to make way for new and I did not get that feel in Sydney.
This is the ASN Co building and it was and is an extremely prominent building in Sydney. The Flemish styled building was designed by William Wardell. It was one of the many store houses found in the Rocks in the early years.
Walking on I came across this piece of artwork on our walk that looks like a front to a the Park Hyatt Hotel.
It was in the same area that I came across this young man sitting on a set of steps, probably listening to his phone. I used this image in yesterdays blog where we were challenged to create the Adamski effect. This probably was one of my favorite images that I created.
Moving along the walkway there were a few boats moored in a small bay area and I loved the rigging to this boat.
We arrived at Hickson Road Reserve and stopped to look back. This is just a different perspective of the Brewery, The Squires Landing and city sky line.
One thing I have to say. People were out and about running, walking, doing some form of exercise. For me, it was walking and a fair bit of it. It was amazing to be standing just below this enormous structure, The Sydney Harbor Bridge.
Across the waterway, near Milsons Point area is Luna Park, the amusement and entertainment park. I have seen some amazing pics incorporating the Opera House, the Sydney Harbor Bridge and Lunar park.
Another thing that I really loved about Sydney was the billboards showing the history of the city. There was a stretch of them where we walked. Above was the view of Millers Point from Balmain East with the Sydney Observatory in the Center c.1870
Above is the view along Sussex Street from Napoleon Street c.1890
Above, Trinity Avenue, Dawes Point, site of the present day Trinity Avenue playground c.1901.
This gave me a feel for the early days in Sydney when my grandfather would have been growing up.
Looking across and beyond the Opera House is the Royal Australian Navy Heritage Center and this large ship was looming in the background.
From what I can work out this building is the present day Arts Exchange. It was initially built between 1902-1908 for the purpose of a direct current power station. In 2015 it was restored and now houses meeting rooms and facilities along with it being a major hub for Sydney’s major festivals.
Heading back we are again looking at the Brewery and the city skyline.
I actually took this photo for our staff. We use Salesforce, USA as our platform that houses our EMR system.
The local gulls.
Again a fusion of green space, old and new. This area is the famous Rocks of Sydney. In the background you will see the Metcalfe Bond Stores which was built in the 1910’s. A feature of the building is the steel and timber columns. From what I have read there could be a gin distillery opening up there in the future.
I came across this graphic while walking along the area. The painting painted by convict artist, Thomas Watling shows two men, watching the sun rise and ship set sail on the morning tide. The board cites this painting as c1797 and goes on to share that many of the landmarks can still be identified such as Pinchgut Island (For Denison) and Kirribilli Point. The man with the telescope appears to be looking at the small hut built for the Wangal man Bennelong, on the site of what is now the Sydney Opera House.
This is a typical picture of Richard, waiting patiently for me to catch up with him. I get side tracked with what is around me.
We are back walking past the Oversees Passenger Terminal back towards Circular Quay.
While there is a lot of old in Sydney, there is also a lot of glass and I for one, would not want to be the person cleaning the windows of those Sky Scrapers.
We had a quick stop at Circular Quay to learn more about the ferry system and how it works, what the running times are and when they stop. We are going to be making use of the ferries in the coming week.
Next stop will be the Opera House, so look out for the posts.
My friend Lupji from Lupji Photography is co-blogging with me today. Don’t forget to check his blog to see what he has been up to.
You can also find me on Facebook, and Instagram.
Stay well.
Share Six: August 2023: Adamski Effect
Posted on August 6, 2023
How did we get to August. Seriously this year suddenly seems to be flying. Share Six is up again and this month I chose to challenge myself with something I skipped in another project. The theme for this month is the {Adamski Effect}. Its a very neat technique, but I was challenged with new tutorials and working with my old CS6. Sometimes I did not have the tools they were talking about or I had to get to them via a different format. That said I did what I could to try and get the effect I was looking for.
I used my Australia photo’s again to play around with this technique. It is painstaking selecting process to get the main object, and I think on a couple my selection was a little off. I also found that they talked about modifying and expanding the selection but that did not seem to work for me. Then I found on some images it would fill with content aware and on others it would not. The effects typically used a motion blur but I did do one with gaussian blur to see what kind of effect I would get.
All that said, it was fun to see how creative I could get. So some of these pics you may have already seen in their normal format and now you will see them in the Adamski Effect.
I choose this image because it was the easiest of images to start with. That said I was not crazy about the black streaks to the right of the man. It was a person and I should either have selected them as well or cloned them out. This was taken on our walk from the hotel to Darling Harbor. Australia has what I think they would call green walkways. No cars and it is the best.
This image had the tall buildings and I kind of visualized the rainbow effects being a little different. We started walking up towards Bangaroo Reserve and then kind of did a detour and I am not sure where we resurfaced but we did eventually find our way back to our hotel.
So this is the effect I was looking for, however, I was not too crazy about the giant white pole in the way but I had spent too much time on the selection and was not starting over again. I loved the movement in the tall buildings. This was on one of the main streets in Sydney, George Street, on our walkabout back to our hotel.
This is probably my favorite of the images I played with. Instead of blurring vertical, I blurred horizontal. This was taken the morning we went to watch the sunrise over the Opera House. This guy was randomly sitting on the steps listening and looking at his phone.
I honestly love the background effect to this building. The boat was on it’s way in but it feels a little awkward given the height of the buildings. This was taken from the Sydney Harbor Bridge looking back towards Luna Park – the amusement park near the Kirribilli markets.
You met this guy in my last blog of the walk from Bondi Beach to Bronte. For the most part I think I did a reasonably good selection of the surfer and I do love the effect of the slightly off horizontal blur. And who doesn’t like a surfer.
For this image I used a Guassian blur instead of a motion blur. This is such a common picture of Richard – he always has his toes in the water. That comes from growing up within walking distance to the beach and spending time out on the water either fishing, surfing, paddle boarding, you name it and he’s probably done it.
For this image I was back to the motion blur. However, I did not want to do too much so this has more of a painterly look to it. This is the 12 Apostles on The Great Ocean Road. What I will say is I think that they are down to about 6 or 7 apostles these days. This image was taken on an overcast day with lots of wind and water spray. The scenery is stunning and this will be back on my bucket list when we go back. The cliffs here are incredible and so high.
For this image I used a horizontal motion blur. I loved the colors in this image. We had visited Australia in the fall and so we got to see a lot of reds and yellows. I am not sure where this was. It could have been after we came out of the Great Otway National Park. We had taken a detour through the Park to the light house.
I did this image twice. The first time I just isolated the leaves, but then it looked like floating leaves so I redid this to get the vine in to ground the leaves. Again I opted for a slightly off horizontal effect. This was taken during our time in Melbourne where we decided one afternoon to take a drive to a wine farm. What I loved about it was that it was about 15 minutes from where our family live. I could do that easily on a weekend for sure.
This is my last image. By now I was tired of tirelessly selecting the image. My version does not have “select subject”. So it was a painstakingly back and forth to get the selection as accurate as I could. I loved the way the colors in the back ground blurred. This was taken in Sydney 2 days before we left. There was a local market that we thought we would walk through and see what we could see. I had visions of bringing things home but that did not work out. So we ended on one of those Richard walks through the Rocks and up to the Lord Nelson Hotel and then made our way back to the hotel. This was a great day, as my childhood friend, who was now living in Brisbane came through with a friend to Sydney, and after a few beers back at the market area we headed by ferry out to Watson’s Bay to meet my cousin and his wife for the first time.
So those were my attempts at the Adamski Effect. Not perfect but I enjoyed trying to get the effect. I really hope that you will be challenged to try it as well.
Here are a few links that you can check out when trying:
https://photographychef.com/how-to-get-the-adamski-effect-in-photoshop-step-by-step/
I used this one a fair bit.
and this one as well.
This is a circle blog and as I mentioned, we have some very talented artists in the group. I hope that they are all challenged to do my (Adamski Effect) challenge. Take some time to follow the links and see what they have for you this month. My incredibly talented friend Janet of @wiredtothemoon_ is up next. I can’t wait to see what she has to share. You can see more of her work by clicking on her IG page. Definitely check out her incredible art.
Look out for more blogs.
Stay well
Sydney and it is day 2…Sunrise over the bay
Posted on July 4, 2023
Sleep came early the previous night. 5pm and we were lights out. That does not bode well for wake up time. 3am and we are hello… it’s still dark outside. Somewhere around 4:30 Richard decides that he is going to walk down to the Opera House and go and watch the sunrise. Well, of course I am going to go, but I see no point in going all the way back to the hotel, to go all the way back virtually to the Opera House to start our day.
So off we go…… navigating our way in the semi dark, down to George Street and along to the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It’s somewhere around 5am. We are going to hang out there to watch the sun come up around the Opera House.
We stop at the end of the pier adjacent to the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The bridge is one huge piece of metal. Fascinating structure that spans the river from one side to the other. Interestingly, you can actually climb the arch of the bridge. Not something I would choose to do but I found it interesting that others would want to do that. It’s a lot of steps and I am not crazy about heights. When you stand under the bridge you really look so small. Looking across the river, you can see Luna Park, the amusement and theme park, in the distance.
One thing I do have to say about the people of Sydney, they are very health conscious. There were more people out running so early in the morning than I expected on a work day.
Sunrise is happening and there is nothing nicer than watching the day start with the sun peaking out through the clouds. OK, the setting sun is pretty awesome as well but we really did not do any of that on this trip. However, watching the sunrise over the Opera House is pretty epic. I never thought I would ever see that happen.
This morning was the culmination of a dream that has long been on our hearts. Standing in Sydney watching the sun come up was a thrill. Standing in the city of my grandfathers birth was even a bigger thrill.
Next on our agenda is the Bondi Coastal walk. So another cup of coffee and sausage roll later, yes…. I said sausage roll. Do you know when I last had a decent sausage roll? Not for a long long time, unless I made it myself. Okay I digress. With the coffee and sausage roll in hand we head back to Circular Quay to the bus that will take us to Bondi Beach. Join me as we walk along one of the beautiful coastlines of New South Wales in my next blog.
Thirty Minutes In the Life: June 2023: Given the choice of the whole world, why Australia?
Posted on June 26, 2023
It’s 30 Minutes in the Life time again, and our little group seems to have got down to 2 of us, so just a heads up my blog will be a lot longer than 30 minutes.
You may recall that during Covid (2021), Richard was diagnosed with a melanoma. Actually more than one melanoma, and I started pushing for him to make a visit to see his mom who lives with his sister in Australia. Up until now (2023) his results has been positive. He has shown signs of being NED which means no evidence diagnosed. In 2022 we were asked by Amy and Daniel to go to Macedonia. Having done that trip, Richard finally decided to he was ready to go to Australia. But only for 2 weeks. Yikes only 2 weeks…. I seriously tried to make it longer but he wasn’t budging.
Richard has not physically seen his mom since 2007. Zoom calls happen but that is not the same. He has not seen his sister and husband since 2011 when they traveled to the US. We have not seen our nieces since they were 7 years old and they are now in their 30’s. And he has not seen his brother for a number of years as well. We got to see all but his brother, who lived on the other side of Australia.
But there is also another side for me wanting to go to Australia. Both my fathers parents were born in Australia. My grandmother was born in Mackay, and his father in Chippendale, Sydney. For the longest time, I have wanted to visit Sydney. When I was in my late 20’s I asked my father to apply for an Australian passport. He was not interested. I tried to make him see that it was not for him, but for me, but he died without applying for one. In the end, we moved to the USA as Richard was offered a job there. So it was kind of surreal to be in Sydney knowing that this was the city of my grandfathers birth. In addition, his mother was born in Redfern and his father in Seven Hills. I am sure today they areas are nothing like they were back in the day of my grandfather’s youth but it was good to see something of where he had lived.
I had done a fair amount of research and come up with some plans of things I particularly wanted to see, or at least try and see them.
On map number 1, these where what I had selected to see:
- The Opera House from the Botanical Gardens near Mrs. Macquarie’s chair.
- Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair.
- The Opera House
- The Customs House (given that my grandfather was an emigrant)
- Circular Quay
- The Rocks
- Sydney Harbor Bridge
- Restaurants
- Photo spot for the bridge and the theme park across the canal
- Renewal project which is a 22 hectare waterfront precint. Shops and Restaurants, and you can catch a ferry from that point.
- Observatory
On Map number 2 these were the places I had listed to view:
12. George Street
13. Queen Victoria Building (Beautiful architecture)
14. Sydney Tower (restaurant right at the top)
15. Pitt Street Mall.
16. Hyde Park – Memorial Garden & Sculpture
17. St Mary’s Cathederal – Gothic style church.
18. Anzac Memorial
19. China Town
20. Chinese Garden of Friendship
21 Darling Harbor area
22. Restuarants.
23. The Green Line that took us back to the Hotel.
While I may not have done them all, I felt like we managed to get through quite a bit.
Sydney, Australia… I believe I fell in love over the course of 5 days.
Day One we arrived at the airport at 7am, having travelled around 32 hours from the time we left home to the time we arrived in Sydney, exhausted and sleep deprived. I do not sleep on flights and so I was surely dragging. As I mentioned in the previous blog, Australia has a long long list of what you can and cannot bring into the country. If you are planning on traveling to Australia, make sure to check out that list. Also do yourself a favor and get a doctors letter for prescription medication, they will ask for it. We did, so all was good.
Walking into the terminal there are about 8 check-in machines and people standing in line. Once you get to the machine you scan your passport, answer some questions, and it issues you with a card. You then take that card and enter it into the pass through and you by pass the immigration process. However, my card did not work. I had to go to a counter and a very friendly lady checked me through. We then had to pick up our luggage and go through border control. We had put our prescription medication into our check in luggage, so we had to dig it out and put the doctors letter with it. I feel like having shown them that, they were happy to let us go through.
Next we headed for the train. We had done some research and knew that we could use our American Express card for transportation, instead of buying one of their transportation cards and then having to top it up every time it got low. And yes there is a bank fee, but it was minimal and worth avoiding the possibility of having to leave money on a useless card. Interesting system they have there. They have a tap in and tap out system. So when you go through the station gates to get on the train you tap your credit card. Then when you get off at your station you tap your card again. That then defines your fee. It is so efficient and really works well. This system applied to all the transportation we used in Sydney. The only thing that was a little annoying about that is that I needed to have my credit card handy all the time and my wallet was in my backpack.
Our hotel, The Mercure Hotel, was situated pretty centrally and we got off at the Wynyard Station stop and walked a block to our hotel. Of course getting there at 8am means we are super early. We were unable to check in until 2pm. Fortunately we were able to drop off our luggage. That meant we were zombies going on a walk, or at least that is what it felt like. What I did not realize was our hotel was on a hill. So wherever we walked we were going downhill leaving, and uphill coming home. What to do, where to go? Seemed like the closest was Darling Harbor. So off we went and walked around. I had listed a number of places of interest on a map and Darling Harbor was one of them. We walked all over, took a wrong turn and landed up in places where I had planned to go on a different day.
It was finally close to 2pm so we headed back to the hotel, got checked in and into our rooms. We were able to have a shower, feel a little more human. I thought we would catch a nap but nope, Richard wanted to continue exploring. So off we went.
According to the New South Wales gov website “The Rocks was given its name by the members of the First Fleet, who, on 26 January, 1788, were landed on the rocky peninsula on the western side of Sydney Cove. This was the site of the first convict encampment, military camp, bakehouse and hospital.” To read more about this interesting area check out this link.
Back up the hill we headed, after missing our street, and finally to the hotel. I was super tired and ready to put my feet up. However we were also hungry and we wanted a early dinner, bed was calling.
Exhausted we decided to head back to Darling Harbor for dinner. Little did we know that the place had siesta time from around 3-5pm. That may not sound bad, except that by 5pm we were in bed, asleep.
Totally exhausted we headed back to the hotel. After the 32 hour travel, my knee was worrying me and all this walking and going up and down hills just aggravated it. I was glad to get back to the hotel. We decided to share a pizza at the hotel and then crash. The pizza was an interesting combination of cheese, pepperoni and what tasted like Worcestershire sauce or on second thoughts it may have been mango chutney. It wasn’t a bad taste but definitely different.
Sleep came super early. As I mentioned 5pm and we were both lights out. The time change and jet lag were not fun, but more about that next …..
Up next we get to watch the sunrise over the bay, explore Circular Quay and it’s surrounding area and head off to walk from Bondi Beach to Bronte.
Stay well
My friend Lupji from Lupji Photography is co-blogging with me today. Don’t forget to check his blog to see what he has been up to.
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