The Cyclist, The Pedestrian and The Cars
All it took was a cyclist to travel down an illegal T-Way in NSW and assault a bus driver to get this long, drawn out issue into the limelight. It's existed for years and years, but the tensions are getting a bit high as of late. In my opinion, it's all a bit of a misunderstanding between everyone due to a lack of proper infrastructure.
The Scenario: At an intersection, the traffic lights turn red, the cars halt and pedestrians start to cross the road. A cyclist filters between cars on the way up to the lights, slows down and makes his way through the pedestrians, then checking there is no more traffic crossing the intersection, crosses the intersection and keeps on going.
The Cars: They see a cyclist squeezing past them, possibly almost scratching their cars. Are they in such a rush that they can't wait in line like everyone else? And they're slower too! Everyone is now going to have to wait behind them and then squeeze past them again.
The Pedestrians: Aren't you using the road? Then obey the road rules. Why are you riding dangerously across pedestrian traffic? If you had a licence and I were a cop, I would have booked you ages ago!
The Cyclist: If I stay amongst the cars, I'm going to be in their blind spot. The cars will all take off around me and at this distance, they're not going to see me. I've got to get out of the way of danger because if there's an accident it's not a dented fender, it's broken bones for me. I've got to be up ahead where people can see me early and think ahead. I'll carefully move around the pedestrians although they're not paying attention to me. I know running the red is illegal, but being legal is dangerous and it doesn't matter if I'm in the right or wrong if I end up dead.
A few facts:
- At intersections, cyclists are often in the blind spot of cars and trucks, leading to a large number of accidents
- Unless under the age of 12, cyclists are not permitted to use footpaths and must, by law, use the road
- Cyclists are permitted to travel in lanes marked as a "Bus Lane", but NOT in lanes marked as "Bus Only"
- In a cyclist-pedestrian collision, the cyclist is more likely to be injured due to a higher fall and the speed of travel. In a cyclist-vehicle collision, the cyclist is more likely to be injured due to little to no protection
- As a general rule, pedestrians have right of way regardless of where or how they ended up on the road
- Motorcycles are considered to have little to negligable impact on greenhouse emissions and road wear, yet this reduction in impact is not recognised during vehicle registration or tolls
- Cyclists have no greenhouse emissions and negligable impact on road wear
A few observations:
- Vehicles on the road often block cycleways
- Pedestrians are often not aware of approaching cyclists, but the cyclist may be aware of them.
- Where cycleways are not available, footpaths are not legal and roads are dangerous, there is no place for cyclists to ride
- Motorcyclists are discouraged from filtering through traffic (and may be booked on technicalities such as "Overtaking on the left of a vehicle"). Being a road user, this discouragement should also apply to cyclists, even though the practice is safer for both cyclists and motorcyclists.
- The practice of filtering to the front of traffic on a motorcycle is a fineable offence. On a bicycle it is generally not.
- Motorcyclists have sustained damage to their vehicles from having to stop from colliding with jay-walking pedestrians. To my knowledge, no legal mechanism exists for enforcing compensation from the pedestrian to the motorcyclist
Doll Meet
My significant other and my housemate are interested in dolls. Yes, dolls. Dressing them up, posing them, taking pictures, creating photostories, you name it.
I think people should pursue hobbies on the side. I think that's a healthy thing to do so that you're not buried in your work, even if what you do for work is what you love. I don't know much about dolls as it isn't my hobby, but there are a lot of different things to learn about them. I don't think I have the interest or wallet to delve much further into them though. Up until recently I considered dolls to be a strange, strange hobby. I could understand the concept of people buying cars, photographing them, modifying them and racing them, but to me that seemed to have a functional purpose. At the end of the day, you could take them out racing. You could drive from A to B.
With dolls, I wasn't so sure. They seemed to end up sitting around. It wasn't until I considered that it falls under collector's hobby that I really got my head around it. Sometimes, that's the whole point of having a hobby. There are stamp collectors who could tell you an entire story about how a certain stamp was made, who it was sent to, where it originated from. Antique collectors will provide you with a whole history, from why certain materials were used and from which families it was passed down from. A hobby doesn't have to be functional, it just has to be interesting and each person has different interests.
So, back to dolls. Today was the opportunity to shoot something different. When your doll is significantly smaller than your usual subjects, your perspective suddenly changes. I generally use a 70-200mm lens for portraits, but the size of dolls changes everything. Normally with wedding photography, I'll try and capture the finer details. These are now even harder due to the tiny scale of things and I kept finding myself wanting a macro lens of sorts. It's ironic, but a small sensor, but high resolution point and shoot could probably outdo my current gear at taking those shots. Something like the Panasonic LX3 would do really well.
I'm not sure which doll community organised the meet (as I was brought along by my significant other and have next to no knowledge of dolls), but I'm going to assume it was Den of Angels.The meet was organised though The Faireground forums. Have a look there if you'd like more information.
Anyway, below are the photos I took from the day. As I am not familiar with the owner of the dolls themselves, I am happy to remove any offending images on request. Each photo has had basic corrections in Lightroom, but no Photoshop manipulation.
Sydney Night Noodle Market
Hyde Park is one of the nicest open spaces in the Sydney CBD and on any given day you'll find anyone and everyone ranging from your average office worker, taking time out for lunch in the park, to flair bartenders, throwing bottles over their shoulder and perfecting their skills. It made sense on paper to hold a night noodle market in Hyde Park, after all, where else would you find as much room for the huge variety of food vendors?
It's not every day that you are able to get off from work and let the evening slip away, sitting in the outdoors with friends and family. I've always seen night noodle markets in asian countries as being all about the food, rather than the atmosphere, but Sydney-siders have a different approach. The burly old asian men drinking Tiger beer were replaced with the corporate workhorses, sipping on wine. The plastic chairs and tables were still there, but every so often you'd see a blanket spread out with couples and families making a picnic out of it. You'd never see that in an asian country. The stray cats and dogs were replaced by the random household pet, brought along for company and the hot sweltering heat was replaced by a cool evening breeze. A VIP section for certain guests? It was a bit of a surprise for me really, to see what's usually a bit of a squabble turned into, dare I say it, a sophisticated night out for some.
As demonstrated recently at M-Fest, food fairs have quite a bit of a line. Forget about being able to roam from one stall to the next trying to get some variety - you'll be there all night, with one of my friends waiting in line for almost an hour just to get a plate of food. You can join the longest line, hoping that people are in there because the food is good and not because they're doing what you're doing and hoping everyone else is right, or you can join the shortest queue, get some food and run the risk of it lacking any flavour. Unfortunately, I picked the latter and for $10 received a large paper plate full of noodles that could have been shredded newspaper for all I know.
Personally, the key draw point for noodle markets in Asia is that the food is cheap, it's quick and it tastes fantastic. My selection of food unfortunately failed on all three accounts as did my partner's. Aside from that, I would have been willing to let it slide. After all, the food was produced in giant batches for the masses, not as it was ordered. Any other approach would probably have seen queues triple in size. After all the atmosphere was nice, right?
One of the problems with Hyde Park is that it plays home to the bat community almost as soon as the sun goes down and you can't exactly have a Night Noodle Market during the day, can you? I was hit by bat droppings twice when I was there, witnessed two other tables get bombarded and a family get up and move, table and all. Needless to say, I didn't have a great time and left fairly early once my food had been contaminated, but I can see that this was most likely circumstantial and would not necessarily reflect the state of the evening for others.
If you want to have a nice evening out in the park, the Sydney Night Noodle Market is a fair choice. Ironically, if you're looking for a genuine hawker style night noodle market, you'll be fairly disappointed as this isn't what it's about, but the real deal is fairly hard to find in Sydney and not without a premium.
Animania Adelaide Post Convention Mini Report
Last weekend, the Adelaide Festival Centre played host to the first Mini Animania to be held in South Australia. Animania has held mini conventions in other states with two in Brisbane (The Holiday Inn), one in Melbourne (Rydges) and one in Sydney (Citigate Central) in addition to their flagship convention in Sydney (Australian Technology Park). Entering a new state with existing competition (in the form of the already established AVCon), is not an easy task, but is not something new for Animania with already competition in Melbourne (Manifest) and Sydney (SMASH!).
Animania took a bit of a different spin this year, becoming a partner with OzAsia Festival, which has been running for the past two years. This meant that ticketing and registration for the event was done entirely through BASS. This theoretically should free up Animania's volunteers and enable faster entry into the convention. Whilst that was certainly the case, with most guests well into the venue within the first hour of the door opening (in comparison to Sydney Mini, during which the wait was a few hours if you were unlucky), it could be more the case that there simply weren't as many people queuing up.
Judging by the number of entrants into Animania's cosplay competition compared to other mini events, I would say that there was a distinct lack of attendees. Despite being a World Cosplay Summit Preliminary round for 2011, there were only a handful of cosplayers that actually entered and the quality of some costumes left a lot to be desired. Perhaps I've been spoilt by the huge jump in quality of costumes in the past few years, but I felt rather let down by some of the entries. (Mind you, the two WCS finalist groups were pretty good, but you expect that at that level.)
However, this is not something the convention organisers could have done much about. For all of the things within their control, they did them rather well. The main stage was quite possibly twice the size of Sydney Mini and the Games area had widescreen LCDs similar to those at Sydney Weekend rather than the el cheapo tvs usually found at Minis. There was also a small Cosplay Expo which has never made an appearance at an Animania convention other than at Sydney Weekend and the Art Area actually had a plethora of tables and chairs to sit down and draw at. The vendor's area was sufficiently large enough, but by mid afternoon, it was clear that some of the vendors were being overlooked by the crowd. It seemed that for once the supply outdid demand as the vendors area is usually stuffed like a tin of sardines at almost any time of the day.
The venue itself was more than large enough for the crowd attending and judging by the curtained off areas has plenty of potential for future growth. With almost all of Animania's mini conventions approaching the point of exceeding their capacity, this is a welcome change with some foresight given to expansion over the next few years.
The first year of a convention in a new location always has its problems, and whilst these were present they were at a minimum. Karaoke was ill placed and whilst it disturbed the least amount of people, wasn't attended very well at any time I was there. Furthermore, the screen was washed out by sunlight coming in through the large windows nearby. Most of my karaoke experiences have been in dark, intimate rooms and without an large audience that is the vendor's area so personally, I wouldn't have joined in either. There was also the matter of the Samurai group cancelling their act at the last minute, but no announcement was made about it. In fact, it was promoted on the main stage at one point. I can understand that last minute changes can prevent changes to the guide after it has gone to print, but not knowing on the day?
They say that a convention isn't necessarily about the event itself, but rather, the people. To an extent, I agree with this. If you turn up to an event expecting to be entertained, you're most likely going to be bored. Australian conventions seem to have a unspoken BYO fun rule. However, if the event organisers do a terrible job, then all is pretty much lost. For their first event in Adelaide, I think Animania did a fairly good job, but the fun factor wasn't brought along by the crowd. The level of organisation trumps existing mini conventions in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney with a faster entry time, more on display, and better technology, but where was everyone? Animania has sure held up their side of the deal, but it feels like no one brought the fun.
Not living in Adelaide myself, I'm not sure how well marketed the event was. If their other conventions are anything to go by, they need to get the word out there and raise their attendance levels rather than riding on the success of past events. Would I go again? If I was in Adelaide at the time, sure, I'd drop in, but with the expectation that one year onward things are better. As Animania Weekend in 2008 left a lot to be desired and in 2009 it really picked up and shone through, I don't see why Adelaide can't do the same for 2010.
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- Asleep on the way to Adelaide
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- On the way to Adelaide
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- Just outside my apartment window
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- Adelaide's Rundle Mall
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- Sun Anime, one of the larger vendors at the con
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- The vendor's area
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- Pinin, another large vendor in the vendor's area
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- Cosplays on expo. A mini first.
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- One of the honorary "Happy Brigade" working away
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- The main stage audio desk
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- Contestants on the trivia show, "Who Wants to be OVER 9000?!"
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- The three cosplay judges debating over the winners
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- The largest art area I've seen at a mini convention thus far
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- Folding origami. I seemed to have missed the twister session
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- One of the cosplay solo winners
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- Another cosplay winner
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- One of the WCS finalists
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- Another WCS Finalist
At Animania Adelaide
Currently at Animania Adelaide. Stay tuned for a convention report in the next few days.
Animania Adelaide Prep
Leaving for Animania Adelaide this weekend. My bags are on their way over on the truck and the support crew are driving over there now. It's a good two day drive from Sydney to Adelaide, so we're wishing them well (The rest of us are flying over. Ha!).
Cosplay Photography at Cockatoo Island
This event has been pencilled in my diary for a good few months now and although I didn't know many people aside from their screen names, I decided to take the plunge and head along if not to just shake the dust bunnies off my gear. It's not quite my average shoot, but there aren't many opportunities to shoot for fun these days once the schedule fills up.
A big round of applause to Kris of WhatABigCamera.com who organised the shoot and essentially assigned photographers to groups of cosplayers. Having a number of small, intimate groups spread across the island was a far better choice than having a hoard of photographers taking the same pictures of the same few subjects. I know I definitely missed a few locations, so it'll be interesting to see how diverse and creative each of the shots from the group were, rather than x pictures of the same thing from very slightly different angles.
Whilst I didn't get the opportunity to shoot with everyone, the girls that were with me were fantastic and powered on through the day. A lot of people don't realise that modelling can be quite tiring. For weddings in particular, I can understand that you're made up on your wedding day already, but after waking up at horrid hours in the morning and running through a long ceremony, I don't know how some couples make it through 3-4 hour photoshoots as the first thing they do in their married life! And then they have another few hours at the reception, it's a wonder they don't simply fall dead asleep on their wedding night!
So with this in mind, all of the models today were fantastic and really trooped on despite the rain, long hours and a distinct lack of food. I really appreciate your efforts as without a model, we'd all simply be taking landscape photos (which I'm not particularly fond of myself).
Anyway, you're here for the photos, so here they are. I didn't get as many keepers as I'd like and some of these are a bit of a stretch. Models, if you would like the RAWs, please get in contact with me. Unless otherwise noted, all pictures have had basic corrections, but no touch ups.
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- I love the rain in the foreground =)
I love the rain in the foreground =)
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- Group Shot
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- I snapped this as I passed by and really wasn't expecting to capture this. Pure luck.
I snapped this as I passed by and really wasn't expecting to capture this. Pure luck.
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- Lovely lighting from large windows behind me. Cloudy days are fantastic for diffusing light.
Lovely lighting from large windows behind me. Cloudy days are fantastic for diffusing light.
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- I had a different image in my head for this window pose, but I like how the girls arranged themselves. I felt bad for their costumes as it was so dusty!
I had a different image in my head for this window pose, but I like how the girls arranged themselves. I felt bad for their costumes as it was so dusty!
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- I turned around and the next thing I knew the pair of them were hanging off this ladder.
I turned around and the next thing I knew the pair of them were hanging off this ladder.
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- I was a bit hesitant to include this photo as it has elements I don't like and don't feel are worth putting the effort in to fix.
I was a bit hesitant to include this photo as it has elements I don't like and don't feel are worth putting the effort in to fix.
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- I love the light on her face. One of the girls was peering out of a crack in the wall which gave me this idea.
I love the light on her face. One of the girls was peering out of a crack in the wall which gave me this idea.
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- Completely impromptu. I love that nice rim of light.
Completely impromptu. I love that nice rim of light.
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- I can't believe how tight this got. I almost expected to hear a crunch.
I can't believe how tight this got. I almost expected to hear a crunch.
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- Images like these are why I love my nifty fifty.
Images like these are why I love my nifty fifty.
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- Makes you really appreciate the effort that the models put in. This is pretty much straight out of the camera.
Makes you really appreciate the effort that the models put in. This is pretty much straight out of the camera.
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- This couple were so sweet. Again, pretty much straight out of the camera aside from some colour correction.
This couple were so sweet. Again, pretty much straight out of the camera aside from some colour correction.
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- That patch of light was fantastic.
That patch of light was fantastic.
Shooting!
Had a full day of shooting for a wedding. Boy am I sore. I love my Industry Disgrace neckstrap so much now.
Calendar
Twitter (mukimu)
- Looking forward to shooting this weekend and w/ the 35! Sharp as wide open. Great focal length. Really hard to put down. 14 hours ago
- Should I wait for the Gillard presser at 4:15? Or will it mean that I'll never get to go home? 19 hours ago
- If it's down to Gillard or back to the polls, y talk about reserving the right 2 a vote of no-confidence? It's a Gillard win. #ausvotes 20 hours ago
- Lol.. Got a bit tired of Katter talking so I went and got lunch. I come back and he's still speaking. 21 hours ago
- Sweet, sweet 35mm 1.4 goodness! (Will now also be eating peanuts in place of meals) 1 day ago
