There is no Cloud

The Cloud.
It sounds so serene. So elegant and tranquil.
So far removed from the cut and thrust of silicon valleys and snail mail lethargy of the National Broadband Rollout strategy.

So wrongly mis-named, The Cloud...

There were large format photographers like Minor White and Olive Cotton who spent many contemplative moments waiting for clouds to ready themselves to be exposed on big sheets of film, with not a hard drive, USB, thunderbolt, firewire or even a floppy disk in sight.

There are Cloud Appreciation Society's even.

But the way companies gush about The Cloud and cloud-based this or that is the epitome of spin.

It's just a dirty big warehouse somewhere with a gazilliion dirty big hard drives, that cross references your every geographical movement, purchase, fitbit update, hashtag and mouse click so that now when I look up the weather radar to see what the real clouds are unleashing, pop up adverts appear on the very model camera I'm looking to buy.

I love clouds, but I'm afraid of The Cloud.

Koori Mail x Brine Time

Stoked to get some of my surfing pics published in this week's edition of the national Indigenous newspaper, Koori Mail , which in their words, is "100% Aboriginal owned and 100% self - funded".

This means they don't take editorial direction from BIG politics or BIG media conglomerates. A nice balance of news, thought pieces and sport, for $2-50AU.

Check it out for an intelligent view of what's happening across Australia.

You might even come across some deadly surf shots  of Gamilaroy fullah, Jamie Archibald .

Solace (down by the river)

Neal Purchase Jnr

Josh Gunthorp riding aboard shaped by Neal

Josh at the Solace surfshop

Andrew Kidman L and NPJ on the right

Squinting, not drowning

If I squint real hard, I can just make out the weekend from here

Catafalque Party

Uncle Joe Kirk, Turrbal Elder delivering a beautiful Welcome to Country address and paid homage to  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' service to Australia in numerous conflicts. Deadly on so many levels.

BIG thanks for this year's catafalque party at Windsor War Memorial goes to the naval cadets from TS Paluma at Shorncliffe.

According to the Australian Army, "a catafalque is a raised structure supporting a stand that usually holds a coffin to allow mourners to file past and pay their last respects. A watch or catafalque party was traditionally mounted around the coffin to ensure the safety of the body while it lay in state."

The Hon Grace Grace, local member of Parliament delivering an address.

ANZAC biscuits and a cuppa afterwards at the local historical centre.

Kelp shaka

Beachbeat Bowie

Bowie Pollard from Beachbeat surfboards on a clear autumn afternoon.

Waterbeard wednesday

The First Sunrise

The First Sunrise

The first sunrise of the year is on at 545am with a long slab of blood red cloud smothered in orange light refracting through a drizzle of rain somewhere over the horizon beyond the little sand islands that lay east of our woody nook.

For the first time this year (and it’s taken nearly four months), I forgo coffee. I forgo Facebook. I forgo Instagram and gather up my DSLR and wide-angle lens and exit into said light.

A few clicks into the session, a lady from down the road chats about cameras while her little fluffy dog drinks in the morning scene. Down to the creek I head, clicking bloody silhouettes along the way and marvelling how this lens creates crazy perspectives.

For 20 minutes the light show builds and then fades before the actual sunrise. I’m trying not to get too big a dynamic range between the silhouettes and the dawn and it looks like some post-production or a graduated ND filter will be needed.

For those 20 minutes I forget my problems. I forget the mate from up the road, whose funeral service saw my tears two days ago. I forget it’s a Monday, a workday. I forget the instruction on my stretchy industrial “rubber band” exercise thingee – “remember to breathe deeply while exercising” In fact I don’t even remember breathing. I’m in the moment, enjoying something special yet evanescent – a metaphor for life I suppose – enjoying the precious moments, because nothing is forever.

Monochrome Monday (already)

Autumns

April might have been the cruelest month for TS Eliot, but I love autumn,  after the sub-tropical El Nino summers we get now.
Autumn, I salute you and your leaves turning red and gold.