the dying days of summer (30)

is that brown appearing on the tips of the lush summer leaves already? signalling the end to a topsy-turvy (hot/cold, sunny/rainy) season? say it ain't so!! i do love autumn though. more moderate in temperature (and i do prefer cooler weather to be perfectly honest) and the most stunning colours here in canberra where there are a lot of desiduous trees and plants.

ooo summer rain (29)

i have had belinda carlisle's 'summer rain' in my head for weeks now, thanks mainly to the lead-up to and then post-concert last weekend, but also because it has rained so much here in canberra over the past few months. it has been a wet steamy spring and summer. it has rained so much that all the dams are overflowing. for the first time since i moved here over a decade ago, the dams are full and there are no water restrictions. the greenery throughout the city is something new and wonderful to behold, not to mention the amazing growth spurts observed in our plants in our courtyards. there are mostly camellias which were here when we bought the place. now i know they're hardy plants but between the ongoing drought and the fact that both mands and i are rubbish when it comes to gardening, they've been lucky to survive - in fact only one out of about ten has died. however the difference in them now is amazing! i would say that they have grown as much over the last 6 months as they did in the entire 5 years preceding that. that's how much rain we've had. mands doesn't like the camellias (not sure why) but i have a soft spot for them. my sisters and i used to use their leaves for 'money' when we played shops on our bmxes in the driveway when we were growing up. they're a sentimental plant for me, not to mention i admire their resilience.

pet sematary (28)

i actually did re-watch the film titled the very same just the other day. it was as good as i remembered, not a stellar production but definitely one of the better stephen king book-to-screen translations. the movies are never as good as the original novel. anyway i digress. this photo is of our memorial to jack, mands' and my first cat, in our front courtyard. he died not long after we moved house, he literally just dropped dead one morning, not long after we'd had him along to the vet for an ordinary check-up and he was diagnosed with a heart murmur. the vet said he'd be fine without medication for it until he was a lot older. guess she was wrong. he was only 3 :(

she's a speed racer (27)

i love riding my bike. it's my time. it's me. the end.

web of religion (26)

i'm back at the same turner orthodox church trying to take a photo of the lovely eastern europe rooftop. but none of the angles are working out because the trees are in the wrong places and the fence stops me from getting closer, and it's then i notice the spider in the web in the fence showing the church in the background, and it's so symbolical of how people get caught up in the beliefs framework that religious institutions offer them, something they are attracted to or fly into unknowingly and don't realise the trap until it's too late....

cheating (25)

i didn't actually take this photo myself but i did instruct mands in a fair amount of detail (she is reluctant to take photos for me, probably understandably) how i wanted the shot framed and taken (mini tripod, timer, multi-shot) so it kind of counts? mands claims to come from a family of non-photographers, so if i don't request photos of myself then they'd never be taken, and then years from now when i'm gone what evidence would there be that i existed and did things? although to be honest i hope it'd be more than photos as evidence of that.

nothing like a torrential downpour (24)

the weather when i got home was hardly conducive to photography, let's not forget there was a waterfall in the kitchen just a few days ago. and here i was thinking the most extreme and sudden magnitude of rain i've experienced so far has been in the wet seasons of tropics like featured in this file shot of cambodia (on the south coast just out of sihanoukville) but the weather this summer in canberra has been mad. sunny and fine when i ride into work in the morning, and thundering and pelting down like nothing else in the afternoon when it's time to go home. so much for living in a rain shadow!

purity of mosaics (23)

continuing the religion theme, this is one of the pretty mosaics in the outside wall of the ukraine orthodox centre in canberra. i'm not sure who this dude is. some fundamentalist bible warrior no doubt. i have seen the top of the rooftop of this church from the bikepath many times. today i did a detour through turner to see it up close. it is actually very pretty - stark white walls, with colourful mosaics inset, and a distinctly eastern european bulbous rooftop. i did take a photo of the rooftop with a massive cross in the foreground and while i like the photo composition, on reflection i decided it's a bit too churchy for me to bring myself to make it a daily photo. today anyway :)

what does it all mean? (22)

some interesting street art at lyneham shops. ned kelly as jesus on a cross. does the artist think ned kelly was the son of god with some moral lessons to impart to us? or that jesus was actually a common criminal who was asking for it and who has been culturally elevated to god-like status posthumous? what do you think? i think you can probably guess my own personal thoughts about it (if you know me).

it is not a bird (21)

i love looking out the window at clouds on plane trips, and i tend to take too many photos of them. looking upwards at clouds isn't even nearly same, somehow they lack the third dimension which is spectacularly obvious when you are up amongst them. this plane flying over our house is, i assume, en route from sydney to melbourne. i have been on a helluva lotta plane trips in my life, fortunately flying doesn't faze me at all. i have a new plane trips coming up. my next flight is this month to melbourne for work. the trip after that is next month to brisbane for fun. then the month after that to tasmania for my niece's first birthday and my sister's wedding. and the one after that is to wing our way to berlin for some long service leave. now that is a flight to look forward to!!! a final thought in this fairly random stream of consciousness about planes.... i read a fascinating article last year about a tribe in the midde of the jungle in south america, a community completely untouched by modern civilisation. the article was accompanied by a photo taken from a plane or helicopter with the tribesmen shooting arrows up at the cameraman. can you even imagine what the tribe thought the plane and its inhabitants were? invading tribe? aliens? god? imagine not knowing about the modern world at all, not knowing about the history of the world, other cultures, science, electricity, computers, planes, trains, tv et cetera. it blows my mind. i hope that the tribe is able to continue living their lives untouched.

notching up another capital win (20)

#12 marianna tolo driving into the key and scoring another 2 in what ended up being an easy canberra capitals victory over logan (gold coast) thunder. the caps did go into halftime losing to the thunder (with, ironically, thunder outside) however, and our seats behind the board and close to the caps bench gave us a great view of the some classic carrie graf rage-fuelled coaching. i wouldn't be surprised if carrie got a bill from the AIS to repair the dents caused by her clipboard in the playing surface. another a swift verbal kick in the proverbials delivered the intended result and the caps stepped it up big time in the second half, turning the tables on logan and giving the crowd what they came for - another sneak preview of some stellar home finals action! it's a good life being a caps fan.

shortcut to the end (19)

end of the week (yay!). end of procrastination and laziness when it comes to the 365 project (definitely). end of torrential summer rain causing a waterfall through the kitchen skylight (hopefully). end of this crappy laptop (as soon as i can make a decision about the replacement). end of J (never!).
---------------------------> end of one thing = beginning of another.

history with no closure (18)

in case it isn't obvious from the photo or tags, here's my admission that i didn't take this photo today. it's a file photo from our 2009 trip to cambodia because i am too hot and tired at the end of this day for heading out and being creative. this photo is the view from a balcony of one of the buildings in S21, a high school which was converted into a horrific political prison during pol pot's regime in the late 70s and early 80s. it is just one site in the country complete with an unspeakable history of torture and executions. to this day few of the khmer rouge lead culprits have stood trial or been sentenced which has obviously left the cambodian people with a justifiable outrage and disbelief at the lack of justice. very very sad. do we ever learn?

two seasons in one photo (17)

i upped the contrast with a heavy hand to accentuate/exaggerate the colours in this shot but believe me, it was dramatic enough even in real colour. i stopped to take this photo on my ride home from work along the bike path. i love the contrast of the foreground coloured by blasting summer heat and the background with the dark cool of the approaching storm front. what a relief the weather change was!! a cool wind noticeably dropped the temperature as i finished the last leg of my bike ride home, and the pelting rain started literally as soon as i stepped in the front door at home. it's been a strange summer with a lot of summer rain. belinda carlisle will surely love it when she comes through canberra next weekend.