PLASTIC FREE JULY - AND BEYOND

If you're interested in reducing the amount of trash - and particularly plastic - that you and/or your household produces and you're not quite sure where to start, it can seem like a daunting task.  Once you stop, look around, and tune into the problem, it suddenly seems like plastic is simply everywhere - from tea bags to tracksuit pants, to those tiny but annoying stickers on the fruit you buy or the straw that you asked them to leave out that still turns up in your drink anyway.

INDEPENDENCE

A couple of weeks ago, the Northern Territory has its annual Territory Day celebrations. Much like the similarly timed Independence Day in the USA, the Northern Territory has developed its own tradition of celebrating self governance through the detonation of fireworks (somehow the standard total fire ban that's in place around this time always gets waived). Personally, I've always found it kinda strange how DIY explosive devices have become synonymous with declarations of geo-political autonomy.

HIATUS

Travel and work have consumed most of the last few months and I've struggled to find the headspace to set aside any time in my life for more writing as there's been a lot of demands on my creative juices at work of late, so to summarise;

FESTIVAL DAYS

Ack! It's the Darwin festival again - already! And for the third year in a row I've managed to arrange things so that it's during the month I'm feeling least inclined to do anything with my cash. The first year I was still looking for work, the second I was saving my pennies for a trip to the USA and this year I'm doing the same for an impending NZ departure...and all going well I won't be here for it next year. So, better take my chance to give a nod to Darwin's largest art and culture event.

HIP HAPPENINGS

So, I don't know quite how this has happened, but Darwin seems to be getting a little trendy these days. There's raw/paleo cafes popping up, cold drip filtered coffee, wheatgrass shots, drinks in jars, hipster beards - and I even recently read about a local microbrewery starting up.
Ok, so we don't have cat cafes yet, nor have I spotted anyone reading Haruki Murakami under a 70's shade umbrella on the beach. There's also a distinct lack of the types of venues, clothing, eco-friendly, retro-vintage, paper goods, sign writing and book stores that are simply de rigeur if you want to make the trendy town cut...

But still...

DOWN BY THE WHARF

Once a year Darwin has a harbour clean up day, which I'm lucky enough to be allowed to get involved with through the organisation I work for (though 'lucky' might be a matter of opinion, in proper 'oh god I'm getting old' fashion, I managed to properly strain a thigh muscle during the course of my day).

PEAKS AND TROUGHS

I must admit that I've been stumped for ideas these last few weeks. It's gradually crept up on me that I've felt like I've been in a holding pattern for the last year or so now, working mostly on getting another decent notch on the career bedpost and putting together some cash for the next step. But now that I've well and truly reached the point where I feel like it's time to start walking - or at least drawing a map - it's like my boots have got stuck in the mud somewhere along the way.

LONG WHITE CLOUD

Exciting travel plans on the horizon. Early next month I'll be whizzing off for a short trip to my old Kiwi homeland. Since leaving New Zealand in 1991, I have only been back twice so I'm looking forward to catching up with old friends and family, pottering around the beautiful countryside and revisiting some old haunts. And of course having some different subject matter to photograph!

KING TIDE

Over this side of the globe the phrase 'king tide' is just another way of describing the biggest of our high tides. As I recently mentioned, Darwin doesn't get much surf. What we do get though are some substantial tidal variations - approaching 8 metres in height. King tides happen a few times a year, but aren't especially noteworthy during the dry season when the winds are relatively calm. However a monsoon season king tide accompanied by stormy winds is the kind of event that gets people to the beach in droves. The evening's entertainment feature of recent days has been a churning sea accompanied by 10 metre high seawater plumes slamming into the rocky shore.

FEBRUARY FAST

Historically, this time of year commonly involves a period of fasting. I'm assuming it's because February often falls within the religious period of Lent...either that or everyone's collectively freaking out over the fact that those extra Christmas kilos are still there, even after we bought that gym membership and that new pair of lycra pants and have spent 31 days willing the kilos away. The act of fasting often accompanies a cleanse (physical and/or mental), a religious doctrine or a form of protest. While our modern preoccupation with food and eating disorders means that any suggestion to voluntarily starve ourselves can trigger a red flag, there are many studies that demonstrate the health benefits of short, regular fasting periods (anti red flag caveat: 'within the context of a well balanced and healthy diet').

BIG YELLOW TAXI

I'm probably what you'd describe as a lukewarm activist. Never one for crowds, slogans and rallies, I prefer to let my consumer persona do the talking. I have steadily imposed a personal bouycott on so many unethical and/or environmentally damaging brands over the last 20 years that there are certain supermarket aisles I now no longer even bother with. Then there's my attempts to live life 'plastic lite'. The fact that I don't own a TV. Trying to support small businesses. Cleaning up beaches. Buying a lot of goods secondhand. Donating to environmental groups. Writing letters. Getting three degrees in environmental science...that kind of thing.

Still, I've always tried to bring a scientific balance to my inner knee jerk hippie that likes to commune with nature and eternally wonders where 'everything else' is meant to live. I try to consider the reality of development in the face of a growing global population as well as recognizing the mineral, petroleum and energy resources that, as a citizen of a developed country, I use every day.

LIFE IN THE BIKE LANE

Bicycles.

As a child they're often our first symbol of freedom and learning to ride one - training wheels off - is a memory that stays with us long after we transition into a busy adult in a 4-wheeled box.

RESOLVE

seriously, just google 'yoga mountain' sometime

Unless one of your new year's resolutions has been to avoid the internet since we ticked over into the first of January, then it's unlikely you've been spared the slew of feel good, do good, get the life/body/romance you want, here's why your resolutions won't stick, how to transform your life in 5 easy steps, stock photography of someone standing on a mountain in a yoga pose articles.

New year, new you. While every day is a blank page, the first day of the new year is like the first page in a leather-bound moleskine, a Dear Diary of endless possibilities that, much like my own attempt at journaling, start off with the best of intentions but that eventually wind up bitching about that thing that person did that time, zomg. A native of the antipodes, the push to step up when the clock strikes 12 on December 31st (or at the very least once the hangover has gone) is even further fueled by the fact that it's high summer. How easily the determination to feast only on fresh juice and salads is coerced by our Home and Away lifestyle of long sunny days on white sandy beaches.

MEMORY LANE

Over the last few days I have finally got around to merging sections of my old blog (mostly my life in France in the mid 00s) into this one, which has meant reading and reviewing each post to decide whether I wanted to keep it as well as reformatting and refreshing images from my photo archive.

Initially I was undecided about whether to do this (and in the end I decided to publish only a few of the more neutral posts and relegate the rest to my own private files). It was a different time, place and blogging community and though I have come full circle (in the complete sense, I am back living in a studio at my parents' place in my former home town!) I am in a much different place as I was when I first entered the blogging world and have a very different approach to what and why I share online.

EARLY ARRIVAL

You know those mornings when you get your first real impression that the season has turned? My favourite has always been autumn, with its first hint of crispness and the fragrance of woodsmoke in the morning air, the first browning of a leaf and blush of purple in the blackberry bushes.

IT'S BETTER TO TRAVEL ALONE THAN WITH A BAD COMPANION

How does that William Morris mantra to minimalism go again? “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful". (Great advice dude, but there are some people out there that think their room full of beanie babies is a beautiful thing, just saying.)  Granted, my idea to take a camera around more often as a better way to make use of my downtime was exactly what I needed (my DSLR is great, but it's not very practical to carry around day to day), but it seems my go-to point and shoot impulse buy from a couple of years ago is an awful piece of gadgetry...well, that is to say it works but doesn't come close to what I want out of a camera. Maybe I'm too picky, but it's decided - I don't like it and we're not friends.

CORNER OF BISHOP AND SNELL

There's not a huge amount of street art in Darwin unfortunately (though we do have an active collective of decent artists in the city). So whenever I see anything clever or insightful, it tends to catch my eye. I spotted this illustration in Darwin's industrial area of Winnellie during my commute home. Pretty on point for a Buy Nothing New Month I think!

SHADES OF LUNCHTIME

One of the upsides of working in the city is I can go for a stroll by the waterfront, the park, or wander round the mall. One of the downsides of working in the city - at this time of year - is that it's stinking hot, and a casual wander generally turns into a casual browse in an air-conditioned shop, which often leads to the casual purchase of a casual item.

Not shopping is super easy when you don't go to the shops, I've discovered (call it a eureka moment) - but when the beckoning CBD is a useful and healthy excuse to get out of the office, then what?
So as an alternative to casual consumption, I've decided to do mini photo-walks instead. Whatever I can find and shoot in half an hour, give or take. At the absolute worst time of the day for photography. The added bonus is that it will hopefully kick-start my photography mojo, which has been flagging these last few months. And, as I'm waiting on a new (secondhand) battery charger for my DSLR, I'll be using my neglected point and shoot. I've never really clicked with it (no pun) so it'll be a good time to figure out if we're going to get along in the long run.

REFINED

Prompted by a subscription reminder message, one thing led to another over the weekend and I ended up entirely overhauling my blog because the old style wasn't really doing it for me.
....And also because I get easily distracted.
.........And because I need a holiday.

I also merged some of the posts from an older blog I had going when I lived in Europe so everything lives here now.

It's only taken me about 3 years to get around to this.

A WOE THAT IS MADNESS

I’m going to take a little time out of my Friday night schedule (*cough* packed as it is) to talk to you about whales, whaling and why Australia – and the global community – needs to step up and tell countries that persist in the commercial hunting of whales to sit down and have a cup of chai already.

For context: articles like this one  that I read this morning are less interesting to my mind for a supposed ‘slip’ by the Japanese Fisheries Minister where he openly admits whaling is not happening for scientific purposes (but it’s their whale-meat catered party and they’ll hunt if they want to) but rather the reason behind why they think the rest of the world are hypocrites that should mind their own business. By the way, ‘scientific whaling’ is just a loose term for destructive population monitoring (apparently DNA samples aren’t enough and it’s just better off to kill the whole thing because science). In short they need to kill some whales, so they know when there’s enough whales, so they can kill lots more of them again.