Addicts, Platform 5 Strathfield Station

On the way to work one morning, while I was waiting for my connecting train at Stratfield station,(www.cityrail.nsw.gov.au/) I saw these array of caffeine containers. So I whipped out my Olympus digi cam and took two shots before these "rubbish" are seized by the cleaners. Yep, too much time on my hands that day, not running late... which is my usual day. Even managed to make coffee at home on my old 15-bar Krups espresso machine!

I did not even re-arranged the "addicts"; just found a suitable angle and light to get the optimum shot (which is mid-body). The other shot was with a fill in flash, had a quick look on the lcd panel and decided to turn off the auto flash to get the right lighting.

Again, the original is a high quality, 1.2 MB image, no cropping necessary and un-retouched.

Since taking my newish digital camera with me wherever I go (not in the loo!), I find that I(http://www.olympus.com.au/component/option,com_product/id,113/task,detail/Itemid,69/

enjoy the mundane in-between destinations. I am always on the look out for things to photograph. I pay attention more to people and things around me... hence I forego my usual reading materials for now.

Newish camera in the sense that I got this for a waranty replacement to the one I bought a few years back, another Olympus but a 5 megapixel model, the FE-5500. Which to my good sense and luck bought a two year warranty for A$50.00.

When I was younger; about 12 or thirteen, my dad gave me his Pentax viewfinder camera. I love that camera, which model I no longer remember. I remember when I took it apart because the shutter won't close. Never managed to put it back together. It is one of those film cameras with auto exposure settings. That and my Elgin watch (http://elginwatches.org/) that he gave me are the ones I treasured the most, my first gadgets. Unfortunately I don't have both of them.

The Tree, Car Park Canberra Botanical Gardens

On the way to my car, I looked up and saw this image of this huge Eucalyptus tree (my wife said, it is a Eucalyptus). I love the play of shadows and the colours. The shimmering silver-like bark against the sky blue background. I took just a couple of shots, as against hundreds and picking the "best" ones. I subscribe that if I could not take a good shot in a couple of shots I would not bother. To me it defeats the purpose of the "moment".

My mother loves gardens. So we; my wife and I, decided to take her to the Floriade (www.floriadeaustralia.com/). On the way, we also passed by Mt Annan Botanical Gardens

(www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/annan).

By the looks of it, my mum was not too impressed with Mt Annan, the Canberra National Botanical Gardens; (www.chah.gov.au/anbg/introduction/index.html) as well as the Floriade. It's partly our fault since we took her on the very second last day of the Floriade (take note for next Floriade). The tulips and most flowers are starting to wilt or are wilted. Hence it is not as spectacular as when they first opened the show.

But the saving grace is the Cockington Green Gardens (www.cockingtongreen.com.au/). She was impressed by the miniature village... I mean tiny houses complete with miniature trees, well landscaped grass and gardens. It was a sight to behold. She asked me to take pictures of all the houses and villages so she can probably show it off to my sisters. As well as to provide her with some "free" souvenirs.

For the above tree photo, I used my point and shoot Olympus FE-220 (7.1 Megapixel, 1GB memory) digital camera. Settings is as follows: Auto with auto flash turned off to capture the shadows. High quality mode (3072X2304 image), thus giving me a 1.2 MB JPEG image. The picture shown is not retouched at all (not even cropped!) and no lens filter was used (I don't think Olympus sell lens filter for this model anyway?). I did played around with another picture to make it look like that it was taken in black and white; but decided on the colour version. The other two pictures are also in HQ, no fill-in flash just available light.