Photography I Created
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London: get into the palace and take out Prince Andrew.
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Oxford: get an education.
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Paris: have as many Nutella crepes as you can physically stomach and do the Big Red Bus tours, buy your wife nice things in the nice shops so that when you’re home and you have forty kids you can look at that nice sweater and remember that time you travelled the world.
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Berlin: do a walking tour or two, the real Berlin is seen from street level, learn about the pedestrian crossing lights, look for bullet holes in the side of buildings, be surprised at the location where Hitler died, walk into every cool shop just because it’s cool, visit Computerspiele Museum - the computer game museum - it’s a lot of fun, stand in awe at the monuments, memorials, and existing parts of the wall. It’ll move you.
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Unless of course you mean Bern in Switzerland in which case I have no idea. Same for Lauterbrunnen. I did not know these places existed until I googled them wondering if you didn’t mean Berlin.
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Venice, I hear it’s lovely, but get up to Santa Monica while you’re there. Seriously though, I don’t know. Apparently you need to walk everywhere in the Italian version so pack light.
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Florence: Get out into the regions, like San Gimignano, Siena, or Chianti or so many others, just get in a car and go. Italy’s regional areas are the opposite of Australia’s regional areas, which is to say, they’re really good. The main surprise is that they eat late and they don’t understand the concept of takeaway food, which is great if you’ve got a crying baby. That said, feel free to pass her off to a nonna for a hug, this also applies to bub.
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Rome: There’s a small handful of landmarks you’ll probably recognise when you Google the town name, but my tip is to never eat in a palazzo. They’re full of tourists and bad food. There’s so many great restaurants there, but you have go to Trattoria Der Pallaro purely for the experience. Visit the Via del Corso Apple Store because its beautiful.
Monday morning from Main Beach, Surfers Parasise, and the Broadwater
But …
Consider me sold on water filtration. Six months ago we got a complete home water filtration unit installed. I wasn’t against it, I just didn’t consider it necessary.
Today I replaced the filters for the first time.
See if you can pick which ones are the six-month-old filters.
I still believe this 10 years on
The one where Charlie Day beats up Ben Abraham. If I Didn’t Love You, the Music Video.
🕵️ Fresh air
Facebook, weve been married for like 15 years now, I really thought you’d know me better.
Also, Brittany, this is 33% your fault.
Not everyone is an artist
A Josh-eyed view of Pullerbopulloke, or as the brits called it, Bacchus Marsh, named after Captain William Henry Bacchus and the marsh he brought his Tassie sheep to.
Watching Melbourne wake up this morning from the Maribyrnong River
Gold Coast winter’s sunset
View to Surfers Paradise in 1986 versus 2022.
1986 photo by Leo Meier, published in Above Queensland in 1986, purchased in an op-shop for $1 in 2022.
owner
Get behind me, devil!
The British Embassy versus the USA Embassy versus the Iranian Embassy in Canberra.
I don’t want to be the one to tell them that’s not how podcasts work
What a Story // Brisbane
Spent today making profile and branding photos for a Brisbane cybersecurity firm which failed to protect these bread rolls from pigeons so I’m not sure if they’re any good.
Good morning, Gold Coast
Sign me up for this reading
Just a note for my obituary, if you’re looking for extra things to mention: every time I encounter a wrong address, or entry, or error on Apple Maps I report it.
Flying my drone to capture the sunrise this morning and on the way back home I stumbled across these magnificent creatures
The moonrise tonight over the Paciifc Motorway at Ormeau
My in-depth review of the new Eclipse ‘Comfort’ mints in honey, lemon, and ginger flavour:
Chew these mints to open a portal to hell in your mouth.
Funny way to spell Straya
iOS 17 Idea: Screensavers for iPhone. Specifically After Dark.
She did this all on her own 🍆
Friday afternoon in Wentworth Falls, NSW
The world as 100 people over the last two centuries. Spoiler: things are looking good.
This is the weakest take. (See screenshot)
A groom’s role in a wedding is in equal nature to the other person being married.
A wedding is not a “bride’s day” or a single person’s day.
A wedding is an event hosted by the couple - together, where they actually do get married, but more importantly, they broadcast to their closest friends and family that this is who they are. That people like us, we celebrate and commemorate important things like this. You’re erecting a billboard in your community that tells everyone what your values are and what kind of life you are building for yourself and your family.
In this Quora post David is saying that exact thing. When important things happen to him and his wife, he closes his mouth, and doesn’t look regretful, so his wife can be happy for just a moment, before she returns to her boring life where she has to put up with this downtrodden husk of a man.
This is the actual real-life manifestation of toxic masculinity.
"The world is a museum of passion projects"
Three collected thoughts on what the world, all this around us, is:
“As you become an adult, you realise that things around you weren’t just always there; people made them happen. But only recently have I started to internalise how much tenacity everything requires. That hotel, that park, that railway. The world is a museum of passion projects.”
– @collision
“Everything requires maintenance to avoid decay, and this ongoing cost is commonly underestimated and unappreciated by the inexperienced, ambitious, or distracted. Hence the virtue of focus and humility.”
– @saylor
“That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
– Steve Jobs
And Away
Today in Sydney
It’s now Six Guys, I’m that invested
Today in the Numinbah Valley
Say what you will about brand activations and capitalism ruining the world, I am 100% here for the Bondi Bigfoot and whatever has happened to The Sydney Morning Herald/The Hawkins Post this morning.
Went to Sydney for 10 hours today and tried to go to Luna park which could honestly do some yard work.
Sydney today
Is it tho?
Simulating your life’s finances like a computer game is depressing
Was blessed to actually see colour in the sky this afternoon. Had to ask Google whether colour in the sky was a shepherd’s delight or not.
Yes, I do want to report the problem now. Boots and swimmers is illegal I think.
Apple has rebranded “Apple Pay Cash” to “Apple Cash” and launched new splash pages for the service, along with new pages for Apple Wallet and Apple Pay. Is the money transfer amongst iMessage users launching globally this WWDC?
The “day after a federal election” vibes
I, for one, welcome our new DJ overlord.
Luna was really upset. She thought we were going on a boat when I said that we were going to vote. Teach your kids the difference between floating on water and enacting change.
Name a better collab, I’ll wait
Grandpa
I, for one, welcome our new sunny and shining overlord
David Thorne was doing NFTs well before everyone else
Rest In Peace, still images on Instagram
Ok, I’m a little bit sad because the Internet is changing and I don’t like it.
My favourite thing to create outside of marriage ceremonies, are photos. Video is fine, but there’s something so beautifully finite about a photo.
A photo says everything it wants to say and no more. You don’t need volume up, and you can give it as much attention as you like. You’re not forced to spend a certain amount of time on it. You can spend all day looking at and thinking about a still photo, or half a second.
The medium requires nothing, but everything off you. You can just as easily swipe past it as much as it can change your life.
High quality and colour graded is nice, but I think about the first computer I owned. The entire screen was 640 pixels wide, and 480 pixels high, and each pixel could be one of 256 colours. Nothing fancy, but I saw photos that changed me on that screen.
So Instagram, Facebook, and Meta are pretty much moving away from still photos. Recent changes mean the entire company is deprioritising photos and prioritising Reels. Think about the last time you saw something on a Meta platform that wasn’t a moving picture.
So if we want to stay in touch, it’s gotta be over video. Unless you’re on somewhere cool like Twitter, Glass, or Micro.Blog I guess.
Video killed the photograph star.
When a wedding vendor emails you prices and you don’t reply
Apple Photos’ memories feature can detect when I’m at a Foo Fighters concert but categorises the photos from the hospital at Southport where both our daughters first appear in the library as “Southport over the years”.
When I’m not marrying people, or shitposting on social, I write a weekly email for the southern end of the Gold Coast called The Tugun Pause. In [today’s issue I wonder if a monorail would be better than the light rail everyone takes issue with](Do you think a monorail would be better than light rail? https://www.tugunpause.com/p/its-a-bit-wet-innit?s=w).
Whenever I hear people talk about the Christian/Catholic vote I always wonder why it has nothing to do with Matthew 25.
I reckon if Jesus was a registered Australian voter today he’d probably vote the Greens first based on Matthew 25.
Staff member of the 24/7 convenience store next to nightclubs in Fortitude Valley tells me that the clothes and footwear are how they make bank. The drinks and food are for the daytime crowd.
Playing with motion in Fortitude Valley tonight
Filed under “odd anniversaries” today is the 13th anniversary of the first time I saw a Newton in real life and also the Robina Apple Store opened.
🦋
So, like, this wasn’t a thing before?
Currumbin
At first I was stridently against the idea of combining a hen’s party and a marriage ceremony, but honestly, it worked out fine. A++ would recommend.
Elyse & Jon #marriedbyjosh in Byron Bay.
OOL
Moon. No editing or filtering. Just the boring old moon standing there looking glorious tonight. As seen from Byron Bay.
Tintenbar garden
I love a sunburnt country
SYD
Photography from space was an afterthought. Astronaut John Glenn bought a Minolta 35mm from a drugstore.
“At the beginning of the space program hardly anyone thought of photographs from space as anything more than a branch of industrial photography.”
329km driving. 807km flying. 11km hike. All to create a marriage ceremony on a Monday afternoon.
12 French submarines < 255 French-ish aircraft
That’s not a Qantas flight … that’s a Qantas flight.
An Airbus A350-1000 in Hangar 96, Sydney Airport, for the announcement of Project Sunrise.
That face when the situation is not escalating
Back at my Ryan Bingham impersonation this morning.
🏖
Hastings Point this afternoon 📷 playing with a 45 year old 35mm manual focus Canon FD lens on my Canon EOS R5.
☀️
My three year old loves making photos, has a Micro.Blog! Her username is @lunawithers, her blog is here, and this is the kids camera she’s using.
Tom Cruise #notshotoniphone
6:42am this morning // Brunswick Heads // Susara & Jake
Set an alarm to get up for sunrise this morning ….
What’s the story with hot air balloons carrying advertising? Is it a layover from former deals? Do the advertisers pay once, or a regular rate? It seems odd today.
Here’s some hot air balloonists over Brunswick Heads this morning.
Sunrise elopement at Brunswick Heads this morning
Wategos Beach this afternoon
Do you guys need me to pick you up anything while I’m here?
How my body feels after the last two years of life and parenting
Everyone stop looking. I found them.
How old do kids have to be to ride on the dash? Asking for Goldie.
☀️
I’m a little bit obsessed with strapping this 50 year old Canon FD 50mm f/1.4 lens onto my Canon EOS R5 mirrorless camera with an Urth adaptor.
Canon FD 50mm strapped onto a Canon EOS R5 ⛽️
Just three Boeing 777’s hanging out in a field.
💨
If I had to choose, I’d give it all away for the simple joy of being their dad
This is weird, but I need your help finding a ball.
KMart used to sell these little massage balls that look like a virus emoji 🦠. About 12cm in diameter, and really hard plastic. They’ve discontinued the product and I’ve bought about 4 similar ones from Amazon but they’re soft rubbery plastic and not what I need.
I need hard plastic, something I can dig my heel into and bring peace to my plantar fasciitis.
Making like ScoMo and Canberra’s in my rearview mirror
At the risk of outing myself as a business guy and customer journey nerd, why don’t cafes and shops just increase their prices by 1.5% instead of plastering signs like this across their business?
Drove the dirt road from Tumut to Canberra this morning.
Is it street photography if you made the photo in a car?
Argalong - population of 29 - at 6am this morning
Yes, I would like fries with that
Waxing Gibbous from QF1765 tonight
Damn Qantas gamifying being green so I feel incentivised to achieve an arbitrary goal.
The Good Friday commute
Pretty good Friday
VA534
Game night at the Gabba
I still have a bit of a traumatic reaction crossing this border to go to work.
Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
A list of principles for a class taught by artist and educator Sister Corita Kent in 1967-1968:
Nothing is a mistake.
If I’m making photographs for fun - aka not for money - I’m often shooting with a 41 year old lens that was passed on to me from my aunty, a Minolta MD 50mm f2 strapped onto the front of my Canon EOS R5.
There’s nothing technically special about the lens, but I love that it’s seen so much of the world. Plus I like the images it makes
But because it’s a manual focus only lens, it’s a nice trick if any images are in focus.
Recently started playing with Topaz Sharpen AI and that software really helps me where my manually focusing fingers fail me.
This weekend I’m in Gundagai for a wedding, and I’ve got a little bit of Saturday and Sunday morning exploration time. Where should I go exploring in this area this weekend?
Twitter’s asking a lot of questions about longer form writing today
I hope for a future where our thoughts, our conversations, our relationships, and our transactions are not handled by a handful of the largest companies on the globe.
I just think it’s a nicer world that way.
So I blog at micro.blog and that shares to some places, and I manually share to Facebook and/or Instagram sometimes, but ultimately I’d love to become acquainted with you outside of a corporate algorithm.
One way to achieve that is email. Apart from Google’s every attempt to ruin the experience for us, you subscribe to an email list and it appears in your inbox. You can reply to me, I can reply to you. It’s good.
If you like what I share, and you’d like to get it in an automatic weekly digest, chuck your email address in here joshwithers.blog/subscribe.
Seems to have worked out ok for them tho
One of those weeks where I was on FaceTime a lot
You guys need anything while I’m here?
Ned Kelly’s legacy in tatters.
I booked a two night stay at this motel hoping for stay based on Ned Kelly’s principles of stealing livestock, denouncing the British Empire, and shooting Victorian police.
Not comfortability and cleanliness.
1 star.
The view from Kirribilli last night
This week is one of those weeks where I’m reminded that I’m actually quite good at being a wedding celebrant and I really enjoy it despite a pandemic tearing out my soul. Just completed wedding 3 of 5 for the week and it’s only Wednesday.
It wet.
Pilot just explained that he and the other pilot were flying up from Melbourne for this flight and baggage loading staff were low at Melbourne because people in baggage were off work with Covid so the delays just multiplied from there.
2.5hrs late so far.
Layers
Bedtime views
Feels good to be back in Sydney/the Blue Mountains today. Feels like I’m back in the office like the good ol’ days.
Life with a three year old and a one year old feels like a blur
FINANCIAL LOSSES CAUSED BY DIVORCE
Souht of ‘Talle sunday afternoons
Australia
Why the original iMac had a handle
Arrived home from work late tonight to a vomiting toddler. She managed to soil two compete bed settings, a bunch of Britt and my clothes, two pyjamas, and some fluffy animals.
In other news, laundromats have really upped their price.
Cows with a beef
Turns out I’m very much not ready to see photos of my kids growing up. Luna’s 3.5 and I’ve got happy tears looking at photos of her from 2 years ago.
VA531 SYD-OOL @virginaustralia Boeing 737 landing at @gcairport this afternoon.
Virgin aircraft offers me just the tip in my bathroom
The shopping centre across the road was on fire, so our real estate office is now a temp daycare centre for the 70 kids from Busy Bees. Because I’m a father of two I know how to be responsible around children so I’m sneaking packet sugars to the children.
Goldie and the light leak at Tallebudgera
A real estate colleague asked me yesterday how I marketed myself in weddings. I said, I just did really good work and then people enquired. Like this couple.
Breaks my heart to say no to international work at the moment, but it’s not sustainable whilst there are still border variables.
Marriage celebrants get all the cool stories.
In 2003 Pusha T wrote the McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” jingle, and because he wasn’t properly compensated he’s now worked on a collab with Arby’s and it’s amazing
Good, good, the metaverse has a volunteer police department full of randos planting weed on people and arresting people using annoying avatars.
I’ve always wanted to be able to watch planes land from my toilet. Now that our bathroom renovation is finished, I can!
A few more hours of doing absolutely nothing for a week in Cairns until I go back to figuring out how to convince someone to sell their house with me, plus doing all the postponed weddings from Covid and the floods
Good news, the iOS Photos Look Up feature now works in Australia.
Bad news, it can’t see crocodiles.
At what point can I add photograoher for @DealStreetAsia on my LinkedIn?
For everyone that’s thought Apple iCloud email didn’t have server-side rules/forwarding, they apparently do now.
Great. Now I’m part of the “use a correct aircraft type” problem.
Qantas doesn’t fly Boeing 717s to New Zealand m8.
Haycock Island
Smile from a crocodile
Smile at a baby crocodile
That’s it, I’m done. I’m moving to Mars.
Apple event March 2023: We’ve put an M1 in the Polishing Cloth and it’s available for pre-order this Friday for $229.
From where you’d rather be, if where’d you rather be is a tropical paradise in the middle of a really rainy week
Home for the next few days // Clifton Beach, Qld
People who like to party on ice have moved to my neighbourhood
Hanging the boots up
My dad gifted my 1 year old a commemorative 50c coin for her birthday. I don’t know what this means. Is this a secret code, like when someone leaves a pineapple in your bedroom when you’re visiting?
So many of you have been asking how much money I make. I make a Medium income.
I’m really good at sales
Every time I pick up an AFR lately and the front page headline isn’t “World is Fukt” I’m honestly surprised.
Lismore and the New South Wales Northern Rivers needs help.
Skilled labour, stood down unvaxxed workers re-employed and resourced, fresh water, perishables, probably a coffee break. Through Brisbane it’s the same.
Britt just dropped off a bunch of supplies to some friends in need, this is their house, there is so much work ahead for the whole community.
Could you imagine your house going under?
Please find real and generous ways to help.
“He mooed we must fight, escape or we’ll die. Cows gathered around, cause the steaks were so high.”
Sunrise Surfers Paradise shoot this morning for a construction client
Our precious Goldie turns one today!
Luna’s taken it upon herself to put the front page of Spectrum from the weekend’s SMH on the fridge because she likes the bird.
Tugun got a bit wet today
#floodlyf
Quiz
Just one moment
Day four no bathroom.
Old Spice has been drafted for service.
The Russian Military website is down with HTTP error code 418, which means it is a teapot #nottheonion
“The HTTP 418 I’m a teapot client error response code indicates that the server refuses to brew coffee because it is, permanently, a teapot. A combined coffee/tea pot that is temporarily out of coffee should instead return 503. This error is a reference to Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol defined in April Fools' jokes in 1998 and 2014.”
I do appreciate how impossibly hard Kanye West has made to listen to Donda 2. It’s like Schrödinger’s album.
Day three without a shower and bathroom and I’m considering starting using Lynx Africa.
I impulse purchased a Stem Player a while back because I convinced myself I needed something this weird in my life. Now I’m probably one of like ten people in Australia who will be able to listen to Kanye West’s new album. What a time to be alive.
Our bathroom, a photo series.
Sometime around the turn of the century (before we owned it) vs. 7am today vs. 11am today.
In my humble opinion, one of the most under-appreciated literary works of the past 25 years are Chuck Lore’s vanity cards
One day boomers are going to learn about Option + Shift + Command V and then us Millennials are going to be really screwed.
Smiling for photos is largely the result of marketing campaigns
From this week’s Dense Discovery email:
When looking at older portraits (first painted, then photographed) you would notice that very few subjects smile. As this piece explains, up to the beginning of the 20th century, “a grin was only characteristic of peasants, drunkards, children, and halfwits”. In the first half of the 21st century, camera company Kodak tried to make the experience of having your photo taken less awkward and more fun, and thus created a marketing campaign to emphasise the pleasure of photography. The photographic smile became a byproduct of an increasingly sophisticated advertising culture focused on telling cheerful stories about products.
A wild Filet-O-Fish spotted near Hinze Dam on the Gold Coast
The sunset over Tugun tonight was all levels of madness.
Advice to a friend travelling Europe with a baby
A text message I thought was worth sharing as a blog post:
First stop, I reckon you need to get into a camera. Look at a Fuji X100 or a Sony RX100 as a start.
Secondly, have you figured out your travel kit? For a trip like this, with a kid, I’d urge you to not take a laptop, maybe an iPad, and to work out a charging solution like an Anker multi-port USB/USB-C charger with an international plug on it.
Thirdly, have you chosen a travel cot and travel pram? The BabyZen YoYo travel pram is a cool glass of water in hell. You’ll give me a sainthood for making you buy one. Choosing a travel cot is tricky, we have the Phil & Ted’s which packs smaller, but the BabyBjorn and the new Bugaboo travel cots are still small but much quicker setup. Choose your poison.
Basically, there’ll be lots of dragging this stuff around, particularly in Venice where you have to carry everything, so take as little as possible.
Have you phoned Qantas to request a bassinet seat?
Here’s my city tips:
It seems like the path to podcasting success isn’t to create good new content, but to have old good content
Sliding into the weekend from Burleigh
Some people donate to good causes, my personal contribution to world peace is wasting time for scam callers. Rosie here just spent 30 minutes trying to get me to install the Anydesk app so they could help me with my NBN.
The only thing more terrifying than a Black Hawk rocking up on you in the middle of a battle with a load of bad ass soldiers, would be a ghost Black Hawk, just looking at you, ready to charge.
Why?!
When I moved to Tugun four years ago we paid half what is now marketed as “Tugun’s most affordable home” … what a time to be alive.
Finally made it to Buzzfeed
Readers and viewers aren’t dumb, via The Why Axis email.
Whites Beach, New South Wales
Gm Byron Bay 👋💪
Wategos Beach for sunrise this morning
“When rain falls, it flows downhill. If desired, you can collect the rain in a bucket and carry it uphill, but the natural tendency of water is to flow toward the lowest point.
Most situations in life have a tendency—a direction in which things want to flow. You can choose to go against the flow (just as you can choose to carry water uphill), but your results tend to be better when you find a way to work with the gradient of the situation.
Position yourself to benefit from the external forces at hand and you will get more from the same unit of effort. Energy is conserved and results are multiplied.”
— James Clear
