Photography I Created
- The couple lived in one of the four local government area’s that had been ordered to stay at home, the NSW Premier said at the time “if you live or work in those four local government areas you should not leave your home unless you have to.”
- Sydney was entering a pretty severe lockdown and weddings were banned, there was literally four reasons given to leave the house. Weddings were allowed “for compassionate reasons” on the day they were married and I didn’t think that an elopement with no guests for a local couple who hadn’t communicated any compassionate reasons was more important than public safety.
- I would need to quarantine on arrival back to Queensland for two weeks afterward which is super fun for work and leave me making a financial loss on the wedding.
Fingal Head this afternoon.
Was nice to visit and not have to convince a police to let me go home afterward.
A million dollar sunset over #Tugun tonight
Why would you make new music when all the growth in the industry is from old music
At a wedding recently I heard my mate Hutcho belt out an old school banger with more energy and passion than the original artist could of. I jokingly asked afterward, “why do people make new music?” There is so much good music, how do you even get the guts to release a new song and meekly tell the world that you’ve made new music despite there being so much good music.
Then once you actually make new music, you’re hoping that the algorithmically-driven music industry today accepts your offering and feeds it to the masses, so much so that you can put food on the table.
Then I read about the actual state of the music industry. Ted Gioia writes a few days ago:
“All the growth in the market is coming from old songs. The 200 most popular tracks now account for less than 5% of total streams.”
And if you enjoy reading about the death, and rebirth, of pop, you should read Adam Singer as well..
I have issue with Apple’s Texas Hold’em game. Do they not have a graphic designer on staff? Could they not just get a photo of a bunch of Macs on a shelf in a garage from @ismh?
Sea breeze
Toowoomba’s, Gabbinbar Homestead, on a Thursday afternoon
She turns around to tell me to make sure I take a photo of her on the scooter, “take photo of me!” My firstborn, @lunawithers.
January 2022 in the Associated Press:
“A bill … that would prohibit public schools and private businesses from making white people feel “discomfort””
That face when dad makes you leave the beach
South of Talle’ on a Tuesday afternoon
Luna got a camera for Christmas from Uncle Harley & Ainsley, so tonight she wanted to go and make photos of planes taking off.
You couldn’t understand how proud I am of her. Her little brain astounds me and impresses me every day!
When Britt and I were dating we lived in different cities the whole time as I travelled for radio work (Port Macquarie, Mackay, Cairns, Sydney, Brisbane) so we spent heaps of time at night on the phone.
We’d go outside and ask each other if we could see the moon.
Ten years on we have a daughter named Luna.
And we named her sister Goldie so we could have our sun and our moon.
I missed this New York Times piece on my hometown, Mackay in North Queensland, about how the mayor is almost single-handedly trying to turn the community around on climate change.
“Over the past year, Mr. Williamson, a fifth-generation Mackay local, has tried more outreach and education, meeting frequently with residents to discuss why the trees are needed, and whether a lighter mix of vegetation might be allowed for partial ocean views.”
If Mackay was going to be in the New York Times I always thought it would be because they ship about 100 million tonnes of coal out of the region every year.
2021, the year in typography, if you’re into that kinda nerdy thing like I am.
“I used to think the top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought with 30 years of good science we could address those problems, but I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy – and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation and we scientists don’t know how to do that.”
– Gus Speth
West Philadelphia born and raised, and now rebooted, much more dramatically
Morgan Cooper made a fan-trailer of a dramatic reboot of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 2019:
Will Smith saw that video and now there’s a real trailer and a real show!
That’s one of the best things about this new world without as many gatekeepers, and falttened lines of communciation and promotion. You can just have an idea, run with it, and see where it lands.
Reflecting on the original show, there’s obviously a darker storyline underneath the lighthearted primetime television show, but the 90s were never ready for that.
Will Smith talks about that idea in this video about the new reboot:
A weird celebration: we won our first Covid court case
Today, on the 683rd day of March 2020, we won our first Covid wedding cancellation court case, a court hearing I attended from the carpark of a service station in Maryborough which had erected a statue of Ned Kelly in front of it. A weird culmination.
The first six were frustrated contracts which meant the contract was basically torn up and the judge had to make a decision as if they were a “man on the Clapham omnibus” which is pretty much the common law definition of the pub test.
Today, our contract stood up and was not frustrated, and the couple had cancelled the contract.
So the real winner in this pandemic is my original lawyer, who I fired after his legal advice when people started cancelling was for us to just refund everyone, something we couldn’t afford to do.
Wedding vendors are not wedding insurance, but for the past 683 days we’ve been treated like it.
The gestation period for new MacBooks is past the two month mark #joy
15 years of iPhone
Your Animals With Attitude artists were so preoccupied with whether they could make a Super Mario Koala, they didn’t stop to think if they should make a Super Mario Koala.
I remember my friend Clifford showing me these photos and us waiting for them to render. Seeing a girl’s naked shoulders was a big deal back then.
Week one of writing an email about life on the southern Gold Coast is that poor that @revue isn’t sure how to communicate it to me.
“Yeah, no-one really cares, kid.”
I don’t understand magazine publishing in 2022. Today, January 4, a few minutes ago, someone published a pdf to Apple News and it’s about Macs released on November 10 with a release date of next month.
One more Tokyo memory. No man has ever made me as happy as this man, as he handed me the nicest coffee my body has ever experienced. Japan is missing from me.
Whenever Brittany talks about having more kids, I start thinking about buying us a children buggy like this mum in Tokyo I saw in 2019.
I think about this bloke I saw out the front of a Tokyo train station in November 2019 reading a book with a magnifying glass quite a lot.
Storytime with Seth Rogen is a new fav podcast and it’s going on my inputs page. The most recent episode, The Ballad of Mount Doogie Dowler, is a grizzly bear epic!
Gold Coast afternoon
Ex-Tropical Cyclone Seth brings some surf to Snapper
Ex-Tropical Cyclone Seth is bringing some wind to the waves at Tugun and Snapper Rocks today.
Sliding doors.
Daily Mail, 5 December 2000:
“The internet may be only a passing fad for many users, according to a report.”
I'm selling my car, if that's the kind of thing you're looking for
2018 Volkswagen Polo Launch Edition AW Auto MY18
Sixth-generation 2018 Volkswagen Polo Launch Edition in Limestone Grey metallic, five door hatch, 4.9 L/100km three Cylinder 1.0 Litre petrol engine with a sports automatic dual clutch transmission.
Apple CarPlay and Android Auto built-in.
Adaptive cruise control, stop/start engine for fuel efficiency, rain sensing wipers, power windows, autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian detection, driver-fatigue monitoring and automatic LED headlights. Viofo dashcam installed.
Just renewed for another 12 months of Queensland car registration, expires 10 January 2023.
Never been in an accident and has paid membership too VW Assist which includes free roadside assistant.
Available today, price includes GST as it’s being sold by a private business (not a car yard, my business).
$19,100 inc GST located in Tugun, Qld.
Chinese spies infiltrated Aussie telco using Huawei gear and installed malware
Anthony in the The Sizzle via the old mates at Bloomberg who keep on reporting solid tech news despite screwing up ‘The Big Hack’ all those years ago:
According to Bloomberg the reason for Huawei’s exile from Australia was based on a “software update from Huawei that was installed on the network of a major Australian telecommunications company” in 2012.
COOKIES.TXT in 1994 according to Microsoft
Reading through this beautiful 1994 email remnant of a Microsoft that was trying to beat Apple and Unix from owning the Internet, apart from the zinger after zinger, my favourite element is the very innocent 1994 version of a COOKIES.TXT. The file was about baking cookies, the food ones. So sweet and innocent.
“The word on the Internet is that if you want to bring a server online, buy a Unix. If you want to get a cool Internet client, use Unix - or better yet buy a Macintosh.”
Alan Jones’ “audience didn’t go anywhere. It’s still there and it’s still being fed the same old shit to serve the same old interests of the truly wealthy, madly powerful and deeply, deeply unaccountable.”
From JB’s Alien Sideboob
Spiders, mannn looks large over Brisbane
📈
Calile-rise
Just a heads up and reminder - because @scottymcdonald reminded me - that maybe you’re walking around with excess blood this Christmas, so why not donate some and they’ll pass it onto some peeps that really need it.
How you know email communities are a real threat: when Facebook enters the game.
Mavic 3’s 1x versus 28x zoom.
I’m so keen I reckon I’ll double these numbers before 2022
After being grounded for over a year - since the great wave vs. drone fight of 2019 - some of my favourite people bought me a new bird to commemorate my 40th birthday.
I am beyond pumped to get back in the air making art!
Photoshoot with a spider
Ever seen a goanna scale a brick wall?
All the world’s a social feed, and all the men and women are merely variables in an algorithm.
Southern Gold Coasters wondering what’s happening at the old Pizza Hut beachside pavilion, it’s called Siblings, and I’ve been documenting the build.
We’re proud to announce that we’re expecting. Santa that is. We’re expecting Santa.
I also told Luna this week that Santa’s not alive any more, but people dress up like him … soooo I’m a great person.
Finally, ScoMo will keep me safe from you all.
Britt: You’re not going to be able to get the cactus inside once you’ve repotted it. Me: Trust me honey, I’ve got this. Narrator: And yet he did not have “this.”
Got fizzy photographs // documented the build of Hard Fizz’s first home here on the Gold Coast.
#toiletsofthegoldcoast #hardfizzhq
What’s the @qldpolice definition of illegal littering?
Because every week a kid drives past my house and throws this rubbish on my driveway.
And is it the driver littering, their employer, or @woolworths, @TAFEQld, @bunnings, @JBHiFi and co?
A tale of two burghers
There’s a new Terminal command in macOS Monterey: networkquality.
It’s an internet speed test in the terminal.
Is this how Apple News is supposed to work? I make an active decision to not engage with content from a certain brand, and in its place I just get a full page notice that I’ve chosen to not engage with that brand?
Presenting the Hard Fizz HQ Gold Coast toilets … shot for zero 9.
If you’re waiting for a sign …
The “Simple Sabotage Field Manual,” declassified in 2008 and available on the CIA’s website, provided instructions for how everyday people could help the Allies weaken their country by reducing productivity.
Sounds like a regular office.
Introducing Luna to the great Australian tradition of running through sprinklers naked in summer
Reminder today of the best coffee I’ve ever drink in the whole planet, two years ago in Tokyo: Sarutahiko Coffee, outside a train station. Their classic French blend will forever be my gold standard for coffee.
Seven years ago since Kim Kardashian broke the internet. Hopefully they’ll start fixing it soon.
Is this like climate change? How long have they been recording it? And by what measure do they define it being good or bad? I have so many questions.
I don’t want to be Elon Musk Rich, I just want to be Extra Guac Even If I’m Not Sure Rich. I
Cool story
It was an overcast morning for shooting the build of the new restaurant at Kirra Pavilion but they wanted it to look bright and sunny.
Lightroom is evil, and its new sky selection tool is even naughtier.
Editing the image in three screenshots …
Proud of you Scotty, you’ve now written 100% more books than most other people on the planet. You join the ranks of Seth Godin, the Apostle Paul, John Green, Stephen King, and of course Nick Earls. Party on, Wayne 🤘🏻
Sharing a little highlight gallery from a property I’m documenting for Zero 9 Constructions. We’re a few weeks away from handover at this stage.
I’m kind of in love with this Japanese style soaking tub.
Shoot day for a bunch of Gold Coast businesses today
Age groupings
Snapper Rocks
Real talk fam, are people really paying $50 or $75 a month for LinkedIn?
A little demo of Adobe Photoshop 2022’s Neural filter on one of my photos
Qantas: Yeah, look, there’s been a slight delay with your flight, you’re going to be four weeks late …
Chinghee Creek on a Saturday Night for Travis & Christie
Happy 50th Sea World
50 of my and Luna’s favourite photos at Sea World for their 50th birthday today
Remember that time that the Black Eyed Peas hadn’t hit the big time yet, but when they did they had to re-record one of their songs? I’m prepping for a wedding I’m DJing tonight and wondering how people would react if I pulled out the OG.
On @danilic’s prompting I’ve installed DaVinci Resolve and am trying it for the first time this morning. I don’t know what this does but I am frightened at how it could edit me.
Friday sunrise at Snapper Rocks
Corporate headshots don’t have to look like you were just dragged in front of a photographer to get a photo for the website.
Created for Lightning Broadband.
One story out of many on how the Sydney Covid lockdown currently ending has cost me so much money
On the first day of the Sydney lockdown that’s currently ending, I had a wedding booked in the Blue Mountains. I was driving down (flights had been cancelled twice) at the time the lockdown was announced and I told the couple I couldn’t attend their wedding because:
I offered to freely postpone to a time when they were allowed to marry, and if I couldn’t be there, I’d hire a celebrant in my place.
They rejected that offer and found a celebrant and photographer who would flout the stay at home orders.
Today a NSW Civil & Administrative Tribunal member issued them a full refund because I told them I couldn’t come, instead of just leaving them high and dry and not turning up, because then it would have then been a force majeure event.
So just in case you were curious, lockdowns mean nothing to consumer action, law is an ever flexible and changing ball of goo, the wedding industry really is not going well after two years of this, and apparently I now it’s my job to report a couple to NSW Police for breaching stay at home orders.
Covid sucks. Covid has almost completely killed my passion for weddings.
Sunrise elopement at The Calile Hotel this morning
Sorry sir, I am all out of way
All of my Apple devices are upgraded and now there’s a openthread.thread.home.arpa on my network. Nest Smoke Alarms, or HomePod Minis?
Monday afternoon in Burleigh Heads
Luna’s birthday week comes to a close. Now we have 51 weeks of mourning until her fourth birthday celebrations can begin.
Uh, oh, watch out petrol cars, the Chief Health Officer is coming for ya!
Two iPods are some of my favourite computers of all time
These two computers are two of my favourite Apple computers. The iMac G4, the white Intel MacBook, and my current Apple Silicon MacBook Air are up there as well, but these two were the first computers I fell in love with.
The first, the iPod Shuffle. A computer without a screen with seven buttons and two ports. 512MB of my favourite songs shuffled. I have vivid memories of walking to work with this wonder of a computer.
The second, the iPhone I bought when I couldn’t buy an iPhone, the iPod Touch, released in Australia while the iPhone was USA only.
Happy 20th birthday, iPod, you’ve run a good race.
How do you know things?
I think all day every day about the world I want to leave Luna and Goldie in.
I spend so much time wondering how to teach them how to know things. What they know will forever by growing and changing, but how they know things. How they learn, and how they research, and experiment, that’s so important to me.
So I’ve decided to create email accounts for them and to start writing to them. Because my words matter to them.
Your words matter.
Share them, with anyone, everyone, with me.
I don’t really care about fitting in with cool buzzwords and virtue signalling. But tell me how you lived in a tense moment today and how it was weird or awkward, but we learned more about each other.
Tell me about how you didn’t know something and you said you didn’t know.
Tell me about how you were scared and you said you were scared.
Life’s too short for platitudes and fitting in. Let’s be scared, daft, vulnerable, and authentic together. I don’t care what you know, but I’d love to know how you know it.
Speedtest’s quarterly Australian internet report shows that Aussie Broadband outperforms everyone else, including Telstra. I’m an Aussie customer, I’m getting about 900mbps down, if you signup using my refer-a-friend code we both get a kick off our next bill: 5272836.
The most annoying position anyone can take through this season is a religious devotion to vaccines, or anti-vax, or lockdown, or open up, or whatever fucking position you think is correct.
We’re all mostly wrong and have no idea.
Screenshot from today’s NYT email.
GG
Ben Sherpherd’s “The Commercial Experience 21.11: Programming the news media” dissects how the news has changed over the last three years
“My view is news media was more like SVOD, but COVID has made it more like TV.”
It really has been a blockbuster season of tiring news.
A walking disappointment to his mother
Happy third birthday Lu, I’m so proud to be your dad
Me, telling friends about the Hamilton soundtrack being re-released in spatial audio
What the actual? The notification takes you to the iCloud Backup section of settings to make sure you’re backed up before you switch to a new iPad?!
I have not purchased a new iPad, do not intend to, nor do I need to, this one is months old.
I know that ultimately this is a tech error inside Apple, but damn you’re looking creepy Apple.
Avis Car Rental brings “car as a subscription” to Australia.
Sunday was a doozy. Over the past few months we’ve shared photos on social media from trips when travel was allowed and legal, in a time when it wasn’t allowed. So the Queensland Police received an anonymous tip to Crimestoppers, and that was the start of the day. Luckily I keep great photo and travel records and we didn’t actually breach travel restrictions. So thanks, anonymous.
To end the day last night’s groom got aggressive and threatening because as his wedding celebrant, MC, DJ, I played songs not on his playlist, as he called it “my standard list”. My music selection had people dancing. I guess he wanted his wedding to be a show of his music taste instead of the red flag he kept on waving: “it’s her day.”
If you’re ever curious why late night activities that include drinking alcohol are more expensive, it’s because life’s too short to deal with irrational drunk people.
Please tell me there are more than 30 people that have been on Reddit for more than 16 years?! I
Your top 20 songs by plays says a lot about who you are
Lodge
Brisbane as the clouds subsided today at sunset
JQ940
Over the last 18 months of the spicy cough tearing apart the wedding and events industry, confidence has never been lower.
So I’m in a classroom today studying for a Cert IV in Real Estate.
🌵
My greatest fear, as recognised in 1947 by ad-man, Bill Bernbach:
“I’m worried that we’re going to worship techniques instead of substance.”
If there was a vaccine for “sameness, a mental weariness, a mediocrity of ideas” I’d be first in line.
Remember that time Sesame Street’s Bert marched with Bin Laden?
QR898 B777 8 Oct 2021
Dear, tonight’s hotel, two things.
Firstly, thank you for taking some of the covidsafe precautions.
Secondly, 75 emails?!
I’m still really proud of this photo. It was my first photo that “went somewhere” … it was printed on the side of a Queensland Rail Citytrain. Taken from what is now @hotagc.
Three years ago I pontificated that the future of the iPhone was the Apple Watch, @markgurman lent that way today in his Power On email … should’ve put some cash down on it
Luna just found out that polar bears and dogs can be friends and it’s like that scene in Ted Lasso when the billionaire tells Banksy and Sam that they both just met a cool person.
Fairlane
Thanks
Ever since they named me Person of the Year 2006 I knew that this Time magazine thing might go somewhere
If you’re wondering what it looks like when you take your wife’s keys and they’re on the Find My Network …
Ten years on we’re all still bitching about iPhone launches, still looking for that 2007 iPhone feeling
Goldie, there’s nothing silver about her.
Harris Farm: Due to Covid-19 please do not touch the fish. Everyone: Due to everything ever please do not touch the fish until you’re buying it: and
My top played songs … a peek into who I am
My internet speed in 2021
Blogging this so that somewhere in my internet history is a record of a time when I was really impressed that for multiple days in a row I actually got broadband speeds close to what was being sold: 1000/50.
I hope that in 20 years when I read this it will be a laughable joke that such pitiful speeds were the best you could get in 2021 on former Telstra HFC (Hybrid fiber-coaxial).
The year is 2061 and your local “Golden Oldies" radio station is playing Limp Bizkit and honestly, I am here for it.
But for 2021, Wall Of Sound + Browny report on the latest Bizkit.
[Happy 10th birthday @patrickc + Stripe](https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1443289393695911938?s=21), about six and a half years ago we took the bold step to take credit card payments through our website, bold because almost no-one was doing it in the wedding industry. It worked out well.
Aside from making the world’s best weddings, I’m also the 3rd best photographer in my home, so I’ve decided to make the not-so-radical call & launch a print store.
Do me a solid & buy a print so that I can convince Britt that buying a DJI Mavic Pro 3 is worth it.
Not so gold, Coast
Some personal news, I’ve been photographing and filming construction projects for Zero 9 Construction and I’m getting addicted.
Damn, I’ve only got Diners Card.
The memo between advertising agency DDB and Avis Rent A Car that took Avis from a $3.2 million loss to a $1.2 million profit within the year.
The best watch face in WatchOS 8 is the Portraits face because it looks really cool with this photo of Goldie. The worst watch face in WatchOS 8 is the Portraits face because it doesn’t actually tell the time, which is its only job really.
Doing my part for the Gold Coast rumour mill today by creating and sharing this
Luna // under the bed // showing off her “baby belly”
Not-so-main distribution frame
Burleigh Heads: a bin chicken story
Aviation nerd win: I heard a plane landing over my house, thought, it’s stop big to be a B737 or A320 as would be normal into OOL, too loud to be a B787, is it an A330. Yes it is.
Welcome to my Ted Talk.
Bridal table > guest tables > the kids table > the wedding vendor’s table
Me: time to edit this video Siri: this could go one of two ways
Negative 5G
Mt Coonowrin + Mt Beerwah, from Mt Ngungun
Mt Ngungun at sunset yesterday for an elopement
Hut rules
“We’ll never go to war”
When one of the Ted Lasso writers is a comedian and a parent
Go be amazing
There’s something about bolting 35 year old lens onto a brand new image sensor that feels cool
The mighty bin chicken
I ❤️ Russel #swell2021
Merry king of the bush is he
When we asked an algorithm to decide humour we should’ve known that income inequality was going to be deemed hilarious soon
Are you that rich that you’re not immediately aware of your net worth? There’s an app for that.
I think aliens visited Burleigh Beach today and left a message. Can anyone help decipher this?
Swell is back, 1.8km from the border
Going, going, goonnneeee
Spring’s first sun has sprung
Even the Illuminati has to deal with the hell that is Gmail’s Promotional folder.
🛹
In the last 18 months, how have QR codes taken off but Touch-Free Copper Keys not? I feel like 2020 was the Copper Key’s year but the key missed it.
An ode and a farewell to my Apple iMac G4
Today I said goodbye to my prized and precious, the oldest and longest owned computer I’ve ever had the privilege of caring for, my Apple iMac G4.
It might not be the ideal computer for modern work, but I haven’t seen, nor owned, a more beautiful computer yet. I’ve used faster, more helpful, more able computers. But none that have been so simply beautiful, to the eye, and to the touch.
20 years on, never serviced or repaired, it still boots, the PowerPC CPU still computes, the hard drive still works, in-fasct all of the components still work. The optical drive, ethernet ports, all the USB ports still work, along with the USB tech accepting brand new USB keyboards, mice, and touchpads.
Who would of imagined that an almost 20 year old computer would mostly work today?
The only real negative impact 2021 had on this computer was browsing the modern web, the main problem being SSL.
If I was a wiser and richer man, I’d keep her in pristine condition and in a box, ready to take out and show my grandkids in 30 years, alas, I have not the time or the space, so instead I’ll leave them this 2021 blog post about a 2002 computer released in the aftermath of the Y2K bug, the Dot-Com Boom, and the fall of the Twin Towers.
A computer that was not matched in style for at least 20 years.
record scratch yup, that’s me, catching a ride out to attempt a drone rescue after a bird attacked it and sunk it into the Gold Coast Broadwater
Number 2
Highline // Palm Beach
☕️ Merlo
The Calile
39 images, all glued together with digital sticky tape 🌳
As a native speaker of Strayan’ English, I feel like our own whistled language has been ignored by the Smithsonian Magazine here. The great Australian wolf whistle is a complex piece of kit.
🚙
🐮
Secret beach
Australia’s Channel Seven’s The Morning Show, explaining how Apple’s The Morning Show is called Morning Wars in Australia: “lawyers”
Happy third PM anniversary, Scott Morrison
🌺
🌊
Sunshine Beach
The worlds greatest scientists: do you think we can combine PPE and speed dealer sunglasses?
Other scientists: no, it’s impossible
World’s greatest scientists: mission accepted
New moon Sunday
The protested-against take issue with the protestors, who aren’t in lockdown, and are allowed to meet and peacefully protest. Cool story, Nazi Queensland.
🏖
🚲
🌙 Luna
🎢
🐬
Spammer has given me the name of my next podcast, “Voice Massage”
Hometown
Magnetic Island
Proposal for a name for a new Gold Coast region: SoTal.
“South of Tallebudgera”
It encompasses Palm Beach, Currumbin, Tugun, and Coolangatta, along with the Currumbin and Tallebudgera valleys.
In a sentence: “no, I can’t meet you in Burleigh for drinks, I don’t leave SoTal.”
🐄
Sunday
#shotoniphone
The most ignorant thing I read these days isn’t from conspiracy theorists or anti-vaxxers.
It’s the phrase “believe in science.” As if science is a belief, a faith, or religion.
Science is a pursuit, an experiment, an adventure. I love science. It requires not, my belief.
