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Other / 19.12.2013

In July 2009 I was without my camera for a month because the tape mechanism seized. On 15 December, fortunately after I completed TAPE 77, the mechanism seized again. I had received a phone call from Ted Karamisheff about the arrival of a large flock of Top-knot Pigeons. I went to check them out but was unable to film them and they may well not be around when I get my camera back. Prior to both glitches the switch which operates the tape mechanism did not work properly. The lid would open, but the tape would not rise, so I would slam the lid shut and press the switch again. There was also a separate fault. The camera’s memory battery did not charge properly, resulting in me repeatedly having to reset the clock and other data displays. Today, I dropped the camera off at a Sony accrerdited repairer’s in a southern Brisbane suburb. Being without my camera in December and January is particularly annoying as Summer is the busiest time of year in the natural world. At least in July, our Winter, there isn’t much happening. 

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Other / 19.12.2013

Today Steve and I uploaded the last 5 videos bringing the total to 111. The project flagged 100+ videos. The average running time is 2 minutes. There are now 198 videos on my page.

 

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Other / 19.12.2013

Exactly 15 years ago to the day, filming started on this biodiversity video project. Wildlife camera man and filmmaker Glen Threlfo had helped select my camera, a Canon XL1, which served me until 2007. The project began as a documentary, the seeds of which were sown as ’Island in the Sky’, a Friends of Tamborine Mountain initiative to capture the interaction between the mountain’s residents and its flora and fauna. The camera man was the son of a friend of mine who was keen on videoing. The first entries in the Film Diary, dated 19 January 1998, were of sunrise over the ocean and illuminating the ranges to the west. My son Simon, then 17, filmed some early night sequences. I became increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of making a documentary because I felt totally out of my depth. I needed to devise a project over which I had as much control as possible. The concept of creating a video archive devoted to the mountain’s biodiversity came to me. It proved to be the ideal solution.

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Other / 10.12.2013

This evening Steve and I finalised the sound and completed corrections to the remaining RADF funded videos. On 7 December Steve and I uploaded the first 25 HD videos before reaching our capacity limit on vimeo. Hopefully Steve will be able to upload the remaining 22 videos ahead of the 15 December completion date for the project. Most of the HD videos are of fauna.

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Other / 28.11.2013

Steve and I completed uploading 9 new videos, the last of 64 SD clips funded by the Regional Art Development Fund grant. Most of the recent subjects have been flora and fungi.

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My Travels / 18.11.2013

India and Myanmar  3 – 18 November   Reader be warned, I have sought to do justice to my subject. This article contains more than 6,700 words.

INDIA

I couldn’t contemplate a visit to Myanmar without going to India to catch up with family and friends. Usually this has meant staying in Gurgaon with my former in-laws with whom I have maintained a loving relationship. The fact that Kolkata is the city in India from which one flies to Yangon provided an unmissable opportunity for me to spend time with family friends I had last seen more than 30 years ago.

Sightseeing in Delhi

The day before my flight to Kolkata I booked Rajendra, the trusted driver whom the family hires for longer journeys, to take me to some outlying tombs and ruins which I had not seen on previous visits to Delhi. I urgently needed to buy more rupees. Rajendra pulled up at a money changer’s in a busy street en route to our first destination, Haus Khaz. A short external staircase led to a dingy room in which sat a shifty-looking man behind a counter.  A board, listing various currencies but no rates,… Read Complete Text

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Film Diary / 30.10.2013

This evening we went to Joalah National Park for the first time this season. It was on the cool side after the first rain in weeks. There were plenty of native cockroaches, some millipedes, a female Harvestman, a dragonfly, spiders and a snail. We saw two eels in the pool below Curtis Falls, one moderately sized, the other small. None of which I filmed. The highlight was filming a large Carpet Python partly stretched out on and partly coiled around, a bit of tree some 60cm off the ground. I also filmed a butterfly resting on a leaf.

 

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Other / 24.10.2013

The Addition 6 exhibition opened this evening. Steve helped me set up yesterday afternoon and he and Paulina attended the opening which was a sterling effort. I thought that the standard was uniformly good. Vanessa and Kat’s work was excellent as was that of Ali Bezer and Lucas Davidson. There was a lively crowd of mostly young people and the weather was balmy. My work drew some appreciative comments. A modest occasion, but one I’m glad to have been involved with.

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Other / 21.10.2013

Gavin Bannerman, in response to my email this morning, sent me a pdf of the Deed of Gift this afternoon, duly signed by an official of the State Library of Queensland. The official signed the Deed on October 3, the day after my visit to the Library to sign the Deed and have it witnessed: see the October 2 post. The delay came from Gavin. The Accession Number is 29193.

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Film Diary / 11.10.2013

To make full sense of this post, you will need to read the previous post first. What a difference 2 days make. I recalled a daylight photo of a semi-slug my friend Louise Piper sent me which looked like Cucularion parkini. It was taken on her letterbox about 200 metres from one of the entrances to Palm Grove. I had lost the photo, so asked Louise to re-send it. Whereupon I emailed it to John. I got his reply this morning confirming it was none other than his 1998 discovery.  Louise’s photo predates my first encounter by 18 months, so we now have a new second sighting of a mollusc still apparently confined to the mountain.