I'm coming to the end of my time in Australia, and frankly I'm no closer to finding the answer to the "what am I supposed to be doing with my life?" question.

I might be a bit closer to finding out who I'm supposed to be doing it with though...

We have been attempting to dig up the small potatos we planted in the garden last year. From the looks of things it was hardly worth the effort really...

We are slowly but surely getting things packed for the roadtrip, I'm almost excited about the whole thing...

Well it would appear my lease is almost up and frankly I'm getting a bit bored with Sydney and working a day job and so forth. The result of which is a road trip from one end of the east coast of Australia to the other. We will be hiring a camper-van and aiming to be completely self sufficient, but I expect to spend a fair number of the nights at hotels/hostels, if only to have internet and non-solar electricity...

Hopefully the trip will give me the chance to make some great pictures and see a bit more of Australia than I have so far.

Some details:

Start: Sydney
Finish: Cairns
Milage: 1645 miles
Start Date: 19/02/09
Finish Date: 14/03/09
Time it would take if were riding a giant turtle: 6.3 years...

The itinery is pretty rough at the moment but the general idea is to follow the coast as much as possible, probably only doing any serious driving 2-3 days a week.

Stay tuned for more updates and possibly a very special offer...

If there is one thing that both Australia and Japan have in common, it's their love of barbequed meat, something we don't really do in England. The best part about it is that grilled meat fits perfectly onto my diet on which I've managed to lose 12kg so far, with another 4-5 to go (yes I got fat in Australia).

Not too long and my "barbie" will go back to being "yakiniku", and the chicken skewers seen above will be "yakitori"...

It's summer time here in Sydney and it has been nice to just go out for a bit of a stroll. Seemed rude to not take pictures while I was out. I've been trying to tidy up the site a little bit, part of which is the new wider blog layout, if nothing else it will let me post even bigger images. If anyone has any problems with the new layout, do drop me a line in the comments.

I have a new project comig up which is exciting me greatly, so check back soon for more details...

This past weekend saw me at a wedding, which in and of itself isn't all that strange. This time however I had an invite, a place at dinner and noone was expecting me to organise the formals. Suffice it to say a great, if a little hot and sweaty, time was had. I quite enjoyed being able to actually talk to people and be sociable and I even went home with one of the bridesmaids, how very lucky...

Obviously I had a camera with me and took a few photos, mostly at the reception as I didn't really feel the urge during the ceremony (that and I was stuck at the back without any long glass), click the picture or here for a slideshow of the day.

Congratulations to Jodie and John, may every day of marriage be as happy as your wedding day.

Feel free to comment but be gentle the site was put together this afternoon and sorely needs more content, which is why I shall be out once again tonight...

Nothing worthy of blogging about happened today, I'm tired and have to be up early, so I leave you with a picture from the weekend and a reminder to stay awesome...

Today was intended to be a nice relaxing day, but instead I went to the local community festival, where I found the usual mix of expensive food, poor drink and mediocre clothing. There were however a number of really good local bands playing (more of them to come sometime in the week), however one group stood out to me as worthy of their own post so ladies and gentlemen I give you the snowdroppers:

I am a big fan of my folk music and have a certain soft spot for American old time, which is a good thing as the Snowdroppers are very firmly in that genre. With a setlist which raced through a number of songs both traditional and original this four piece were ably lead by the always animated Johnny Wishbone, whose banjo playing and gravelly vocals set the tone...

When you get to see these guys play definitely keep an ear out for their version of the standard "Tell it To Me" (made famous by the Lost City Ramblers and the Old Crow Medicine Show) , today's first encore as they played it with as much energy and verve as I've ever seen, definitely got me to move my dancing feet...

The Snowdroppers next play in Sydney at club 77 of November 21st, I'll be there, will you?

"Can I geeeeet an AMEN!!!"

Looks like I forgot to publish the draft of this entry yesterday, so this year's NaBloPoMo has run aground pretty early on, oh well never mind. I'll carry on with the endeavour and hope that noone notices...

Check back later for your regular Tuesday feature...

Shooting music with a lensbaby is almost as foolish as trying to shoot the olympics with a speed graphic...

Three from the weekend. Sorry Ben, it definitely looked tight...

A nice simple setup from today. Just a shoot through umbrella choked up a little bit to give a slightly more controlled light. I do like using diffusers a lot more than reflective umbrellas, as they let me place the light source really close to the subject without the light becoming too harsh, I chose an umbrella over a softbox here as I wanted to get a softer falloff towards the edges...

Click the jump to see the end result...

It is really late and I've been processing all evening. Anyhow I don't think this pair need much introduction, just big strong images giving the same subject different treatment...

In other news, all the white belt pictures from the weekend are up over here