Berndt2 Journal Entries

17 creative works found

• Everything
• Images
• T-Shirts
• Calendars
• Writing
• Journals

• One Photo Per Day II : 15th April - 5th May
  by berndt2

  continues from part 1 Another batch …

  continues from part 1 Another batch of shots-per-day. I’m enjoying the challenge so far. Being in a new country makes taking your camera everywhere a lot easier! / 15th April. Why I like drinking coffee at Puccino’s in St Albans. Even the sugar packets contain subversive messages like “Pour coffee into sachet”, “Rattle in background to create atmos”(phere) and “Pillow for Earphone”. And when you buy a coffee they give you a free “Stupid little biscuit”, and if you pay your bill you’ll receive a “Useless bit of chocolate”. Fun! / 16th April. Somewhere near Convent Garden walking to make time before an interview I saw this little mural on a wall. Eek! / 17th April. Okay, so what if the interview with ‘Group MB’ ended up being rather uncomfortable if not outright confrontational? Check out the cute Mini parked near their offices! / 18th April. St Albans. I can write 5000+word Amazing Race Recaps. But this road sign? I’m speechless. Also… intrigued. / 19th April. Roadsign, en route to St Albans. There used to be Romans here. Now they’re just called Italians. / 20th April. Kings Cross St Pancras Station. Shadowy, mysterious figures admiring the iron and glass canopy, and/or plotting shadowy mysterious things. / 21st April. Just because I’m on my way to a job interview doesn’t mean I don’t notice the little things. (And then, in the job interview, I ended up doing the opposite. Not to worry : at least the photo turned out fine) / 22nd April. Street Art and Gallery Art (and some kind of Exterior Wiring) in London. St Giles Street, I think it was. Taken about twenty minutes prior to an interview with EDialog. (That’s how I relax!) / 23rd April. View of the Thames from the rather unfortunately named town of “Staines” (it’s not that dirty, to be honest. And they have an HMV and a Costas Coffee in their town. Very civilised). I was there for a interview with BUPA. And, a coffee. / 24th April. St Albans. “Commit No Nuisance” advises the possibly ancient, and intriguingly Hobbit-sized door of the St Albans clock tower. And you have to love the masonry-work, from an age where a wall wasn’t a wall if you couldn’t shave yourself by rubbing your chin against it. (No interviews today) / 25th April. Yes, I had an NI Number interview. Yes, I had an interview with Virgin Mobile in Hook. Yes, I was fielding increasingly harrowing calls from a rival Recruitment Agent. And yes, it was Anzac Day. But sometimes… just sometimes… it’s got to be all about being friendly to the Orang-Utans. / 26th April. Watford. Apparently London has more CCTV Cameras than any other place on Earth. Which is kind of irritating in terms of what it says about national paranoia. And this is freaking WATFORD, man. Near as I can tell its global strategic value (no offence if you live there) is next to nil. Even though among other things it has an HMV and a Nero’s (which is even better than Costas for coffee, I reckon) / 27th April. Elephant & Castle. Hey, it’s a Pepsi Raw Billboard! And you know, I don’t usually drink my Pepsi naked, but I encourage good looking females to do so. (We were in the area for Yum Cha, and the billboard was just a bonus. The ‘Monks Vegetable Tofu Parcels’ with “Wood Eared Fungus” were delicious.) / 28th April. Meet Me At The Ritz… I was in town to notify the Austrian Embassy that I was going to be in London for at least 3 months. I don’t think they cared, much. Still, there was an Aston Martin DB9 parked nearby and it was a pleasant/rainy/cloudy/sunny day (in that order) so I wasn’t too concerned. / 29th April: I like the fact that they’ll catch you when you Digress! I was in The City to hunt down sweet chili sauce in a large bottle, find some Aloe Vera juice, and get my hands on a free Ben&Jerry Icecream. Result : 3 from 3. Success! / 30th April. St Albans’ “The Boot” Inn. Today was another quiet day in England, at least from where I was sitting. Today’s highlight: I bought an umbrella. / 1st May. I actually took a lot of photos in London today, many of them nice and pleasant, or showing the artistic and innovative side of London. However, in the end, I’m going with this one, because the UK obsession with CCTV is completely ridiculous and well beyond the point of paranoia. And I’m glad somebody had the guts to write it. Next to a CCTV camera. / 2nd May. Mysterious creeping moss attacks flower-like stalk micro-plants in on St Albans railway station wall. These kinds of battles rage around us every day. Yes, I’m still unemployed. I have time to ponder these things. / 3rd May. Lakes District Long Weekend, and here we have another brick in Hadrian’s Wall (Oh, come on. Like you wouldn’t make that exact same joke!) / 4th May. Lakes District Long Weekend. True to rumours you may have heard, the Lakes District does in fact contain lakes. / 5th May. Lakes District river cruise. There’s something to be said in favour of using stones over wire fencing to divide paddocks. (Electrifying stone fences, I’m told, is not easy however) ... to be continued! / .... right here

• One Photo Per Day : 6th-25th September
  by berndt2

  Part IX continues on from Part VIII...

  Part IX continues on from Part VIII , I think this may be the first set of 20 or so shots that didn’t involve a photo taken outside England. Then again, it does feature Al Pacino, Jack Black and a building in the ‘Brutalist’ style. Actually, there’s far too many celeb shots in this lot… I think I need to schedule more holidays!) / September 6th. St Albans. And…. I have nothing to add. / September 7th. Canal on Maida Vale. Better photos were taken today, and even on my camera. But not by me, which is kind of a problem. Never mind, it was a good day anyway. / September 8th. This is Trellick Tower in London. Awesomeness part 1 : its architectural style: ‘Brutalism’. Awesomeness part 2 : the architects name : ‘Erno Goldfinger’. / September 9th. St Pancras Train Station, containing 2 Cafe Neros, two Paul’s, a Costas and a Starbucks… not to mention the world’s longest Champagne bar. I like to linger… / September 10th. Singer Katy Perry. She kissed a girl, and she liked it. (A snap poll of other guys around the office confirmed my high level of support for her perspective) / September 11th. Harrods, London. They don’t sell Effen Vodka, but they do have a Fossils department. An interesting trade-off… / September 12th. St Albans. It’s getting darker in the morning… / September 13th. Thames Cruise. It’s actually quite rare to see the lifting of theTower Bridge, although The Internet informs me that it’s done about 1000 times a year. Which seems to me to be the opposite of what I just wrote. / September 14th. Righteous Kill Premiere. Academy Award winner Al Pacino strays a bit too close to my 50mm lens. Nice detail – thanks Pentax! / September 15th. A Chairman Mao mural regards the ‘Americana Cosmetics’ store near Kings Cross. / September 16th. Jack Black, at the Tropic Thunder Premiere (He still owes me $5.) / September 17th. Pussycat Dolls just outside BBC1 Studios. The centre one is going out with F1 driver Lewis Hamilton, whereas I think rest are just generically famous. / September 18th. I’ve been wanting to take a shot from this perspective for a while. Pamela Anderson (yes, THE Pamele Anderson as opposed to a different one) arrives at the BBC1 studios / September 19th. ‘The Hope’ pub in Farringdon. Not much to add. I didn’t stop for a beer, but I did hope IT would get back to me on some issues I’d continued to have with network and printer access. As always, though, it was more about ‘the hope’ than ‘the delivery’. / September 20th. One of Many . Railing on a church fence – St Albans Abbey on a spectacularly sunny day. Now to find a pub that serves Frulli beer…. / September 21st. Apparently the Queen has to formally request permission to pass into London City, as signified by dragons placed around ‘the place’. (By ‘the Queen’, obviously they mean some meaningless minion) / September 22nd. An only partially successful attempt at a tilt-shift photo edit. I’m so totally 2006 right now… / September 23rd. (“what do you mean? Your apartment DOES have at least one window!!”) / September 24th. My decision to walk to work from Kings Cross rather than take the tube pays off with this photo. Very coolly coincident signage and building design. / September 25th. My decision to walk to Blackfriars from Waterloo after the trip back from Hook also pays off with this photo. Until next time!! Part VIII, Part VII, Part VI (and so on…)

• The Monopoly Tour of London
  by berndt2

  London is a city whose major streets are immortalised in the Parker Bros boardgame Monopoly. So it made sense to celebrate moving there b…

  London is a city whose major streets are immortalised in the Parker Bros boardgame Monopoly. So it made sense to celebrate moving there by doing the tour of the various properties. It took weekends over a six+ month period (there were a couple of us participating) but I reckon it was worth it. I love how even now, years later, you can see the progression in the wealth and opulence of the various addresses. Yes, there have been some elevations and some falls from grace, but overall the rankings have remained fairly apt. Here they all are: / Old Kent Road (purple 1 of 2). The game starts here, and here is… kind of nowhere, in the context of London. / Whitechapel Road (purple 2 of 2). It’s in quite an ethnic location, close to Brick Lane where there are a lot of Indian restaurants. / The Angel, Islington (light blue 1 of 3). ‘The Angel’ is apparently the building itself as well as the nearby station, and Islington is the suburb it’s in. / Euston Road (light blue 2 of 3). It’s a long road featuring (appropriately) Euston Station as well as Kings Cross. / Pentonville Road (light blue 3 of 3). Conveniently, this road joins Angel, Islington to Euston Road (both light blue properties) – very convenient. That said, It’s long, and there didn’t seem to be much along it of interest (by which I mean : cafes, HMVs or bookstores) / Pall Mall (Purple 1 of 3) Check out the increase in gentrification! This photo was taken near where a lot of caterers were setting up for the filming of some John Cusack / Chow Yun Fat movie. Or so we were told. / Whitehall (Purple 2 of 3). The British Prime Minister’s residence of 10 Downing Street branches off this road (behind some thick iron gates and a security detachment, I feel inclined to add…) / Northumberland Avenue (Purple 3 of 3). The Sherlock Holmes Pub and its cool ‘Sherlock Holmes’ shingle are in the background. / Bow Street (Orange 1 of 3). There are some interesting things on this street, but none of them are in this picture (because they didn’t have the street sign showing, whereas this does) / Marlborough Street (Orange 2 of 3). This is the grandest of the three orange properties, branching off Regent Street (green property). It seems to have had the word ‘Great’ added to it, possibly in celebration of that fact. / Vine Street (Orange 3 of 3). Although it’s the premiere Orange property on the board, it’s clear that in real life it’s fallen on rather hard times. It’s basically an alleyway. / (The) Strand (Red 1 of 3). Pretty cool walk, there are about three cafe Neros and a Maccas and the Savoy on this street. / Fleet Street (Red 2 of 3) Quite possibly the nicest street to walk along, with the prettiest buidings, pubs, views of Blackfriars and St Pauls, not to mention some art deco architecture, churches, the original Twinings headquarters, churches and a statue of a dragon. I’m a fan of Fleet Street! / Trafalgar Square (Red 3 of 3) A shot of the street sign with the name would mean taking a rather boring shot that encompassed none of the square itself, and probably only a Malaysian airlines office and a meat restaurant. The sign is near where the red buses are, in case you’re interested. / Leicester Square (Yellow 1 of 3) This is kind of by default my favourite property in London’s Monopoly Tour, given I got shots of Charlize Theron, Will Smith, Madonna, Guy Ritchie, Gillian Anderson, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Wall-E, Sigourney Weaver, Sir Michael Caine, Daniel Craig and Dame Judi Dench (... etc) there. / Coventry Street (Yellow 2 of 3). The three Yellow Properties are probably the closest in proximity to each other of any of the monopoly board properties. Coventry Street is nominally the least interesting of the Yellows, though it now has a Cinnabon and a Ripleys Believe it or Not museum on it. And, as shown, a steak house, some telephone booths and some rubbish bins. / Piccadilly (Circus – the street branches off the circus) (Yellow 3 of 3). It has the statue of Eros, a Times Square Lite bank of electronic billboards, the Lillywhites sports store and a big Zavvi (nee Virgin) Megastore within sight. All good in my book. / Oxford Street (Green 1 of 3). Yes, Regent and Bond Streets are perhaps classier. But Oxford has three Neros, two HMVs, a Zavvi and a Borders (okay, and a couple of Maccas, a KFC and a Pizza Hut as well). Hands down winner in my book! / Regent Street (Green 2 of 3) : Love the arc, love the shopping – it’s got the larger Zavvi, a Nero, the large toy story Hamleys and a Ferrari shop is due to open soon too(!) / Bond Street (Green 3 of 3). I really wanted to see an Aston Martin on Bond (James Bond) Street, but had to settle for a Bentley (and an Audi R8 was parked further up the road). Also, there’s no actual Bond Street – there’s ‘New Bond’ and ‘Old Bond’ streets and the two branch off each other. / Park Lane (Dark Blue 1 of 2) / There is an Actual Park Lane (and it has an Aston Martin dealership on it, no less) but I figure if you’re going to take a shot of a hotel on Mayfair, you really need to have the matching one for Park Lane, even if it is technically located on Piccadilly (‘doh!) on the approach to Park Lane. / Mayfair (Dark Blue 2 of 2). Mayfair is actually a suburb and not a road, but fortunately that suburb also contains the Mayfair Hotel. (Woohoo!) Shame I can’t afford to stay there, but fantastic nonetheless. ... and that’s it! Except I still have 2 of the 4 stations, the utilities, a supertax, a free parking, a jail, a ‘Go’ and some Chance and Community Chest cards left to go…. I plan to work on those!!

• Quantum of Solace Premiere, London
  by berndt2

  Advance apologies for this one. No, I didn’t photograph the Princes Harry and William, or Samantha Bond, or Giancarlo Giannini, or Bob Ge…

  Advance apologies for this one. No, I didn’t photograph the Princes Harry and William, or Samantha Bond, or Giancarlo Giannini, or Bob Geldof, or Jack White. And the photos I did take of Olga Kurylenko, Gemma Arterton, Judi Dench, Robbie Coltrane and various semi-unidentifiable celebrities all suffer from what you’d generally call “a lack of light”. Which is bound to happen in England when the sun sets around 5pm and stars arrive at premieres around 6pm and the floodlights are only in the hoarded-up parts of Leicester Square where ‘special people’ are allowed. (Not that I’m bitter!) Anyway, the best of what I was able to get were: / I have no problem with this photo. I took it yesterday during the daytime. / (Far left) – Barbara Broccoli has been the producer of the last five or six (or seven?) Bond films, and her late father was producer of most of the rest. / People were saying “He’s the bad guy” but I found it hard to tell whether people were talking about him or the character he may play in the movie. Still, if somebody gives you a piece of paper at a premiere, you’re entitled to sign it. / Dame Judi Dench, who has played “M” for the last few movies. Believe me, this is at the theoretical maximum range of my camera’s flash and shake reduction system! / Daniel Craig, aka James Bond. 1 good photo out of 250 taken on the night is… still a good photo. I’m happy with this one. / Olga Kurylenko is the Bond Girl in Quantum of Solace. She’s prettier in real life than she is on the poster (focus, camera, focus!!!) / Gemma Arterton, the ‘other’ Bond Girl in this film. I’m hoping she’s making out a cheque for the $5 she owes me… / Actor Robbie Coltrane …. hiding behind a giant echidna? / Wireimage tells me this is Mohammed Al Fayed, and Wikipedia tells me he’s got a personal worth of approximately 550 million British pounds. Looks lonely, doesn’t he? / I’m …. not sure who this is. They need to get a thing started where people wear name tags to these things. / I don’t know who he is, but damnit I need a scarf like that to go with my receding hairline and I’ll be THIS cool!! . / Well, I won’t lie. I’ve had more fun at premieres than this one, especially since this one was so restricted and kept away from the public, and held in near-darkness. Also, might I also say the people standing around me were among the most ruthless (and tall) I’ve seen at a premiere – except for that pretty blonde lady whose foot I stepped on : I’m sorry about that. Next up (assuming they have lights) will most likely be the Ridley Scott film “Body of Lies”, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe Other premieres: / Previous Premieres: / How to Lose Friends and Alienate People / Tropic Thunder / Righteous Kill / RockNRolla / The X-Files : I Want to Believe / The Dark Knight / Wall-E

• One Photo Per Day 25th March - 14th April
  by berndt2

  Okay, so the thing is I’ve moved from Sydney Australia to the United Kingdom, which is something I can do because I’m lucky enough to car…

  Okay, so the thing is I’ve moved from Sydney Australia to the United Kingdom, which is something I can do because I’m lucky enough to carry an EU Passport. I also carry a Pentax K10D and a small but neat bunch of lenses (and when that is too heavy, I have a small Nikon Coolpix L11). So, as you can imagine, at least part of my charter in this strange new world is to leverage the excitement of exploration by taking photos. One photo (at least) per day, in fact, until I get bored or start watering down the rules or something. I’ll probably only post these every 20 days or so. So … here we go. / / 25th March. View of Sydney from plane window: a pleasant little farewell gift as I head for distant shores. (Is that a tear in my eye? Ummm… no? Okay, perhpas, then. But maybe it’s also the realisation that the sheer weight of my carry-on bag might collapse my collarbone) / 26th March. View from the Nikko Narita Hotel, Japan. Everytime I’m in Japan, I again have to reswear my commitment to never drink skim milk. Japanese milk always seems to be just a little MORE than full fat. Oh, it’s glorious. / 27th March. Paris. The Eiffel Tower by night when accompanied by low clouds makes for a fantastic view. And… whadaya know : they’re playing that same Justin Timberlake & Madonna song I’ve been hearing in Australia as well! / 28th March. Notre Dame, Paris. I figure a gothic cathedral needs a gothic treatment…and after the retina searing design of the Pompidou Centre, my eyes kind of needed the relief. / 29th March. En route to Val D’Isere. It was good to be able to stretch my legs : getting deep vein thrombosis is less sexy when it’s in a Volkswagen Passat than (say) an intercontinental flight from Japan to France. / 30th March. Val D’Isere. This is the kind of view you too can enjoy if you stand exactly where I stood and get the camera away from in directly front of you/me. / 31st March. Val D’Isere. The question of the day : even if the weather forecast (in English) explicitly covers every possible permutation of weather – can it STILL manage be wrong somehow? (Answer : probably) / 1st April. Morocco. The tuna harvest is being brought in early to facilitate the many fish markets in and around the city. / 2nd April. Balcony of Val D’Isere chalet. One of the more fruitful efforts arising from an attempt to hand-track snowflakes in flight and somehow capture their crystalline structure. (It only really works in high contrast) / 3rd April. Streetlamp in Val D’Isere bus stop. I think it’s pretty, but then my views on the beauty of the 1996 Nissan Pulsar are widely known, so this kind of has to be weighed up against that. / 4th April. Va D’Isere- this is the first half of the dreaded “Sache” Black Run (actually, this is the easier part, hence my comfort in stopping to take a photo. Also because, yes, I am occasionally that cool) / 5th April. French motorway toll booth near Reims. That’s a Ducatti 999. If you know why this important, you’ll appreciate why this is important. / 6th April. St Albans. It’s spring, and that’s why it’s snowing in London for some reason. Also, apparently people are protesting the 2008 Olympic Torch relay in London, which I can understand because dammit it’s cold and I wouldn’t mind a gas torch to keep warm either. / 7th April. St Albans. Does your hometown have a pub called “The Robin Hood”? Oh… I’m sorry, it probably doesn’t. Poor you. (Don’t feel bad. St Albans also has a pub called “The Cock”) / 8th April. London. Went to see a recruitment consultant. And a giant ferris wheel. (I saw it, I didn’t go on it: I’m unemployed and don’t have money to burn on trivialities. And no, McDonalds for lunch is NOT a triviality) / 9th April. (This was the first day I didn’t actually take a photo. Shut up, it happens more often than you think!). Anyway, like many things in St Albans, I’m guessing even the filament in this streetlamp pre-dates the European settlement of Australia. / 10th April. St Albans. By which I mean : Iceland. It’s a supermarket where something like six of the ten aisles are freezers. And much of the remainder is either kept in regular fridges or involves cheap alcohol. It’s a wondrous place, as you might well imagine. / 11th April. London Railway Station. I think the fine print on this sign really detracts from the fun implied by the larger sized font. The interviews that day were with Virgin Mobile and Equifax, if memory serves. / 12th April. Yes, there is in fact wildlife roaming not just the streets but also the higher end fashion arcades in St Albans. (Can you imagine Britain once controlled a third of the world’s population and now semidomesticated fowl have the run of the shopping district? Awesome!) / 13th April. It’s the London Marathon! I’m just wondering where the nearest Nandos is. / 14th April. Another little bit of Austrian culture invades the UK: they’re called ‘Topfenknoedel’ and in this case they were boiled with a jam centre, placed in a bowl of warm custard and then topped with poppyseeds. Very cool indeed. So… that’s it for now. If nothing else, it’s keeping my camera on me a lot more often than it otherwise would be! The adventure continues here

• Dark Knight Premiere, London
  by berndt2

  This wasn’t an easy premiere for somebody who wasn’t 7 feet tall, or unemployed and thus capable of getting in line some time around noon…

  This wasn’t an easy premiere for somebody who wasn’t 7 feet tall, or unemployed and thus capable of getting in line some time around noon. Being neither, I nonetheless I got out of work slightly earlier than usual…. and had no luck finding a good place. Yet I had unaccountable luck in key moments from my vantagepoint about four or five rows back in the crowd. Basically, the strategy was setting my K10D to rapid fire, continuous-tracking autofocus, and ISO800 and f6.7 to support faster shutter speeds. Then, hold aloft, high and blind, and pray. I took over 900 shots, 90% of them blind and with a 50mm prime (an interesting choice of lens in retrospect. Good when it works, but probably should have gone with the 18-55 kit lens). One thing I realised : if you’re a professional photographer, damn you’ve got it easy… a $10000 camera with $5000 lens at point blank range is laughable overkill. When you’ve got a regular camera (and those around me had mobile phones and point-and-shoots) and a bad position, THAT’S when you want a great camera. Thankfully, mine is pretty good. Based on the better ones, though, the evening was not entirely wasted… / I hear it’s not a bad little film. We’ll see…. / Aaron Eckhart. I found actually found him a bit smug and insufferable in ‘Thank you for Smoking’ so part of me looks forward to a good scene with (spoiler) involved. He seems nice enough in person, if I’m a judge of character among a crowd of thousands. / Double Academy Award Winner Sir Michael Caine, with the same expression I always get when I remind somebody famous that they still owe me money… / Two Academy Award wins – bah, I still didn’t like Get Carter, and I thought the original Italian Job was fairly wretched. But you go, Sir Caine! / Actor Christian Bale epitomises the complete Bruce Wayne shot- no chin, no mask > the precise opposite of Batman. I’d love to say this was deliberate, and so I shall. / “Perhaps I’ll make that out to… wait, are you asking me to sign over my lamborghini??” / Spot the Joker (he’s in there… it’s a bit easier in the larger version of the shot) / Spot the Maggie Gyllenhall… again, it would help if I was closer. Or if she were larger. / The Tumbler / Batmobile. I didn’t get to see it drive, and didn’t really get to hear it either. But it was there, and it didn’t get wheel-clamped, which in London is kind of rare. / The actor’s name is John Simm (who? yeah, pretty much) – but I do like the crowd squeezing for his autograph. To his credit, he returned a second time to sign a few more. Probably my favourite shot of the evening, purely because it was one of the few I had a chance to compose deliberately rather than point and shoot blindly. / Actor Peter Skarsgaard, who is either Maggie Gyllenhall’s husband or boyfriend, depending on your sources. My choice of high literature over gossip mags returns to haunt me, as it so often does. So to speak. / Director Chris Nolan is in there somewhere. So too, perhaps, is Pope Benedict XVI. Next up, if I can stomach it, is the X-Files sequel next week.

• One Photo Per Day V : 16th June - 5th July
  by berndt2

  continues from part IV Scotland, Squ…

  continues from part IV Scotland, Squirrels, Harry Potter, Charlize Theron, Sunsets at five minutes before midnight, and a Mercedes McLaren 722/SLR. If I said The Hoff features as well, would you even believe me? It all happened…. / June 16th. “When Dreaming Ends”. Was my rather morose mood due to Austria losing 1-0 to Germany; five vodka and Pepsis consumed about the same time; some kind of relationship realisation; or just another day in futile pursuit of Virgin’s nebulous IT Department? Hard to say.. / June 17th. St Pauls Church in Convent Garden. Later that day, actresses Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller were besieged by the Paparazzi near our building at work. But I missed that. Because I’m diligent at work. (Mostly) / Subject: Actress and Academy Award Winner Charlize Theron. / Location: Leicester Square, London / Camera: Pentax K10D / Pretty Happy he didn’t go to Ikea instead that evening: Me! / June 19th, London outside Baker Street station. I’m guessing this is some kind of joke/art installation? That CCTV has additional CCTVs in a holster! / June 20th. 35 days after starting at Virgin, I FINALLY have SAS installed on my laptop. In the feedback form (!) I was asked to fill out on the IT Department (!), I stopped short of saying “in all likelihood they are actively attempting to undermine the ordinary course of business of the company”. / June 21st. A bee’s eye view of the strawberry field where we went fruit picking today. Time passed. Fruit was picked, and fruit was eaten. And afterwards… we had WAFFLES! / June 22nd. The British Museum. Filled with artifacts stolen… uh… donated… umm… “liberated” from various civilisations around the world. Also, it’s an ideal place to discuss among friends the point at which ‘grave-robbing’ becomes ‘archaeology’. (Just kidding. I love the place. Free admission, too!) / June 23rd. Statue of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes outside the appropriately-named Baker Street station. I was there as part of my “I’m-a-geek-and-I’m-still-single” tour of every Caffe Nero in London (there’s something like sixty). / June 24th. Here’s Platform nine-and-three-quarters at Kings Cross Station, a reference to the Harry Potter series. If you haven’t heard of Harry Potter, maybe you’re one of those people from a lost tribe of the Amazon. If so : welcome, and hopefully you’re enjoying the internet. The porn is somewhere over there>> / June 25th. Again I had no luck seeing a Bugatti Veyron at the Bentley Dealership in Mayfair that distributes them. However, I did manage to see this truly stunning Mercedes McLaren SLR 722 near Harrods. (To use an analogy, that’s like Jessica Biel bailing on dinner, then having Giselle Bundchen call you moments later asking if you’d like to go out. Sort of.) / 26th June. Action shot on Baker Street. I hear so many police sirens daily I suspect that either there’s an invisible all-out apocalyptic crime war going on in London, or it’s a subtle means of control by keeping everyone in a state of constant fear. Yay, Police! / 27th June. I had no idea who Agyness Deyn was prior to today when she was interviewed by BBC1, and I’m still kind of hazy right now, too. The only thing I was impressed by is that I managed to shoot between the beret of the Paparazzi to my left and the ponytail of the Paparazzi to my right. Stupid Paparazzi. / 28th June. It was a close call between this photo and a taxi service advertisement in Watford, showing a guy being hugged by two girls with the caption “you’ve pulled, now grab your coat” (and call a cab). Oddly, and just for once, propriety prevailed. / 29th June. Greenwich has the Royal Observatory, the International Dateline, buildings designed by Christopher Wren, the Cutty Sark and the jacket that Admiral Lord Nelson wore on the day he died at the battle of Trafalgar. Oh, and Greenwich also has squirrels. / 30th June. St Albans Railway Station at late sunset (about 23:15). In order to achieve their stated 93% ‘on-time’ train punctuality average, First Capital Connect would need to be scheduling dozens and dozens of trains around midnight when nobody needs them. But I saw none. / 1st July. Church in the Temple area. I was there because overhead cable problems had caused monstrous delays on the train line heading north. The temperature that caused it was… uh… 27 degrees celsius. I’m sceptical. / 2nd July. Today I was in Hook (the photo is closer to Waterloo Station, however. I’ll wait while you get that Abba song out of your head). / 3rd July. David ‘The Hoff’ Hasselhoff walking out of the BBC1 studios, London. Yes, I saw and photographed The Hoff. Yes, you may touch me. Short of Mercury crashing into the Sun, pretty much nothing was going to trump this as photo for the day. / 4th July. The weekend means it’s time to go somewhere. In this case, Scotland. This is about as late as ‘photos of the day’ get – taken about five minutes before midnight at Loch Linnhe, about two hours north of Glasgow. / 5th July. Scotland Day 2. This is apparently the most photographed castle in Scotland – Eilean Donan near Kyle Lochalsch. I did my bit in that regard – about two dozen. Okay, maybe three. That was a pretty cool past 20 days. Hopefully, the next 20 days can manage to get close!

• One Photo Per Day IV : 26th May - 15th June
  by berndt2

  continues from part III When last I w…

  continues from part III When last I wrote, I was in Oslo. And even though the trip back to London was one of the longer ones I can remember (head hit pillow about 4am, and I had to go to work the next day), things did develop somewhat from there. It went a little something like this: / 26th May. Oslo. This statue in the foreground of the Oslo Royal Palace is of King Karl Johan, and proves that no matter what wonders you accomplish in your life, if they make a statue of you, a pigeon will still roost on your head. / 27th May. London Kings Cross St Pancras had some filming on the TV Show ‘Spooks’ happening today. The lady runs into the elevator, finds a guy shot in the head, and screams. Cut, print, that’s a wrap. Wait, no. Do it again. Anyone else wanna get shot? / 28th May. Coloured tubing on the side of the railway tracks, photographed at a 1/2second shutterspeed while on the train to Great Missenden. Even I get bored sometimes. / 29th May. I was heading to West Hampstead Thameslink when I saw this isolated ‘open til “lat” ‘ Grill/Diner. I’m not sure what exactly “Lat” is, but at about 11:30pm I was willing to concede that it might have been fairly Lat. / May 30th. Mural on our office wall. It helps distract me from the ongoing lack of movement from the Virgin IT department, rumours of the existence of which haven’t really been proven to my satisfaction. / May 31st. Electricity in British bathrooms is not grounded, hence light switches work on a string you pull down. It’s startlingly primitive, and yet there’s something very Proper about pulling a string to get light. I want one with a built-in dimmer, though… / June 1st. They’ve put these wrappers around metal poles in London because of people running into them while texting on mobile phones. To be frank, I can’t think of something I find as insulting as the government using my tax dollars to help not the poor or underprivileged, or sick, or needy, but merely COMPLETE MORONS. / June 2nd. Oxford Circus UCB store. You know, I’m never quite sure how bad I should feel that my six friends are not quite as racially, culturally and ethnically diverse as a United Colours of Benetton ad… / June 3rd. A relatively calm and uninteresting day (unless an ongoing blood feud with the I.T. Department counts as ‘calm’) However, I couldn’t help but smile that the street sign for “Great Titchfield Street” is mounted considerably higher on the building than the one for “Little Titchfield Street”. Hee! / June 4th. Sure, they’re The Beatiful People, but their sheer size just seems to make them look alien. Or something. (The stupid I.T. Department still hasn’t got me my shared drive access… I’m trying to remain philosophical about it.) / June 5th. I spent about six hours on trains today, as a result of having to travel to Trowbridge (I know, I’d never heard of it either.) Also, it was for a team meeting, the main weirdness about which was that the vast majority of attendees are based in the same office as I ordinarily am. Oh, well. / June 6th. This the kind of Service Notification on the London Underground that reminds you instantly that you’re not in Kansas… or Sydney, or Oslo, anymore. / June 7th. Moved into my new 1-bedroom place today. (I’m willing to sub-let, and fyi Swedish – or Scandinavian – Supermodels get first right of refusal.) / June 8th. Underground at Marylebone Station while on my ‘Monopoly IV’ outing with friends. (Everyone should do the Monopoly property tour of London) / June 9th. St Albans by night. I wasn’t game to do my own cooking, so I scoped out the town for late night food possibilities that didn’t involve cheap pizza. / June 10th. I was on my way to Hook and the heart of Virgin’s IT Department. Once I got there, over the course of five (5) hours they managed to get me access to my machine. Oh, and they delivered me duplicate mice, keyboards and docking stations. As for the rest of the stuff I was promised? Uh.. pending. Nice work, guys. / June 11th. There was a Helmut Newton ‘photo machine’ display in one of the shops at Oxford Circus (Mmmm… Mamiya Medium Format Camera…..). / June 12th. Went and watched George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” at the Old Vic. And yes, there IS in fact a ‘New Vic’ as well! / June 13th. Trinity United Reformed Church, St Albans, at about 10pm. I’m loving these long days (so much so that straight horizons on photos are purely optional) / June 14th. Scissors beats paper. Rock beats scissors. But Guinness Fridge? BEATS EVERYTHING. / June 15th. Camden Markets, London. It’s about as alternative as you can get when an alt-goth-punk-emo area is inundated with tourists daily. Which is to say… I liked it! ... to be Continued at … / (warning : contains The Hoff)

• Tropic Thunder Premiere Photos
  by berndt2

  A mere two days after the Righteous Kill Premiere...

  A mere two days after the Righteous Kill Premiere I had a chance at another one. This one was the Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jnr comedy ‘Tropic Thunder’. I think the people at work know that I take my job seriously, I just suspect they assume photography is my job and I do spreadsheeting and SAS programming on the side… I’d prefer not to comment! / Between them, Jack Black, Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Junior have exactly one (1) Academy Award and no (0) Grammy Award nominations, and no wins. No offence, but Robert De Niro can’t walk to the local shops without winning a primetime Emmy for it. / The camouflage-green carpet for the Tropic Thunder premiere. Cute! / Jack Black doing what Jack Black does. Except more weirdly / Still owes me $5…. / Ben Stiller.. nobody makes him bleed his own blood / Actually, it wasn’t the greatest song in the world. It was just a tribute. / “Magnum? Not only can’t I show it to you, I shouldn’t even be talking about it!” / That ringing sound you’re hearing isn’t merely David Duchovny in a panic, realising he’s been outdone in the “improbable hairstyle” game… but a whole bunch of engineers trying to figure out whether that construction is entirely stable. / ”...and could the guy commenting about my hair please take a look at the mirror?”. Harsh comment, Mr Downey Jnr. Needlessly harsh. / Oh, look….. it’s That Guy. / That can’t be That Guy because That Guy was over there wearing Prada sunglasses and a fake diamond stud earring… / Exceedingly thin, slightly jaundiced and wearing a searingly yellow dress. My camera’s autofocus seized up a little trying to find the contrast there. My main thought: eat a cough drop, lady- you need the calorie! / Not sure who she is, but she was looking right at me, obviously so mesmerised that she forgot that it was unlikely I was a celebrity like her. Given I was, you know, standing in The Crush with the rest of the dregs of society. / Oh, it’s… uh… ummm… I’m sorry, you were saying…? / Impossibly, even MORE pretty! / And finally…. I heard several people make disparaging comments about something being “definitely fake” but to be honest I simply can’t spot a non-genuine Fendi or Prada handbag at this distance….. That one was fun. Much better location, a more even balance of celebrities (male/female split), and without having to be contorted into a pretzel by the crowd. The next scheduled London Premiere is for ‘How to Lose Friends and Alienate People’ next Wednesday. Will I make that one? We’ll see… Previous premieres: / Righteous Kill (De Niro, Pacino, 50 Cent) / RockNRolla (Madonna, Guy Ritchie, Thandie Newton) / The X-Files : I Want to Believe (Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny, David Duchovny’s Hair) / The Dark Knight (Bale, Eckhard, Maggie Gyllenhall from a safe distance) / Wall-E (Sigourney Weaver, Ben Burtt, and a remote control Robot)

• One Photo Per Day : 26th September - 15th October
  by berndt2

  I’ve been absent from The Bubble for a little while, as I’ve been on holiday, and one that straddled two adjacent Photo For The Day jou…

  I’ve been absent from The Bubble for a little while, as I’ve been on holiday, and one that straddled two adjacent Photo For The Day journals. This is the first one: / September 26th. The peaceful early morn in St Albans, all still and calm in the hours before I.T. starts to make promises they don’t intend to keep. / September 27th. This unusually useful bit of graffiti in Hatfield reads: “Every moment wasted is a moment the opponent trains. When you meet him he will win”. (Damnit, those hour-long coffees for breakfast are going to cost me…) / September 28th. Yes, it’s pretty, but also: why do shops close at 4pm on Sunday? (and more to the point, what on earth am I going to have for dinner now??) / September 29th. Elversham Hall, west of London. It has a conservatory, library, stables converted into bedrooms, stained glass windows, gargoyles on bannisters, and a deconsecrated church on the grounds. Of all of these, the closest my apartment has is a bookshelf. / September 30th. A return to London after the opulence of Elversham. / October 1st. The Strand, London, hitting a kind of ‘James Dean in New York’ note. / October 2nd. A large mural off Charing Cross Rd, London / October 3rd. Yargh!! (Sadly, “Talk like a pirate day” was last Friday, but really you don’t need an excuse to talk like a pirate. Incidentally, I also tried SAS-coding like a pirate. But the SAS application didn’t seem impressed) / October 4th. St Albans Skyline, taken from the weekend markets where I came, saw, and yet curiously did not buy any of the wares on offer. / October 5th. Rain, meet London. London, meet Rain. (Oh, I’m sorry. you’ve already met…?) / October 6th. Today was alternatively rainy and dreary, but the lady holding the cigarette out her window caught my eye as I walked past. / October 7th. Near Euston Station, London. Oh, and you know that lady I shot yesterday holding the cigarette out the window? She was doing it again this morning, different time. Quit smoking, lady!! / October 8th. I’m on holiday (well… in transit anyway) Sometimes you only have a day in Paris. Other times you only have two and a half hours. I had the latter, but either way, you make sure you take that time! / October 9th. Japan from the air. In retrospect, photo for the day could have been a photo of the ‘Humping Dog USB device’ or the rather erotic ‘Interesting Gorilla Keychain’ or the medicinal ‘Eye Dorps’ (sic), or Watermelon KitKats, all of which I saw at Narita Airport.. / October 10th. My third calendar day of travel, and 40th hour without REM-sleep. Can’t argue with the beautiful view of Sydney though, as we were coming in to land. But was I ‘home’ or just ‘in Australia’? Only my travel journal knows for sure… / October 11th. View of Sydney from Rose Bay. Internally, I was trying to manage an ongoing debate as to whether Sydney/Australia was better than London/England. London has Red Bull Cola. But Sydney now has mangoes in season. / October 12th. It’s a weed, yes. But it is kind of uniquely Australian. (Sydney has JB HiFi’s and Westfield shopping malls. London has Leicester Square movie premieres and larger HMVs.) / October 13th. Water sculpture in my old ‘Hood of Hornsby. (Sydney has Gloria Jeans coffee. London has Caffe Nero, Costas and Pauls (GJs is arguably better, but the massimo at Costas is so BIG, and Caffe Nero has a very soothing corporate blue decor!)) / October 14th. The City. (London has efficient and ultra-expensive public transport, and I get to see other peoples’ Aston Martins. Sydney has cheap and often useless publc transport, but I get to drive my very own car which I can afford to own.) / October 15th. Rural living. (Sydney has better yoghurt and supermarkets that stay open much later. London has better snackfoods at Sainsbury and better internet broadband.) The debate continues in part of the next installment. Oh, and then there’s Dubai. And then there’s London. And then… whatever happens after that. In case you’re interested: / Part IX / Part VIII, Part VII, Part VI (and so on…)

• One Photo Per Day III : 6th May - 25th May
  by berndt2

  continues from part 2 It’s been a prett…

  continues from part 2 It’s been a pretty interesting batch of 20-odd days. I’ve (finally) started a new job, compromised the integrity of the ‘one photo per day’ challenge by taking too many photos within easy walking distance of the new office, and used the second of the two May long weekends to go to Oslo with friends. Did I take one photo per day? No… I took more! / 6th May. The Eye Shadow. (Woo! Pun intended!) Admittedly, this rather fantastic visual comes at a price : the sun shining directly into your face when you attempt to take shots of Big Ben and Westminster / 7th May. Do not adjust your set, this is England and that? Is blue sky and fresh young foliage. Somebody tell China to stop burning fossil fuels because this kind of weather is just wrong. (Also, pleasant!) / 8th May. St Albans Clock Tower. The weather was warm enough for ice cream, which led me to wonder whether my Virgin Mobile job contract wasn’t just lying on some beach somewhere having tanning oil rubbed on it while I sat in a darkened pub having cut-price fish’n’chips. / 9th May. St Albans church window. It’s been a busy day. You know, with the hoping for the mail, waiting for the mail, checking the mail, and being disappointed with the complete lack of mail. Photo is also here / 10th May. I got my Virgin Mobile contract today, with the only (ahem) MINOR issues being (a) Location different to expected, by about 100km (b) starting date of Monday seems unlikely given reason ‘a’ above and© the notice period seems about 2months longer than standard. Other than that… check out the building facade!! / 11th May. Statue in Kings Cross – St Pancras International Station. (This wasn’t quite what my departure from Sydney a bit over a month ago was like….) / 12th May. My office. I came, I saw, I went back home again. There’s a chance I might be starting on Thursday. Also, the photo was taken on a wide-angle lens. The building doesn’t actually lean like that. / 13th May. Victoria Street Bridge, St Albans. Today was mostly about trying to find a place to live ( ... you know, if living on the bridge proved impractical, crowded or too noisy). / 14th May. St Albans. Tomorrow is my first day at work. Had a coffee and received a new contract confirming that I will, in fact, be working in London. Always handy to know. / This is Monday’s photo, revisited, on my ACTUAL first day of work today on the 15th May. I’m an analyst without data to analyse at this stage, but I’m employed and I remember a couple of peoples’ names, so things are heading in the right direction. / 15th May: Today’s ACTUAL photo – a closer detail of the anti-CCTV mural I photographed about a fortnight ago just off Oxford Street. Very cute. Accordingly, I say next time some hooligan spraypaints yourwall overnight, at least screen it for artistic merit and political nous before you call the police. / 16th May: The Longacre Office. I was there to speak to people in the customer insight office and try to look plausibly like a future valued team member. (My choice of t-shirt was obviously going to be of crucial importance) / 17th May: View of St Albans from atop its 601-year old Clock Tower. Every Wednesday and Saturday, and the occasional Sunday, there are markets in St Albans. (And just like every market from Paddys in Sydney to any in Shanghai or Hong Kong or Paris, you can pick up imitation leather luggage, fruit, and mobile phone press-on covers!) / 18th May. St Albans has 53 pubs and the Guinness Book of Records lists this as the oldest in all England – an 11th Century structure on an 8th century site. I, of course, prefer to simply shake my head and laugh at its name. (I am apparently 12 years old, which means in 6 years time I’ll be allowed to drink there!!) / 19th May. Our Angel of the Sacred Spraypaint, St Albans’ London Road. Some kind of old theater, maybe?. I was in the area to view a 1-bedroom apartment, but it went horribly wrong because the agent was late, then couldn’t work the key, then the tenant was home in the shower, and we couldn’t come in, and he couldn’t get her details, and had mine wrong, and we had to reschedule. (I’m not sure how Britain got itself an Empire, but I’m beginning to get an inkling as to how they lost it.) / 20th May. Building exterior, Virgin Media Office in Great Portland Street, London, celebrating the upcoming series of America’s (umm… Britain’s) Next Top Model. If it’s as good as the US series, I’ll be watching. (Unless it’s on Pay TV, in which case I’ll be trying to justify bittorrenting it on moral grounds. Of some sort.) / 21st May. This rather ocean-liner-esque building is the BBC Building on Regent Street, London. I walked past there this morning while pondering the eternal question : “Should I have Pauls or Neros for coffee this breakfast?” / 22nd May. Another day, another inkling that somewhere, somehow, no less than three CCTV cameras are following me. This particular trio were used to make this / 23rd May. It’s a long weekend and I’m on my way to Oslo, Norway! Currency : Krone. Cost of Big Mac Meal : about $AUD16. Queue length at Anker Hostel at 1:30am : 25minutes. Twenty Five Freaking Minutes!! (And it was only two groups of people ahead of us) / 24th May. Vigeland Park in Oslo is not one of those places you want to be a parent who hesitates when their young child asks very pertinent questions about male and female anatomy and what exactly those two people are doing to each other. But…. it is simply stunning. Amazing artworks, incredible detail, incredible location. Amazing. / 25th May. On the way to Drobak, on the Oslofjord. (I think the village’s name has one of those ‘o’s with the slash through it). Anyway, it was very pretty and even though lunch cost me $AUD40 (fish soup and Pepsi) and the famous Christmas Shop was closed, and the queue to get an ice cream had reached epic proportions, I still kinda liked the place. continues here

• One Photo Per Day VI : 6th - 25th July
  by berndt2

  continues from Part V I’m still lovin…

  continues from Part V I’m still loving the motivation of taking one photo per day – it keeps me moving, it keeps me exploring, and it keeps me excited about where I live. It also reminds me of a time when I used to want to write, but kept finding excuses not to. And then one day I read a quote which basically says that a writer writes meaning I guess you can’t call yourself a writer or even an aspiring one if you never do any. But as long as I keep taking one photo per day I feel I can (at least to myself) call myself “A Photographer”! / 6th July. Scotland Day 3. Just another roadside castle in a paddock. It’s hard to be blase about such things, I’m still trying… / 7th July. Back in London. I’m not so much of a fan of ‘The Gherkin’. Usually I want to make people taking photos of it turn around and take shots of the Lloyds Building instead. / 8th July. Apparently there’s a recession coming. Which is why, I suppose, all these business-suited guys are avidly reading the tabloids to find out whether Madonna’s marriage to Guy Ritchie is really in that much trouble. / 9th July. You wake up filled with plans of how to spend your day, the people you’ll meet, the adventures you’ll have. Then you turn the morning Metro to page 8 and your day is irrevocably changed. Only… not for the better. / 10th July. It would have been even cooler if the models’ heads were turned to the right just to spite the clear instructions, but this is close! / 11th July. Street Art supremo Banksy did some stencils in the Waterloo Station Area but I didn’t find them (directions may have helped, in hindsight). / 12th July. One of St Albans’ creepier Red Light men, revealed with fast shutter speed. That was my highlight for the day. Oh wait. I also bought a vacuum cleaner. But the red light man is also now a t-shirt / 13th July. There’s an underground tunnel on Leakes Street under Waterloo Station featuring some truly stunning street art, including this work from perhaps the most deservedly famous of them all, Banksy. Regrettably, Banksy’s success and decision to accept payment for commissioned works has raised the ire of others, who think it’s fun to deface his works. / / So I re-edited it in photoshop to give a clearer idea of why I think it’s great. You can hate the guy, people. But don’t deface his artworks. I don’t spraypaint cinema screens just because George Lucas sold out…. / 14th July. I’m not sure whether the people who introduced the congestion charge to London would endorse this kind of behaviour from electric mini-cars that are exempt from the charge. / 15th July. Morning Coffee. With outstanding matters yet to be resolved between myself and the Virgin IT Department, whether I should be having two shots of coffee in my morning mocha is probably debatable. / 16th July. I gotta use this technique for a Model shoot some day. You know.. once I get me some models… and a shoot. / 17th July. Sculpture in Lazarides Gallery, Charing Cross Road. The Caffe Nero tour of London hit yet another snag today. Why can’t they make a mocha properly?? The ingredients are ON THE MENU BOARD! / 18th July. Cool Companion shot to 14th July. Today was also the day Toshiba told me I faced a 2mth wait for a replacement Main Board for my laptop, because it was a major part. Yes, I guess if you went to a hospital you would expect to wait longer to get treated for a heart attack than a small cut on your finger. / 19th July. Building on Blenheim Crescent, off Portobello Road, Notting Hill. / July 20th. Spittalfield Markets in London, a random bubble floating. Oh, and I broke my record for most pints of Frulli Strawberry Beer (still – I feel – the manliest of beers a man can drink) drunk in a day. Two (2). I’m better with vodka. / July 21st. The Dark Knight Premiere, London. This is probably my favourite shot because it was one of the few not taken blindly – actor John Simm (who isn’t even in the film to my knowledge) being besieged by fans. / July 22nd. It’s not a headline you see every day. Less than 24 hours after the Red Carpet premiere in London, Batman faces assault charges. (Who will protect Toshiba from my psychopathic urges now?) / July23rd. Finchley Road, London. I’d just finished watching The Dark Knight when I saw an Audi R8 across the road at the lights. I did what… uh… ‘anyone’ would do, and calmly got my camera out of my bag, changed a couple of settings, and managed to take a couple of shots in time. The movie was good. / July 24th, Oxford Circus. I saved so much by not buying an official Apple iPod Charger that even after I used the savings to buy a CD, I was STILL over 7 British Pounds in front. Say what you will about Apple… but I don’t think there’s much evidence to suggest they’re running a charity. / July 25th. Brussels, Belgium. I’m still stoked that I can finish work normally on a Friday and be in a city in another country before the sun sets that day. Yes, even if it’s Brussels 8))) To be continued…. in Brugge.

• X-Files : I want to Believe Premiere, London
  by berndt2

  This may be the last big one for a while – I’m not going to Hellboy2 tomorrow and my keynote website doesn’t list any big upcoming premie…

  This may be the last big one for a while – I’m not going to Hellboy2 tomorrow and my keynote website doesn’t list any big upcoming premieres. Sure, there’s another Harry Potter due and a new James Bond film before the end of the year, but for now, I’ll be fine. Anyway this one was for the X-Files sequel “I want to Believe” – Xzibit and Billy Connolly didn’t grace the red carpet but creator Chris Carter and main actors David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson did. And of course, it was another chance for me to photograph various celebrities and still have no idea who any of them were. Oh, and take photos of the pretty ladies…. very, very surreptitiously. / Cool placard: it’s just shame about the movie reviews this film has been getting. / Actor David Duchovny very evasive on the question he’s being asked (“we’ve got a letter from a fan, Bernd, claiming you owe him money. Do you have anything to say about that?”) / X-Files Creator Chris Carter. Notwithstanding any poor reviews this movie has garnered, the point is its budget was only $US29million, which is astoundingly low. So if a couple of people go see it and a few more buy the DVDs and McDonald’s Happy Meals, chances are there’ll be another one. (I doub that’s the question Carter has just been asked) / Insert your own Scully-pregnant-alien caption here!! / What’s funny is I was less than fifteen metres away from the man yet the tropical cyclone his hair was going through didn’t really get all that far into the crowd / Creator Chris Carter explaining that the likelihood future sequels will be based on the malevolent sentience of David Duchovny’s hair is not high, but it is rising. / No idea who she is, but she is wearing red lipstick. (And I shouldn’t be shooting into the sun with ISO800… except for ‘artistic reasons’. Like.. uh… this time, right here…) / Oh, look! A celebrity! Also, a shade of pink so intense it’s causing a highly localised weather system that’s playing havoc with Mr Duchovny’s hair! / Oh, look! A guy wearing a really weird looking vest! (I don’t know who she is. Actually, to be fair and balanced I don’t know who he is either…) / Oh, look! A poster of Gillian Anderson! (bottom right, people…) / Oh, look! ... anonymous boring people! / Oh, look! A guy with a weird comb-over! (I evidently get distracted by the weirdest things…) / Oh, look! An actual celebrity! Though Gillian Anderson may be pissed at all the press David Duchovny’s hair is getting. / The Dynamic Duo! / I quite like this shot – thanks, excessively-powerful-flash guy!! Other Premieres: Batman Dark Knight Premiere / Wall-E Premiere

• One Photo Per Day : 16th August - 5th September
  by berndt2

  Continuing on from Part VII here is ano…

  Continuing on from Part VII here is another fairly big set of 20 days for Part VIII, encompassing a music festival, a movie premiere, a 10km run, a German capital, Will Ferrell and the absence of Keira Knightley. / August 16th, V Festival Chelmsford. Alanis Morissette was once thinner, and I once had more hair. Touche. / August 17th, V Festival Chelmsford. Saw Amy Winehouse, Sons of Albion, Gabriella Cilmi, the Young Knives… and Girls Aloud striking poses that will keep me warm on cold winter nights to come. But photo for the day for the best performance of the day goes to Lenny Kravitz. / August 18th, cool building sign, New Cavendish Street London. In other news… Great Britain are doing particularly well in the Olympic Medal Tally. Which, as somebody from Australia, concerns me somewhat. / August 19th. Actors/Comedians John C Reilley and Will Ferrell were at BBC1 this afternoon. The Paparazzi trailing the two were particularly aggresive with their pushing and jostling. “Chill, guys! it’s a sunny day and those two really aren’t THAT funny” I wanted to say. / August 20th. England is one of those places where if something is called “Elephant and Castle” you kind of think maybe that’s a metaphor. But then again… / August 21st. A sunset shot of London – it’s very rare that I’d still be in the city well after 9:00pm. In that sense I can’t wait ‘til winter, when I can start taking these kind of photos at 3:00pm or whenever it is that the sun sets around this latitude. / August 22nd. My point of view. (Looking out of my window). The long weekend awaits, and it’s all happening outside, so… time to head outside. / August 23rd. Brandenburg Gate. Berlin is a very cool city, especially architecturally given it has both old and new, restored and rundown, communist and capitalist….. basically pick any two opposites! / August 24th. Wonderfully ornate streetlamp and what I’m told are the asbestos filled shells of former buildings on Karl Liebknecht-Strasse, in Berlin. / August 25th. Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Berlin. It might seem terrible to say this, but the extreme damage this church suffered in the war makes for an even more poignant and reverent experience. / August 26th. Berlin, day 4. I heartily recommend Berlin, as well as long weekends with an extra day added on. / August 27th. An exceedingly rare photo – an unedited one resized straight out of the camera!! Deliberately dreary after a 4 day long weekend in Berlin, I was back at work again… / August 28th. Rather wacky and unique street sign off Regent Street… the Help Desk kept their heads low and elected not to contact me. / August 29th. I’ve been wanting to take this shot for a while. So much so I’ve dispensed with standard composition like the rule of thirds. / August 30th. St Albans. Secret government installation? Major corporate headquarters? No… just a parking garage near a pub. Keep watching the skies, people…. / August 31st. Wembley Stadium. We were there to run the Nike 10km run, but before that we got to see a free concert featuring Pendulum and Moby. And Moby? He crazy. And that’s not some funky term meaning ‘cool’. It’s more like… ca-raaazy. / September 1st. ‘RockNRolla’ premiere, Leicester Square, London. Featured: director Guy Ritchie and wife Madonna. Insofar as celebrity photographs are concerned, I’m calling this one a home run. Boom! More photos here / September 2nd. The morning after the movie premeire the night before…. it was raining and I was going to the dentist. You can’t win them all, and especially not against Dentists. / This would almost certainly have been a photo of Keira Knightley, but I was in Hook for the worlds longest, most pointless and worst-scheduled team meeting of all time. I hate it when work intrudes on things that are much more important…. / September 4th. Frown harder, building facade! (I think I just failed the architectural equivalent of an inkblot test…) / September 5th. Rain. In London. Who knew? Next up : possibly another one or two movie premieres. However, sadly, I don’t think I’ll be going traveling anywhere in the next 20 days. Never mind…

• One Photo Per Day : 16th October - 5th November
  by berndt2

  A big three weeks, charting the continuation of my holiday, a return to London, a movie premiere and a Vogue event, an Austrian supercar …

  A big three weeks, charting the continuation of my holiday, a return to London, a movie premiere and a Vogue event, an Austrian supercar and the onset of winter. Would you believe that a photo of the actor who plays Mini-Me on a mobility scooter, one of the hosts of the BBCs Top Gear, members of the band Take That and Spongebob Squarepants all failed to make it to this selection? We live in strange times, indeed. / October 16th. After thinking for about 15 minutes, I finally found an angle of the Sydney Opera House I hadn’t previously taken of photo of. Woohoo!! / October 17th. A quintessentially Aussie sight (and might I draw your attention to the rather neat panning of this particular shot, taken from a car in motion?) / October 18th. My Etihad flight was due to arrive in Abu Dhabi moments past midnight. And though I didn’t know it yet, it would be another eight hours from midnight (and in Dubai) that I got any sleep at all. Woo! Adventure!! / October 19th. The Suburb of Deira, across Dubai Creek. I stayed in Deira, which was kind of a cross between Campbelltown and Baghdad but dustier and safer than either. / October 20th. Sometimes you gotta say no to a $25 taxi and take the option that involves 35 degree heat and walking on the side of a four lane highway overpass to take some unique shots you couldn’t get any other way. / October 21st. A little bit of light and shadow in the entryway to the mosque in Bastakiya. It’s a sort of restoration of what Old Dubai used to look like, but I say without the crowds and the noise and the dust, what’s the point?? / October 22nd. Paranoid about missing my plane, I left Dubai for the 130km trip to Abu Dhabi early enough to miss morning peak in both cities. And succeeded! (The thin building on the left is the Burj Dubai, currently the world’s tallest structure even though it apparently still has 100-150m left to be added to the top) . / October 23rd. Back in London and back at work. I’d already had a morning celebrity pap-experience, and IT still hadn’t provided us with the printer they’d promised a fortnight ago, so not much had changed. / October 24th. I was forced to seek a coin laundry after work to do some emergency washing. It was worth it just for this shot of the old lady waiting so still as to be camouflaged for her washing to finish. / October 25th. KTM are an Austrian motorcycle manufacturer who also do the X-Bow, a 237bhp vehicle weighing only 700kg. Seeing one at the lights outside my window in the afternoon was somewhat of a surprise (and seeing it annihilate the mere sedan next to it for acceleration was a privilege) / October 26th. Ceiling light at the local Costas. I needed a little abstract (and a little more caffeine) in my morning, I felt. / October 27th. Chimneys near Baker Street. The mornings are crisp, and those ‘ski dubai’ gloves I bought for about one british pound in the UAE are proving to be a reasonably good purchase. / October 28th. “Take That” were at BBC1 in the morning, and though I respect their ten British #1 singles and strong work ethic, I kind of like this photo more. It’s at Leicester Square, in preparation for tomorrow’s world premiere. / October 29th. At the James Bond Premiere .Out of 250 photos taken , I think about three were what I’d call “Good”. I guess I should be happy one of the them was of Bond himself, but… but… Olga Kurylenko… she was right there!! / October 30th. One of the more strange galleries/installations/offices in the NoHo area. This one is on Eastcastle Street. / October 31st. Piccadilly Circus on another crisp morning in the British capital. The weather has been very good of late, once you get past the cold and the increasingly later sunrises and earlier sunsets. / November 1st. Crowds milling around the dinosaur skeleton at the Natural History Museum. / November 2nd. Waffles for friend’s farewell, Frulli and a Grand Prix in the afternoon. Nice! / November 3rd. I can’t believe the story of this photo of model Claudia Schiffer begins with ‘I was just walking to the tube from the coin-op laundry where I’d done some washing and then…’ / November 4th. US Election Day, and the same venue as yesterday’s Vogue party was today illuminated with Stars and Stripes for the occasion. / November 5th. Remember, Remember the 5th of November, the gunpowder treason and plot… . / So…. it’s going to be a tricky task for the next twenty odd days to match the excitement of this group. But you know, I’ll try. And even if they can’t, the camera will be there to capture the failure! Oh, in case you’re interested, this batch (#11) follows on from: / Part X / Part IX / Part VIII, Part VII, Part VI (and so on…)

• A1GP Photos from Eastern Creek, Sydney
  by berndt2

  Okay, so the A1GP is kind of the Poor Man’s Formula 1… but the point is, I AM that poor man – so it seemed like a good idea to go, espe…

  Okay, so the A1GP is kind of the Poor Man’s Formula 1… but the point is, I AM that poor man – so it seemed like a good idea to go, especially since it’s in my home town, I can drive there, and the price is relatively reasonable. (And many of the good photo opportunities are from the public viewing places). So I packed up the camera, gathered my lenses, forgot my sunscreen and umbrella (at least until the second day) and took… uh… several thousand photos. Well, this is why you have 9Gb of SD cards and spare batteries for your K10D. And while rainy weather is bad for comfort levels if you’re a spectator, I found that it added a different dimension to the standard panning shots of fast-moving objects: Here’s less than a dozen resized photos: From the rooftop of the Paddock Pass area ($20 upgrade to stadium seats): / / Probably my fave shot (on technical grounds) since it was taken at a shutter speed of 1/60th of a second, which is pretty tricky for something driving this fast! / / From close to the finishing line (stadium seating) – love the water spray: / A1GP cars are nice, but I actually prefer the GTs because, you know, under the dodgey slogans and promotional detailing there are actual cars that… well… I can’t afford. But I could conceivably score a test drive some day! Ferrari F430: / / Lamborghini (cheapened somewhat by a Koala Furniture slogan, but no matter!) / / Aston Martin DBR9. If I owned one of these, there is no way I’d allow it to be painted like this: / And while GT Cars are nice, being a single guy, I also quite like Grid Girls! / But I’ll leave those for another day 8) /

• How to Lose Friends....etc Premiere, London
  by berndt2

  I’ll tell you how to lose friends and alienate people : you cast a movie with Kirsten Dunst and Megan Fox, then have a world premiere in …

  I’ll tell you how to lose friends and alienate people : you cast a movie with Kirsten Dunst and Megan Fox, then have a world premiere in London where neither show up. Seriously! Then again, the criteria for me to go to these things is that at least some grade of celebrity shows up, so off I went… ... even though it was dark and overcast and dull and dreary, the results were better than they would have been had I not shown up out at all, which is generally a good thing! / Only 1 of the the 4 people on this poster actually showed up to the ‘World Premiere’. Kind of a shame, since 2 of the 4 are very pretty (sorry, Simon Pegg… you’re not. Thanks for turning up,though!). / No Megan Fox at the premiere. It goes without saying that I was devastated. / Actor Simon Pegg. ‘Shaun of the Dead’ was brilliant, while ‘Hot Fuzz’ was exactly the opposite in my opinion. / I don’t know for sure, but I suspect this is director of ‘HTLFAIP’ Robert. B. Weide. But I’ve just checked IMDB and he doesn’t really look much like him, so my new theory is he’s flat-out pretending to be the guy just to be part of the premiere. (Damnit, that’s MY idea!) / I’d like to think this uncomfortable silence followed somebody asking Simon Pegg whether this film is actually any good. (Hey, I suffered through ‘Hot Fuzz’ – it’s a legitimate question…) / Simon Pegg doesn’t just owe me $5 like most stars, he sraight out owes me $29.95 because I bought ‘Hot Fuzz” on DVD without having seen the movie first… and it sucked! / My keen knowledge of human anatomy tells me that actress Gillian Anderson is still pregnant… / Author Toby Young, who wrote the autobiographical book upon which the movie is partially based. When I write my similar book, I will also be seeking to include a Megan Fox-style character. Preferably Megan Fox. / White Dress and she was interviewed. Qualifies! / She looked vaguely familiar, and a quick check on the web reveals why. Not only is she the old nurse in Baz Luhrman’s “Romeo+Juliet” but also Professor Sprout in Harry Potter. And half a billion other roles over nearly forty years. AND she got Gerard Butler to come over to the girls near me at the Rock’n’Rolla premiere. Nice lady! / No idea, but she’s cradling some kind of roadkill, possibly in order to turn it into a handbag or purse at a later stage. / Actor / Motion Capture Subject Andy Serkis, who was Gollum in Lord of the Rings and King Kong in Peter Jackson’s King Kong. He occasionally breaks stereotype and plays humans, too. Just in case you’re wondering – the K10D was maxed at ISO1600 for most of these (hence the grain, and hence more conversions to black’n’white) and even the flash was used from time to time despite the distances involved. It all helps… they should really have these things floodlit! Next up: nothing for a while, and with the sun setting earlier and earlier in this hemisphere I can see problems with Premiere photography from this point on for many months. We shall see, though. The same criteria apply! Previous Premieres: / Tropic Thunder / Righteous Kill / RockNRolla / The X-Files : I Want to Believe / The Dark Knight / Wall-E I probably should post ‘Hancock’, too… that was the first premiere I went to and never made it onto Redubble.