This wasn't intended to be a PAD entry, but it's from the shoot that inspired me to start doing them. It had been a little over 2 weeks since I'd had either camera out, so I headed out to do some shooting at lunch time.

However when I got back and loaded the shots into Photoshop, I found that I had landscape shots done at f/3.5 (cough, like this one), didn't use a circular polarising filter when it would have been useful, and had committed other photographic misbehaviours. I then thought "What in the Hot Place were you thinking???"

Of course it's not a question of thinking, it's a question of getting rusty, having to re-learn exposure techniques, which filters to use, remembering to check your ISO and AV and focus point settings before shooting instead of just assuming that they're right and so on and so forth and such like. Do it often enough and it becomes instinctive. Don't do it often enough and you have to think your way through it, and then you probably miss shots that you would have liked to have had.

And so the very next day, I started my PAD project.

The problem is that the next day was a Tuesday, and unfortunately I sometimes suffer from the perils of a tidy mind. Since I didn't want the gallery to start part way through the week (since it's already starting part way through the year), I've whacked this image in to start it on a Monday.

Sad, I know.

Oh, yes, the image itself; pretty self explanatory. This is Pirrama (formerly Pyrmont Point) Park which was built over the site of the old Water Police headquarters. I'm shooting from the escarpment just above the park. As you can tell from the shadows directly under the trees the sun was fairly strong but it wasn't, as I recall, excessively hot. A couple of local workers on their lunch break can be seen looking out at the work being done on the former HMAS Adelaide. Soon (or so we thought at the time) she was to be sunk as a dive wreck, and holes were being cut in her side to let the water flow in more easily. (A number of shots of the Adelaide shots can be found in the Adieu Adelaide gallery. (PBase link HERE.)

Adelaide is berthed alongside the old Conaust terminal which used to receive imported cars, but which ceased service in 2009 when the car carriers started unloading at Port Botany. (Though these days (late 2023 as I'm updating this) most of them come to Port Kembla. I know this very, very well.) As of 2023 it's just a wasteland, but will eventually be redeveloped.

You can't see it very clearly in this shot, but a bit in front of Adelaide is the tugboat EDI, operated by the Polaris Marine Group. What's so special about that? Well, she was built in 2009 so at the time of this shot she was close to brand spanking new. In September 2023? Not so much.

This shot triggered me to take a shot from more or less the same location for several years. The series is shown below:

2016


2015


2014


2013


2012


2011


And Where It All Started


But if you want to go further back in time...