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Alan K | all galleries >> Galleries >> Hanging Out In My PAD 2011 > 110118_122012_6096 Lunch Time In The Park, One Year On (Tue 18 Jan)
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18-JAN-2011 AKMC

110118_122012_6096 Lunch Time In The Park, One Year On (Tue 18 Jan)

Pyrmont Point Park, Pyrmont, NSW

I'm not really one to commemorate events when society tells me to. To me New Year's Eve is nothing but a holiday the next day. My birthday? Even mention that, and you'd better run, boy!

But there are times that I do commemorate and use to reflect on what's changed or been achieved in the time since, what hasn't, what's still to be done, what may be different the next time that anniversary rolls around. 21 July 1969 (our time) for one. And for another, the start of PADing. My first official PAD was one year back from tomorrow, but it was a year ago today that I took the shots that convinced me that I needed to do it, one of which I later added as the first image of my 2010 PAD gallery and which I replicate here.

What's changed in the image? Surprisingly little it seems, aside from there being overcast weather this year which has completely changed the colour scheme. The former HMAS Adelaide is still there; she was supposed to be sitting on the ocean floor off Avoca Beach by now, her intended sinking in March last year stalled by legal challenges. Other vessels around her have moved in or out in the intervening year.

The former Conaust car receiving docks alongside her were already empty last year, and still are now with no further development. The trees in the park look remarkably similar, hardly having grown at all.

And me? Still at the same job, though more certain than I was last year that this is the final year of it. My assistant, who I thought was a fixture at the company until he either retired or was booted, found himself a new job last month and my former boss is returning as my part time assistant again as from tomorrow. Other colleagues have moved on over the past year, and one highly valued one is heading to Spain for six months in a couple of weeks causing me to wonder whether I should have been more peripatetic earlier in my career. (But then tossing that thought aside since you can't change the past; it is what it is, and there's no point worrying about it now.) I made it to Melbourne a few times in the past year, Canberra less often, but Canada is an increasingly receding dream with the current work and personal developments in my life, one of which has been pleasantly surprising bordering on (as I look at some of the images and commentary from the same period last year) utterly blanking astonishing. Really, if you leave out some of the dates that I went on and the 40D falling off the tripod with the many, many hundreds of dollars that that ended up costing in repairs, 2010 had more good than bad particularly at the end.

And next year? If I'm still in Pyrmont, which I doubt, I fully expect to shoot the same image again. And if I'm not, but can get away to there to do it, I may do that. But 18 days into 2011? I don't yet know what might unfold in the remaining 11 and a bit months.

Edit: As it turned out, this was part of a series that would last for 7 years. The series is shown below:

2017
2017

2016
2016

2015
2015

2014
2014

2013
2013

2012
2012

2011
2011

And Where It All Started
2010


other sizes: small medium large original auto
Mairéad19-Jan-2011 21:53
It's always good to take stock from time to time.
Both images are good but I think there is more depth to the cloudy day one - perhaps a bit like life itself.
Yvonne18-Jan-2011 10:06
Interesting comparison - what I notice most is the difference a bit of sunshine makes to the scene...
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