Some of my more regular viewers know this tale. Way back in 2010 I had taken some random lunchtime photos with the wrong exposure settings during a lunchtime ramble. The shots were of the old Water Police headquarters in the suburb of Pyrmont (where I worked at the time), which had since been converted into Pirrama Park. Beyond the park was Johnston's Bay, into which protrudes Glebe Island. (Which is no longer an island, and has not been for a long time, but is still called that.) Up until a couple of years earlier, that island had been used to receive car deliveries from overseas but at the time of my shot it wasn't really being used for much at all, other than as a berth for the retired Australian Navy frigate HMAS Adelaide which was awaiting disposal as a dive wreck.

There are also some silos on Glebe Island (which I don't think I've mentioned before). From their construction in 1921 until 1990, they handled bulk and bagged grain. After that the wheat terminal was transferred to Port Kembla, south of Wollongong, which resulted in some silos being demolished and 16 of them being repurposed as a bulk cement terminal. I can't swear that those are still in service, but I note from the list of ship movements for the Port of Sydney that there are still cement bulk carriers arriving at the Glebe Island terminal.

I didn't use a particularly wide angle lens on that first shot, and you could just make out some of the stays of the Anzac Bridge on the left of the frame.

That shot was the trigger and commencement of my (admittedly since abandoned) Photo a Day (PAD) project to ensure that I was continuously practising photographic technique. (And keeping a visual diary.) Every year I would go back and take a photograph from an equivalent location, although in reality not all that much changed between 2010 and 2016. My framing did, though, as I obtained wider angle lenses, and more confidence with stitching images in Photoshop to create a panorama.

As indeed I have done here, using 3 images stitched together to give you a view over the commercial and residential buildings of Pyrmont, a sweep across the Anzac Bridge, Glebe Island and its grain terminals, and on the right White Bay which is currently used as a passenger terminal for cruise ships. (Although unlike some previous versions of this shot, none were in dock on this day.)

I don't recall why I didn't take shots in 2018 or 2019, beyond simply not being bothered. In both years I was still working in Pyrmont, although in October 2019 we changed buildings to a different one across the road. I could have still done it and to be honest, regret that I didn't.

January 2020... I'm not completely sure about. Word had started to spread about The Bug by that time, but as far as I can see it was not until March 2020 that we had a shutdown with all non-essential workers working from home. That means that once again, I COULD have taken a 2020 version of this shot... but didn't. (Though I was working from home more often by that time for reasons unconnected with the pandemic.)

In June 2020 I moved to an office in North Sydney. Ducking over to Pyrmont to take some photos in 2021 for lunch was simply not practical; it would have taken at least 90 minutes. And that presupposes that we weren't in lockdown at the time which... I don't THINK we were, judging from my PESOs of the time.

However it appears that we were back in lockdown by the end of 2021, because there was another government "work from home" directive that was in force until February 2022. That would have been connected with the Omicron variant, which was found in November 2021. So... no chance to do it then, either.

At the time of writing (January 2023) I have not seen my office since April last year. Much less Pyrmont, which I have few reasons to go to these days.

Thus, 7 years after the first event, this may well be the last Lunch Time In The Park shot. But never say "never".

The series is shown below:

2017


2016


2015


2014


2013


2012


2011


And Where It All Started