Festivals

So I'm no longer going to do day by day what I do in work and class, since that will get boring, so I'll just write about things I find interesting.

In our film class we watched Crocodile Dundee and the Proposition which were both really good movies.

On to work:
Justina and I are making a collection of Brett's old work, using only one of each photo instead of all the negatives.  It's fun going through the old stuff.  I found Christmas pictures, and Brett told me the girl in the photo is his now 16 year old daughter when she was 3.  It was pretty cute.  It was also interesting seeing how he's modernized what he used to do with film.  Whenever Brett works for someone he makes them a storyboard on Photoshop (Justina does it now) of all the best of each shot from the day, unedited.  Anyway, so in one of the folders today I found a white paper with small prints on it, and it was how he used to do story boards.  It was really cool and happened to be for a Valentine's Day spread so it's really pretty.

I feel like Tim and I are slowly working better together.  Thursday he trusted me to edit the photos he'd taken on his shoot in Adelaide on Wednesday.  It helped me learn a lot more by actually using the tools he was showing me in editing.  I'm starting to figure out lens correcting, for when the lines aren't straight.  He also told me about why that happens, and Brett let me play around with a lens that can rise and fall (up and down), scan (side to side), and tilt.  I learned how you can make the Earth look small, using the tilt and changing the depth of field.  For example, a picture of the earth should look all in focus, but you can use tricks of the tilt to make just one part in focus.  Tim also showed me how people can do that after shooting, on photoshop.  It's a cool concept, much cooler in camera, and I'm debating getting one of those lenses.
Friday we went to check out where we're going to be shooting cars and we ended up discussing a lot about his business, and also about religion, because of my major.  I also met his daughter and her husband and got to see Tim's house when we took them home from the airport.  It was nice getting to know him more.

This weekend has been a lot of fun.  Friday night I cooked with Ariella and we ate Joey, Jon and Ari.  It was nice doing our own Shabbat.  Then Saturday, Lindsay brought a pretty big group of us to the Surry Hills Festival (Lindsay, Julie B., Chris, Justina, Belinda, Jessica, Melanie, Kathleen, Sarah, Julia, Andres, Hillary, Jackie, Rachel) .  It was really fun.  It was in a park 5 minutes away, and there were all these free things.  We got free mini cupcakes, a book that comes with a cd, samples of waffles, fresh squeezed orange juice, waffles, some healthy weird soda/juice, cake on a stick, and chips on a stick.  The chips on a stick were a big thing here, it was basically a potato just sliced and on a stick, kind of tasted more like wedges than chips but delicious! Oh and every time we walked by the guys with the packages of gummies we took more and have a big collection now.  Food was not the only thing there.  There was this cool tent basically made of scarves, which was really pretty, and at one end was a counter where they sold Chai and then the other end had a small stage and it felt like an open mic night type atmosphere.  The guy we saw was really good (Julie B., Kathleen and I popped in for a bit).  We also met these people who are doing a photo series on faces in Sydney, and are trying to get pictures of 50,000 people (1/8 of Sydney's population).  There was also a big outdoor stage where we saw an Aboriginal dance, and another stage with more dub step music.  Julie and I also found a bathtub full of wheat, and if you sifted through there were pieces of paper with love poetry.  It was pretty cool.  And there were canvases with paint by numbers, which I didn't do since it was Saturday, but other people did and it was a really cool idea to have it there.  Basically it was a lot of fun (and I accidentally got a bit sunburnt... whoops).
I then spent the rest of the afternoon on the roof reading with Julie, Chris, Lindsay, Andres, and Sarah, and when the sun got blocked behind a building everyone left and Sarah and I chatted for a while which was just nice chilling up there. Julie then made crepes for Chris and I (next time, Uncle Paul, I'll be the one to make them with your recipe and we can compare), and she made a delicious bread.
We wanted to go to Oktoberfest in Glebe, but it was closed when we got there, but at least I tried to get a bit of Miriam's vacation (my sister went to Oktoberfest in Germany a few weeks ago).
Today I went to the Norton Street Italian Festa in Leichhardt, a suburb nearby, with Little Italy.  It was a fun place to take pictures.  I got tastes of fresh mozzarella cheese, mushroom olive oil, hearts of palm.  I saw people making gnocchi from scratch, and there was a place for kids to make pasta.  There were people dressed up, and people playing music.  There was also a stage with musicians.  It was fun wandering around.  Then I headed off with Chris and Rachel to Paddy's Market for souvenir shopping.

That's about it for now, I have 2 papers to write but I'm sure more adventures will come up soon.

The Opera House

Sorry I don't have a clever title.

Anyway, as I wrote previously, I am now a working girl, Tuesday through Friday.  I forget how much I wrote before, so I apologize if I repeat anything.  Basically, my boss, Tim, works in a studio in St. Leonard doing commercial photography (some staff photos, some product pictures for ads...).  This other photographer, Brett, also works in the studio, and my friend Justina is his intern.  Brett does mostly food photography for magazines and such.  It's funny how different their styles of working, and just about everything, are, though they get along great.  Just as a disclaimer, since this is actual work I don't think I can give all the detail, so I might just leave out the names of what we're working for.
This week, I actually spent 2 days with Tim and 2 days with Brett, since Tim's daughter got married yesterday, so he had a pretty crazy week.  Tim taught me more about lighting and showed me a few things in Photoshop.  With Brett, I went to shoot interior design at two really nice apartments, actually pretty close to where the Jewish community I've been staying with lives.  That day was a lot of fun.  The woman we worked with was great, and the apartments were beautiful with amazing views.  We helped set up the computer program that keeps track of the pictures we take, and named them as we went.  We also set up the lighting, covering windows (I climbed up a window sill to clip a sheet over the window and Brett was going to get a picture of me on my camera but it was too far into my bag and he didn't want to fish through), and holding scrims wherever they were needed.  (Scrims are things that can reflect or disperse light depending on the material and color).  I know I said I'm going to try to cut back on talking about food, but this might be hard in this post.  The woman we worked with bought us all lunch with this amazing dessert (sort of like rice pudding but it wasn't rice...) her shout (aka on her).  I think actually only 1 of the 3 days I ate the lunch I brought with me.  I did, however, say that I was vegetarian so as to avoid issues, but now Brett keeps saying how he can't imagine how I don't eat meat (especially since I'll drink beer. I'm not positive what one had to do with the other though), so I probably should have just explained instead of feeling silly since I DO eat meat.
Ok, sorry for getting side tracked.  Friday with Tim we shot a BBQ spread, which we thought was weird until we remembered that we're coming into summer here.  It was a lot of fun, though we got ash all over the studio despite trying to keep it outside with a fan.  Shooting fire is tough, trying to make it just right and setting it and hoping for the perfect shot with smoke and a bit of red but not crazy out of control flame... I got to do some editing and again held some scrims to fix the lighting.  I enjoyed feeling useful.
It's really cool meeting everyone involved and seeing all the different personalities in the industry and seeing just how particular everyone has to be about the shots.  In the apartment shoot we had a whole discussion about exactly how the pillows should be placed since they kept looking awkward, and with the BBQ how the guy's sleeve was with his hands in the picture and which way to move.  Things we say sound absolutely ridiculous.
Tim also gave Justina and me a project for any time we have nothing to do, where we go through his old film and get rid of a bunch of copies and just keep one copy of each picture and make an album of them.  It's fun to look at the old stuff and see the differences of how things are shot today.  For example, it used to be really popular to have the food tilted, and that's gone out of style.  He told us it's tedious, boring work, but we're actually enjoying it.
Anyway, I'd say it was a good first week.

In class we went to see Killing Them Softly (other than one character I'm not sure what's Australian about the film so I'll assume it was the director).  I personally thought it was a pretty interesting movie.  Not at all what I expected as it wasn't actually very scary, only tense in one or two scenes, but I didn't mind the slowness.  I was a bit thrown off by the politics that were the background of the movie, as it was hard to pay attention to both that and the plot so I was slightly confused.  I didn't mind it being a slow movie though.
We also watched Mad Max 2 with Mel Gibson which was actually pretty funny and bizarre.

Thursday night after class I went with Hanna, Rachel, and Alex to the noodle market in Hyde Park since it's food month.  There were a bunch of food trucks set up, and some music, and nice lights on the trees.  The noodles I ended up getting tasted like coleslaw so it wasn't what I was expected and I didn't really like it all that much, but the scallion pancakes were great and the churros were amazing! Good way to end our night there.

Friday I went straight from work to stay with another family for Shabbat.  To tell the truth, I got pretty lost on the way, since my directions were slightly incorrect.  But finally some nice people helped me figure out where to go.  They're actually an American family who came in June and are staying for three years.  I saw the family I usually stay with in shul, which was nice, and another American family with 9 kids (only 5 of whom I met) came to lunch.  It's fun getting to know so many people.  Saturday afternoon I played catch with the youngest boys, which was fun since I haven't been around many little kids lately.  Then Rachel and Michael (the parents where I was staying) and Etan (the son) and I went to another friend's house where we played Mahjong which was a lot of fun.  I think I'm actually understanding the game now so maybe next time I play with my cousins I might do a little better. I even won the first game we played.

Saturday night I came back into the city for a food truck market on George Street, one of the main streets around here.  It was smaller than I expected, only about a block, but on one end they had Ratatouille the movie playing, and on the other was a band so it was cute.  I finally went out to King's Cross last night with Belinda, Justina, Jessica, Hanna, and Alex.  It's a kind of crazy area and I think I prefer going out other places, but it was fun.

 

Yesterday, I went with Chris, Brianna, Lindsay, and Rachel to Merrickville, where they had a street fair.  It was a pretty typical street fair, though sort of with a hipster vibe.  It was fun seeing a suburb we've never been to, and there were cute stands and food that looked delicious, though we didn't end up getting any.  I ended up just getting a cheap smoothie from Subway, but similar to the milkshakes here, it was pretty much just liquid. There was some pretty good live music which was nice.  We also saw someone demonstrating some sort of martial arts and almost kicked a kid who was watching in the face... that's not such good advertising.

Then, get ready for it, tonight I went to the Sydney Opera House to see a comedy show for free! These are the perks of having a roommate whose internship is there (yay Hanna!).  There are staff rush tickets and she got four! So we went with Alex and Justina.  We saw this guy named Ed Byrne (which if you switch around letters is Be Nerdy).  I was impressed he was actually quite funny.

Me, Hanna, Justina, Alex with the Harbour Bridge and Luna Park

Champagne at the theater- they serve wine or beer everywhere, in movies, in the Opera House, we're going to do it sometime for the true experience

New words:
Hen party= bachelorette party
Box party= bachelor party (why it's not rooster I have no idea)

Internship Day 1

I started work today! Tim is great.  He's clearly a teacher, and kept showing me how to do different things.  He also taught me a lot about lighting and the colors lights give off that our eyes automatically adjust, so it's hard for us to see.  He contracts out to a lot of places, and it's currently a busy time.  We took staff pictures for Katherine-Clark, an international company that makes Kleenex and things like that.  I got to help set everything up and take things down.  We also looked through a bunch of his photos since he just returned from Turkey, and he taught me a lot more things I can do in Photoshop.  It was really interesting how he's not named on a lot of his product work.  For example, a woman got in touch with him to take photos and sent him a brochure to show him examples, without realizing that one page of the brochure was made up of his photos.  That was pretty cool though, seeing what his work is used for.  We also talked a lot about Apple products, since he has both a Mac and a PC for different functions.  He's a pro with computers by the way, except for slow typing, which he admitted was one thing he couldn't quite figure out.  It was a really good first day and I can't wait for the rest.

Oh, I also joined the gym today because we found a Scoopon (it's like Groupon) deal for $20 for 6 weeks, which is the amount of time we have left.  I went with Hanna and there are a bunch of machines that are numbered and it's supposed to be a 30 minute full body workout if you go through them all.  We wanted to figure out how to use them so we started, but we on some we got confused and then this guy became like our personal trainer, explaining to us what we were doing wrong and how to use the machines correctly.  It was pretty fun.  Anyway, now I have to start taking advantage of the gym, but since I am getting into a routine it should be easier.

Fun Facts:
1.  If I were to dig a hole through the world from Highland Park (aka home) I would end up in the ocean, but the closest place would be Perth (aka the Southwest corner of Australia)- also that's called an antipode.

2.  The furthest you can be from any point in the world is about 12,000 miles.  (So Digital Digital Get Down by NSYNC is wrong since you can't be 20,000 miles away unless you're in space... though was it in space? I don't remember the video)

3.  The phrase back in harness means back to work (Tim used it since he's back from vacation).

Kangaroos and Koalas. Finally

So since I've been back from break, technically internships and classes started.  For me, though, just classes started since my boss was on vacation last week, so while I had an assignment from him, it was a lot of free time.  I figured I should probably take advantage.  Before I tell about all my adventures, though, I'll tell about my class, Australian cinema.

I missed the first class because of the holiday, but they watched Australia, with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.  I've been trying to watch it, but it's a really long movie so I still have about an hour left, but I do think it's very interesting and beautiful and I'm enjoying it, though I have never seen a movie with so many places it should end.  The first class I went to we had a trip to the movie theater in Newtown and saw Mental.  It was quite an odd movie, with very Australian humor.  It also used some Sound of Music songs which have been stuck in my head ever since.  The following night we watched Bran Nue Dae, another Australian movie, this one by an aborigine director.  It was a political movie but a musical which made it incredibly funny.  Again, very Australian humor.  This one actually had aborigines as the main characters, and had major actors such as Geoffrey Rush as background characters.  Since it was by an aboriginal director, there was a lot of making fun of aboriginals, how aboriginals are viewed by whites, and whites themselves.  A lot of the movie could not have been made by a white person or it would have been considered racist.  While it was an odd movie, it clearly illustrated a lot of modern issues.  It was cool though, how in it everyone wished they were aboriginal, in contrast to the mindset that everyone should be assimilated and white.  Needless to say, it's a cool class.  We're going to two more movies in theaters so that'll be fun (we were supposed to go only to one more, but our teacher, Anne, was surprised that so many Australian movies are in the theater at once, so she asked Marc to get us tickets to an extra).  Today we saw Picnic at Hanging Rock, a period piece about 1900 and people disappearing into the bush.  Apparently it was a common theme.  It was a beautiful movie, kind of slow, with an open ending.  I personally found it intriguing though parts were very weird.  We then watched 10 minutes of a horribly crude movie which is what started the period pieces here.  I wasn't a fan, and when she asked if we wanted to see part of another we all opted out.  I'll keep updating what movies I've seen.

Ok on to the exciting parts.

On Thursday, I went out to take pictures for my assignment for my internship.  I took the bus to Circular Quay, and as I got off, I noticed a lot of cameras and trucks outside of the Customs House.  I went over, curious, and saw this weird screen in the middle of the square, and lots of people and camera crews around. This woman then came over and told me that if I wanted to hang around, I had to sign a release form, as they were filming an Australian Special K commercial and if I was in any shots they'd need my permission.  Naturally I had to stay.  I stayed for around 3 hours, sometimes taking my own pictures, and sometimes doing whatever the director said, walking around, looking confused and excited.  While I was doing my own thing, I talked a lot with the women who were getting the release forms.  Through one of them, I met one of the lighting guys, Danny, which, me loving lighting, was amazing.  He's a freelancer and wasn't lighting director on this shoot but sometimes is other places.  I also met the girls who were the main actresses, though they were actually just regular people who they found on the street about a week ago.  While I was speaking with one of them, she told me a better person to ask questions was the woman next to her, who turned out to be the agency producer.  It was a really cool experience.  Hopefully I'll figure out when the commercial comes out, and I'm hoping it will be on Youtube and maybe I'll be in a shot or two!  I wish I could have stayed longer but I had to run back for class.

Friday I went to lunch at the Opera House! My roommate, Hanna, has her internship there, so she signed me in as a visitor and we went through the stage door and down under the theaters to the cafeteria for lunch.

Does that mean I can come back every Friday if I steal it?

Then I finally went to Bondi to buy meat.  I think I'm probably good for the rest of my time here.  While Jessica and I were in the mall though, we found a pet store on our way! The puppies were precious.  I went over to the glass and made a motion as though trying to pet the chocolate labs, and one of them came over and started trying to paw at me and then biting and licking the glass.  There was a policy that you could take the dog home for 3 days to see if it fit in, and it was really tempting just to take him for three days but we thought that would be bad when we would have to return them.
Now, I was told that I talked in my last posts a bit too much about food, but I have to here.  I made Shabbat dinner and I'm super proud and it made me feel at home.  It was a kind of rough week for both me and my friend Pam, and I know that she had once said that she misses Friday night dinner at her house, so I thought I don't have my internship this week, what better time to put together a Friday night meal.  So Jessica and I decided what we were going to have, and Lindsay came up to help us.  I don't think I've written this before, but our microwave has a microwave, oven, and grill function.  However, using a microwave as an oven is sometimes confusing, so I wasn't quite sure how I was going to make the chicken.  I knew that the room below us had made chicken before, so Lindsay came up to show me.  We weren't so specific on the phone though, and she buys boneless chicken slices, whereas I had chicken pieces on the bone.  Anyway, she helped us figure out how to cook it on the stove in a pan.  First we poured in some soup mix for seasoning, but it started sizzling so we decided we should put the chicken first then pour it over so as not to get splashed as much.  It ended up as a great adventure, but in the end all the chicken was cooked through.  We also made Israeli couscous (the pasta kind) with the same seasoning, and cauliflower and carrots with curry powder.  Pam contributed by bringing dairy free (and they happened to be gluten free so my roommate Kate could eat them too) chocolate chip cookies, and since the store was sold out of Challah, she brought garlic bread.  We went down and said Kiddush (the blessing over wine) with Joey, Alex, Ariella, Liz and Molly, and then we came back up to eat.  Pam, Jessica, Rachel and I all ate what I cooked and Kate joined us with her food.  I am happy to say it all came out great and I'm pretty proud of myself and was actually surprised with how good the chicken was (sorry to toot my own horn).  Ok now I'll try to stop talking about food so much.

Lindsay making chicken on the stove

Jessica, Pam, Rachel, Kate and Me

Dinner!

What I cooked

Saturday, I did a lot of reading and Kate and I walked around Glebe then went for dinner in Newtown.  I then went to Cargo Bar with Brianna and Lindsay and we mostly just sat at a table and talked which was really nice.
Yesterday was a lot of fun but a really long exhausting day.  I woke up at 4 am to go with a group to Bondi Beach for sunrise.  Sarah, our RA, found out about it, there was music on the beach and BYO breakfast.  There was actually a surprisingly large crowd.  So Sarah, Juliana, Rachel, Chris, Kathleen, Pam, Randy, Andres, Jessica and I all went.  It was cloudy but with enough breaks in the clouds for us to see the colors of the sunrise.  It was pretty chilly, and I wished I had a coffee just to hold to keep my hands warm, but I had a nice time.  I couldn't figure out how all the surfers were doing it, it was so early and cold.  Some of the music I really liked, and some I really did not.  There was some opera, and there was violin which I loved.  It was difficult to hear though, and I think if we'd payed for the VIP seats it would've been easier but clearly free is better.  I had fun regardless.  The couple sitting behind us was speaking Hebrew which was fun, and a girl next to us was wearing a Northeastern sweatshirt which was pretty funny.  People watching was great there.

From back left to front right:

Randy, Juliana, Chris, Sarah, Jessica, Rachel, Andres

Pam and Kathleen

Surfing

Writing in the sand

I was going to take credit for this but I just can't. It was Sarah

My personal favorite

Then, most people from our program have already gone to the Blue Mountains, and I really wanted to go, so I decided I would just go on my own.  As everyone else had, I stopped on the way at Featherdale Wildlife Park, a small zoo type place.  They have areas like some zoo's have farm animals walking around, but in one was wallabies and the other was kangaroos.  You could pay for food for them, but I found that I could pet them anyway, so I decided not to.  Anyway this will be more interesting just through pictures so here it goes:

Petting a wallaby

Petting a kangaroo

I think it's a green tree python

I got a little freaked out with it looking straight at me so I hna

There's a law in New South Whales (the state I'm in) that you can't hold koalas, so I got to pet one instead.

Wallaby

Kookaburra

Eating from an ice cream cone (no it did not have ice cream in it

THESE ARE THE PENGUINS I SAW AT ST. KILDA!! NOW I GOT A PICTURE!

Tasmanian Devil

Dingo. It looks like a cute puppy that I'd love to take home but I hear that'd be a bad idea.

This guy was showing off for quite a while

Self explanatory

From there I went on to the Blue Mountains.  I wish I had gotten there earlier, but I hadn't thought to look at the bus schedule from Featherdale and I finally looked at 10:45 when I was ready to leave, but the bus came every hour at 36 past the hour... so I'd missed it by 10 minutes.  Oops.  Anyway I got there and wow.  Even during the train ride the scenery was amazing.  I got a ticket in Katoomba for a trolley that has a bunch of stops and you could use it any of the day.  So I got on, hopped off at the Gordon Falls stop, and then started hiking.  To tell the truth, hiking alone is actually pretty relaxing, and it was nice that I could stop and take pictures whenever I felt like it, or pause wherever I wanted and speed up whenever I wanted.  The down side, I just about finished my water on the train ride over since I was having lunch then, so I ran out of water on my first hike and would have loved to have someone with me to get some.  Another con is that there were points I wasn't positive which way I should walk and I had no one to help me, but I just sucked it up and tried to use logic and in the end I got to the right place.  While I was trying to take my time, I wanted to find somewhere for water and I wanted to get the trolley at Leura Cascades in order to get to the next spot where I hoped to hike, so unfortunately by the time I got to the Cascades which appeared to be the best part, I had to rush and just made the trolley.

Me at the first lookout (after that all those layers quickly disappeared as I got warm hiking in the sun)

I'm pretty sure there was recently a fire, as there were a lot of blackened trees.

Lookouts

Leura Cascades

I think this one's my favorite of the mountains

I got off for a quick view at Honeymoon Lookout, and then got out at Echo Point for my next hike.  Apparently in certain conditions you can hear an echo, but no one really knows what those are... From there you can see the Three Sisters.  I then started a confusing hike, trying to get to the scenic railway.  The scenic railway starts at the bottom and brings you all the way to the top, and it is the steepest railway.  Getting there though, was confusing.  Aside from the few places I was unsure where to go, it was very pretty and nice.  I finally found a sign that said 30 minutes to the bottom of the Scenic Railway, last ride 4:50.  Sadly, it was 4:40, and I didn't feel like walking down for 30 minutes (since I didn't think I could make it in 10) just to have to climb back up (which would surely take longer than 30 minutes) especially considering that I wanted to make it to the top by 5:35 for the trolley, and I was nowhere near the top, so an hour detour would not work.  I then started climbing (which I had hoped not to do by taking the railway) and made it to the top before 5.  I found out that there was actually a shuttle at 5:05, and took that.  Overall, it was a very nice day, and I enjoyed the time on my own.  Honestly, I don't even remember what I was thinking about along the way, but it was quite relaxing (despite my legs hurting).  These sketchy guys offered me a ride back to the city, but I decided not to take it as I'd rather get back safely than quickly.

Three Sisters

Scenic Cableway (I could've just taken that if I'd know I was going to miss the railway... but I guess hiking's good too)

Juliet's Balcony.  See the rainbow? I tried to make the rock point to it.

To see some of what I did as a video, my friends made this video when they went and I didn't post it then since I hadn't gone, but here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahu1-DeO1lM

New words:

whinging= whining (The family I stayed with uses it and from the context I quickly figured it out)

bludging= ditching (I said playing hooky and they don't use that hear so they taught me this one)

skulling= chugging

Off to bed for my first day of work tomorrow!