Status-Q

Spotted in an airport a couple of days ago.

I’ve been having a fabulous few days of vacation but have been moving from hostel to airport to boat to hotel sufficiently regularly that I haven’t had a long-term solid internet connection for quite a while. I have lots of photos and movies to upload but all my connectivity has been on a pay-by-the-minute basis recently, so you’re spared most of them for the moment!

This comes to you from the Inbox Cafe in Cairns, Queensland, which has a pretty good internet connection, great food and coffee, and very friendly staff. Recommended. Even here, though, it’s tricky to get a video upload to YouTube to complete. I’ve heard good things about Blip.TV, though, and might give them a try soon, because they offer FTP upload as an option, which is likely to be more reliable, I think.

In the meantime, here’s where I spent the night before last: on a dive boat on the Great Barrier Reef.

I rented a little underwater camera so will post something more sub-aquatic soon. But now I have to catch a plane to Sydney…

A couple of days ago I was in Napier. It’s an interesting town because it was almost completely destroyed by a big earthquake in 1931, and they rebuilt the centre from scratch, with the result that it has the most complete set of Art Deco buildings you can find in such a small area, anywhere in the world.

It’s almost too good – you might imagine you were one a movie set if it weren’t for the rather garish signs which New Zealand shops tend to have on them. These were perhaps the quietest ones:

Above the awning-level, though, there are restrictions on what people can do.

This isn’t a movie set, of course, it’s the real thing. And there are some nice touches lower down, too.

It’s only relatively recently that they’ve realised what a treasure this is and started to capitalise on its tourist value. Before that, the main emphasis was the beach (which is also very pleasant).

It makes me think of the David Suchet Poirot dramatisations, which draw heavily on Art Deco. There are fewer palm trees in most of those episodes, though.

The Art Deco Shop is in the old fire station:

and the owner had a great car parked outside:

Here’s a photo of an architect’s model:

Well, actually, it’s not a model – it’s a real church. It’s part of an extraordinary series of photos by Keith Loutit showing views of his native Singapore; the architecture of which he describes as ‘almost too perfect’ in the newer housing estates.

He’s used extremely shallow depths of field and tilt-shift lenses, and the result, I think, is reminiscent of a macro lens, or even of the way the eye focuses at close range, hence the feeling that you’re looking at a model. It’s accentuated by the fact you’re viewing them from above; most of the photos are taken from the apartment tower blocks.

It’s worth having a look at the others. I heard about this on Jeff Curto’s Camera Position podcast.

Another beautiful National Trust property.

In case you’re wondering, it’s pronounced “item”!

Sheep and lambs on the Fairlawne Estate in Kent. They belong, or at least the grass they munch so assiduously belongs, to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

A rear view of Bateman’s.

I quite like this chap, seen this morning at Bateman’s, Rudyard Kipling’s former home.

Rose and I had a very pleasant weekend exploring parts of Kent and Sussex. I’ll post a few more pics here over the next few days.