Voyeur and Morning Walk

Well, there is a range of subjects! Tip: DON'T google 'voyeur' just to make sure you have the spelling right ... eeek!

So, last night, I am alone, wandering the apartment ... it is getting to be winter here and gets dark at 6:00pm and out of boredom I was working on my night shot skills when I noticed this sign. "Credit Union Ustralia" - I was wondering why someone would name their company that - thinking (not looking at the correct spelling in my head) that they had swapped the 'A' for a 'U' - weird - so I snapped a photo:

You can't really see it, but when I open this file up full size, you can see the 'A' right there in front of the 'U' just not lit up - duh ... It looks normal during the day, I noticed .... But - that's not what creeped me out about this photo. I had taken it with my telephoto lens -Fstop about 8.0 and exposure time 15 seconds - why do you need to know this? Well, you don't, really - but if you took the time to blow this photo up (by clicking on it) and I am sure you won't - you can see a few people in one of the windows. They must not have been moving very fast for an exposure of 15 seconds to capture them - I have played around with exposure time in the dark and if someone is walking - you only get a moment of them in one place and that one place is dark the rest of the time ... most of the time my camera translates that into 'nobody there' and 'poof' they disappear -but not these guys. I felt a little creeped out that I had intruded on a meeting and wondered - was there ANYBODY OVER THERE WITH A TELEPHOTO LENS WATCHING ME?

Paranoid? Yes. Do I believe it? No. Do I change the fact that I don't shut the curtains or the lights off ... for anything? No. But somewhere in the back of my head I realized that there could be someone watching ... very boring for them!

As I was thinking that I wandered into the office - which is not on the end of the pie shaped view side of the apartment, but on the side - with two other high rise apartment buildings out the window. I often people watch when sitting at the desk and think nothing of it. But last night watching 3 young children running laps with their mother and father chasing them through room after room - a tender family moment ... I felt like a voyeur and thought that maybe it was time to shut the blinds ... which, of course I didn't do .... just went to bed feeling creepy. I guess in high rise buildings you get used to being 'on display' or move to the suburbs ...

*****

Morning Walk - a little less creepy (but only a little ... read on ...)

This morning I headed for my intended destination: The Botanical Gardens - to check on 'my' lily ponds and see if I could find one of my all time favourite beasties here - the huge lounging lizards - I LOVE to photograph them! They are spectacularly ugly - in the most wonderful way! There is that titch of excitement as they look at you on hearing they would rush you rather than retreat and wonder if this was the day you get attacked by a three foot lizard (I am including the tail here ....)?

No lizard, but this duck with the most spectacular eyeliner and I had a wonderful staring contest. I won and he waddled off before I took a cue that I could move again:

The lilies looked pretty much like they did last time I was there:

So I started looking around me for 'subjects'. It is a rather busy place in the early morning - better than afternoon when apparently everyone is on 'siesta'. I found this 'perfectly perched' one legged wonder (I really don't think he could hid that ginormous foot) perched on a bench that apparently had been taken over by birds (messy) ... and I know his name (AJ - if you told me this - sorry - it sounds familiar and you would be the one to identify a bird for me) but he is an Australian White Ibis (he is scronching his neck down - they have rather long necks ....):

In Wikipedia it says that Australia doesn't know if they are to be labeled a 'pest' or 'endangered' - DUDES ... they are EVERYWHERE - go with pest ... or at least not 'endangered' ....


And I don't know what these little guys are called, but I STILL can't get over their ginormous feet! He was looking for his mother, who I believe was swimming in the water calling for him - I hope they hooked up after I was gone ...

I found a PINK frangapani flower (tree):

And pretty much my time in the gardens was up - I was too lazy to circumnavigate it - it being HUGE so I took a couple more photos:

And then a parting shot as I exited the 'George Street Exit':

Thinking that I was about 2 blocks from Queen Street, I decided that it was shorter to go down Queen Street to get home that backtrack through the Botanical Garden and walk along the meandering river walk.


Spied this guy atop a building and his shadowy brother:

Got a close up and didn't notice that it was rather creepy - devilish - sort of creature until I got the photo on my computer: WHO PUTS THIS ON TOP OF THEIR BUILDING? And I have no idea what the symbol is, for all I know I wandered past Brisbane's Satanic Cult's R Us building....


Queen Elizabeth still looked regal in silhouette:

And, approximately 5 blocks later (or more - I lost track of the queens - Charlotte, Elizabeth, ...) I hit a very empty Queen Street since all the malls were still closed.

I, myself, was just looking for a Woollies, wanting some more apple juice - my beverage of choice here ... why I have no idea other than it is fantastic ... Bought two 3 litre bottles and some bananas for Gary and realized that 6 litres in my backpack was a lot of weight.


Happy to be back in the apartment:

My tulips greeted me enthusiastically ... I am wondering what happens after they all open? Do they just stay tulips for a month? At home all the petals fall of and I end up trashing them ...

... I guess we will see ...