The blog title says an impending motivation block, but truth be told, my motivation was already diminished somewhat, which is the reason why on this day I basically forced myself to grab a camera and head out, somewhere, anywhere.
It was a beautiful sunny winter day here on the east coast of Australia, and although I am trying to avoid shooting in the middle of the day at times, on this day my shooting window wouldn’t allow me to be out later in the afternoon, so I left my home on the Central Coast north of Sydney and drove down into Sydney to make the most of the glorious weather.
My first instinct was to avoid the Sydney CBD, so I stopped just short of there, on the other side of the harbour in fact, in North Sydney.
Now, North Sydney can be a bustling CBD also, just on a smaller scale, but this was a Sunday. A reasonable amount of people about, however I wouldn’t say that it was particularly busy.
Now, I was only in the North Sydney CBD because that’s where I parked, however ultimately my chosen location was going to be Luna Park.
For those unaware of what Luna Park is, its an historic fun/amusement park in one of the world’s most iconic locations, right beside the Sydney Harbour Bridge and staring at the Sydney city skyline and Sydney Opera House.
More pictures of the Luna Park location later.
It was about a fifteen minute walk from where I parked down to the harbour, and I had plenty of time to spare, so I wandered around a few different streets in the CBD warming up with a handful of pictures.
I love the way that the light was hitting the metal posts, along with a reflected shadow from the posts to my right.
This day was about a casual approach to my pictures, with little to no intention and certainly no internal pressure to capture something amazing.
My mind needed a rest.
The picture below is a great example of where my mind was on this day. A very simple composition of the inside of a closed building, a scene unchallenged by people, vehicles etc… to me this is calming.
I continued to make my way around to North Sydney train station before heading down toward the harbour, and I was delighted to find these locations along the way, staring at the harbour and city from afar.
I made my way down a narrow side street where you can see inside some of the shops within the large concrete structure, including the iconic Classic Throttle Shop which houses many classic cars, and another which had a nice array of great guitars (excuse my reflection).
I walked through the Milsons Point train station precinct and quickly found myself at Luna Park.
At first I decided to perch myself up above the park from a vantage point in an adjoining residential area. From here you can experiment with different angles and perspectives of the harbour, as well as having the opportunity to shoot some of the ride activities.
No way I’d ever get on that thing!
Inside Luna Park itself is always somewhere that I’ve considered shooting.
People on rides, eating fairy floss, the vibrant colours, and just generally having a great time is a great recipe for photographs, however technically photography is not allowed without prior consent inside the park, and I just wasn’t prepared to push the envelope on this day… after all, it was supposed to be a calm, easy going process.
Having said that, I did spend about thirty or so minutes just wandering around the boardwalk outside the park and trying to capture some interesting moments, or if not interesting, just documenting the vibe where possible.
Love the curious and playful look on the little girl’s face.
Love the leading line of my silhouette to the seagull, and then to the legs of the other people.
Prior to taking the picture below I heard the seagulls to my left taking off, so I raised my camera upward and focused on trying to capture them, along with the ride, bridge and Opera House in the shot.
No matter what type of park, you’ll find a dog!
Strange how people generally have an issue with a street photographer, yet a stranger can walk through a crowded area with a 360 camera on a long stick, clearly filming, with no-one blinking an eye - haha!
Time to walk back up the steep hill toward my car and head home.
No-one was bothered by me taking photographs at Luna Park, however the funny thing was that once I got back up near the North Sydney CBD again I came across a scene where a taxi driver was vacuuming his car mats on the road, with another car having to stop to make sure that he wasn’t going to run over the mats, so I grabbed a photograph.
THIS seemed to bother the taxi driver - go figure!
So, did I achieve what I set out to do on this day, which was to have a calm, relaxing approach to photography with no pressures or internal judgement on the process and results?
The answer is yes, I did.
Many times in life the process, or the journey itself is the most important aspect, not the results or where you ultimately ended up.
Often a short photo walk in a relatively small area is all that is required to provide a little balance in your day or week… it can be simple if you choose to make it so.
Thank you for reading this blog, I really appreciate it.
Camera: Fujifilm X-T5
Lens: Fujifilm 18mm f2
Roger Brooks.