Out to Space

Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras is about to kick off in a few weeks. And I will be participating as one of the photographers in one of visual arts programs, Mardi Gras: the Slide Show.

Last year event was a big break for me, not only to stretch my photographic actions but also to have the big names, like Dick Quan and Robert McFarlane, to see my works and appreciate them was huge flatter. The award is just a bonus. Big thanks to the project producer, Robert McGrath.

Although my visual style is far from usual Mardi Gras photos, which is the practice of the project, this image from last year is probable the most compromised to be use for this year web site. And another good news is Australia Centre for Photography will be showing the limited selection of last year slide show too. Hopefully, some of mine will get into the show. That would help my little dream comes true.

I’ve got this forwarded mail from a Thai friend of mine. I have to do the English version. The translation says it all.

Of course, Thai version does not work any more since it has spread around and it has to be in quote in English version.

The first 5 days in Bangkok were very frustrating without the Internet connection at my brother’s because it’s far away from any wifi hot spot coverage and I didn’t realise that MacBook Pro hadn’t internal modem. Who would have thought of that? We are taking broadband for granted. I had to carry the laptop around the city to get connected.

Eventually, I bought Apple USB Modem for a reasonable price, 2,000 Baht, from iStudio at Siam Discovery Centre. Now I am on the Net but have to get used to 56.6 speed.

Stilgherrian is following up Australian election. It turns out to be a boring one for him. Well, he’s going to see something different here with Thai General Election. It starts today with live coverage on the draw of party list election number. The draw has two stages. The preliminary sets the order for the party leaders to come up to draw the actual number for the election.

This is crucial to get an auspicious number: one and nine. Logically, they are easy to remember. However, most parties rely on superstition because there are not many differences in the policies. After the disintegration of Thai Rak Thai Party, its members moved across all over to other parties, as Thaksin bought them to upsized his party then, or formed new ones. So far I see the same old politicians in new parties, some are now the leader. One of them, Sanoh Thienthong of Royal People Party, who won the luckiest number, nine, gives an interview. He blabs how the event went into his favour not much of his manifesto. I can’t be less convinced.

I cannot remember how long ago I have not googled myself until last night. Amongst the usual associate and photography sites, one surprising result is from Google Books. Thanks to this new beta version of Google search engine, I have found my first photograph published in a book.

Apparently, one of my good old rainbow lorikeet photographs is an illustration in a scientific book, Extinction & Biogeography of Tropical Pacific Bird by David W. Steadman. I gave the permission to use the image in the book two years ago but thought that the author was not going to use it because I had not heard from him since. So I forgot about it.

Although the black & white version in the book blanches the colourful feature of the couple from the original web version and, in fact, they are not captive animals as captioned, I feel honoured that it is a part of an epic research of birds in the region.

Sprinkled across the tropical Pacific, the innumerable islands of Oceania are home to some of the most unique bird communities on the planet, and they sustain species found nowhere else on earth. Many of the birds that live in this region are endangered, however; many more have become extinct as a result of human activity, in both recent and prehistoric times.

Reconstructing the avian world in the same way archeologists re-create ancient human societies, David Steadman—a leading authority on tropical Pacific avian paleontology—has spent the past two decades in the field, digging through layers of soil in search of the bones that serve as clues to the ancient past of island bird communities. His years of indefatigable research and analysis are the foundation for Extinction and Biogeography of Tropical Pacific Birds, a monumental study of the landbirds of tropical Pacific islands—especially those from Fiji eastward to Easter Island—and an intricate history of the patterns and processes of island biology over time.

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Dr. Steadman came across the image through the Web as well as I discovered the book from the same channel. It is a wonderful world of the Internet.

Sick of YouTube? Here is Brightcove lets you have more control you shared video over the Internet.

This the video I made a while ago is a compilation of my early photography. It started off with point-and-shoot camera then I found a medium that I could express my relationship with the world. Look and see how things change.