If all things go right, I should be back with photos.

This has got to be the shortest blog post I’ve written yet.

It’s Chinese New Year. I wish you all a happy and prosperous year in the Year of the Tiger! And to any of you still travelling, I wish you a safe and swift journey to your loved ones.

This year I was able to be home with the family to attend Chinese New Year Eve dinner. Despite trying to limit the intake of food, I lost count of the plates of food eaten. It’s the only time of year where I do eat stupendous amounts of food. And later in the evening, I headed out to a temple in Northbridge with my grandmother to bring in the new year with a lion dance and firecrackers.

After this frame, I decided to put the camera down and shield it with my body and cover my ears as the chain reaction took hold. I always forget to take a pair of ear plugs along. If I ever do become deaf, I think that firecracker demonstrations would be a large contributing factor.

The red material around the feet of the lion dancers and performers is debris from the firecrackers. It carpeted the entrance to the temple. Here, the lions are being welcomed into the temple to bring good luck and fortune.

As I attempted to make my way to the door saying goodbye to people, the drawing of the door prizes occurred. It would be rude to leave so I stopped in amongst the crowd. I had popped my card into the bowl and stayed out of curiosity as to what the door prize was. Turns out it was $3,500 of search engine optimisation from the team at Hub Creative. And, yours truly won it.

Not sure what this will mean or lead to but I look forward to working with them. I may even get the website that I’ve only been able to dream about! Won’t that be something?

I’m planning to give it a bit more of a run-through later today and tonight. I have noticed some things such as the colour produced by this lens is much more vibrant than expected. Even though I thought I was prepared for a grainy image. nothing prepared me enough when I viewed on on the monitor. It did take a little getting used to. Having said that, this little lens is opening up new thoughts and approaches to photography. And for a mere $US76.72 from Photojojo’s store, (including postage), I couldn’t have asked for more.

This was my breakfast this morning. Bacon and eggs, (scrambled) toasted sandwich. Much needed after a morning run-around with Australia Post in order to get my lens.

The first photowalk was held at Kings Park with two participants, myself and Tim Pokorny. You may remember him as the photographer raising money for RSPCA Australia by offering to strip off once he reaches AU$520 with his Raunchy for the RSPCA campaign. If you haven’t donated, go do it. At last update, he’s reached $300 so he’s over the halfway mark.

A heads up on Kings Park, (Western Australia’s state war memorial), if anyone feels like visiting. The part along Fraser Avenue where the main cafe and flagship restaurant, Fraser’s is located is currently undergoing construction and a very serious revamp. There’s detour signs and traffic is re-routed to flow along one way routes complete with temporary fencing and earth moving equipment scattered about. In short it’s an obstacle course at the moment, for drivers and pedestrians. It’s all due to be finished by April 2010, hopefully before ANZAC Day. I don’t even want to think about how Kings Park fared on Australia Day but hopefully by ANZAC Day all the work will be finished. It would only be right, otherwise I would feel incensed enough to organise a busy bee to give the folks at Kings Park a hand.

Back to the photowalk itself. There were plenty of people about on Sunday afternoon having picnics or just lazing about on the grassy areas. We chose a path and walked along photographing things that caught out attention. Even though we photographed the same subjects, our points of view differed markedly. The results can be viewed here on the flickr group Camera Walkers. It’s a group I set up for anyone participating in a photowalk to do this and to share photos. Members don’t necessarily have to be in Perth, Western Australia.

While organising this photowalk, Dorrena Ortega of Shoreline, Washington asked if I would be okay if she could take the idea and run with it. I agreed and it wasn’t long that a facebook group called Shoreline, Wa Photowalkers sprung up and were hosting their own event. Five people participated on their first photowalk and it’s been lovely to see what the world looks like on the other side of the planet. They enjoyed themselves so much that they’ve already picked a location for their second photowalk. I’m still tossing up between two locations at the moment and looking rather disorganised. :p

A couple of people have asked about what camera equipment is required. There isn’t any restriction on it. The good old point and shoot, cameraphone, Hasselblad, film, digital or any other device that captures an image is welcome. Even an X-Plane should you have one which would be really cool!

Though what is needed is a sense of fun and a pair of good walking shoes.