"i hate my photo being taken",

said the lady serving the coffee.



I had an off day and that's all i wanted to do. But I wanted to do it differently this time.

To me, photos are meant to document experiences, good or bad. When I dive into my hard drive, it's a time machine that makes me super emotional. Sadly, all the photos I took in 2004-2005 were lost, all due to a faulty hard drive.

So that day was my only day off in the whole semester, and I wanted to document it. Unfortunately I only made that decision after a fantastic lunch at Threefold with a dear friend.

I decided to buy a copy of THE BIG ISSUE for the first time. I have always wanted to, don't know why I never got to it.



Meet Nigel. It was his first time selling The Big Issue at Lt Collins/Swanston Sts. I didn't really have much to talk with him about, but I hope I had an impact on him that day, however tiny it may be.

Then it was off to reading it along with a cuppa.









I have been longing to go back to this place for ages, cuz it never opens on weekends and it usually closes pretty early in the 3rd hour of the afternoon.



I never do this, but I thought it'd be fantastic to have the people that made your day what it was in your photos. So I breathed a deep breath, turned back to the counter and said, "erm..... could I.... take a photo with you guys?".

This was after I took a photo with Nigel, so I already had a tiny bit of experience.

Okay, not really. It wasn't like I had any particular reason to do so. Awkward faces all around, snap snap, thank you, run!



Then it was all waist level photography. Many were rejects, but many were FANTASTIC TOO!







And this is my favourite.





On the way to uni to get some work done, I saw a crew filming at the garden on University Square. I stood there in awe of all the equipment, and how they transformed the Melbourne Uni ITC building into a full blown hospital. AMAZING. I went up to the extras and they explained to me that they were filming for "Winners and Losers", the Aussie tv series. (He also specified that it's on channel 7, looks like they're very well paid).



Looks like I'm really bad at self shots though, they all turned out blurry.




It was a good day.

just keep me where the light is

the fray, melbourne

It was a blessing.

I wanted to go for The Fray's concert pretty badly, been wanting to see them live for ages now.

I didn't wanna regret like how I did Coldplay anymore, but I couldn't get myself to spend the cash on the tickets.

I was in church when I asked God for a MIRACLE, and I felt He said He had already given it to me. Then I realised..

I just did a tiny design job that paid me just over the amount needed for the tickets.

OMG. I went home, told Theng Wei, and we got the tickets right away.



I'm not a frequent concert goer, so I really don't know how it works. I called them up to ask whether I can bring my SLR, but it was not allowed. Thanks to Melissa, I got a Panasonic LX3 to use for the night. I've heard of the extent of its "EPIC-ness" already, but the photos that resulted blew me even further away.



I didn't know that bags were prohibited into the venue, I had to step out of the queue (WE WERE SO CLOSE TO THE FIRST PEOPLE IN LINE OK!) and place it in the cloak room. Thank God, once again, that it cost me $3 to put my bag there, when all I had was $3.



I've got some pretty amazing shots of the special guests too (Sundance Kids and Thirsty Merc), but I'm too lazy to post them up. Theng Wei and I thoroughly enjoyed Thirsty Merc's electric performance, sadly more so than we did The Fray.

It felt like he wasn't really keen in playing the same old songs over and over, and just wanted to get through the playlist. There was ZERO band chemistry (they didn't even look at each other through the whole thing, just at their own corners doing their own thing), rarely any audience-performer interaction (he didn't even say hi, first words were probably Happy Easter, before he went back to the next song hastily), and worst of all, he lost his voice (as a result of talking to his wife till 4am).



I kinda wanted my money back, haha, but I felt so blessed that SARAHWOO's prayer came through, I was positioned pretty close to the stage as you can see from the photos (LX3 only has 2.5x zoom), and I'm just very fortunate to be able to see them live.

We got tortured by the people around us throughout the night, but it was all a good experience. We left with sweat all over us (not ours), and a sore back as a result of standing for almost 4 hours.



Happy times.

carl riseley

Getting as far as the Top 3 is never an easy task.

Thank God we got in although we didn't book and pay for the tickets online like EVERYBODY ELSE! I was really excited not only because he's SUPPOSED to be good, it was also my first time listening to jazz music performed by a male singer!



I wouldn't say he's the BEST but he did a pretty good job. He's a pretty good entertainer too.



He dances.



He sings.


Tung claims that this is the flugelhorn and not the cornet. I claim that I'm a music theory failure.

He started off playing the cornet and then the trumpet in the Royal Australian Navy Band. Oo, I can hear the girls screaming now.



You know that girl who danced with him screamed all the way through. It was weird. Check out his biography!

It was an awesome night out. The band was TERRIFIC!



Especially this dude.



So that was my awesome-dee-doodle Friday night.