I found it impossible to post yesterday. I spent most of the day running around frantically trying to gather last-minute paperwork to send to the insurance company. I finally sent a twenty-three page fax. This makes a total of seventy-three pages of documentation I have sent. I’ll have more information for interested readers at the end of the post.

Thanks to Alison Raynor for sending me a couple of beautiful images of Sunrise at Mt. Beppo in Queensland not far from where she lives in Toogoolawah. The images were only 800 pixels, so I didn’t have much to work with, but they are so pretty that I could not resist them. I was also grateful to have someone else’s work to show, as I have no time to dig through my own to put together a decent post.

This one had some electrical wires in it that I had to remove. It’s a lovely, peaceful scene:

The lighting is unusual, but it has a very natural feel.

I could not resist turning it into a watercolour. It has just the right composition and tonal qualities for a painting:

I particularly like the contrast and the way that the rays of light on the right are accentuated.

This shot is a real beauty. All I had to do with it was pump up the vibrance and contrast and adjust the colours just a bit to make it look good on the black background:

As with the other shot, the lighting lends a wonderful naturalness to the scene.

And, of course, I had to fiddle with this one also. Again, the watercolour filter in Photoshop gave the effect that I wanted.  Not all images look good when faked as art. These two worked very nicely:

The arty effect on this one is more obvious if you click to enlarge it.

In case you’re wondering about Mt. Beppo, here is a Google Earth image of where it is:

You can click to enlarge and put in the coordinates of it or just put “mt beppo queensland australia” in the Google Earth search box.

Thanks Ali, for providing me with two very nice images to amuse our readers and myself. Thanks also for your call last night putting me onto the best air fares to get to Brisbane.

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Tomorrow, we fly to Brisbane in the morning. Our friend Val Jerram will meet us and take us to her house in Gympie. I hope that Eunie does okay on the trip. We have to make a stopover for a couple of hours in Townsville.

Eunie has appointments for tests beginning on September 3.  She will have an MRI and some other kind of scan – I think an MRI involving a contrast dye. She then has appointments on the 6th and 7th with two other doctors. At last the ball is rolling.

I’ve mentioned several times the lovely apartment that we have stayed in since we have been in Brisbane. I want to acknowledge and extend our deepest gratitude to our dear friends of many years in Madang, Mike and Di Cassell for putting out the welcome mat for the very pleasant and convenient accommodation provided to us as a gift of love.

We have always had a deep sense of family with our closest friends in Madang. Never have I felt it more and never have we needed it more.  There is nothing like being in deep need to find out who your real friends are.

Today’s post won’t be windy. I’m winded. I had no idea that I was going to be so busy and feel as if I’m accomplishing so little. Yesterday evening was our last night with Trevor and Karen, who came down to Cairns to visit us. It was, of course, bittersweet. We left Eunie alone for a while to get pizzas to bring back to the room to eat while we watched a couple of movies.

Naturally, I had my camera with me and there is no such a thing as killing time if you have your camera in your hand. You can divert your attention to creating something, even if it is inconsequential. As I saw the variety of lights on the Esplinade, I got to thinking about lights. Brilliant, eh?

Man’s lights and the lights of nature – both illuminate. Some of man’s lights are beautiful. Think of the streams of glory from a stained glass window or the adrenaline beauty of fireworks. Others are horrid, such as the deadly flash of a thermonuclear bomb. Nature too provides a variety of lights, benign, such as the moon, or nurturing or deadly as chance may be in the sun’s rays:

Some of man’s lights are open to a wide range of artistic interpretation. Here I captured the tail lights of passing cars in a fifteen second exposure with the camera rather shakily balanced on top of a post:
The cars are mere streaks. Most people have blurred into non-existence. As I looked at the image in the preview, the title came to me instantly. Watch Long Enough – Everything Changes.

But some lights are different. They illuminate, but not through the sensations of the eyes. They illuminate the soul.

I positioned myself quite a distance away for this shot, so I think that I can honestly say that it is candid:Trevor and Karen dropped everything that they were doing, blew a bunch of hard-earned cash, and came to be with friends to share our suffering, cheer us up , provide necessary counsel, cry with us, laugh with us and shine some much needed light on the subject of hope. This is not to mention the practical details which Karen helped Eunice with – ones which I am not yet ready to face.

How many friends can you count that would do that?

This is the light of treasure.

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I wish that I had some news today. Eunie stayed up late last night watching movies and went to bed happy. Her colour seems to be improving – she’s less yellow. Her appetite has also improved. These are good signs for her strength which she is going to need in the future. We have not yet heard from the oncologist about our move to Brisbane, but it is only Tuesday afternoon as I write this. My own condition is fragile and I know that I cannot allow this to continue. I know that I will be better able to cope when we are in Brisbane with our friend Val, because she is a strong, take-charge woman and takes no nonsense from me. I will have to toughen up considerably to keep her from beating me up for being a wimp.

After decades of softening myself, sensitising myself, growing absurdly empathetic and always, always, learning that the more I give the more of what I need that I receive, I find myself now suddenly weak and ineffectual in situations where I need to be forceful and decisive.

It is a puzzlement.

Our dear friends Trevor Hattersly and Karen Simmons came yesterday to stay with us for the weekend. What a pleasure it is to have them here. I’ll talk more about why at the end of the post.

While I’m at it, I’ll explain my tactic for keeping Madang – Ples Bilong Mi  a pleasant place to visit while still giving information concerning Eunie’s medical condition. I’ll present my usual weirdness in the beginning of each post. Casual readers can, as usual, like it or not, according to their tastes. At the end each post I will give any news concerning Eunie. This seems to be the best way to keep the character of the journal as it has been in the past, while still giving out information which is of concern to some readers.

So, if you’re here for the distraction or frivolity, read as far as you like and then go your happy way. If you’re here for the news, try to wade through my craziness and continue to read to the end.

My assignment yesterday evening was to deliver some terribly technical photographic instruction to Karen, who wanted to be able to use her Olympus SP590UZ camera more creatively. Since I’m not a “press that button and don’t ask questions” kind of guy, it required a nighttime field trip to demonstrate the techniques.

Our first stop was in the hotel lobby to talk about low light, slow shutter speeds and white balance:

I can’t believe how funky my shoes look. Those shoes are not me!  Karen’s pose seems to imply intense concentration. Today, I’ll present the images which I took. Tomorrow, Karen will be our Guest Shooter with the images from her camera.

Our first street expedience was to talk about camera bracing and the use of slow shutter speeds to get interesting motion blur effects. Here I braced my Canon G11 on top of the rear view mirror of a car and waited for Karen to tell me when vehicles were coming so that I could get some blurred tail lights:

The blurring of the cars changes what would be a pretty ordinary image into something a little more dynamic. This was a one second exposure.

Still on the subject of motion blur and slow shutter speeds, we moved over to the ocean side of the Esplinade along the sea wall to catch some Phantom Walkers, also shot at a slow shutter speed with the camera sitting on a sign post:

People who were sitting relatively still are sharply defined. Those who were moving are blurred. It’s not rocket science.

All modern digital cameras have a variety of “Scene” settings. Some of these are very useful, because you can’t easily set the camera up manually to create the same effect. On this one we used the “Night Snapshot” setting on the G11 to get Karen sitting primly by the swimming pool with the fountain in the background:

For this setting the camera needs to be braced or on a tripod to keep the background from blurring. The total exposure time was probably a half second or more, so the camera must be held absolutely still for that period of time. At the end of the exposure, the flash goes off, hopefully properly exposing the foreground. One can get some very interesting shots with this setting.

On our way back to the apartment, we were startled out of our wits by the sudden appearance of two tiny UFOs, which whizzed past us up Aplin Street heading in the direction of the outback:

They were accompanied by weird “wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa” noises that faded away into the warm tropical night leaving behind an ominous silence. We waited in intense anxiety for a second or two and then went upstairs. “I don’t think they noticed us.” was my cautious comment.

The final lesson of the evening was a nice little panorama of Cairns at night, at least the part that we can see from the balcony:

All in all, a very pleasant experience. Karen seemed quite pleased to see what she could do with her camera. There will be more lessons later.

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Tonight, at the unusual hour of 21:00 we will be seeing a top-notch oncologist at the office of our surgeon. The oncologist operates out of Brisbane at a hospital which specialises in these disorders. Our hope is that he will tell us that Brisbane is our best logistical option. We have excellent support near Brisbane. Trevor and Karen’s presence here this weekend is a genuine blessing. Karen spent the afternoon yesterday investigating on the web information that Eunie needs, but I simply cannot deal with at the moment.

Today I needed a sanity check. Life has changed so dramatically in the last few weeks that it has left my head spinning. I’m a born nester. I guess it’s my feminine side trying to assert itself. I can handle just about anything if I can get back to my nest every night. Get out to raise a ruckus and create chaos every day and then fly back to the nest and watch it on the news – that’s my idea of the proper life for a man.

Alas, ruckus raising and chaos creation aren’t high on my priority list now and I don’t have any time for those rolly-coaster rides. However, I do have a treasure trove of images and stories saved up. A huge part of it has never been seen before. For today, I chose a few of my favourites from past posts and gave myself the luxury of an hour to pretend to be an artist. It’s one thing that stimulates me without having to leave my temporary desk on a big, round table in front of the couch.

This one is called Buddy.  It is one of several images which I had reproduced in large format for sale. I did manage to sell most of them, but I decided to keep the original of this one, since I like it so much. It’s a Red and Black Anemonefish (Amphiprion melanopus):

I ran this one through the Photoshop grinder pretty thoroughly to get the nearly cartoon-like look. The fish is still the focal point, but the filter effects changed the Bulb Anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor)  into a fantasy foreground.

You first saw these dolphins in Happy Accidents. I see magic in that original image every time I look at it and it seems all the more special because it was a snap shot taken in a one-second window of opportunity. These are the ones which tickle me – the ones that were gifts:

I decided to try to turn it into a rough watercolour.

Both of the following shots first appeared in The Aquarium in My Front Yard. I’ve put the original references for some of these into links so that you can compare the originals, if you are that hard-up for amusement.

This grumpy little critter is a Freckled Hawkfish (Paracirrhites fosteri):

My goal here was A Grumpy Clown,  you know, like Krusty the Clown on The Simpsons.  I think that my have nearly achieved it.

This one from the same post, of a trio of Anthea, I’m titling, Are You Talkin’ to US?

They also seem a little grumpy, though not so tough.

Of the lot, this one I like best. It took the most time to get it right. A click to enlarge it will be more rewarding.:

I’m calling it Refuge.  Maybe that has to do with my mood. It is an evening view across the harbour from our house in Madang. I don’t know when I will see it again.

Eunie is better now that she began taking the powerful anti-inflammatory which she mistakenly stopped the day after the ERCP. I am going to have to monitor her medications – yet another something which I’ve never had to do before.

I’m learning a lot of new stuff. None of which I ever wanted to know. If you’re going to win at poker, you have to learn to play the cards.

Sometimes being one of the few serious photographers in town can be beneficial in unusual ways. Let’s back up a few days before we came to Cairns to take care of Eunie’s health problem. I got a call from Heli Niugini management and my friend Monty Armstrong asking if I could go out for a ride to take some promotional shots for them. I didn’t even have to think about it. It’s a no-brainer. A free helicopter ride over Paradise? What kind of an idiot would turn that down?

While I was waiting for them to prepare the two Bell Jet Rangers which would be required for the mission, I caught some of the technical guys installing a new transmission in a Huey. Nothing gets off the ground without these fellows’ careful scrutiny:

You’re looking right down the business end of the engine where that big round pipe is.

While cruising around, I got this great shot of our house:That’s Faded Glory  there at the dock.

Here is a very nice shot of Coronation Drive, the golf course and the island chain reaching up the coast. We do nearly all of our dives in the area covered by this shot:

You can barely see the Coastwatchers Monumtent at the distant end of the golf course just where Dallman Passage  starts.

In case you can’t see it in the shot above, here is a pretty close-up of it:

To the left is the Coastwatcher Hotel, known by locals as “Coasties”, of course.

I was happy with a free ride for taking the photos, but the particular view needed – The Money Shot – was of a Heli Niugini machine placed just so in the frame with a nice tropical paradise scene in the background. This proved to be the one:

It’s going on a two metre long billboard along with promotional text and the company logo.

I was happy to provide this service in exchange for the rare opportunity to get some great shots of my own, which I will be showing over the next week or so.

Naturally, the uncertainty concerning the cause underlying Eunie’s illness has us in a delicate psychological condition. Personally, if given free reign and no responsibility, I’d hide under the covers and sleep. This is not going to do any good for either of us.

So, for the first time since I started Madang – Ples Bilong Mi,  it is therapy for me. I hope it doesn’t get too weird.

Today it’s all about flowers, none of which I know the names of, unless you accept “lily” in a generic sense. I know that two of these species have been identified in comments by readers. This is exasperating. I can’t remember the species names so I can’t enter them in the search box to find them. There are now 875 posts here on Madang – Ples Bilong Mi, so it’s impossible to search through them to find the one which had the comment which identified the flower. I’m going to have to figure out a system to go back and tag these reader identifications so that I can find them. This is getting complicated!

I’ll start off Flowermania with this “Crazy White Star Plant”. I’m sure that there is a word for “flower lovers” – something which ends in “philia”, but I can’t find that either. Did I take my stupid pills twice this morning? I can’t remember. Anyway, this is a cool image to click on to see the interesting little bee with his pollen holsters filled with the tasty orange stuff:

You can see an image of the whole plant in Crazy White Star Plant.

Here is one that hasn’t appeared here before, because this is the first successful image which I’ve managed:

Some flower petals are so intensely pigmented that the dynamic range of the camera sensors gets saturated with that certain colour before anything else gets a good dose of light. At least that’s what I think is happening. In an image of such a flower you will see no detail in these oversaturated areas unless you are very careful with your initial exposure and you pay close attention to what you are doing in Photoshop. Getting any detail at all in the red petals of this flower had me trying every trick I know.

This is another flower which I know that some reader has identified, but I can’t find the reference. I think it’s got the word “glory” in it someplace:

They grow in clusters, as you can see here.

This is a single new blossom:

You can see the stamens arrayed out in a six-point star and the pistil sticking out to the right as if it doesn’t know where it’s supposed to go. I suspect that this is an insect pollinated flower.

Here is a blossom a few days old:

If you click to enlarge, you can barely see the developing ovary at the bottom end of the downcurving stem, just behind stamen which is extending down to the right of the flower stem.

I can’t do a post on flowers without including our orange lilies:

As I was wandering around in the garden I found this one leaning up against the trunk of one of our banana trees. It struck me as a very nice composition. Since it cost me nothing, I take it with gratitude.

I was so inspired by this composition of unlikely partners that I felt that familiar compulsion to turn it into fake art. This one is definitely worth clicking on to blow it up:

It came up beautifully using the Poster Edges filter in Photoshop on the full sized image.

I’m not going to do anything as satisfying as that for the rest of the day, I’m sure. So, since today is a holiday and I’m off work and it’s noon (okay, 11:00), I’m going for a beer.

Have an enjoyable Remembrance Day!

Having been simultaneously inspired, challenged and somewhat chagrined by my post a couple of day ago on the sublimely eccentric and sophisticatedly earthy art of Lindsay Smith, I decided to blow away an entire morning when I should have been doing something else, namely making some money, creating. If that sentence is not complex and grammatically dimwitted enough for you, then hang around for a while and I will probably come up with something even more opaque.

Every shot in this post is a radical modification of an image which has been sitting among tens of thousands for years, some for decades. Every one except this one: For some inexplicable reason, as I wandered aimlessly around in our front yard this morning, I became mesmerised by the left headlamp of our new Nissan Navara. It is our first new car in nearly twelve years, so we are still somewhat excited about it. It’s the cheap kind with wind-up windows and no electronic gee-gaws such as central locking. You don’t want that kind of stuff here. If it breaks, it stays broke.

When I got the image up in Photoshop, I began to see its possibilities. How bizarre could I possibly make an ordinary automobile headlamp appear? I began to think of the way it might be portrayed in some stylised automotive catalogue. What I wanted was how it might look on acid or some similarly perception distorting substance. Because it has now become art, I have titled it Headlamp of our new Nissan Navara.  I am such a wordsmith.

This one is derived from an old shot and is titled Woman in Canoe on Astrolabe Bay:

Again, with the clever titles. It get worse. Hang around. Some of these you may need to click to enlarge to get the full impact of my efforts to bamboozle you.

Yeah, now this one is a oldie. I entered this one in an art show a long time ago and actually sold a one-off original print for K200. I think that it was the first image that I ever mane any money from:

It’s title is Sunset Watercolour II.  Catchy, eh?

Back in the days of burning rubber, a fine mist of vapourised castor oil in the air, hot tarmac and icy Chablis we called the driver’s compartment of a sports car The Cockpit. It was so very, very English. Here is the arted-up cockpit of our 1973 Triumph Spitfire 1500 which sits immaculately restored and carefully wrapped in a garage in Indianapolis, Indiana waiting for someone to make me a reasonable offer for a car which is rapidly approaching the priceless category. Would you like to buy it?

I mean the car, not the picture, which is titled Spitfire Cockpit.  I wonder how many disappointing Google hits I’ll get on this one.

The dashboard or fascia, as we called it back then, is Brazilian Rosewood, handcrafted over a period of several days by none other than me. Hah, you thought all I can do is take pictures and spew drivel, eh? I got the shot on our first digital camera, a one-point-something megapixel Minolta of some kind. I’m sure that it’s moudlering away in a drawer somewhere.

These are our orange lilies, which will be familiar, if not boring, to regular readers. They are decked out here for a night at the disco:

That’s the Photoshop Poster Edges filter, if you’re interested. It’s one of my favourites. The title is Edgy Orange Lilies.  Better?

Here is an old shot of the fabulous Australian harmonicist and singer Harper at a performance years ago at The Slippery Noodle in Indianapolis, Indiana:

The title is, a little obviously, Harper.  I got the shot from a stairway above the back room venue in the area of the building which used to be a brothel. It is the oldest continuously operating tavern in the State of Indiana and now operates one of the best blues clubs it has ever been my pleasure to patronise. I always hit it a couple of times whenever I’m in Indy.  The cover charge is cheap. The food and drink is also blue-collar priced and surprisingly delicious. The amazing thing about the place is that it has three venues for bands in the same building. If you don’t like one, you can pick up and move to another. The only problem is that it is sometimes packed. It used to be a mob hangout. There are several spots where there are bullet holes in the walls.

Just to show you how civilised and cultured I am, here is a plate of fruit at a vineyard near Vienna. It’s been given the artsy treatment also:It is delightfully and playfully titled Vienna Vineyard Fruit.  I sincerely hope to get back to Vienna someday. It’s one of my favourite cities. Summertime is splendid. I don’t even want to think about winter there. It would be as bad as Indianapolis, from whence I escaped. The shot above has been “posterised” a bit to give it a more painterly look. Posterisation is simply a fancy term for reducing the available colours in an image.

If none of that is quirky enough for you, then I shall deliver the coup de grâce.

This is my left bicep, at the healthy diameter which it once was at the time I was getting my Dancing Dolphins  tattoo, which you see here partially completed:

I decided . . . no, I fell upon the idea of doing it in monochrome . . . okay, duochrome.

Okay, that’s enough nonsense for one day. I’m getting dizzy.