I have a few less formal shots from the wedding of Trevor Hattersley and Karen Simmons last Saturday. I had a great time. I love weddings. I’ve performed marriages for sixteen couples since I became a Registered Celebrant ten years or so ago. As far as I know, all but one couple are still together. That’s a pretty good record, but I can’t make any claim on it. Finding a mate is a crap-shoot.

We had a batch of Champagne that was inordinately difficult to open. Here’s our Master of Ceremonies, Mike Cassell doing his “Power Opening” trick for the ladies:

They were most appreciative. By the way, the new construction at Blueblood isn’t quite finished, as you can see. The broom is for cleaning up broken wine glasses, of which there were quite a few.

Here’s Trevor looking very relaxed, compared to an hour earlier, as he toasts his bride, Karen:

You may have noticed that the dress code at the wedding was “Tropical Whatever”.

And here is Trevor as we all know him – doing something iffy with a lady. His iffy somethings are now going to be limited to a single recipient. Lucky guy!

The winner of the Spiffy Gentleman’s Outfit  prize went to Charlie Edmund who, while tardy in arrival, was resplendent in attire:

This is a sight which several people claimed had never before been seen – our very own charming and oh, so cherished Dr. John “Tinpis” Mackerel in the ocean!

And here are two fools, whose identity I will conceal out of pure mercy, attempting to stand up on a sailboard:

Never let it be said that this was not a joyous day for all.

It would be far too easy for me to make myself the actor in this little scene. And it’s very difficult to avoid the temptation. It’s not often that one gets to be so intimately involved, in such a positive and enduring way, in the lives of one’s closest friends. On Saturday, I was privileged to be the Registered Celebrant at the wedding of Trevor Hattersley and Karen Simmons. Here is the cover of the Wedding Program:

Trevor and Karen chose every word spoken in their wedding ceremony. Trevor said that he had thought about it “for weeks” and came up with a program over which they toiled for perfection for a few days. I much prefer that couples write their own ceremonies. These two did the job perfectly.

Fiona Buffini read The Selfish Giant  by Oscar Wilde. It was wondrous to watch faces progress from puzzlement to comprehension as the story unfolded. It’s a wonderful tale of transformation.  Then I said my little bit to get the show rolling. Trevor and Karen read their identical vows in unison, again speaking their own words. The mixture of laughter and tears during this brief performance was most touching and not a little amusing:

The formalities and Signing of the Registry being duly completed, we proceeded eventually to the Cake Cutting:

Pascal’s “Best Man’s Speech” was one of the tamer of those that I have heard. I have to commend Dr. Michon for showing remarkable restraint.

Here’s a nice shot of Trevor, Karen and Alexander:

And, the obligatory Wedding Party Scene:

Plus the obilgatory bigger wedding party scene:

And now we get all of the women with Trevor:

And all of the men with Karen:

I can’t say any more. It was Trevor and Karen’s day. What it meant to me to be honoured by them in this way is obvious. To put words to it would be to diminish it.

So, I’ll close by wishing my dear friends all of the happiness that life has brought to me through my marriage.

It should happen for all of us.

Last Tuesday evening a small group of Trevor Hattersley’s friends gathered at the Madang Club to celebrate his impending marriage to Karen Simmons. The event started with the usual Stag Party nonsense. I should mention, however, that it was remarkably constrained. I’ve been to a few of these before. This was tame by comparison. A few beers were consumed, a few cigars smoked and a smattering of mildly off-colour jokes were offered.

Then occurred the tragedy. Someone, who shall remain nameless (as shall all of the participants) decided, in a moment of dementia, that we should all  play pool at one  table. Then commenced a game of pool the rules of which were so arcane and complex that I had already lost K50 by the time that I figured out by osmosis when it was my turn to shoot.

About half-way through the game, the rules were changed once again. Anyone who dropped the cue ball had to down a shot. Fortunately I had already switched to soda water as my beverage. I dropped the cue four times and dutifully downed four shots of Cointreau. When I woke up in the morning clear headed I could still taste oranges.

This is the man responsible for this debacle:

An now, for your amazement, I present a large gallery of those who could arguably be named the “World’s Worst Pool Shots”:

 

It will be a while before I do this again.

If you’ve ever even heard of a salp, I’d be surprised. They are seldom seen by humans who are not intimately involved with the sea, literally submerged in it. While I have seen large specimens on several occasions while diving, I’ve never had my camera with me. So much for luck. To make it worse, Trevor Hattersley recently got a fairly good shot of a salp from his boat:It’s worth a look here and here to see the details of these critters (actually a bunch of critters travelling together – a colonial animal). There are many different kinds. As you can see, this one is almost completely transparent. With just a bit of imagination you can see a hint of the segmentation, if you click to enlarge.

So much for the monster.

I showed you an image of a Coral Grouper (Cephalopholis miniata) yesterday the tail of which I had accidentally amputated in my rush to get the shot. I thought that you might like to see the whole fish. I just happen to have a couple of nice specimen shots from a while back:

I really like this fish. It’s pretty beyond reason. Click on these to have a look at the shading around the caudal fin (tail):That’s a fairly serious fish.

I also have comical fish. Clown fish, in fact. This is the real Clown Anemonefish (Amphiprion percula) – no kidding:Disney did not have to do much to this fish to turn it into Nemo.

For those peculiar folk like me who prefer a specimen shot, here it is:It’s worth clicking on this one to see the incredible violet shading on the edges of the fins, particularly the pectoral.

An now, since I’m in a nutty mood (actually got a couple of things to work correctly at the office today), let me give you the nut’s nemesis, the Squirrelfish, specifically the Blackfin Squirrelfish (Neoniphon opercularis):

This is one of those fish that is easy to overlook when diving. It’s not too flashy and it plays hide-and-seek with a vengeance. However, if you can get a good look at one, you begin to appreciate it.

I’ve been rummaging through my thousands of shots that you’ve never seen. Some of them are not too shabby. Expect a fairly steady diet of fish for a while.

Today’s video clip is a bit of PNG Culture. Since images shout, while words simply whine, I’ll take you directly to The Essential PNG Barbie Preparation Technique:

The process is conceptually simple. One wants to remove any noxious substances from the barbie without destroying the delicate balance of organochemistry that provides the characteristic flavours.

One must first use a sturdy spatula, of a type that I have only seen in Australia and PNG, to de-crudify the barbie. Incidentally, these heavy spatulas double as a venerable weapon. De-crudifying consists of selectively scraping from the barbie bird poo, leaves, toasted geckos, the occasional huge beetle and any other items not deemed to be contributory to the proper seasoning. The scraping may take a while. It usually requires a couple of assistants to . . . er . . . assist  the decision process. Fights have been known to break out.

Next, having first assured that there is a roaring fire, one must use copious amounts of water (sea water, if you’re lucky enough to be close to the beach) to wash off most of the unwanted substances loosened by the scraping. A thorough washing is in order, along with further scraping to further refine the qualities of the cooking surface. This process involves much steam and hot water often erupting in unanticipated ways. Accidental scaldings are displayed as badges of honour.

Finally, and this is the critical stage, more water is applied while simultaneously brooming it off the barbie with a huge broomy sort of tool made of the spines of coconut leaves. The brooms themselves have a story worth a post. They take a long time to make and seem unnecessarily spindly and ineffective to a foreigner. However, just try to get your cleaning lady to use a fancy factory made broom. She will not touch it. It is an affront to her skill and makes a mockery of her trade. The coconut pangel  broom is clearly superior in her mind.

So, having cleaned the barbie, what shall we eat? Well, I can guarantee you it won’t be any of these:

That’s the Vagabond Butterflyfish (Chaetodon vagabundus). Don’t ask me why it’s called a vagabond. Sounds a little overly poetic to me.

Let’s have yet another look at an old friend the Spinecheek Anemonefish (Premnas biaculeatus):

I seem to be embarking on a new career to get the perfect specimen shot of this critter. I’m not going to stop until we can see its scales, which are very fine. Close, but no turkey.

Here’s another one that is a little less common, the Orange Anemonefish (Amphiprion sandaracinos):

I’d say more about the Orange Anemonefish, but I’d have to make it up. No, wait. I do know that it favours a certain species of anemone called Merten’s Carpet Sea Anemone (Stichodactyla mertensii)  which is what you see in the image above.

Finally, here is a teaser for a post to come in a few days. Our dear old friend (not that  old) Trevor Hattersly is about to succumb to marital bliss with his beautiful bride-to-be Karen Simmons. Tuesday night we had a little stag party (no girls popping out of cakes) at the Madang Club. I was suckered into a game of pool the rules of which were so arcane that I hadn’t figured them out until I’d lost all of my pocket money – about K50, to be exact.

Here’s Trevor lining up for a shot:

I know  what he’s thinking. “I’m going to take all  of Messersmith’s money!”

I very much enjoy featuring images sent to me by my friends on Madang - Ples Bilong Mi.  Unfortunately, few friends send me samples of their work. I’m pestering a few of them to do so, but shyness seems to interfere. If you are a regular reader of this journal and you have images that you think will be appreciated by our audience, then please feel free to email them to me. Work them over until you are happy with them and send 1600 pixel (longest dimension) JPG images that are between 200 and 300 Kilobytes. Include some text describing the images and I will include that also. I’ve featured Trevor Hattersley’s images before here and here. Heidi Majano has also had a guest appearance.

Don’t be shy. Have a try.

We’ll start with a couple of shots from Trevor Hattersley. He’s been a keen amateur as long as I’ve known him, probably about twenty years. He recently purchased from me a spare (ordered two by mistake from Amazon) Olympus SP-590UZ superzoom camera and has been diligently learning to use it feature-by-feature. Up at Blueblood a couple of weeks ago he was playing with macro shots and came up with two very nice fungi:This one of Bracket Fungi has very accurate colours, perfect focus and nice composition. A shot that anyone should be proud to display.

Here’s another fungi shot by Trevor:Again, we have interesting and accurate colours, good composition, fine focus (click to enlarge) and a generally interesting and aesthetic image. Well done, mate! I was happy to see that Trevor resisted the urge to use flash on these shots. They are very natural looking – just the way that your eyes see them.

Now let’s move to another friend a world away. Ron Barrons hails from Hamilton, Ontario in Canada. He’s a very experienced and knowledgeable photographer with a good pair of hiking boots. Since Hamilton is the Waterfall Capital of the World, it’s not surprising that Ron has a plethora of beautiful images of water tumbling over rocks. The Niagara Escarpment is responsible for this cornucopia of waterfalls, something for which local photographers are eternally grateful.

Here is a beautiful shot of Grindstone Falls:

This one is of the cascade below the falls:Ron has the “silky water” technique down pat. This requires a tripod, a neutral density filter to cut down the amount of light coming in through the lens, and long exposure times. The result is that the water takes on a very fluid and smooth look which intensifies the appearance of flow. You can see some of my Hamilton Waterfalls and our adventures in waterfall country here, here and here.

Ron is not a one-trick-pony. He sent several gorgeous Canadian Autumn shots taken from the heights around the Niagara Escarpment. This one is a beaut:

Here is another, looking up at the escarpment itself:

I could not resist the urge to try making a watercolour of one of Ron’s beautiful shots. This one is of Rattlesnake Ridge:You will need to click to enlarge to see the full watercolour effect. Ron was kind enough to allow me to modify his work and publish it here.

I know that many of my readers must be serious hobby photographers. Please send me images that move you and allow me to showcase your work here.

I’m not fooling around. I mean it.

Before we start with the creepy-crawlies, I’ll show you sunrise at our house this morning. It was hardly worth the effort. I’m accumulating a ridiculously huge collection of sunrise panoramas captured in our front yard. I don’t have a clue what I’m going to do with them. That is, aside from tossing them at you practically every day. It does give me something to do in the morning when I wake up at 05:00 other that think about how our savings have disappeared. More on that another day. There are enough of us in that boat already.

Now that we’ve dispensed today’s sunrise, we can proceed to the juicy bits. This seems to me to be an unreasonably scary spider. It was about half the size of my hand. It was in the middle of a web the size of one of those big, silly exercise balls that you roll around on. I don’t know what it intended to catch in that massive trap, but I was careful that it did not end up being me.

Those black dots are not its eyes, but they do a very spooky imitation. Its legs are improbably long and it appears as if it could club you to death with its hind end. Forget about the fangy bits in the front. I don’t want to think about it.

Now, this one’s not so bad. It’s just one of your regular, run-of-the-mill nasty eight legged horrors. However, check out the size of the beetle that it’s eating:

You’d think that a bug that size would put up some kind of fight, eh? Well, it was too little too late. Sorry, Mr. Beetle. You’re lunch.

This stupid butterfly is still foiling my attempts to get a good shot of him:

My previous efforts were knocked back severely by a shot that Trevor Hattersly got. I’ve not forgotten. I’m determined to best him. What really irks me is that we’re both using Olympus SP-590UZ cameras and I am the one who sold him his. It’s really too much. As you can see from the shot above, I’m still well behind. I’m convinced that this is the same butterfly. It’s taunting me.

Okay, if the spiders are getting to be a bit much, let’s move to something a little less (ah, that’s what you think)  scary. Here’s your basic model coconut crab. Yeah, he’s got pincers, but he doesn’t look as if he could do much damage. Maybe get a blister on your little finger – maybe get a blister on your thumb (whoops, I seem to have slipped off into Dire Straits lyrics again – that’s happening far  too often these days):

Let me lay down a firm warning to you. You do not  want to mess with these characters. If it get hold of any bit of you . . . well, if you want to read an amusing personal anecdote on the subject, have a look here.

We can finish up today with this shot of a cargo ship tied up at the main wharf across from our house:

I had to work it over severely because of the noise in the shot in the low light. It’s more art than photography now. A few years ago, such an image would have been worthless – just spotty and unclear. Now we can turn throw-aways into something pretty, even if we don’t know what to call it.