Week 13/2024: Photowalking
Week of 25 March 2024
A quiet week, with a couple of very high points. It was a long weekend for Easter so I got a chance to go out walking with my camera.
Photowalking: A weekend of photos
Friday
I look at the morning skies from the window every morning and think it would be good to go out and make some photos.
On Friday I finally did.
There were hardly any clouds, just the light sky, and I wasn’t sure what I’d find.
I love the clear skies and pastel clouds of mornings like this. They have a calmness about them, a slower pace than the ever-changing dramatic show of the sunrises that stop people in their tracks (like this one).
It’s more fun to find things to photograph too. Without the intensity of the cloudy morning, I can see beyond, into more subtle shapes and lines and colours.
And birds.
Saturday
Not so much a photo walk as time to fill in before the bus came after I visited my mother.
Actually, I intentionally missed the first bus so that I could go for a walk. I wanted to photograph this wonderful building in the middle of its renovations.
Jet Service Station (originally the Riverview Garage), is a heritage listed former service station that was most recently used as a coffee shop. According to Open House Hobart, it was designed by architect Eric Round and completed in 1936.
It’s one of the oldest service stations in Hobart, and Hobart Council’s data collection sheet observes that it
“demonstrates the growth in private vehicle ownership in Hobart in the prewar years, particularly in a well to do suburb such as Sandy Bay. The building’s confident modern design sits well with the bright and progressive future promised by the motor car.”
The coffee shop has closed down, following the cafe in the adjacent building closing a few years ago. There’s been a lot of construction and refurbishment going on, overseen, I believe, by the modernist heritage architect Paul Johnston.
Sunday
I went for a walk to do some writing and ended up getting distracted by birds.
Specifically, this juvenile kelp gull, identified by the man who walked past me.
He apologised for walking into my photo (he actually didn’t) and was interested in what I was photographing. I told him this bird had been screeching at anything who would listen to it (no one). It was looking for food, he said.
I learned when I got home and looked at the bird book that the kelp gull is distinguishable from the Pacific gull because it only has the red spot on the lower tip of its bill. The Pacific gulls’ bills have the red spot on the upper and lower tips.
Week 13 summary
Habit tracker
- 9.30 shutdown: 3/7 days
- 8,000 steps: 7/7 days
What was the best thing about this week?
Nothing I did, but I was super proud and excited when Kramstable received an award for topping one of his classes last year at his college awards night on Wednesday. I know how hard he worked and how much effort he put into a subject that wasn’t one of his first choices and wasn’t one of his favourites. It was great to see him acknowledged for that.
The best thing I did was go walking with my camera.
What did I notice this week?
I can’t say I “noticed” this because everyone else has seen it too and it’s been in the news. But I think it’s cool that the ugly metal covering the old His Majesty’s Theatre façade in Liverpool Street was recently taken down.
I took a trip into town this week to have a look at it.
It was built in 1910 and officially opened in 1911 and was the largest theatre in Tasmania at the time, seating 1400 people. It was converted into a cinema not long after it opened. The theatre closed in 1968, and the metal facade was applied in 1972. It’s been a clothing store since then. Currently Allgoods, it was originally Glasser & Parker.
I didn’t know until just now that Glasser & Parker evolved from a clothing business set up by pawnbroker Joe Glasser and his son Samuel in the 1930s. They sold the business to their employee Arthur Parker in the 1940s. It moved into the former theatre in the 1970s, where it included a coffee shop, which was originally the theatre’s dress circle. The business closed in 2016.
Unrelated, I also thought the moon was cool.
What did I learn this week?
Don’t ask me why I needed to look this up, but I learned about the bunny war between battery brands Duracell and Energiser.
I needed to refer to it somewhere and I couldn’t remember if the drumming pink bunny in the battery ads was the Duracell bunny or the Energiser bunny.
Turns out it’s both.
According to Andy Gilicinski, Duracell created the bunny in 1973 for its TV ads. You might remember the ads feature a bunch of pink rabbits playing drums, and the bunny with the Duracell battery kept going and going while all the others slowly ran out of power.
For a start, I didn’t realise the ad was that old!
In 1988 Energiser discovered there was no trademark on the bunny so they created their own ad parodying the Duracell bunny, and took out the trademark on the pink leporid. This upset Duracell, resulting in a bunny war between the two companies. Finally, after a “Bunny Summit” in 1992, they reached agreement for Energiser to use its bunny in the US and Canada, and Duracell to use its in the rest of the world.
Lesson: Protect your brand.
What I’m reading this week
- Presence by Patsy Rodenburg
- The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris
About The Author
