A spider I photographed at Mt. Coot-tha Botanical Gardens.   I thought this fella was a jumping spider, however a friend informed me that this is a type of Lynx Spider. Its spiky legs are interesting, as is its head shape!

www.brisbaneinsects.com/brisbane_spiders/YellowLynxSpider…

Lynx Spiders have good vision although their eyes are relatively small. They have eight eyes, in the pattern four rows of two. They are from small to medium in size. They have a long body and long thin legs. Legs are covered with long spines.

Lynx Spiders can be found in trees or on grasses, usually on the top of the plants. They are active in day time for hunting small insects. They hunt similarly to a cat, i.e., slowly approach the prey and suddenly jump to it. So the spiders have their name Lynx. Lynx Spiders are active during the day.

I received a cheap macro flash kit in the mail this week so today I went out and gave it a bit of a test run at Roma Street Parklands.

Mostly satisfied, but I think I need 1) some pc sync cabling because the optical receivers aren’t completely reliable and 2) some sort of flash diffusers to soften the light.

Just some fiddling around I have been doing this week.

Not a world changing event, but a nice addition to my day – ourbrisbane opted to feature one of my Riverfire photographs from 2008 in its latest newsletter.

OurBrisbane Feature Photograph

Here is the original image:

I picked up some new daylight black and white film development kit and chemicals last Saturday, so decided to head out Sunday and get some 4×5 sheets shot to try some taco development in the new tank.

I didn’t venture far – just down the road to the Walter Taylor Bridge that links Indooroopilly and Chelmer.

This was taken at the Chelmer end, below the bridge where some maintenance is underway on the small residence in the pylon.

This is from the Northern end, featuring the cable supporting the pylons.  The cable was originally support cable linking the two halves of the Sydney  Harbour bridge together when it was being built.  After the Sydney Harbour Bridge was completed in 1932, the cable was brought up for use in the Walter Taylor bridge, which was completed in 1936.

Playing around with a stitched panorama today led to some sort of otherworldly apocalypse.

It’s nice to make a redbubble sale every now and again. This time it was another print sale of Sunburnt City

Sunburnt City on RedBubble

I hadn’t been to a Brisbane Flickr meetup in a while so I went along to one last weekend, shooting Brisbane CBD at dusk / early evening. Was good to catch up with John, Dave and the crew. I really need to procure a light meter.

Linhof Technika III
Schneidar Xenar 150mm f/4.5 @ f/4.5
Kodak Portra 160VC
~6 seconds (hand shuttered)

Today I picked up an Epson v500 scanner from umart, as I’m keen to get back into a bit of film photography and the Microtek sadly is just not up to par.

This is my first slide scanned through it – shot back at a Brisbane Meetup get-together at Fingal Head, back in 2008.

Shot using my Mamiya M645 1000S (procured from Cash Converters!) with a 45mm Mamiya Sekor lens, on Fujichrome Velvia 100. I believe it was shot at f/22 but I have no recollection of the exposure time.

Inspired a little by the post processing used in David De Groot’s Dead Trees.

CP, and monochrome conversion in post.

Sitting as a stark reminder to what might have been, the ruins of “Archer’s Folly” is listed in the Tasmanian Heritage Register because of its association with prominent local businessman John Kinder Archer.

Not to be mistaken as a descendant of the Archer dynasty, John Kinder Archer was the son of John Archer, a miller from Ware in England.

Following the death of his father, and his inheritance of 30 shares in a steamship, John Kinder Archer turned his hand to the shipping industry.

He was also an elected member of the House of Assembly for Norfolk Plains in 1859, a position he held until 1861.

At about this time, Archer began building a large mansion on the high ground adjacent to Bishopsbourne Road in Carrick.

An interesting feature was the carriageway in the centre of house which took the form of a tunnel. Horse drawn vehicles could be driven right through the building from the front entrance to an inner court yard and out through the back entrance to the stables.

The front of the house was built, but at this stage Archer suffered a number of set backs.

Two of his ships collided in Bass Strait in a severe storm. They were carrying building materials for the house and were uninsured. Further building plans were cancelled and the house was never finished.

In 1867 it was sold to a miller, and ex-employee of his father, TW Monds who used the property for storage purposes.

Source: Heritage Tasmania