I used the day as an excuse to finally use my new ultrawide for an extended period of time, which I’ve been waiting for for over a month now: the difference in shots that an ultrawide affords you is incredible, the flipside is needing to spend far more time paying attention to composition and ensuring that the entire frame of the photograph is well-used (being selective about subjects is very difficult due to massive depth-of-field).

Perhaps the most interesting find of the day was an abandoned scrapyard in South Hobart near the Brewery, apparently a dumping ground for old cranes, and this is where my most interesting set of shots came from:

The Photo Walk should be happening again roughly this time next year, if you enjoy taking photos of things, events like this present a really good opportunity to improve your skills, learn tips and tricks from people with similar interests to you, and to explore places that you might not have considered visiting before. It’s certainly something I hope to do more regularly myself, in the not-too-distant future.

Ubuntu Cola, originally uploaded by Christopher Neugebauer.

To bring you a drink that shares its name with an operating system. Ubuntu Cola is a fair trade cola (so the Sugar and Cola farmers in Africa get paid fairly for their wares) that we found in Stockholm. It’s rather tasty too. If you’re in Europe, it’s worth going out and finding some — it stocks in the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Norway and Belgium.

(Actually useful writings to come later)

Wrest Point — Earth Hour 2009, originally uploaded by Christopher Neugebauer.

Earth Hour was celebrated yesterday: buildings and households all around Hobart switched their lights off as a statement in favour of action on Global Warming.

This is Wrest Point Casino (Hobart’s tallest building) with its external lights switched off — though it would seem that some of the patrons of the hotel didn’t get the message.

I’ve taken it out for a few test runs over the past week, and am really quite impressed with the results. To start out my lens collection, I’ve used some of my Dad’s old FD-mount lenses via use of an adaptor¹ (including an f/3.3 200mm prime and an f/5.6 75-300mm zoom, for those of you who are at all interested), which has afforded some good opportunities for interesting photos:

I’m really looking forward to LCA as an opportunity to give it a really thorough workout — I expect that I’ll take a ludicrous amount of photos as an opportunity to test the camera in more varied circumstances. More as they come!

[1]: Yes, I’m well aware of phographers’ disdain for using FD lenses on an EOS camera, currently I don’t care. When I get to the point where I need to, I will.

Marshmallow, originally uploaded by Christopher Neugebauer.

We randomly found this searching for marshmallows today in the Mac Lab.

If anyone can explain this, it’d be much appreciated.

Neugebauer Chocolate, originally uploaded by Christopher Neugebauer.

I was in the TUU Shop today, and did a double-take as I saw my surname staring back at me (it’s in the top left corner of the wrapper).

Why a Brazilian chocolate company would call themselves “Neugebauer” is beyond me — but I shalln’t complain. The occasional ego trip can be healthy.

(Oh, and the chocolate itself wasn’t particularly nice. Oh well )

TUCS Tech Talk #1, originally uploaded by Christopher Neugebauer.

As I mentioned previously, TUCS had its first tech talk on Friday (delivered by myself, on the topic of Introductory Python), this is the first opportunity to show off photos from it. I was rather impressed by the turnout (there are a few people off to the side that can’t be seen in the frame).

Upside-Down Man, originally uploaded by Christopher Neugebauer.

On Digg, Today, there’s a site that allows you to create silly sketches and swap them with people.

Unfortunately, as with most such things, it’s turned into an exchange for Goatse impressions, and phalli.

I got an impression of the latter in return for this, so I figured that I’d share this with everyone.

Tasman Bridge — Earth Hour, originally uploaded by Christopher Neugebauer.

It’s Earth Hour, therefore a large number of Tasmanian Landmarks have had their lights switched off. Here’s a photo of the Tasman Bridge in a strangely deluminated state.