What a contrast

I am returning home from New Zealand to bush ravaged Victoria, and the fires are still burning (seems like everywhere). Such a contrast

on the roof of the world

I have been reading Alain De Botton’s “The Art of Travel”, which features a graphic of the view from an jet airplane window, on its cover. (I’m fairly certain it is a mock up rather than a true photo mainly because there is no internal reflection). The image is accurate in that it shows the interesting phenomena of a very dark sky above the horizon, when view from the upper atmosphere, because the air above is very rarified and has little moisture thus little backscatter of light.

Taken over the great barrier reef, about 20 minutes out from cairns. (note the reflection of my shirt in the lower part of the image)

Digital Cameras on planes

you know the announcement

All electronic devices, including PDAs, laptop computers, handheld games and toys must be switched off during take-off and landing.

Looking back on my photos of my last trip I can see several of the better ones where taken out the plane window, so I got to wondering whether a digital camera is one of those electronic devices that must be turned off during take off and landing. I must admit I assumed it is but as I started to look on the net there is certainly a lot of angst about whether things such as mp3 players and games are really a serious threat, but blogsphere opinion isn't very official is it! I am happy to assume that devices that pump out radio signals may be a problem. So I decided to checked out the restrictions on the qantas website, and maybe all these restriction and particularly ban on using mobile might just be a thing of the past soon.

Well despite a reasonable look around I can not even find mention of a ban on using digital cameras (well assuming they are not fitted with blue tooth wifi or GPS). So happy snapping in the sky.

Nice spot for a village

More of Melbourne, originally uploaded by imageo.

This is a bit of a play on John Batman's original quote, but Melbourne is still a nice place to come home to.

Getting a good photo from the tiny modern jet airplane is not so easy, there is the light on the concave shape the multiple pans and strong light over the scene, lots of thong to spoil the photo but once and a while the lighting can be just right and you are in the right place at the right time(seconds later the plane turned and i just had sky!)