Modern Melbourne Architecture – Patterns

I have recently been travelling to Melbourne for work quite a bit. In fact, I have been to Melbourne so many times that I have lost count – and the number of trips would easily number over 200. As a Sydney-sider I find it awkward to say that I love Melbourne. It is a totally different city to Sydney, in the same way that Los Angeles is to New York or Toronto is to Montreal. I love going there, and I love visiting family and friends that I have down there too. The client that I am working for is based in the Docklands, and it is interesting to hear what the locals think about the precinct. Empty, soulless, heartless, dead are adjectives that I have heard numerous times in describing the new modern construction going up all around.

So I decided to see what my perspective would be through the lens. I took my new trusty Canon Powershot G15 to see if I could put it through its paces and what I decided to focus on in the end were some of the fascinating patterns that the modern architecture and buildings presented. There have been huge leaps in building construction since I left university over 15 years ago, and the new materials and manufacturing processes mean that architects and engineers can produce patterns in exterior cladding that were just not possible before (or more correctly cost viable – the Sydney Opera House being a perfect example). So here is what I found. The strange thing is that in some ways, these patterns remind me of the skins of reptiles – but made of metal and glass.

BTW – All the photos link through to the larger images on my Flickr page.

 

My photo excursion was beautifully ended with a spectacularly dusk setting over the unusually calm Docklands with a crescent moon over the water. I love the colour of the sky in this last shot – no Photoshop necessary!

 

My next photo excursion down in Melbourne will probably involve either two wheels or the myriad of cool sculptures that grace the city.

A Foreign Fascination with the US Election

It has to be strange being Australian and having an intense fascination in the US election of 2012. But when I look at the reasons why, it isn’t that strange. The USA is the most powerful country in the world, economically, militarily, in innovation, and its culture pervades every corner of the globe. A news site described election watching as the ultimate reality TV show. Though it would have been more fun watching the Republican primaries hosted on the set of Survivor Vanuatu! I have found myself consuming an inordinate amount of election updates. For anyone with an analytical mind – it is like candy. There are statistics, probabilities, scenarios, segmentation analysis, and with it all overlaid on a timeline counting down to today.

I won’t espouse my opinion on who I think should win, because I believe that this is the domain of the American people. It is their election, even though it has an impact on the world. After all the great majority of the outcomes will directly affect the day to day lives of Americans and not myself. Us foreigners are indirectly affected by the outcomes, and our own governments have huge impact as to how greatly we are indirectly impacted (when was the last time the US sent a drone strike into New Zealand?). But the election has driven me to digitally subscribe to the New York Times.

In the past 6 months I have become addicted to reading Nate Silver’s blog on the NYTimes – The FiveThirtyEight Blog. I am now super curious as to whether he has got it right. I’ve been intensely reading the detailed analysis and the cold math that he applies in his blog. And it is strangely non-partisan (Fox News, MSNBC anyone?). It still incites partisan feedback, but he keeps on bringing it back to “look at the math”. But the coolest thing about the blog, and some of the other pages on NYTimes are the graphics. Check out this eye candy from a few weeks ago – FiveThirtyEight Blog – Over the Decades, How States have Shifted. It is a beautifully complex picture that conveys a lot into a simple diagram. The NYTimes on another part of the site laid out the scenarios as they present themselves – have a look at 512 Paths to the White House.

There is other eye candy on other sites too, which are also interactive. CNN allowed me to pick the election via my tips for how the states would fall in the electoral college – CNN 2012 Electoral Map (which is similar to the “Paths” link on the NYTimes). Looking purely at the math, it does not stack up well for the red side.

I like this eye candy, and have often had to employ similar techniques in the presentation of information or concepts at work. A fantastic site that I have referenced many times in the past for inspiration is Visual Complexity – http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/. I first stumbled across this site back in 2005. It is pure eye candy, with a real purpose and I could get lost for hours there. And when shooting photos and capturing the world around you, sometimes you get a hint as to where their inspiration has come from.

I just hope for two outcomes from the election – foreign policy remains pragmatic and progressive by bringing countries together, and the American people can bridge the deep partisan divisions that have engulfed the country for over the last decade. After all, without combined ambitions of the USA the human race would still not have landed on the moon – or invented velcro.

Dawn photo shoot photos to come (with a bit of assistance from Photoshop), and a little video surprise from my photo partner in crime Grumpy.

UPDATE

I guess Nate Silver pretty much picked it, though there have been a couple of surprises in the swing states. What did surprise me a little bit was CNN saying how unexpected it was to get such a quick result. The math should have told them that if Ohio and a couple of the other Eastern swing states went blue, red had buckley’s chance of winning. It remains to be seen whether Florida in the final mix stays blue or goes red, but at the moment it has a very azure haze to the count.

I suppose one last note – I couldn’t let this post rest without picking my photo of the election campaign. For me this one captured by Forbes spoke volumes to what is involved in running for re-election.