Wilvis

Brisbane City At Night

A few years ago I went out with a couple of mates to do a night photo shoot of Brisbane. Back then I had a Canon Powershot S3 IS – it was a great little prosumer camera. The photos turned out really good but I was curious as to how my newer Canon 450D would perform?

Brisbane River At Night

The original guys couldn’t make it this time – Liam was overseas and Olger was sick (but we always knew that didn’t we )… so a couple of guys from work came along for a shootout (Jon and Ty).

After having one of the worst dinners I’ve ever had (old pizza from a little pizza takeaway shop at Southbank :/) we headed out to take some shots. We started from Southbank and headed North West along the river.

The full moon was out that night and was brilliant. The city looks so different at night and the reflections of all the lights off the water creates a nice effect. I especially love the Hitachi sign… it creates a massive red plume across the river.

As I expected the photos were so much better on the DSLR… the better optics and Image Stabilization did wonders for the sharpness of the photos… still want a new lens tho

Brisbane Ferris Wheel

Next we moved further down Southbank and took some shots of the ferris wheel. I was playing with the exposure settings to get some exaggerated movement in the ferris wheel. In this shot the exposure was 6 seconds… In hindsight it probably would’ve been better taking the photo from the other side of the ferris wheel as the foreground would’ve been better illuminated… oh well

I’ve never ridden the ferris wheel before… I sort of don’t see the point. Sure its fairly tall and gives a good view of the river and city but is the view that much better? Plus it costs 15 bucks a ride!!!

Thinking about it… a roller coaster around Southbank could be interesting

Buses At Victoria Bridge At Night

We slowly started making our way back to our work building (all of our cars were parked there)… next we stopped at the overpass joining the performing arts complex (QPAC) to the museum.

This shot was taken off that overpass and is another long exposure of the buses coming and going from the bus stop under the bridge. I really love this shot… it gives a sense of how busy the Victoria bridge can be at night. I didn’t count how many buses there were but even at 9pm on a weeknight there were still several buses per minute.

Traffic On James Cook Bridge At Night

Making our way over the Victoria Bridge and back to the CBD. We stopped on the bridge to check out the traffic running along the South East Freeway.

Still playing with the the long exposures and the traffic on the freeway makes a great test subject! On the left hand side we have all of the north bound traffic – you can see the red tail lights streaming into the distance.

On the right hand side we have all of the south bound traffic with all of the head lights streaming towards the camera.

Rocket Bus Near Casino

How about one more long exposure shot for good measure

This was taken at the same spot as the previous photo but is directly behind me. Diametrically in front there is the casino all lit up in bright purple. The end of the bridge here has turns left, right, and straight underneath to the Queen St mall.

This turned out to be a great spot to take long exposure shots as the city bound buses would come over the bridge and take one of those three options. This created some interesting effects!

In this case I’ve taken a long expose (30 secs) and caught a bus coming down for the last 15 seconds or so. The result is these long red tail light trails coming out of the back of a phantom bus… hmm… maybe it should be the phantom rocket bus?!?

Teeka Da Cat

Ok I’ve been a little slack… we’ve picked up Teeka about 4 months ago from the Logan City Pound and this is the first I’ve written anything about her… anyways, this is Teeka on the right.

I’ve no idea what sort of cat she is… from what I’ve seen she’s a typical one though… has a mind of her own and won’t do as she’s told (but hey, if you want obedience you should get a dog right )

We didn’t choose the name Teeka… it was the name she had at the pound. She responded to that name so we decided to keep it. Teeka is Indian for that little red dot that some Indian girls have on their foreheads.

To be honest, we originally went to the pound with the intention of getting a small dog. We live in a townhouse so a small dog is about all we can manage. So we walked through the pound and none of the small dogs really appealed to us… their was one little Westie but she was a psychotic little thing, not to mention yappy!

Teeka In Her Playhouse

In the same cells as the dogs there was one cage full of cats. We didn’t realise it at the time but this cell was home to cats that have previously had cat flu (or might have had cat flu at some point).

Most of the cats in this cage where there minding their own business… they didn’t even seem to acknowledge us. On the other hand the dogs went skitzo when we went near them.

There was of course one exception – Teeka. On seeing us walk up to her cage she climbed the fence to sniff us out. One of the ladies who takes care of the animals said that it was the first time she had ever done that. From that point we were sold – it looks as though Teeka picked us to be her new owners

Wheres Teeka? - She's In the Ikea Bag

The pound needed a few days to get her desexed and take care of the paperwork so we did what any new parents would do – we bought her some new toys! One of the first things we bought was this little cat playground thingo…

It didn’t take Teeka long to make herself at home. She was a little wary of the cat playground at first but soon got into it.

The funny thing is though that she got over it pretty quick… so what kept her entertained now? It turned out to be a brown paper bag we got from an Ikea shop… absolutely loves it!

She used the bag to hide and then launch herself at your ankles… vicious little critter

Teeka - Dougie must die!!!

Now I had to follow my fatherly responsibilities and take care of my little girl so I decided to teach her hunting. Sure she might be a house cat (if a cats had cat flu then they recommend keeping the kitty housebound – just in case they carry it to another cat) but you never know when those survivor skills may come in handy

So we bought her a new friend – Dougie the drug f&^ked bug! Haha he’s even got a song – sure I ripped it off TV somewhere but I’ve got no idea where.

It’s interesting to watch her play with the toy – reminds you that they are wild predators and can’t be fully domesticated… lucky we a lot bigger than them

Teeka - Get that thing out of my face!

If it’s not playing with Dougie then I’ve got other hunting games I play with her. I get on all fours and crawl around the house trying to sneak up on her and pounce… gotta show her who’s the alpha cat

As it turns out she’s not a huge fan of the camera… in fact she flips out when she sees it. Normally comes straight at me and tries to get behind it. It didn’t help that I used the flash the first couple of times but I figured I was on the other side of the room… nope, she still don’t like it.

The other big thing is that she really, really wants to go outside. We don’t let her out because of the whole cat flu thing which makes her even more frustrated. She sits at the door or window just staring at the birds making all their noises (which is yet another good reason not to let her out – I can only imagine how many birds and other wildlife she would attack?!?).

Teeka - You want to feed me yes meow meow!

I’m half thinking that she needs a brother or sister to keep her company… especially during the day when Kimmy and I are at work. Only problem is that in a townhouse you end up being one of those cat people – you know the ones. You walk into their house and you instantly smell cat!

She’s also taken to pooing wherever she likes – we’ve tried all the different types of cat litter but I think she prefers the feel of soft carpet on her behind… bad kitty!!! Multiply this by two and I think I’d go mental!

Teeka - Ready for the kill

This is another shot of Teeka obsessed with the birds outdoors… there’s also quite a few cats that roam around the neighbourhood and she wants to go out and party with them… there’s no way my little girl is getting around with one of those bad alley cats lol

You can tell when she’s really focused on the hunt when her lips pull back and you can see more of that pink mouth showing… and it’s on like Donkey Kong when you see the teeth. The other thing is the stare… she just watches and waits to make her move.

Since she likes to pounce and attack things we got a cow hand puppet for her to play with – or more to the point offer my hand some protection against her. It sorta works… I’m losing less blood than before

Teeka - Just Chillaxing

Another thing is that she likes to be around people but doesn’t like to be with them. She enjoys the hunting games but doesn’t like to be patted. She also hates the grooming brushes!

She also doesn’t like it when Kimmy and I are together – we get the cold shoulder and Kimmy gets the odd evil stare :/

When we’re by ourselves its a different story though… she’ll come up for a hug and likes the patting. The only other time she’s affectionate is when she’s hungry (hmm… there’s an idea – just joking!!!)

Anyways thats our new little cat! I’ll try not to be one of those cat people and only put more stuff up when she does something cool… like do backflips through hoops that are on fire and stuff haha