My word processor usage history

I’m always looking for an excuse to create a graphic, and now that I’m also looking for an excuse to play around with LibreOffice Impress, I figured I’d document all the word processors I’ve used over the years, since those were my gateway into using full office suites.

(In case you missed it, in my previous post I explained why I’m dumping Microsoft Office for LibreOffice.)

Randomly, while doing research for this post, I was surprised to learn that Microsoft Word isn’t even the most popular word processor in the world. That crown goes to Google Docs which has almost three times as many users as Word does!

It’s been fun learning how to use Impress, especially since I am such a PowerPoint super user. It’s been frustrating at times, sure, but still fun :)

Anyway, here’s the graphic (created in Impress and exported as a PNG).

Timeline graphic (similar to a Gantt chart) that is titled ‘My word processor usage history’. It shows a list of all word processors used from 1987 to 2035 in a list, with usage bar charts labelled by year next to each row. The chart data is as follows: WordStar 3.0 (DOS) 1987–1990; WordPerfect 5.1 (DOS) 1992–1993; WordPerfect 6.0 (Windows) 1993–1994; Word for Windows 6.0 1994–1995; Word for Windows 95 1995–1997; Word 97 1997–2000; Word 2000 2000–2003; Word 2003 2003–2006; OpenOffice.org 2.0 2005–2006; Word 2006 2006–2010; Google Docs 2009–2025; Word 2010 2010–2013; Word 2013 2013; Microsoft 365 v15 to v17 2013–2025; LibreOffice Writer 7.0 2020–2023; LibreOffice Writer v24.0 to 25.2 2024–2025.

By the way, this isn’t the first office suite-related chart I’ve created. Here’s one from 2013 about how you can track my career progression through which parts of the Microsoft Office suite I use the most: ‘My Career Progression Through Microsoft Products’.

It’s also not the first time I’ve written about my history with Office products. Here’s one from 2018 celebrating twenty years of using PowerPoint: ‘20 years since my first PowerPoint presentation’.

Switching (mostly) to LibreOffice

I love Microsoft Office and I consider myself a power user of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but it’s time to start disentangling myself from the Microsoft ecosystem.

I’ve already made good progress on the operating system (OS) front, with Linux Mint as the primary OS on my laptop. But I’m now taking things up a notch by making LibreOffice my primary office suite.

Why now, though? This meme explains it best.

Photo of a teenage schoolgirl pinned up against a wall by the bell of a massive tuba that is completely enveloping her head. The bell of a tuba is the big, round bit at the front from where the sound comes out. This tuba is behind held by another schoolgirl who is standing in front of the first one. Text overlaid across the girl at the receiving end of the tuba reads, “Me trying to do a basic task I’ve managed to do every day without incident for many years”. Text overlaid across the tuba reads, “AI” (that is, artificial intelligence). Text overlaid across the girl holding the tuba reads, “Every organisation on Earth”.

Shove Copilot into everything

Yes, Microsoft is shoving Copilot into all parts of its Office productivity suite.

When you open a blank Word document, you get asked what you want to write. #RevengeOfClippy

Screenshot of a Microsoft Word window with a red arrow annotation pointing to a Copilot prompt above the blank word document. The text in the prompt reads, “Describe what you’d like to write”.

When you write some text in Word, the Copilot icon follows you down every single line of the page, hovering creepily just off the left margin.

Screenshot of the text in a Microsoft Word document with a red arrow annotation pointing to the Copilot icon hovering immediately off the left margin of one of the lines (the line that the cursor is presumably on).

When you’re working in Excel, that Copilot icon is with you in Every Single Cell.

Screenshot of the cells in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with a red arrow annotation pointing to the Copilot icon hovering off the top-right corner of the selected cell.

And when you’re in PowerPoint, Copilot is not only in the menu bar (“New Slide with Copilot”), its icon also hovers off the top-left corner of each slide, messing with your slide zoom level.

Screenshot of a Microsoft PowerPoint window with red arrows annotations pointing to two things. The first is a new button in the toolbar next to the ‘New Slide’ button. This new button reads, ‘New Slide with Copilot’. The second is a Copilot icon hovering off the top-left corner of the blank slide.

All this reminds me of that scene from the movie WALL-E in which the captain of the evacuee ship Axiom comes to the realisation that AUTO, the ship’s AI autopilot, has been hovering ominously over the shoulder of all the past captains and is, indeed, the antagonist.

Screenshot from the animated film WALL-E. The scene shows the bridge of the spaceship Axiom, specifically one of the walls of the bridge on which there is a row of holographic portraits of all the ships captains. Hovering over the left shoulder of each captain is AUTO, the ship’s autopilot AI.

Wait, does this mean you hate AI?

No, I don’t hate AI.

AI is cool and I’ve enjoyed using aspects of it for many years. Heck, I’ve been a fan of AI since I took Introduction to Artificial Intelligence in my computer science undergrad back in the late 1990s. I even got an A- in that subject :)

What I hate are these things.

Desperate tech giants

I hate the AI bubble we’re currently going through. It was caused entirely by tech giants that are desperate to gain (or at least not to lose) their first-mover advantage.

These tech giants are throwing stupid amounts of money at getting their brand of AI in front of everyone in the hopes that they get to be the ones to make billions of dollars off this revolutionary technology in the future.

They’re also stealing all the intellectual property they can get their hands on and are consuming ridiculous amounts of energy while doing so – all in an effort to work harder, not smarter, and hoping that this approach will give them a leg-up in the short term.

Well fuck them.

Throwing shit at the wall

The inevitable outcome of this desperation is tech companies throwing shit (AI-powered apps, features, tools, and functionality) at the wall (which, in this metaphor, is us) hoping that some of it sticks and that people actually find something they want to use.

This is much like the “killer app” madness from a few years ago when hordes of tech bros were scrambling to make an app so useful that it would justify people’s ongoing use of their platform – which they would then eventually attempt to monetise. The same is happening now with standalone AI apps (like all the generative AI ones) and AI functionality added to existing apps (like adding Copilot in Microsoft Office).

Everything is branded AI now

I hate that everyone is jumping on the AI bandwagon.

AI has been through several hype cycles and, when there’s money to be made, every algorithm is suddenly said to be based on AI.

Of course each hype cycle has historically been followed by an ‘AI winter’ during which the term AI becomes so toxic that people start calling their work other things – like ‘machine learning’ and ‘neural networks’ and other such euphemisms.

But for now, the bandwagon effect means that algorithmic functionality that Microsoft offered a few years ago under a different name is now being called AI and then shoved in our faces.

LLMs are maths pretending to be language

The AI tech that’s led the charge in the current hype cycle is large language models (LLMs).

The problem with LLMs is that:

  • they aren’t actually intelligent;

  • they don’t genuinely understand what you’re saying, asking, or implying;

  • they make mistakes, like, all the time;

  • their outputs can be biased one way or another by their creators;

  • they can’t be contained and controlled (ie they can be jail broken surprisingly easily); and

  • people believe them.

Importantly, LLMs aren’t the be-all and end-all of modern AI. They’re a hammer that everyone has gotten a hold of and, boy, isn’t everything they’re trying to do now starting to look like a nail?

The beatings will continue until morale improves

All that said, the thing that shits me the most as far as Microsoft Office is concerned is the lack of choice in all these AI “upgrades” we’ve being blessed with. We never asked Microsoft to add this AI functionality to their software and there is no way to opt out of it or disable it.

So fuck Microsoft specifically.

Goodbye, old friend

I’m sad to be using less of Microsoft Office. It’s a great tool and I’ve been happy to pay an annual subscription for it for the last twelve years (I signed up the instant it became available in Australia in 2013!). But there is a limit to how much enshittification I can take before I walk.

I’m not going to cancel my subscription though. I’ll probably still need bits of Office at some point in the future. Also, I have a family subscription and the other people on the plan need this for their work.

And I’ll still be using all of Microsoft Office at work.

But going forward, for my personal usage, I will use LibreOffice for all my document, spreadsheet, and presentation creation needs.

Hello, new friend!

I love learning how to use software that’s (relatively) new to me and, eventually, becoming a power user of it. That is very much what I intend to do with LibreOffice.

So let the fun begin!

PS, this isn’t the first time I’ve written about hating Copilot in Microsoft Office. Here’s what wrote about six months ago, before I realised that Microsoft wasn’t going to let this go and I decided to make the switch to LibreOffice: ‘Copilot’s integration into Microsoft office is really shitting me’.

Around the northern suburbs of Melbourne, part 6

Over the last few weeks I’ve been listening to music on my walks instead of taking my camera with me. Things have been super busy at work and I’ve needed that time to clear my head.

These are the photos taken the handful of times I did go out with my camera – which all happened to be around sunset, funnily enough.

Bench and veranda transplanted from a castle, perhaps?

Photo of a well-work wooden bench with wagon wheels instead of legs that’s been placed in a large stone veranda in front of an otherwise unassuming weatherboard house.

Keeping an eye out for intruders

Photo of a dog that has stuck is snout out of the gap left by a missing slat in a white wooden gate.

Keeping a nose out for intruders

Photo of a dog that has stuck is snout out of the gap left by a missing slat in a white wooden gate.

A crow at sunset

Photo of a crow sitting on the top of a utility pole. The sun is setting in the background, casting a golden-orange glow in the sky, so the crow, the pole, and the tops of the trees that are visible in the frame are all in silhouette.

Poking out of the driveway

Photo taken along the length of a residential footpath, with the front fences and walls of houses running along the right side of the frame. Jutting out from one of the driveways are the rear bumper and the boot of a black car.

Scratches on the plexiglass of a bus stop shelter

Photo of two large panes of transparent plexiglass that make up the back of a bus shelter. Through the plexiglass you can see a house. But scratched onto the plexiglass, and visible due to the sunset in the background, are several scratches made by people. None of the writing is readable, though a five-pointed star and some letters of the English language can be made out.

Not quite what a traffic cone is for but, hey, whatever works to make things more safe!

Photo looking at the part of the driveway that curves around the back of a house. Parked on that driveway is a small trailer that you can hitch behind a car. The coupler / locking ball / hitch at the front of the trailer has been covered with an orange traffic cone, making it highly visible to anyone walking or driving on this driveway.

Rainbow lorikeet taking flight from a tree

Photo looking up at a bright, multicoloured bird that is taking off from a tree. This has resulted in the bird appearing blurred compared to the rest of the tree.

Cat chilling in the front garden

Photo of a black-and-white cat sitting in a residential garden. The photo has been taken through the upper vertical bars of a white metal gate.

Cat in the front garden

Photo of a black-and-white cat sitting in a residential garden. The photo has been taken through the upper vertical bars of a white metal gate.

Keeping an eye on its territory

Photo of a large, red-and-white dog sitting on a paved driveway behind a tall chain link fence towards the back of a house. The dog is calm, but is very focused on the photographer who has stopped at the bottom of the driveway.

Making sure the dog that just walked by stays out of its territory

Photo of a large, red-and-white dog standing on a paved driveway behind a tall chain link fence towards the back of a house. The dog is standing on alert, making sure the dog that was just walked in front of its house stays out of its house.

I LOVE the new Garbage album

I switch between music discovery (when I add songs to my ‘current’ playlist) and music listening (when I listen to that playlist).

This happens super rarely, but in my most recent discovery run I ended up adding ALL the songs from the latest Garbage album ‘Let All That We Imagine Be The Light’ to my current playlist. It’s that good.

I also immediately bought and downloaded the whole album in FLAC so I can listen to it in high resolution :)

Garbage is one of my all-time favourite bands, by the way.

Album cover for “Let all that we imagine be the light” by Garbage. The cover is a depiction of a blue octopus that is underwater and is being illuminated by a light shining into the water from above. The water is tinted a deep red. The album title is written evenly spaced out across the entire square image in an elegant typeface using white, all capital letters. The band’s name is written in lighter red, just below the octopus.

Around the northern suburbs of Melbourne, part 5

Another week, another batch of photos from around the northern suburbs of Melbourne.

For whatever reason, all the photos I took this week looked best when cropped at 16x9.

Also, I should point that while editing this whole series of northern-suburb photos, I seem to have fallen in love with Fujifilm’s Classic Neg. film simulation. A lot of the (literal) street photos I’ve taken over the last few weeks, I’ve edited using this film simulation.

Classic Neg. is based on Fujifilm’s Superia photo film stock from the 1990s which, in turn, makes photos look like they were taken in the 1960s. When you use this film simulation you get contrasty photos with a muted colour palette that leans slightly red, thereby making your photos look classic or “old timey”. For photos taken around residential areas, suburban parks, and local shopping strips, this style seems to work really well.

Anyway, here are this week’s photos.

Life, uh, finds a way

Close-up photo looking down at the exposed top-most brick of wall surrounding a garden. The brick, as part of its construction, has ten evenly-spaced holes in it. Green grass stalks and tiny green leaves are growing in these holes.

Curve in the combined walking/cycling path

Photo of a combined walking and cycling with a weathered and faded walking-and-cycling path sign painted on it. The path curves to the right as it disappears out of frame.

Double reminder of the new speed limit

Photo of a road sign along a residential street. The sign tells drivers that there is a 40 kilometre per hour speed limit from 8am to 4pm between Monday and Friday. A second, smaller sign attached to the same pole, just below the speed limit sign, reads, “new limit”. An identical pair of signs has been attached to an overhead wire pole on the other side of the street.

Flood retarding basin outlet tower

Photo of an octagonal cement tower with a hole at the top. This hole is protected by a wire fence surrounding it. The tower has been build at the corner of a large, grassy field that has been dug out and is at least one storey below street level. There are houses around retarding basin.

Shared bike path sign

Photo of a weathered and faded combined walking-and-cycling path sign painted on a path running along a road.

Flock of Australian white ibis in a flood retarding basin

Photo of a large, grassy field that has been dug out and is at least one storey below street level. This is a flood retarding basin, with a stepped water inlet at one side feeding water into a small creek that runs diagonally through the middle of the field. Several large, white birds with long, thin, black beaks are hanging about in the field.

Cemetery through the trees

Photo of several marble graves seen through a gap in some trees.

The northern suburbs of Melbourne say: Free Gaza

Photo of the side of a house along a residential street. Spray-painted on this brick wall in bright red/pink paint is the slogan, “Free Gaza”.

Around the northern suburbs of Melbourne, part 4

I’ve started taking my camera with me every time I go out of the house –work, running errands, meeting friends, going for a walk, all of it.

To make things more fun, over the last few weeks I’ve only used a single lens: my (relatively new) TT Artisan AF 56mm F1.8 prime. That gives me a full-frame equivalent focal length of 85mm, which is great for picking out specific details in what I see around me.

Here are some of the photos I took this week.

The Pastry Boys are off the job (and I love their logo!)

Photo of a sky-blue coloured food trailer parked on a street. The trailer is not in use. It is not attached to a vehicle and all its windows are closed. On its side the logo for Pastry Boys: two dots for eyes and a croissant designed to look like a moustache.

Nobody said you had to keep left on the other side of the road

Photo of a small ‘keep left’ sign at the start of a divider in the middle of a street. Half of the sign – on the side that’s next to oncoming traffic – has been crumpled by a passing vehicle.

Old Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works pit cover for the local water supply control

Photo of a small, weathered, stamped-metal pit cover with a slit in the middle that allows it to be lifted with an appropriately shaped tool. The cover is square and is painted yellow, with a circular centre that is painted red. The letters MMBW have been stamped around the red section. These letters stand for Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works, the agency that is now called just Melbourne Water. The paint on the metal has been stripped over time by weather and people walking over it. The cover is set in a square hole cut out of cemented pavement. Surrounding the cover is a yellow-coloured surface treatment – essentially, thick paint – that has cracked over many years, with chips of this lying around on the pavement.

Water carrier statue in a residential garden

v

Good to know that S design is still in use today!

Photo of a tag and text written in black marker on a hexagonal utility pole. The message shows the tag followed by an arrow pointing to the phrase, “was here”. The tag is a stylised, backward, uppercase ‘S’ that was popular with rock bands in the 1980s and that kids used to draw on their Trapper Keepers and other hole-punched note paper binders.

Water tap and bird bath in a garden

Photo of a water tap at the edge of a residential garden, next to several bushes that have been planted along one side. Lying on the ground next to the tap is a ceramic bird bath full of water.

Spiderweb at sunset

Photo of a dense spiderweb constructed between the bars of a black, wrought-iron fence. The sun is setting off-camera so the spiderweb is illuminated by golden coloured light.

When the ground shifts, something has to give

Photo of a low brick wall at the front of a house, with a taller pillar that ends at the driveway. A white coloured, metal mailbox has been embedded into this two-brick-wide pillar. The ground beneath the house has shifted over time, so the pillar and some adjacent bricks have separated from the main wall, creating a crack.

Around the northern suburbs of Melbourne, part 3

Some more photos from the various suburbs near where I live.

Sharp, straight lawn edging

Photo of a narrow strip of grass outside a residential fence that’s had its edges very carefully trimmed.

Reflective give-way sign

Close-up photo of a triangular give-way sign that’s mounted on a pole along a residential street.

Forgotten after play or awaiting hard rubbish collection

Photo of three, brightly coloured, plastic children’s toys lying on a residential nature strip.

Around the northern suburbs of Melbourne, part 2

Thanks to a bout of post-viral fatigue, I didn’t take a single photo with my mirrorless camera in all of April.

It’s only now that we’re approaching the middle of May that I’ve had the energy to go (a) out anywhere and (b) take my camera with me – even if it’s just when I’m going for a walk, to the shops, or to a cafe in a nearby suburb.

So here are some more of my photos from around the northern suburbs of Melbourne.

Baby Buddha sculpture in a front garden

Photo of a ceramic sculpture placed on a tall tree stump in the front garden of a weatherboard house. The sculpture is of a bald, large-headed baby – the child Buddha – hugging the back of a small elephant. The elephant’s trunk is reaching back to touch the crown of the Buddha’s head. The tree stump has a string of lights wound around it.

Brushing dirt off his guernsey at a local AFL game

Photo of a male AFL footballer standing in front of the goal posts at a local ground. The player is standing alongside a player from the opposing team and in front of an official. The player is pulling at his shirt so that he can brush some dirt off it.

A local AFL game

Photo of a AFL game being played on a local football ground, as seen through some trees are there to provide shade to spectators.

AKAI CRT television ready for hard rubbish collection

Photo of the back of a small, black, AKAI CRT television lying in the nature strip outside a house in a residential area, awaiting hard rubbish collection.

End of life for this AKAI CRT television that’s now ready for hard rubbish collection

Photo of a small, black, AKAI CRT television lying in the nature strip outside in a residential area, awaiting hard rubbish collection.

On final approach to Melbourne Airport

Photo of the front of a house with a jet airliner in the sky far behind it. Their airplane has its wheels down in preparation for landing at Melbourne Airport.

Residential roundabout

Photo of a small roundabout in a residential area. A tree and a few low bushes are growing out of the centre of the roundabout. Cut off by the right edge of the photo frame is a car that is waiting behind the line to enter the roundabout.

A relic of an older time, when satellite TV was bigger than streaming

Photo of a rusted, half-broken satellite dish mounted to the roof of a house.

Attend all the events!

After a few, quiet, post-pandemic years during which Nadia and I didn’t attend many events, the start of 2025 has been quite busy for us!

I’ve already shared photos from the Australian Open tennis tournament we attended in January and the Avalon Airshow I attended in March. So for completeness’ sake, here a photos from the other events we went to.

These photos aren’t great, but that’s on purpose. When I attend concerts, plays, and comedy shows, I don’t make an effort to take good photos and I deliberately try to take as few photos as possible. I realised several years ago that focusing on photography and videography at events like these takes away from the overall experience of being there and makes the events less fun to attend. So now I just go there to have a good time :)

Bryan Adams

This was a huge, fun, straight-up rock concert that was gorgeously produced and a joy to attend with thousands of people who were happy to sing out loud with you.

Rocking out with the band

Photo of a four-piece rock band performing on a large stage with a massive video projection behind them.

Inflatable convertible steered by drones – because why not?

Photo of a rock band performing in a stadium. Above the general admissions crowd (the people standing in front of the stage) is a large, inflated, white convertible car with the words, “Bryan Adams” written in black market along one side. This inflatable is being steered by drones attached to each corner.

Getting closer to the folks at the back

Adams ended the concert by walking to a mini-stage set up at the very back of the stadium and performing a couple of acoustic songs from there.

Photo of musician Bryan Adams standing on a small stage that’s been assembled at the very back of a stadium. Adams is playing an acoustic guitar and is singing into a microphone on a stand. Many of the attendees are taking photos and videos as her performs.

Hania Rani

Both the opening act (Xani Kolac) and Hania Rani were fantastic. Being enveloped in layers of sound and light is a magical way to spend your evening :)

Hania Rani doing her thing

Photo of a woman on stage surrounded by an upright piano, a grand piano, and two large electronic keyboards. Several small spotlights are arranged in a curve around this set-up. A dynamic visualisation is being projected on massive strips of curtains hung at the back of the stage.

Anna Akana

I’ve been following Akana and her YouTube, stand-up, film making, and music career for a very long time, so it was great to finally see her in real life.

Stage is set for Anna Akana’s stand-up routine

Photo of a mostly empty stage with just a microphone stand with wireless mic and stool with canned drink on it. Projected on the screen at the back of the stage, in all capital letters, is the name, “Anna Akana”.

Goo Goo Dolls

I haven’t kept up with the Goo Goo Dolls over the last few years, but they were a massive part of my university years. Unlike the high-production Bryan Adams concert, this was a stripped-down, classic rock show. It wasn’t any less fun, of course, and how can you not be moved by thousands of people around you singing Iris along with the band?!

The Goo Good Dolls doing their thing

Photo of a five-piece rock band performing on stage.

Roxette

This was possibly the least impressive of the concerts we attended, though it was still fun. Roxette isn’t the same without Marie Fredriksson, but Lena Philipsson did an admirable job. And again, it’s difficult not to be feel something when you have thousands of people around you singing their hearts out with the band!

Roxette doing their thing

Photo of an eight-piece pop/rock band performing on stage.

Dua Lipa

On the opposite end of the spectrum from the stripped-back Goo Goo Dolls concert was this Dua Lipa performance spectacular. In spite of the massive production that it was, Lipa has a way of connecting with her audience that made the event feel much smaller and more intimate than it was – while still being hugely impressive to watch!

Dua Lipa, her band, and her dancers doing their thing

Photo of a singer and several dancers performing on a large, multi-level stage in a stadium. There is a catwalk in front of the stage that leads to a circular performance area in the middle of the venue. Massive screens above the stage show a close-up of the dancers and the singer.

Dua Lipa and her band performing in the middle of the crowd

Photo of a singer and her band in a circular performance area in the middle of a stadium. This performance area is connected via a catwalk to the main, multi-level stage.

Dua Lipa rising to the occasion

Photo of a singer on a circular platform that’s been elevated above a circular performance area in the middle of a stadium.

Avalon Airshow 2025, part 5: dogs

One of the most fun parts of Avalon Airshow are the dogs you get to see there. Both the air force and border security folks run demos, and the Royal Australian Air Force also has a place where you can go and pat their puppies :)

Military dogs demonstration

Cylon is ready for his military-dog demonstration

Photo of a malanois (large, mostly-brown dog) wearing a military harness and holding a stuffed dog toy in its mouth. A name patch reading Cyclon (in all capital letters) is attached to the harness. The dog is on a leash that's being held by its air force handler named Rea wearing battle fatigues. The two are standing in a large field with several carnival rides in the background.

Border security dogs demonstration

A sniffer dog and her trainer at Avalon Airshow 2025

Photo of a brown labrador retriever (a large breed of dog) looking around at the audience at an airshow. The dog is wearing a black harness and the trainer is wearing a blue border security uniform. The two are on a grassy field that's been covered by a large tent. Metal railings and netting have been placed between the field and the audience who are standing around the show area.

Military puppies

Malanois puppy with his air force handler

Photo of a malanois puppy sitting on a low bench in a fenced-off exhibition area at an airshow. The puppy is looking up the air force handler who is standing next to the bench. There are people standing and walking all around the fenced-off area so they can get a look at the puppies.

Avalon Airshow 2025, part 4: hearing protection

Aircraft are loud, so hearing protection is highly recommended at airshows – especially if you’re standing right next to the runway while watching the flying display.

Hearing protection is especially important for young children, with constant announcements about that being made in the hour leading up to the start of flying.

I thought it’d be a fun mini-project to document all the kids (and a few adults) who were out and about wearing some sort of hearing protection or the other.

Hearing protection

Young girl wearing hearing protection

Photo of a young girl in a pale blue jacket wearing large, white hearing protection earmuffs at an airshow.

Avalon Airshow 2025, part 3: people

It’s not just fun to take photos of the aircraft that are flying around, it’s also fun to photograph the people who are attending the show with you. This and the next post are all about that.

People

Taking photos at Avalon Airshow 2025

Photo of a young man in the crowd at an airshow taking photos with a professional camera with a long lens. The man is wearing and Air Force t-shirt.

Avalon Airshow 2025, part 2: flying display

I love the flying display at airshows, and this year I came prepared with a folding chair and a long lens for my camera :)

The flying display at Avalon kicks off with a “wall of fire” along the runway, which is pretty fucking impressive. That’s followed by an aerobatic display and then a military display.

However, there was a crash at this year’s aerobatic display on Friday. The pilot survived, but they cancelled the aerobatic display for Saturday, which is the day I was there.

Also, this airshow takes place at Avalon Airport, which is open for regular commercial flights the whole time. Because of that, I got photos of a scheduled Jetstar flight landing in amongst all this. (Jetstar was the airline I used to work for.)

I’ve grouped my photos into galleries for easier viewing, since there are quite a lot of them! One photo I’ve selected as the feature photo for each section.

On the ground

Wall of fire display marks the start of the flying display at Avalon Airshow 2025

Photo of a massive wall of fire along the length of a runway at an airshow. Hundreds of people are standing in the foreground, several with their phones out as they record the display.

Fighter aircraft

F-35A Lightning II close-up

Zoomed-in photo of an F-35A military fighter aircraft in the air at an airshow.

Maritime aircraft and fuel tanker

MH-60R Seahawk "Romeo" and P-8A Poseidon

It’s only at an airshow that civilians like us get to see two aircraft flying this close to each other :)

Photo fo a MH-60R Seahawk "Romeo" multi-mission maritime helicopter hovering above the runway at an airshow. Above this a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft flies low across the runway. In the foreground of the photo there are hundreds of airshow attendees watching, photographing, and filming these aircraft.

Transport aircraft

C-17A Globemaster III on the runway

Photo of the front of a C-17A Globemaster III military transport aircraft on the runway at an airshow. In the foreground of the photo there are hundreds of airshow attendees watching, photographing, and filming this aircraft.

Commercial operations

Jetstar Airbus A320 about to touch down

Photo of an Airbus A320 passenger jet in Jetstar livery about to land on the runway during an airshow.

Avalon Airshow 2025, part 1: static display

I love aviation and have always wanted to be a pilot.

My family wasn’t well-off enough for me to even remotely consider becoming a private or commercial pilot so, up until my teenage years, my plan (very seriously) was to join the air force – like my favourite uncle who retired as Air Vice Marshal from the Pakistan Air Force.

As I got older, my love of computers trumped my love of flying, so I never ended up becoming a pilot. Though I did work for an airline for several years, which was absolutely fantastic.

Airshows FTW!

Lots of industries have expos and events, but I think aviation has the coolest showcase in the form of airshows.

Growing up, my father took me to as many Pakistan Air Force Day events as he could. We’d get up-close to military aircraft, chat with air force officers, watch the flying displays, and buy lots of merch.

He’d even let me skip school that day because Air Force Day isn’t a public holiday in Pakistan and he knew how much I loved aviation. (It was his older brother that was in the Air Force, btw.)

I found out about the biennial Avalon Airshow a year after moving to Melbourne, but it wasn’t until 2013 that I could afford to attend. Since then I’ve gone every time the airshow has been held.

Screenshot from Flickr showing four albums containing photos from Avalon Airshows held in 2017, 2019, 2023, and 2025.

Naturally, I take lots of photos while I’m there. This year’s photos are split across five posts because, yes, I took that many photos :)

Static display

In earlier years I focused more on the air show’s booths and static displays of general, commercial, and military aircraft. This year I focused on the flying display and the people watching the flying display – but more on that later.

This is my favourite photo from the static display set. The rest I’ve put in the gallery below.

Touching the engine of the C-17A Globemaster III at Avalon Airshow 2025

Photo of one of the massive wing-mounted engines of a C-17A Globemaster III military transport aircraft that's parked at an airshow. An attendee is reaching up to touch the bottom of this engine.

All my static display photos

Around the northern suburbs of Melbourne

I haven’t gone on a proper photo walk for a while, so here’s a bunch of photos I’ve taken over the last several weeks.

Tiny ‘road ahead’ sign for cyclists only

Photo showing a small traffic sign with a reflective, bright-yellow background and contrasting black text. The text reads, in all capital letters, “road ahead”. This sign is mounted on top of a metal pole that’s been installed next to a bicycle path. The bicycle path runs parallel to a two-way residential road. The sign is small and placed well away from the road so that motor vehicle drivers don't confuse it for a sign they need to pay attention to.

‘Slow down’ road surface sign on a bicycle path

Photo looking straight down at large, white text painted on the khaki-grey concrete of a bicycle path. The sign reads, in all capital letters, “slow down”. The photographer’s black sneakers are visible in the bottom edge of the frame.

Good spot to feed the birds

Photo of a bird eating some bird seed on a wide, painted, brick pillar that’s part of the front fence of a house.

Checking out the rest of the Sydney Road Street Party while waiting for its owners

Photo of a small, fluffy, brown dog sitting on the road while it waits for its owners who are at a market stall. The dog is looking over its shoulder at the rest of the people wandering around this market section of the street party.

A brick is still the best way to keep your gate closed

Photo of the bottom edge of a rusted, but still functional, gate at the bottom of a residential driveway. The gate is made of widely spaced iron bars that are covered with a layer of rust, their paint having peeled off likely years ago. One side of this swinging gate is kept shut with a large bolt that goes into a hole drilled into the driveway concrete. The other side is kept shut by a broken brick that has its two halves stacked on top of each other.

Bee and wasp warning at the cemetery

Photo of a portable, outdoor sign that’s been placed in front of a large tree. This sign and tree are in a cemetery, and many rows of gravestones are visible behind the tree. The bright yellow sign has black text that reads, in all capital letters, “warning, bees and wasps active in this area”. A large icon of a bee has also been drawn on the sign.

Australian white ibis taking flight over a duck pond

Photo of a medium-sized duck pond within a large parkland area. A large, while bird – an Australian white ibis – has just taken flight and is already halfway across the width of the pond.

A space for quiet contemplation

Photo of a wooden bench that’s been installed on the banks of a medium-sized duck pond within a large parkland area.

Nadia and I both have a pair of well-worn black sneakers

Photo looking straight down at the black sneakers of two people who are standing facing each other.

Black sneakers FTW!

Photo looking straight down at the black sneakers of two people who are standing facing each other.

Leaving the Amazon Kindle ecosystem

The Amazon Kindle is an amazing product that revolutionised the world of reading when it was launched in 2007.

Sadly, it is now time for me to completely leave this ecosystem.

Happily, there are other, non-shitty ecosystems that you can get into instead.

More on all that in a minute.

Long-time Kindle user

I got my first Kindle in 2010 as a birthday present from Nadia. This was a second generation Kindle and the first model that was available outside of the US, hence its ‘Kindle 2 international’ name.

The first ebooks I bought were Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series and Larsson was the first author to sell over a million books on Kindle.

Screenshot of an Amazon Kindle library showing the purchase of ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium series Book 1)’ by Stieg Larsson on 14 September 2010.

I even got this Kindle signed by James “The Amazing” Randi when I attended The Amaz!ng Meeting in Sydney towards the end of 2010 :)

Photo of the back of an Amazon Kindle device that’s been signed in gold marker. The signature reads, “To Ameel – James Randi”.

Since 2010, various versions and iterations of Kindles have been my default book reading device.

Close-up photo of a man holding a Kindle Oasis device while sitting in a residential garden. The eReader’s screen shows the cover of the book, ‘The Left-Handed Booksellers of London’ by Garth Nix.

As a result, Nadia and I have built an extensive ebook collection.

Screenshot of an Amazon account ‘Digital Content’ screen showing 760 ebooks and 75 audiobooks.

I also have a decent audiobook collection on Audible, which is great for books like Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, in which your experience is elevated by the sound effects, or Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, in which the narration really helps you with the pronunciation of names.

Screenshot of an Audible library listing three books: ‘Project Hail Mary’ by Andy Weir; ‘Lock In (Narrated by Amber Benson)’ by John Scalzi; and ‘Ancillary Justice: The Imperial Radch Series, Books 1’ by Ann Leckie.

Amazon purchased Audible in 2008 and, for a while, they were fantastic stewards of this service. For example, they launched the Audible Frontiers imprint through which they started recording science fiction and fantasy books that deserved to be heard; and they launched the ‘Whispersync for Voice’ feature that allowed you to switch seamlessly between the Kindle ebook and Audible audiobook versions of the book you were reading.

All of this was really cool and, as a result, I have been heavily invested in the Kindle-Audible ecosystem for years.

Not all sunshine and rainbows

Your books are not yours

The biggest issue with the Kindle and Audible ecosystem has always been that you don’t actually “buy” any books, you only “licence” them.

What this means is that Amazon can delete any book from your library if it itself loses the licence to that book – like it did in 2009 with, ironically, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm. Though in that specific case it was because Amazon discovered it didn’t own the correct licence in the first place. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You also can’t resell, back-up, or archive the books you thought you had purchased, and your kids can’t inherit your ebook collection either. In fact, if you delete your Amazon account, all your books go with it.

This has not been a concern to me because there are, um, workarounds to these restrictions for both Kindle and Audible.

Animated GIF showing a man tapping his head as if to say, “that’s smart”.

Market power and DRM

Even though this ecosystem’s licencing restrictions weren’t an issue for me, Amazon’s market dominance and, later, market abuse became an issue, especially on the audiobook side. This became so egregious that, in 2014, Cory Doctorow stopped selling his audiobooks via Audible.

It took me a little longer to catch on, so with the exception of Project Hail Mary in 2021, I stopped buying audiobooks from Audible in 2017. These days, if I do buy an audiobook, I buy it directly from the author if I can – like I do with Doctorow’s books. (It helps, of course, that I rarely listen to audiobooks any more. These days I mostly listen to podcasts.)

Things aren’t as bad on the Kindle side since there have long been viable alternatives. Kobo launched its ebook store in 2009, for example, and then its first eReader in 2010. Authors, publishers, and other booksellers have been selling ebooks online for years as well.

Not all doom and gloom, either

Not everything about the Kindle ecosystem is bad, of course. They were pioneers and innovators in the e-ink reader space, their device-to-device synchronisation is great, their devices themselves are excellent…the list goes on.

Low ebook prices

Amazon also made the most of their market power by, basically, forcing publishers to keep mass-market ebook prices low. We all know that book publishers (like film studios and record companies) work very hard to extract as much value as they can from both creators and consumers. But, for a while, thanks to the likes of Apple (with iTunes) and Amazon (with Kindle), the price of music tracks and ebooks remained low.

To counter Amazon’s insistence on keeping ebook prices low (typically US$9.99 for most fiction books), Apple and the large book publishers colluded to raise overall ebook prices, for which they were rightly sued. The book publishers all settled so, in 2013, only Apple was found guilty of price fixing.

Ebook prices have gone up since then, but I’m sure they would have be a lot higher if publishers could have had their way all along.

Still the default choice

The upshot of all this is that, even though I’ve been buying ebooks and audiobooks from authors, publishers, and other online bookstores in parallel for years, Amazon remained my go-to place for buying ebooks.

Switching ecosystems

Laziness, inertia, and a few remnants of brand loyalty (more so after the book publishers’ collusion) kept me in the Kindle ecosystem, but Amazon’s enshittification continued, so last year I finally had the time and brain-space to start moving to a different ecosystem.

I prefer to read on e-ink devices (meaning no Apple Books or Google Books), which means the obvious alternative was the Kobo ecosystem and so that’s where I went.

Hello Kobo

I formally started my move to the Kobo ebook and audiobook ecosystem when I bought the Kobo Clara Colour eReader. I still had a few unread books on Kindle – which I’m still making my way through, by the way – but that was when I switched to using this Kobo as my primary reading device.

Making the switch was pretty easy since I already had a Kobo account. I’d created one when Humble Bundle offered a great Kobo-only deal on the entire Seanan McGuire urban fantasy book collection and, since she’s my favourite author, I used this opportunity to create an account and put one foot in the door of this nicer ecosystem. (And I’m not just saying ‘nicer’ because Kobo is a Canadian company.)

Beefing up my library

I haven’t transferred all my Kindle books to my Kobo eReader – I have them archived on my computer and I’ve read most of them anyway ­– but I have bought a bunch more ebooks since then. The recent Ursula K. Le Guin Humble Bundle helped with that too!

All this to say that I’ve already got myself a good starting library in the Kobo ecosystem, which is cool.

Screenshot of the Kobo library showing 93 ebooks.

Final nail in the Kindle coffin

For me the final nail in the coffin for the Kindle ecosystem came when Amazon announced that, from 26 February 2025, they would no longer allow you to download ebooks to your computer to transfer them via USB to your Kindle device.

Screenshot from an Amazon Kindle library pop-up window with the title, “Download & transfer via USB”. The text under this reads, “Transfer Tip: After downloading, use your USB cable to connect your computer and Kindle. Your Kindle will appear as a drive on your computer. Copy your downloaded file from your computer to your Kindle’s documents folder.” Below this is an information icon with this text next to it, “Starting February 26, 2025, the “Download & Transfer via USB” option will no longer be available. You can still send Kindle books to your Wi-Fi enabled devices by selecting the “Deliver or Remove from Device” option.” This is followed by a hyperlink that reads, “Learn more about managing downloads”.

This is the mechanism I use to archive my ebooks (ie I don’t download them to copy to my Kindle, I download them to back up my library). So, with this option gone, none of the books I’ll buy in the future will actually be mine to own.

Screenshot of a news article by Andew Liszewski from The Verge with the title, “Amazon’s killing a feature that let you download and backup Kindle books”. The article slug reads, “After February 26th, you can only download books from the Kindle store to your e-reader over Wi-Fi”.

That to me is unacceptable, so it was finally time to pull the plug and exit the entire Kindle ecosystem once and for all.

Screenshot of an article by Michael Kozlowsky in Good E-Reader with the title, “Amazon is not to be trusted anymore with their Kindle e-reader”.

Last few Kindle downloads

My first step was to download the 1-2 books I hadn’t yet downloaded from my Kindle library.

I have a recurring monthly reminder to do these downloads but, because I’d been spending all my time on my Kobo, I hadn’t kept this up.

Cancelling Kindle preorders

My second, and more future-focused, step was to cancel the three preorders I had with Kindle. Fortunately, this is really easy to do.

Screenshot of an Amazon account’s ‘Your Orders’ screen that shows two cancelled book preorders. The cancelled preorders are for ‘Overgrowth’ by Mira Grant and ‘Exit Strategy’ by Lee Child and Andrew Child.

Preordering on Kobo

My final step was to add those preorders to my Kobo account.

Though, as I discovered, I had mistakenly preordered the upcoming Mira Grant book on both ecosystems already! (Mira Grant is one of Seanan McGuire’s aliases, fyi.)

Screenshot of a Kobo library showing eight books, six of which are preorders. The preorders are for ‘Overgrowth’ by Mira Grant, ‘The Shattering Peace’ by John Scalzi, ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me’ by Django Wexler, ‘Automatic Noodle’ by Annalee Newitz, ‘The River Has Roots’ by Amal El-Mohtar, and ‘Exit Strategy’ by Lee Child and Andrew Child. The two books in the library are, ‘The Reappearance of Rachel Price’ by Holly Jackson and ‘Under the Whispering Door’ by TJ Klune.  

End of an era

So that’s it then.

I’ll read the last few books I have left on my Kindle, buy a second Kobo device (this one for Nadia, since we share a library), and move on with my life.

It’s sad to be leaving an ecosystem that brought me so much joy and convenience, and also brought so much good to the world of reading. But once you’ve made enshittification your business strategy, the only way for your ecosystem is down. And the sooner users jump ship to a more open, distributed ecosystem, the better.

*sigh*

Screenshot of an email from Kobo with the title, “Congrats on finishing Five Survive”. An image at the top of the email shows the Rakuten Kobo logo and has the title, “We’ve got your next read covered”. Text below this reads, “We love a good ending, but there’s nothing better than a new beginning”.

Start of a new era

Fortunately, all is not lost!

There are eight days left to download your Kindle books, so there’s plenty of time to archive your whole library.

Once you’ve done that, there are three large ebook ecosystems you can easily switch to: Kobo (Canada), Apple Books (USA), and Google Books (USA). There a bunch smaller ecosystems too, of course, like Vivlio (France), Tolino (Germany), and Nook (USA). However I think most people will jump to one of the other big ones. (Unless you’re a big Barnes & Noble customer, in which case the Nook is for you.)

Alternatively, if you don’t want to get into a new, closed ecosystem, you can buy DRM-free ebooks from lots of places online (including most bookstores) and use any number of non-affiliated eReader devices to read your books, with ONYX BOOX and reMarkable being the most popular in Australia.

So let the reading continue! And hopefully this time without any DRM or shitty business strategies to slow you down :)

PS. Good E-Reader wrote a nice, long history of Kobo back in 2018 if you’re into that kind of stuff.

21 years!

Nadia and I are laughing all the way to our 21st wedding anniversary :)

Selfie of a man and a woman laughing while trying to take a selfie. The man is bald, with a salt-and-pepper beard. He is wearing eyeglasses and a while linen button-down shirt. The woman has long hair. She is wearing glasses, large gold earrings, a gold necklace, and a dark-and-light green printed dress.

Tunnel and alley in the CBD

I took a couple of photos while I was in the Melbourne CBD. The compositions had a lot of great light-and-dark contrast, so I figured they’d work well in black-and-white as well – which they do :)

Crossing under St Kilda Road (in black-and-white)

Black-and-white photo of a very wide and very tall pedestrian underpass beneath a major road. Most of the underpass is in shadow and there is a bright square of sunlight at the end of the tunnel, where you can see a fence, some trees, and some buildings. A man and a woman are walking through this tunnel and are about to come out the other side.

Crossing under St Kilda Road (in colour)

Photo of a very wide and very tall pedestrian underpass beneath a major road. Most of the underpass is in shadow and there is a bright square of sunlight at the end of the tunnel, where you can see a brightly-painted fence, some trees, and some buildings. A man and a woman are walking through this tunnel and are about to come out the other side.

Lingham Lane in the Central Business District (in black-and-white)

Black-and-white photo of a short, empty, and very clean alley in a central business district. The section near the photographer is in shadow, but the rest of the alley is brightly sunlit.

Lingham Lane in the Central Business District (in colour)

Photo of a short, empty, and very clean alley in a central business district. The section near the photographer is in shadow, but the rest of the alley is brightly sunlit.

Australian Open 2025

Less than an hour into day one at the 2025 Australian Open tennis tournament and a big thunderstorm rolled across Melbourne.

And the intermittent heavy rain stuck around till late in the afternoon.

Screenshot of a weather app showing a severe thunderstorm warning with heavy rainfall expected for most of Melbourne city and surrounds.

Fortunately, Nadia and I got there just as the gates opened, so we managed to watch at least a little bit of tennis on the outside courts before the rain came.

Importantly, we managed to take our annual Australia Open selfie :)

Here are my photos (and selfies!) from the day.

Court-side camera operator

Photo looking down from the stands at a video camera operator sitting on the side of a blue-coloured, hard-surface tennis court. The operator is wearing a cap and a bulky pair of headphones, and there is a small, blue umbrella over his head. The camera has a waterproof cover on it.

Umpire and ball kids

Photo looking down at the net of a blue-coloured, hard-surface tennis court. Two ball kids are standing on either end of the net, and a tennis umpire is sitting on a raised chair at the far end of the net.

Tatjana Maria’s ball toss

Photo of tennis player Tatjana Maria who has just tossed a tennis ball into the air as part of her serve.

Watching the first round match

This photo was entirely accidental! I was trying to get a photo of the player framed between the out-of-focus heads of the people sitting in front of me (which I managed to do in the next photo). But when taking this photo, I’d mistakenly left my camera on its ‘zone focus’ setting and it picked the wrong subject to focus on. Oh well. Even though this photo was an accident, it was a happy one because I quite like how the photo turned out :)

Photo of the back and side of a woman and her young daughter watching a women’s singles tennis match.

Tatjana Maria’s service

Photo of tennis player Tatjana Maria at full stretch as she serves the ball on a blue-coloured, hard-surface tennis court.

Ball kid retrieving the ball

Photo looking down from the stands at a blue-coloured, hard-surface tennis court. One of the ball kids is running up to retrieve a ball from the middle of the left-side court.

Orange shoe and dropped corn snacks

Photo looking down between the spectator chairs at a tennis arena. The subject of the photo is the foot of a person wearing grey-and-white New Balance sneakers with bright orange highlights. Next to this shoe are two orange corn kernels that have been dropped on the concrete.

Airplane disappearing into the clouds above Melbourne

Photo of a small jet engine aircraft flying above some tall buildings on an overcast day. The aircraft is climbing and is about to disappear into the cloud cover.

Thunderstorm less than an hour into the first day’s play

Photo of the outside of a tennis arena with large photo banners set along its side showing past championship winners. The outside area is almost completely empty of spectators because it is raining heavily. Despite the heavy rain, ushers wearing black pants and yellow shirts are standing under red umbrellas that have been affixed next to each area entrance. A supervisor wearing a black skirt and blue polo shirt is walking between two of these umbrellas with a blue folder over her head to minimise the amount of rain she gets on her eyeglasses.

2025 edition of our annual Australian Open selfie 1/3

Selfie of a man and woman smiling at the camera while they sit on blue coloured seats at a tennis court. Both are wearing straw hats and sunglasses. The woman is wearing a white, sleeveless top and the man is wearing a printed black t-shirt.

2025 edition of our annual Australian Open selfie 2/3

Selfie of a man and woman smiling at the camera while standing outside the entrance to Margaret Court Arena, a tennis arena in Melbourne, Australia. Both are wearing straw hats and glasses. The the man is wearing a printed black t-shirt and the woman is wearing a white, sleeveless top.

2025 edition of our annual Australian Open selfie 3/3

Selfie of a man and woman smiling at the camera while standing outside the steps that lead to the entrance of Rod Laver Arena, a large tennis arena in Melbourne, Australia. Both are wearing straw hats, glasses, and black face masks. The the man is wearing a printed black t-shirt and the woman is wearing a white, sleeveless top.

[Photo walk] University of Melbourne #3

My first photo walk of the 2025 was a quick one on a bright, sunny day during summer break at the University of Melbourne.

John Medley Building East Tower

Wide angle photo looking up at the first four stories of a 1970s Brutalist-style university campus building with a light-brown brick facade. A sign above the entrance reads, “John Medley Building East Tower”. The photographer is standing under the third-storey walkway that connects to the west tower. Outside the building, on both sides of the entrance, there are several bicycle hoops, one of which has a bicycle locked to it.

John Medley Building West Tower

Wide angle photo looking up at the first four stories of a 1970s Brutalist-style university campus building with a light-brown brick facade. A sign above the entrance reads, “John Medley Building West Tower”. The photographer is standing under the third-storey walkway that connects to the east tower. Outside the building, on both sides of the entrance, there are several bicycle hoops, and there are four bicycles locked to these hoops.

Shaded seating on the Electrical Engineering Lawn

Photo of a long, wide lawn between two walkways on a university campus. There are several tall, old trees growing in a line along one side of this lawn. Some wrought iron outdoor tables and chairs have been placed the shade of some of these trees.

Quiet, solitary spot on the West Lawn

Photo of a single, yellow coloured, wrought iron outdoor chair lying in the shade of a line of trees alongside a lawn in a university campus. To the left of the photo is a wide walkway leading to a campus building.

Old Arts Building through the trees

Photo of one part of a 1920s Tudor-Gothic style building with a light-brown freestone facade, as seen through a gap in the branches of a tree.

Seating area outside the Old Arts Building

Photo of a small, brick courtyard surrounded by trees on three sides and, on the fourth side, a 1920s Tudor-Gothic style building with a light-brown freestone facade. In the courtyard are five wrought iron chairs arranged around a wrought iron table.

Bicycle hoops outside the Baillieu Library on a bright, sunny day

Photo looking through a long row of bicycle hoops installed in a brick walkway next to a garden.

Baillieu Library

Photo looking up at the windows of a five-storey, modernist, 1950s design, university building with floor-to-ceiling windows along the outside.

Photographer in an old lift

Photo of a man facing the mirror-wall of a 1970s, all-wood-panel elevator. The man is wearing olive green shorts, a black printed t-shirt, and a black cap. His t-shirt reads, in stylised bright yellow-and-orange text, “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy” and, in all-capital letters, “don’t panic”. He is wearing glasses and has a short-cropped, salt-and-pepper beard. The man is holding a camera at stomach height and is taking a photograph of himself, as reflected in the lift's mirror.