Vintage Car Show Karachi 2024

I happened to be in Karachi for this year’s Vintage Car Show so I brought along my camera and took a few photos.

These are my two favourites. The rest I’ve included in galleries below, which means you’ll have to click each one to see its full, non-square-cropped version.

Favourites

Headlamp

Close-up photo of a headlamp of a silver coloured classic car.

Rolls Royce tyre and visitors

Photo of the front-left tyre of a classic Rolls Royce car. In the background of the photos are two preteen children looking at the various cars on display at this car show.

Cars

Hood ornaments and logos

Zooming in on details

Location and visitors

Nadia's book has been launched!

Nadia’s book, The Djinn Hunters, has officially been launched!

Photo of a poetry book lying on a wooden table. Next to this is a metal-and-glass lantern with a lit candle inside it.

The turn-out was excellent, and a lot of our friends and Nadia’s colleagues attended.

Nadia was thrilled about it :)

Photo of a woman standing in an event space. The woman has long black hair and is smiling at the camera. She is wearing wearing a blue dress; black jumper; and round, gold coloured jewellery.

Instead of the speeches and readings you’d see at a typical book launch, in this one the publisher and editor (Jessica Wilkinson) asked Nadia and Will — the two authors whose books she was launching — a bunch of insightful questions. She also got them to read some of their poems that helped illustrate their answers. It was good format and it worked really well.

Photo of two people seated on wicker chairs in an event space. The man on the left is speaking into a wireless microphone that he is holding in one hand, while in the other hand he holds a folded-over book. The woman on the right is looking at the speaker. In her lap she has a book with several sticky-notes sticking out of it.

A whole bunch of people bought Nadia’s book.

Photo of two piles of books lying on a table, with a portable payment card reader and a tumbler of lemon, lime, and bitters lying next to the books.

And there was a long line of people who wanted her to sign their copy :)

Photo of a woman sitting in a wicker chair and leaning over to sign her name in a book that she is holding open on top of a table next to the chair. A small lamp shines a pool of light over the table top.

All told it was a fantastic evening, and then a bunch of us made our way to the pub down the street to have dinner :)

FIFA Women's World Cup 2023: Players

Following on from my previous post, the other half of the fun of watching a live sporting event is (obviously) watching the match itself :)

Players arrive at the USA v Sweden match

Photo of a brightly coloured bus arriving at a large football stadium, with FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 banners flying around the area.

Sweden come close to scoring a goal

Photo of two teams of women playing a football match in a stadium. The play is very close to one of the goals.

USA come close to scoring a goal

Photo of two teams of women playing a football match in a stadium. The play is very close to one of the goals.

Megan Rapinoe takes a corner kick

Photo of a footballer in a while coloured uniform taking a corner kick on a football pitch in a stadium.

Sweden v USA penalties

Photo of two sets of football teams lined up along the centre line during a penalty shoot-out at a football match in a large stadium. An assistant referee stands between the two sets of players.

Goalie versus goalie at the penalty shoot-out

A goalie in green (playing for the USA) takes a penalty kick against her counterpart goalie in red (from Sweden).

Colombia v Jamaica about to kick off

Wide angle photo of a football stadium in which two teams are about to kick-off. A large video screen mounted on the side of the stadium is counting down the time, and there are five seconds to go before the start of the match. A spectator in the foreground of the photo is holding up a sign that reads “Go Jamaica”.

All quiet in the Colombia half

Photo of a football pitch in a stadium. The half the photographer is on is almost completely empty, and even the goalkeeper has moved up halfway along her side of the field.

Usme letting her goal-scoring moment sink in

Photo of Colombian forward Catalina Usme kneeling on the ground, her arms outstretched, in the corner of a football pitch.

Arias encourages the Colombian supporters to cheer

Photo of Colombian forward Carolina Arias waving her hands upwards by her side, in an effort to encourage the Colombian fans in the crowd to cheer as she steps up to take a corner kick on a football pitch.

FIFA Women's World Cup 2023: Spectators

Half the fun of attending any live sporting event is getting to attend it with thousands of people.

Taking a photo of the big screen

Close-up photo of a Swedish supporter in the stands at a stadium. The supporter is taking a phone of the stadium's big screen with her smartphone.

Half-time is a good time to take a selfie

Photo of two Colombia supporters in the stands at a football stadium. They are taking a selfie with a smartphone. The supporters are dressed in Colombian colours, and the woman has a Colombian flag draped around her. They have their backs to the pitch, and are both holding glasses of beer in their hands.

Half-time photo opportunity

Photo of a group of people taking a photo of people dressed up in costumes at a football match.

Jody Brown supporter

Photo of a man sitting in the stands at a football match. The man is holding up a large, hand-made sign that reads “Jody Brown U R Gold” and has the number ten written on it.

AMWP at Emerging Writers' Festival 2023

Nadia’s publication, the Australian Multilingual Writers Project, was invited to present a session at the 2023 Emerging Writers’ Festival in Melbourne.

I went along and took a few photos :)

Nadia getting ready to host the event

Photo of a woman standing on a stage and leaning out from behind a tall, blue pull-up banner that reads “Australian Multilingual Writing Project”. Next to this is another tall banner, this one green, that reads “Emerging Writers’ Festival”.

Podium microphone at the Immigration Museum

Close-up photo of a black microphone mounted on a podium. In the background, and out of focus, is a large, empty exhibition space bathed in pink light. The room is built in the Italianate revival style of Victorian-era architecture, with tall Ionic columns and a very high ceiling.

Sneakers on the floor of the Long Room at the Immigration Museum

Photo looking down at a pair of white sneakers that are bathed in pink light. The floor is a pattern of black, white, and red terra cotta tiles.

Colourful shoes in a colourful room

Photo looking down towards a terra cotta tiled floor. From the left of the frame you can see the legs and feet of a person seated off camera. This person is wearing a yellow skirt with bright patterns on it, light blue socks with flower patterns on them, and slightly darker coloured light blue shoes with a different flower pattern on them. Another person is standing on the tiled floor with pink coloured trainers with blue lines on them. This person is also wearing white coloured ankle warmers and light brown coloured pinstriped shorts.

The stage is set

Photo looking through a doorway at a large event space that is bathed in pink light. There are people seated on plastic chairs that have been set out in rows in front of a stage. On the stage are two pull-up banners. The smaller blue coloured banner reads “Australian Multilingual Writing Project” while the larger green banner reads “Emerging Writers’ Festival” and “14-24 June 23”.

Nadia at the podium, preparing and then performing

Madhvi Singh Thakur, Gabriela Georges, Asiel Adan Sanchez performing

Candid photos of the performers

South Asian Round Table at AMWF 2022

I attended the South Asian Round Table at the Australian Muslim Writers Festival 2022 which featured Nadia Niaz, Adalya Nash Hussein, Tasnim Hossain, and Tasneem Chopra (as the moderator).

The Coburg Library, where this event was held, is the very first library from which Nadia I got library cards when we moved to Australia in 2006 :)

Photo of a library event space with three green armchairs and a couple of coffee tables arranged in front of a wall. On the wall behind the armchairs is a TV screen with ‘The South Asian Round Table’ displayed in large letters on it.

The discussion was great!

The upshot was that we’re all excited about more (probably second and third generation) South Asians getting into the arts – both in front and behind the scenes. And though there’s been some representation in recent years, there’s still a long way to go and a lot more to do.

Photo of four women of colour sitting on armchairs, taking part in a panel discussion

Here Adalya is talking as a journal editor about making space at the table for South Asian writers.

Photo of two women of colour on a panel discussion. One of the women is gesturing with her hands as she makes her point.

Here is Nadia talking about how she built her own platform to showcase multilingual writers in Australia because nobody else was doing it.

Photo of two women of colour on a panel discussion. One of the women is gesturing with her hands as she makes her point.

And here’s Tasnim talking about creating safe spaces for minoritised groups in her role as theatre director.

Photo of two women of colour on a panel discussion. One of the women is gesturing with her hands as she makes her point. The other woman, who is the moderator, is listening attentively to what’s being said.

Finally, a big shout-out to Özge Sevindik Alkan from The Right Pen Collective for running the whole festival. (This particular panel discussion was organised in conjunction with the SAARI Collective, fyi.)

Özge is the festival director. And, as you know, a festival director’s job is never done!

Photo of a woman wearing a bright blue hijab. The woman is sitting on a chair with a laptop on her lap, while at the same time typing on a smartphone that she’s holding above the laptop.

It would’ve been nice to attend more events from this festival this year, but hopefully I’ll get to do that next year.

Photo editing show-and-tell #2

A couple of weeks ago on this blog I did a photo editing show-and-tell. As I went to publish that post it occurred to me that I might do more of these in the future. So, just in case, I titled that #1. Good thing I did because I’m now back with #2 :)

Choosing the most appropriate shot type

There are lots of different shot types, but when I’m teaching folks at work about how to take good photos, I usually stick with three: wide, medium, and narrow shots. Then, depending on the story they’re trying to tell, I get them to pick the type of shot that works best.

Here’s an example of me doing that from the photos I took at Midsumma Melbourne Pride March in 2020. I wanted to tell the story of what it felt like to be at Pride. I wanted a single ‘hero’ shot that summed up the whole event.

I initially thought a wide shot would do that best. It didn’t. The story this photo tells, for example, is “here is an outdoor event at which there were lots of rainbow flags”. And, while its cool that you can see the scale of this event, your eyes aren’t drawn to anything — there’s nothing here to focus on.

So then I thought I looked for a good medium shot. Something that showed more detail. That didn’t work either. The story this shot tells is “there were people at a pride event, many of whom were dressed up”. And there’s still nothing to focus on.

So finally I settled on this narrow shot. The story it tells is “here are a couple of queer students connecting at a Pride event”. That’s exactly what I wanted to talk about: people connecting, dressing up, showing up, making a statement about their presence in the world, and celebrating.

Shot angle, composition, and crop

At the same Pride event I took lots of photos of dogs. I quickly realised that none of the photos I took from human eye level were any good — the angle was all wrong.

So then I switched to dog level (or close to it) and that worked much better. But that alone wasn’t enough. I need to ensure my shot composition was right too.

So my final step was to crop that photo. This now properly showcased that adorable pooch.

Documenting versus storytelling

The main thing I teach people at work about photography is the difference between photos that document something and photos that tell a story. Both types have their place — but you have to know which is which, and which one to use when.

For example, here’s a photo of Augustus Gelatery in Yarraville that I took. The story it tells: “this place sells ice cream”. That’s the photo I uploaded to Google Maps to document what this shop looks like.

But that’s not the photo I shared on social media. That photo would need to tell a story. And the story this photo tells is: “ICE CREAM!” — which is what I wanted people to get excited about.

So there you have it: more of what I do to take decent photos.

I’m enjoying going back through my photos to document what I’ve learned and now apply, so hopefully I’ll have more of these posts to do in the future.

Run for the Kids 2019

Run for the Kids is an annual community fun run in Melbourne that raises funds for the the Royal Children’s Hospital’s Good Friday Appeal.

What’s particularly cool about this event is that you get to run over the Bolte Bridge, one of Melbourne’s two iconic road bridges (the other being the West Gate Bridge). In fact, if you look closely at this photo of the Bolte, you can actually see people running across the top!

Bolte Bridge as seen from Docklands, Melbourne during Run for the Kids 2019

Transurban has been a principal sponsor of this event since 2006. And, every year, hundreds of my colleagues either volunteer their time as organisers and/or participate in the run with their families.

Given I’m a digital and social media person, my contribution for the 2019 run was to post content to Transurban’s social media channels and to moderate the tweets and Instagram posts that were going to be displayed on large digital screens around the event space. Both kept me busy and both were lots of fun.

It was particularly nice to see people post a photo using the event hashtag and then take a selfie of themselves in front of the big screen when their original post came up in the display rotation :)

Of course this meant that I got to spend most of the event in a marquee bent over my laptop.

Selfie in a marquee at Run for the Kids 2019

Not that I minded, of course. I wanted to contribute in any way that I could. Besides, I’m not a runner so it’s not like I was going to participate anyway!

All in all, I had a really fun day and the event was hugely successful too — which, of course, is the important thing.

Awesome day at the Avalon Airshow 2019

I love aviation, so it’s awesome that we live in Melbourne, which is close to Avalon Airport where the Australian International Airshow (usually just called Avalon Airshow) is held every couple of years.

Last time I got to take an inside tour of one my favourite military transport aircraft, the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, so this year I just enjoyed it from the outside. Of course you have to walk quite a way away before you can take a selfie that shows more than just one section of the Globemaster!

Other cool military transport aircraft I got to check out included the Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules (from Republic of Singapore Air Force), Kawasaki C-2 (from Japan Air Self-Defense Force), and Boeing CH-47 Chinook (from Royal Australian Air Force).

Speaking of air forces, there was also an air force dog there!

Coming back to aircraft, some of the other highlights for me were this Beechcraft Super King Air (from Ambulance Victoria), Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin (from Victoria Police), and Douglas DC-3 (from Melbourne’s Gooney Bird).

My favourites from the commercial aviation side were this Boeing 747-400 (from Qantas) and the Cirrus Vision SF50 (Vision Jet). The Cirrus display was also where I got to meet Stefan Drury, who I’ve been following on YouTube for a couple of years and am a big fan of. Turns out real-life Stef is just like YouTube-star Stef :)

It was a super hot day so I didn’t have the time or energy to check out much else, like the indoor exhibition booths, seminars, military dog performances, and drone racing – all of which I wanted to go to. But I did get to check out this model aircraft display from Victorian Model Aeronautical Association.

I also didn’t get to watch many of the flying displays properly – though I did get to follow the aircraft around with my binoculars, so that was cool.

I had specifically wanted to watch the Globemaster in action, and even timed my day to be in the public viewing area when it was due to fly. Unfortunately, due to air traffic issues, its slot was rescheduled. So I had to make do with seeing it zip back down the runway to await a future slot. Oh well.

Here are some snippets from what I did get to see.

Finally, just before I left, I checked out the one bit of equipment you don’t ever want to use, but you’re very happy to see in the hugely capable hands of Airservices Australia.

All in all, I had a really fun time. And, given it was going to be a 40-degree day at Avalon, my plan of getting to the airshow just after gates opened and 8am and leaving around lunchtime worked out exceptionally well. So much so that I’m already looking forward to the 2021 show!