Instagram wrap-up: January 2019

Here’s what I shared on Instagram in January 2019. (ICYMI, starting this year I’ll be cross-posting everything I post to Instagram to this blog.)

Maggie

We had a super hot start to 2019. Maggie, being a very Australian dog, loves the heat.

It's going to be 42 degrees today.

[@nadianiaz, hanging up the laundry] It's *thoroughly* unpleasant outside.

[Maggie, an Australian cattle dog] It's perfect.

When the weather is nice, though, we all like to hang out in the garden.

Afternoon nap in the garden with Maggie. (Yes, yesterday it was 42 degrees here. Today it's a top of 19. That's Melbourne for you. That's also why I love this city.)

Maggie loves her rope toy.

Maggie recommends a slow and steady deconstruction of your rope toy. "Take your time and pull that thing apart thread by thread," she says.

Events

January saw the start of #SlowSummer on SBS.

All set for a #SlowSummer with the Indian Pacific on SBS :) #SlowTV #sundaynight

Nadia and I went to the Australia Open tennis tournament, where every year we take a selfie.

Annual Australian Open selfie with Nadia :)

Melbourne went through three-ish heat waves in January. The last series of hot days ended with rain showers across the city. I work on the 29th floor of a building in the Docklands that has great views.

Gap in the clouds at sunset from Docklands, Melbourne.

Selfie

I finally got around to buying a quality Panama hat. Which, of course, meant that I had to take a selfie while wearing it :)

Yay, quality Panama hat! Been wanting one for years. Literal h/t to Gentleman's Gazette for the purchase inspiration and City Hatters Melbourne and Avenel Hats for the actual hat :)

Quick Tour of Sydney

A couple of weeks ago I went to Sydney to attend a the ConnectNow Conference. That took place on Wednesday and Thursday so I took the Friday off to explore the city (as much as I could in one day).

The photos from that day are on my ‘Sydney April 2010’ Set on Flickr but here are some of my favourites.

Buildings at University of Sydney

The second day of the conference ended around sunset and the sunlight on that overcast day was quite delicious. This is the Law School building:

Buildings at University of Sydney - 8

Sydney Harbour Bridge

The Harbour Bridge is, of course, am imposing structure:

Sydney Harbour Bridge from Sydney Explorer Bus

Even when it’s in the background:

Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background at the Rocks

It was fun, also, to see people doing the bridge walk on it:

Sydney Harbour - Bridge walk as seen from the Manly Ferry

Sydney Tower

I also managed to get a good perspective shot of the Sydney Tower from within the Sydney Explorer tour bus.

Sydney Tower (Space Needle) from Sydney Explorer Bus

Sydney City

Finally, like my photo of Melbourne from Port Philip Bay, here's a photo of Sydney from its harbour:

Sydney Harbour - View of the city

All in all, I had a great day wandering around this gorgeous city. I would have liked more time to explore but that’s no fun without Nadia so we’ll check the city out properly when we go there for TAM! Australia 2010.

Oh, I also got to try out my new camera – the Canon IXUS 120 IS – which, as you can see from the photos I took, is quite awesome.

Quick reminder: You can see all the photos from this trip on my ‘Sydney April 2010’ Set on Flickr.

Melbourne Photo Blogs

I’ve recently started following Michael Blamey’s Today in Melbourne photo blog and it’s really quite good.

Christmas eve in the rain

Since then I’ve gone and looked for other Melbourne photo blogs and here are the ones I found so far:

Let me know if you find any others.

Using my Flickr Account

I’ve finally found a good use for my Flickr account: I’m going to use it to post photos that I probably won’t be adding to one of my albums on Picasa.

Waiting for a train at a lonely railway station in Melbourne 
Waiting for a train at a lonely railway station in Melbourne

A Little Background

I have a Flickr account and a Picasa account. I publish my photographs online to Picasa because my free Flickr account has an upload limit (100 MB per month) and a limit to the number of sets I can create (3). Picasa doesn’t have such limits. However the photos that I do upload to Picasa all belong to specific albums, even if that’s the broadly defined ‘Life in Melbourne’ album that I update every now and again.

What happens then to the photos that I like but either don’t belong to a specific album or are good, but not good enough to be included in any album? Well, nothing really. They just sit around on my hard drive…

Waiting at a tram stop on Lygon Street 
Waiting at a tram stop on Lygon Street

…until now.

Flickr to the Rescue

The plan, then, is to use Flickr to publish non-album, non-event, or simply good-but-not-great photos that I have taken and would like to share. I won’t be doing this with any regularity, though, so don’t hold your breath.

Path Running Through Princes Park
Path running through Princes Park in Melbourne, connecting the Princes Hill and Parkville suburbs

Doing this should be fun, though. It might even encourage me to take more random photographs.