I have received emails from Melbourne IT reminding me to renew my domain names, starting 3 months out from the 17 May expiry date. I tried to renew them on line today, only to discover that the charge for each domain was $146, $6 more than I paid for both last time. I resorted to phoning and the upshot was that I renewed the domain names for $140 until 17 May 2016.
Today I sent out a newsletter announcing a new album called AERIAL 2001, the first since the launch of my revised website. I am an aerial photo freak. I just love the vantage point. The initial images are photos by Hugh Alexander. I intend to add Hugh’s video frames in due course. I advise using the Album in conjunction with the maps on the Tamborine Mountain Page.
Today I posted the RADF Outcome Report to Mark Paddick of the Scenic Rim Regional Council, my local authority. Apart from detailing what was achieved, the report includes a financial accounting of the grant monies. The deadline for completing the report is January 30. PS. On 21 January I was told that the camera parts will only be leaving Singapore on 29 January. To make a bad situation worse, I received an email today about the appearance of Scarlet Honeyeaters on a mountain property. I filmed Scarlets, rather badly, soon after I bought my camera in 2007 and have not encountered them since.
A neighbour of mine has a highly strung Welsh Collie called Bear who likes to rush up to the front fence, bark at passing cars or people and run along the fence in a vain attempt to round them up. His barking scatters the flock of Rainbow Lorrikeets squabbling at the bird feeders who regroup in a couple of trees in the park across the road. I love dogs, but don’t like being barked at when walking. Some time ago I discovered a way to stop Bear’s barking after putting up with it for years. I simply mouthed kisses at him as I approached and continued to do so until I had cleared the garden fence. Bear looked at me nonplussed, but silently. It seems I may have given shepherds a new signal to use. Thanks to the rush of activity on the RADF videos and the website upgrade, I have not done that much filming lately. Now that I have time on my hands and good summer weather, I am still minus my camera.
In July 2009 I was without my camera for a month because the tape mechanism seized. On 15 December, fortunately after I completed TAPE 77, the mechanism seized again. I had received a phone call from Ted Karamisheff about the arrival of a large flock of Top-knot Pigeons. I went to check them out but was unable to film them and they may well not be around when I get my camera back. Prior to both glitches the switch which operates the tape mechanism did not work properly. The lid would open, but the tape would not rise, so I would slam the lid shut and press the switch again. There was also a separate fault. The camera’s memory battery did not charge properly, resulting in me repeatedly having to reset the clock and other data displays. Today, I dropped the camera off at a Sony accrerdited repairer’s in a southern Brisbane suburb. Being without my camera in December and January is particularly annoying as Summer is the busiest time of year in the natural world. At least in July, our Winter, there isn’t much happening.
Today Steve and I uploaded the last 5 videos bringing the total to 111. The project flagged 100+ videos. The average running time is 2 minutes. There are now 198 videos on my page.
Exactly 15 years ago to the day, filming started on this biodiversity video project. Wildlife camera man and filmmaker Glen Threlfo had helped select my camera, a Canon XL1, which served me until 2007. The project began as a documentary, the seeds of which were sown as ’Island in the Sky’, a Friends of Tamborine Mountain initiative to capture the interaction between the mountain’s residents and its flora and fauna. The camera man was the son of a friend of mine who was keen on videoing. The first entries in the Film Diary, dated 19 January 1998, were of sunrise over the ocean and illuminating the ranges to the west. My son Simon, then 17, filmed some early night sequences. I became increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of making a documentary because I felt totally out of my depth. I needed to devise a project over which I had as much control as possible. The concept of creating a video archive devoted to the mountain’s biodiversity came to me. It proved to be the ideal solution.
This evening Steve and I finalised the sound and completed corrections to the remaining RADF funded videos. On 7 December Steve and I uploaded the first 25 HD videos before reaching our capacity limit on vimeo. Hopefully Steve will be able to upload the remaining 22 videos ahead of the 15 December completion date for the project. Most of the HD videos are of fauna.
Steve and I completed uploading 9 new videos, the last of 64 SD clips funded by the Regional Art Development Fund grant. Most of the recent subjects have been flora and fungi.
