Sue let us know that she was heading to Williamstown to see Mia Dyson play at Commonwealth Reserve. I hadn’t heard about here before Saturday when Sue mentioned her, so while driving home from Geelong yesterday we loaded up some of her music on YouTube and gave it a little listen. Liking what we heard we’d decided we’d join Sue and her friends, Denise and Marie, to take in the event.
One of the good things about living in Melbourne is how throughout the summer months (in particular) there is always something on. And most often it’s free to attend. Mia’s performance was part of the “Sounds of Summer” events being put on in public spaces by the Hobsons Bay Council.
We missed the support act, but Mia went on around 3, we joined the girls on the picnic rugs and listen to the tunes. Of course I didn’t sit still for long… with camera in hand I was up and about, snapping away.
I was also checking my Twitter while I was on the way and noticed that someone I follow on Twitter was going to attend. Thankfully, she’s a fan of the selfie so when I saw her in the crowd I took the plunge and decided to introduce myself. Kim is just a nice in real life as she seemed to be on Twitter. I also ran into a member of camera club.
We head out a little later than usual this year. David wanted to stop in the city and get a new camera bag, he has grown out of his older bag.
Another Australia Day means another trip to Geelong, it has kind of become a tradition I guess. But this time our usual third, Kathryn, couldn’t come along. She’s just started a new job and had to work. So this year we dragged Sue along for the trip.
It seemed a little low-key this year. The crowds were there, the stages and performers were there, everything seemed to be the same, but it just seemed less than the last two years. Maybe it was just that the performers weren’t as dynamic as previous years.
Sue and I rode the ferris wheel, that was pretty cool, I don’t think she’d ever been on a ferris wheel that goes so high. We took some photos while we were up there and cheered every time we passed entry point, on our way to another loop.
And of course the beach volleyball was on again, it was by far the best part of the day. So we spent a bit of time there capturing the action. I do have to admit that perhaps we were obsessed with a couple of the players. They were the best on court, it was easy to get decent shots from their action.
We called it a day around 4pm, missing the Roulettes and the fireworks display… maybe one year we’ll stick around for the fireworks show and try and capture them.
I’ve processed the photos a little differently this time around, but present them here.
This past weekend I was fortunate enough to be invited to take photos at Paspaley’s Polo in the City event at Albert Park, Melbourne. I was a guest of Chique Events, shooting with my friend Kathryn.
It wasn’t the first polo match I’ve seen, but it was more compact and the event itself a little more than a regular day at the polo in Werribee. There were extravagant marquees full of glamorous people. It was a great day.
Chique’s marquee was sponsored by Vodka Cruisers and guests were treated to food by Blake’s Feast; the tiny hamburgers were the cutest things I’d ever seen. Chique were providing Jurlique treatments and make up by éllie make up.
The day’s itinerary went:
- Greeting and drinks
- Polo game: Paspaley vs Coopers
- Divot Stomping
- Ladies’ dash
- Men’s dash
- Polo game: Victoria vs NSW
- Divot Stomping
- Presentation of the awards
- After party
- Drinking throughout
After the first match I ducked over to the horsy area where a small group of spectators were learning about polo from one of the players. I was interested to hear that in Polo the horses are generally allowed to mature to around 3-4 years of age before training begins and have a long life as a polo pony. One of the horses there was twelve! Each rider will have between 4 and 6 horses on hand to play throughout the 4 chukkas of the match. At half time, after two chukkas, the spectators come out onto the field and “stomp divots”. Divots being the holes made by the horses hooves and the players who sometimes hit the ground rather than the ball.
Sadly my day came to an shortly after the second match. My Achillie’s Tendon took some damage a few weeks ago and is still trying to recover, it was giving me grief all day and walking around and around a polo field wasn’t doing it any good, so I called it a day early.
All up, I still got images I’m happy with, I present some of them below and more on my Flickr photostream. I’ve been doing a fair bit of event photography of late. I think I’m really starting to enjoy it.
