Foreign's back. I'm back. We're both back.

We're back. We're back for May 2025 and thank you for joining us.

Yeah, here we go.

Before we kick off, Jason, is there anything I wanted to ask you actually in the recording, not just before the recording. Yeah. Is there anything photography wise that you've been enjoying at the moment in your life? Because we don't always talk about that. Just a quick chat maybe before we talk. Talk about other images.

Yeah, I think. Are you talking like what I'm doing personally or just like in general photography?

Whatever. Yeah. What you've been enjoying shooting. Maybe something that's happened because we've spoken on hemispheric views with Andrew about all of your aspect photos. Migration stuff. What about actually taking shots?

The GR IIIx is proving to be just kind of the perfect camera. It's so small, fits literally. It's actually pocketable. It's not like when they say a mirrorless camera is pocketable and your pocket needs to be like a backpack. This is actually pocketable. And I have just been having a great time taking it with me everywhere. Even if I don't use it, just knowing that I have it and ready to go is. Has been phenomenal. So I really big proponent, I think. I don't. Don't quote me on this. I don't follow the news too closely, but I think a GR4 just got announced or there's rumors or something. But even if I had to go out today and if the GR3X was in front of me, I'd say absolutely buy it. It's just been a phenomen pocketable camera.

Beautiful. That's Great. And the GR4. I know people are clamoring for something like that because there have been lots of different GRs, haven't there?

Yeah, the GR. There was the GR3, then the GR3X, now the GR4. I don't. The GR3 line, it's. It's older, but it is rock solid.

Fantastic.

What about you?

Well, on my end, I haven't been out much for just wandering about kind of photography. You know, like leisurely hobby stuff. Of course, there's always family photography because you have to be annoying with that when you're a dorky dad who carries a dedicated camera.

It's your duty.

It's my duty. Yeah, exactly.

It's.

It's my calling. It's in my blood. It's the prophecy. Right. Thank you for enabling that, Jason. But yeah, I've actually been pretty happy beyond family photography as my duty, as you said, to do more and more stuff at work, because I, I do photography at work. But I've had some cool opportunities recently to meet some lovely people at the company where I work, do some more portraiture. That helps with certain, you know, communications aspects of the company. And it's really nice to meet people and get the story behind what they do and accompany it with a photo. So interesting way of meeting people and maybe capturing them in a way that they're proud to keep for themselves or show friends and family. So that's been pretty fulfilling. But I don't want to carry on about that too much. I just thought it'd be nice to have an update because we've got photos to share, right? Other people's photos.

We do. I will just say, on the topic of portraits, it is simultaneously the most terrifying and potentially the most rewarding kind of photography as well, because you are, you are beholden to represent to someone how they see themselves, which is impossible. But then when you nail it and they. They light up of like, oh, my gosh. That's exactly what I thought it would look like. It's super rewarding. So, yeah, kudos to you for doing that because that could be really, really hard.

Thank you. I actually really enjoy taking people's portraits. You've got the lens choices because that can be pretty crucial, right? Yeah, that can represent how someone sees themselves, depending on dimensions and compression and stuff. But, yeah, it's just fun to have a bit of a dorky conversation, as I generally do, and they open up because they go, wow, I thought this guy might be scary, but he's actually a bit of a goober.

Perfect. That's all the better. Whatever gets people happy and comfortable.

Thank you. Thank you. Now it's your turn first, and if you've just joined us for the first time on this show, we're talking about other people's photos and we link them in the show notes. So if you want to open it up and see as we're talking about it or look later, we're just going to discuss photos that we love, that we found online. So your turn first, Jason.

All right, I will kick it off here with my first photo for May. This is from Stefan Henning. It is titled in no Apparent Distress. And this one is. This one's on Glass. Surprising no one. And it's a harsh silhouette. It is looking to the nature of the show. I think a three by two aspect ratio. Don't hold me to that, but it sure looks like it. Of A crazy orange to yellow gradient background. Obviously windows of some kind behind because you have that kind of cross hatching window structure that is just stark black. And then a figure running across about midway right now, but moving very quickly. It seems long exposure, also pure silhouette, but almost kind of. It gives me the sense of like digital noise almost to where it's like compression breaking up because like the legs are kind of. It looks like there's chunks missing out of it that are very blocky, which is not natural at all. But. But that's at the bottom. And then going up to the. As it gets further up towards the head, it becomes more smoothed out and human. So it's got this weird like robot thing going on at the bottom going up to this very human soft, almost serene face where you can see all the facial structures there. And it's just, it's.

It's odd.

It's an odd structure. The orange makes it feel interesting. And anything orange everybody knows. I love. But yeah, I just love this kind of way.

Really? You like orange?

I know it's very surprising that I would be drawn to a photo that is almost entirely orange, but that harsh orange to black, I just love it. And that again, just that like oddness of this smooth top down to this kind of jagged bottom is just. It's super interesting to me.

Yeah, it's like a weird digital painting.

Yeah.

It's like Stefan just went and made up some otherworldly. I don't know, but I enjoy the caption as much as the. The photo itself.

Yeah.

No apparent distress. Like this person, I don't know if they're being chased or they're making it to some really important appointment. It's just the motion is beautiful, the lines are interesting and yeah, I agree. It's a nice observation of someone else's potentially horrible situation.

I'm very curious where the background, like, what is going on in the background? Does it just happen to be sunset and it's just blowing through? I don't know.

It's a million question Stink was final call for airport boarding. Yes, at the terminal. I thought this terminal has just crapped themselves.

Yep. They said, you know, you need to be at gate C2 and they're over in like the F gate still just trying to get there.

Yeah, it's like, where is this guy? Oh, damn, I'm in domestic. I should be in international. It's just like.

Exactly. That's what it feels like.

Great photo. Thank you for sharing, Jason. And of course Stefan.

Yes.

I'll go next. This is my first photo. This one's from Flickr, and I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing this person's name correctly. I apologize. I think it's Marisa or Marisa Doss with the username. This photo stuck out to me and I kind of wandered into a bit of a street ish theme in this episode. Although we don't have an official theme for the episode. Always do that. And for those who aren't looking at the moment, it's an older woman look. You're looking at her from behind as she's wandering up this beautiful, very traditional. I assume it's an Italian street. Have I got that right? But you can see these. It's this narrow laneway with these old buildings, these old units or flats. And there appears to be some sort of snowy mountain or forest covered mountain in the distance behind the buildings. Anyway. And then there's this cute little pigeon just toddling across the street. And it appealed to me because I don't know if you've. You've been throughout Europe much, Jason. Chance to visit places like this. Yeah, it reminded me of places that I visited, but also specifically with this. This older woman from behind, she's wearing this headdress or veil or just like wrapped a scarf around her head. It reminded me of my ancestors. My. Even my late baba. My baba and dado came from what is now North Macedonia, then Yugoslavia. And just seeing lovely, older, traditional people like this wandering around in their environment and it just. It's such a stark contrast from the very global feel that we have in a lot of Western nations these days. This. This traditional, smaller, probably very parochial place. And I thought it was a respectful capture of this. This woman in the shot because it captures something of her character and her moving through what has probably been her home her whole life, I can assume from this story. But not capturing her face. You know, we've spoken about this before, not necessarily revealing the faces of strangers who may not want to be photographed. So I thought this was a tasteful window into this person's home and life.

Yeah, I appreciate the simplicity here, where normally when you see. I think when you think of street photography a lot you think of like busy or, you know, Western stuff, you know, flashing lights and signs and advertisements and just a lot of crap all over the place. And to see this just very, very scaled back to the basics walkway. Again, the pigeon is wonderful. The pigeon makes an appearance here, but just the simplicity of it and I think the fact that the person is facing away from you and you don't see their face just adds a little bit of this mystique almost to this place of. You just kind of wonder, like, what could life be like in a place like this where there's not 500 people shoving each other to get out of the way, to get down this narrow pathway. It's like maybe she's the only person that walks down that aisle way all day. And that's totally fine. And it's just such a stark contrast to I think, what so many people are used to day to day that it makes me personally want to go here and maybe escape some of the just hustle bustle that's going on. It feels. It feels very quaint and nice and simple.

Yeah.

And I don't mean like simple in a bad way. It just. Things don't have to be as complex as they are. We've done that to ourselves. Except where we haven't in maybe cases like this.

Yeah. And the road appears to be covered in ice, so she's probably freezing. And that pigeon trooper, are its feet. Okay. I'm a bit worried. And I can't help but wonder, given that this woman's walking up this street and the pigeon might have been walking across the street, are we gonna have a kind of George Costanza Seinfeldesque situation where the pigeon has to respect the rules of the human. Get out of the way. Are we gonna see feathers fly everywhere? Like, do they have a deal with the pigeons is what I wanna know.

So many questions to be answered in this image.

Anyway before I get more ridiculous. Maybe you're number two.

Let's see here. Number two is from Sean Bruce, actually.

I jumped the gun there. It did get more ridiculous.

Oh yes, it did with this photo. Untitled. There's no title here. This is from Sean.

It's.

I'll give you the tags. Black and white, film and street. This is in a subway of some kind. And there is a woman walking. It's black and white, carrying a trunk. So like a footlocker style trunk. Pretty large on her back. Like a backpack really. But instead of backpack straps, they are mannequin legs, obviously. Who doesn't have a footlocker with mannequin legs for holding it on your shoulders? And then there's some other bits kind of coming off of this thing. I assume it's some kind of showpiece or street performance. Maybe you could go a million different ways here. But there's. There's this sense of movement. There's a slight blur to the whole thing. And you know, it is, you know, it's tagged street. This is clearly this camera on the corner. And you just happened to be there with a camera and got it, which is incredible. But the kind of thing where when you see it, you wish you had a photo of it. And in this case, Sean nailed it and got the photo of this person maybe coming from something or maybe they're going to it. We don't know. I like to feel like they are. They're kind of tired. So maybe this is post show night, I don't know. But it is one of those just one in a million shots of things you would never expect to be coming from around the corner. And here we are.

Look. I don't think there's anything else that I could say that would do this photo justice because it's very amusing. But what I will say is, you remember a couple of episodes ago, there was a really good photo. I've just forgotten who shared it off the top of my head. But there was that photo of that night mannequin scene in the shop front. And I went a little bit too deeply into my discomfort with mannequins. I think this makes me happy with mannequins. I think it's so amusing and so ridiculous that you know what, you want to walk through the subway, you know, on the railway platform with mannequin legs over your shoulders, you go for it. I'm. I'm cool with mannequins now because it's funny.

It's so good. It's. I. Yeah, that's all I can say. It's. You just have to look at it and think, that's incredible.

Well done, Sean. It's hilarious. Next up is my second photo. This is my one that I've chosen from Glass this time round and it's by John and the caption is. I scream, you scream. We all have to wait for an hour to get into 1900 ice cream. And then in parentheses, been a fan since they were running out of a pop up shop in 2020. John took this with his iPhone. And it seems like a pretty typical street shot. You know, it's taken from, I would say diagonally across the road and it's of this ice cream shop at nighttime and there's a ramp coming out from the door. And it's the most, probably one of the most ridiculous lines I have ever seen. A huge queue for an ice cream shop. It's kind of like Apple store level in the lead up to a launch before everything kind of went online. And that changed it's like nightclub.

Yeah.

I don't know. But it just really, it was something about this shot. Even though it's, you know, an everyday situation, we've all seen ice cream shops like this. Two things kind of stuck in my mind about it. They leapt out at me. And first of all, you normally see queues like this for things like product launches or nightclubs. But there's something about ice cream, right? Yeah, some restaurants are very popular or you know, hard to get into or whatever. But all of the people here appear to be adults. Can you see many kids on the.

Line at the 00 kids?

And you know, people talk about, oh, release your inner child or you know, there's that inner child in all of us. Clearly that's true because they could be out doing very grown up things. But no, it's nighttime and they have lined up for ice cream. So I kind of wonder in our, you know, current global geopolitical turmoil, maybe the great equalizer, the thing that brings joy in all of us together is ice cream.

It very well may be, how can.

Ice cream be used to bring joy to the world? Because clearly it doesn't matter how old you are, you're going to queue up for this stuff.

And to be fair, worldwide, we are all screaming. So I think it fits.

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. So I just thought, you know, what a relatable situation. But it even reminded me, you know, we've got some decent ice cream and gelato shops, you know, in my home city of Wollongong and there's one that opened a few years ago called Cow and the Moon, which we love. We go there, you know, semi regularly. And they opened first in Enmore, which is in Sydney. It's a, it's a suburb within Sydney and they were originally from Wollongong and then, you know, years after having opened this award winning gelato shop, they opened in Wollongong and everyone was like, oh, fantastic. Like they're coming home and opening here. It's been beautiful, right, to have it there. And we really love their stuff. But lines certainly do form and then you realize how much people just flock to this popular spot when just around the corner there's a new gelato shop which is much smaller, has a much more limited range and I'd say it's, you know, as someone who just pops in, you know, is on par in terms of quality. But it's run by an actual Italian guy who came from overseas and we've got his whole story and you know, we're standing there, he's like, oh, the family's coming out and they're going to visit Wollongong. And then, you know, after that, we went back again. They went, oh, they loved it. They want to move here. And they, you know, at that little shop, he does not have the same lines as they do just around the corner at the other place. Anyway, that's not to smash cow in the moon, because I love them. But this other little gelato shop attached to a place called Miller's Bakehouse. It's just, if you do see a line like this, sure, go back. But if you can't get in, maybe just check around the corner, because there could be an equally good place that's getting none of the foot traffic.

But li. I mean, humans love things that are popular, right? Like, you see a line and you immediately think, well, I got to get in on that. Like, whatever it is, they're all there. I should be there.

So all these people could be British. Actually, we don't know. We'll have to ask Tom.

I totally get this. Got places here. Like, there's a donut shop that comes to mind that every single weekend, there is just a line out the door down the street. Because there's a line there just is so funny.

It's like, what are we lining up for? We don't even know. But we don't even know.

We hope there's something good when we get to the front. I have no idea. But it's. You know, I like to see this because it's kind of. It's social. So even if you're kind of like, let's go get ice cream. You could just go get ice cream and be done with it. But it feels like it's more almost about the experience of getting it and the hanging out and the chatting and the talking. We haven't. We haven't talked in a couple of weeks because we're so busy, and now we're kind of, like, waiting in line to do this thing, and we can kind of, you know, BS while we're waiting. And it brings that more to my mind because I'm looking. Like, if you look on the left side of the photo, there's those three folks in the bottom corner there that clearly already have what they came for, but they're still hanging around and still chatting and, like, talking about, I don't know, whatever, maybe how good the ice cream is, maybe about what they did last weekend or whatever. But it's. It's a nice central location that's bringing a lot of groups of people together to just chat, which feels really nice. And if it takes ice cream to do that, if it takes a restaurant to do that, if it takes donuts to do that, like more power to it. But that, that is really nice. But also I am quite line averse myself. So when I see a line like this, I think, nope, let's move on.

Yeah, no, I agree. You gotta go back another time or hence, like I said, maybe just check around the corner or just a block away and there might be another place. And look, like you said, in terms of socialization, I don't really see many people here on their phones.

No.

Which is great.

Yeah.

So yeah, I think it comes back to the point. Ice cream, go get an ice cream. Chat to your friends and family. Everyone can be friends.

I know this is on an iPhone too. Just to wrap this up quickly, but it feels like film to me. Does it? I don't know if maybe there was a filter situation or something, but it just. It doesn't feel like a digital straight out of iPhone photo. But maybe that's just because it's night and it's trying to do night stuff. But it kind of gives this old, like it looks a little bit old filmy to me, which is, I mean, not bad. I think it's super cool that it looks like that, but it feels like maybe old 80s ice cream shop almost just from the film kind of feel.

Yeah, you make a good point. But anyway, after this I will be looking for ice cream as everyone else.

That just heard this.

Go get an ice cream. All right, so your last one.

All right. Number three is not from glass. Holy smokes. This may be my first one not from Glass since we started this show like a year ago.

Congratulations. Yeah, if that's what you need to hear. I don't know.

This is from Davey. It's called coffee. Well, arrow pointing to the left, coffee. Which makes sense because when you look at this, it is an older style building. It has a sign in the middle that has an arrow pointing to coffee, which I don't think the coffee is there anymore. I assume this building is not currently being used. It's hard to say. It doesn't really look like the entrance is super approachable, but at the same time. So let me back it up. The building is kind of. It is stuck right between another building and what looks like a bridge. So there's no gap on either side. No alleyways whatsoever. It is three stories or two and a half stories. It's questionable. There. It looks like it's an older style, maybe kind of warehouse kind of building that has been converted into two houses. You can kind of see in some of the windows. It looks like there's maybe somebody up there. If you look in the middle, the old style big doors that would swide, that would swing open. I would assume to place things into this kind of warehousey building. Have very, very ultra modern, like glass partitions now. So it feels like that old style building converted into, you know, swanky houses or something. But I just, I love the building. It look the, the. I don't know what it was taken with, if it was on, you know, a digital camera or a phone or whatever, but it give kind of like the last photo. It has this little sense of this kind of older, filmy look to it, where it's kind of that yellowy filter look to it. But I just love, I think, old buildings in general. And I like the. It is very, apparently this older building, but the more and more you look at it, you see more additions to it over time, that it's just become almost a kind of living, evolving thing. I think we've even touched on that in the past where we've looked at old buildings that have been maybe upgraded several times over time. And it's so cool to just see how they morph and change piece by piece, rather than just a full demo and rebuild of something. It's so much cooler to see something grow and evolve, almost like a living organism over time. And this building feels very much like that, like that coffee sign clearly was from way long ago compared to the partitions, compared to, you know, the furniture upstairs. And I just, I think that's, it's, it's refreshing to see something continuing to be used and updated versus just, let's just level everything and turn it into a parking lot.

Yeah, I agree with everything you said and I think Davey has done a good job noticing this photo and sharing it with everyone. What you were saying about growing and evolving or that kind of organic thing, I agree with you about the nature of the building itself. But looking either side of it, like you said, there was that building that's attached to it, like right up against the wall and then the bridge that goes over at the top. Right. I mean, we don't know how old those two other elements are, but you can assume that they probably went up after this middle structure. And then you wonder about the history of what you're looking at because this building here, it's three floors and there appears to be some sort of Rooftop that you could stand on. So I'm thinking way back when this was built, this was probably one of the taller buildings in the area where it wasn't sandwiched by these two things. It reminds me of Sydney, for example. So this doesn't really look like Sydney, but Sydney has a lot of these. Like if anyone listening has ever been to Sydney, Sydney is a beautiful city, but it's also chaotic with things built on top of each other and freeways and bridges and tunnels and things that have just been shoved in after the fact. And you go, wow, look at this heritage listed style thing. That would have been there by itself, but now suddenly it's just completely smushed between other stuff. So, yeah, like you said, growing up around it, the stuff around it that appears to be slightly newer or much newer. Maybe on the building on the left just kind of. Yeah, shows you how cities just kind of, I don't know, outgrow themselves. There's. There's silence but chaos in this photo. Same time.

Well put.

Yeah, thank you. No, and look, a great photo to share outside of glass. Since you, you said you thought it was your first one.

I think so.

But look, it just goes to show, like using glass. This isn't an ad. We don't have like a sponsorship affiliation for anyone listening. It's a really good platform. Like you can just scroll and discover some great people.

If you love photography, whether you are a photographer or not, it's just a really nice place to see art.

Yeah, agreed. Now my last one, a photo by Pip which was shared on Microdot blog. Yep, this is an older building, like what you shared, but from what I can see would be in Venice because the caption that goes with this portrait photo is simply the word supported. And you can see at the bottom of the photo is a canal. And emerging from that are the supports or kind of foundations of a bridge with arches that go over the water. And then you can see the rest of the building on top of this bridge, like structure with windows and a roof and other buildings extending into the background. But the supported element to which Pip refers is, I don't know, is it like an extension? Like, you know, when you have a house or something and you go, let's put an extra balcony or maybe a sun room or a deck or, you know, let's expand into the backyard. It's like they went, you know what, we need a bit more space. So let's kind of shove some extra quarters of a house on the outside of this building, bridge, home thing. And let's support it with what looks like really not reassuring diagonal bits of timber when into the bricks beneath. Yeah, like I'm sure it's okay, but is this thing going to snap off and fall in the water? It's just hilarious. So this shows, like we were saying that last thing, how places grow and change and I hope they're happy with their extensions. That's all I can say.

Yeah. So you shared this. Obviously. I saw it and thought, oh, those sticks are. Seemed very small. I didn't even think they were metal. Wood. Yeah, I didn't even think they were like lumber. It was just like sticks.

Oh my God. Toothpicks. Really? Yeah.

Yeah. I assume it's an add on. It feels like it would be.

It looks like it.

Yeah. That is. It is this. To me, when I saw this, I thought there's like a lot of games where you do like bridge construction, quote unquote and you're just like expected to kind of like put a bunch of pieces together to like hopefully get the truck across. And this just feels like you like it was level three and you're like, I just need enough sticks and pieces here to like get it across and call it good. But this is your house or a business or something. I mean it's there, it's standing, I assume it's. It's fine. But it is very nerve wracking to think that if you were inside that versus looking at it from the outside. Would you still go inside if you saw it from the outside? I guess so. It's probably fine. It's probably one of those things where it's been there forever and it's totally good, but it feels a little bit like an afterthought for, for the way that it is. But I gotta say I give you credit for doing it because I can imagine building that over water and having a support for it cannot be easy to do. So kudos to you for doing that. But wow, that is a really, really powerful photo with the way those again, sticks are holding up so much. And it's not even just one, it's the whole side of that bridge. It looks like they just went and extended the whole thing out. Even the little patio there on the side, which I'm not even sure how you get to because there's not a door there. So maybe it goes around the corner.

It's decorative. It's just for people outside to enjoy. They don't actually use it.

Maybe it's just, it's. It's one of those things you you almost won't see anywhere else other than like here.

Yep.

And you, and you see it and you go, wow, that is incredible. And that's, that's really all you can say. And then I was also kind of drawn to those, those rings that are attached to the side which I assume would be to tie maybe boats to or something. But again, this is my ignorance showing. I don't know what this canal is.

Yeah.

But I'm curious, like, what are those for? Is that structure to kind of repair and work on the house above? I don't know.

Oh, you know what it is? It's how you get to the patio. You swim up there and you swing up, you're a little bit wet, but then you get up there and it's a beautiful afternoon, sit. It's great.

Oh, that's fantastic. Okay, that makes sense. So you go out of your house, go down to the canal, take the boat around the corner and then climb up.

Perfect. Oh, and look. Two more things that pop into my mind about this photo I should have mentioned before. I love the fact that it's taken vertically or that it was cropped as portrait because you can imagine it wouldn't have the same effect in terms of communicating the height and the way that it's built if it were a landscape shot. That could still be a beautiful photo to show the expanse or maybe where it fits in context. But I like that Pip made the decision to take it this way because it really tells that story of vertical precariousness really, really good. And the other thing I want to point out, this could be my ignorance, but if you just cast your eye up a bit more, you see those windows at the top above the apparent extension or whatever we're talking about.

Yeah.

There's like these security bars, like grid bars. And I'm thinking, who the hell do they think is getting in here or out? Like is this an escape route or a break in point? It's not practical. Why are there bars?

I had a similar thought. Like those are some serious bars. Those are not just like keep out a bird or something. Like those are some like prison looking bars. Those are. Those are serious business. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, maybe it is a prison. I don't know. Maybe that's why the sticks are there and you can't get away. I don't know.

Yeah, there's so many questions. One little photo. So many.

That's super cool though. Yeah, I do. I love this, this kind of thing too. When it's clear that it's just like do what you need to do to make it work. And that's clearly what's been done here. Like you can see along the edge that it's been kind of like patched or filled in with something because it's like, hey, we need something to fix this, so like just go do it. And you know everybody that is utilizing this place, it's totally fine. There's no issue here. Like just going about our day and it's working as we need it and no more. We don't need to go overly elaborate and over engineer it. It's just it's doing what we want it to do and that's fine. Which is nice.

Beautiful. Well, Jason, thank you for sharing your photos. It was good fun.

Thank you.

And yeah, if you've just joined, hope you enjoyed the podcast. Make sure to check out the photos that have been linked in our show notes if you didn't already. And we don't do this often, Jason, but we haven't spoken about it for a while. So where are your photos if people want to check out what you're doing?

I'll have links in the show notes for sure, but I'm mostly on glass and Flickr these days.

Yep, on glass too. And I suppose you can see my very infrequently populated photo [email protected] but make sure you check out others photos because that's what this podcast is all about. Thank you for listening to 3 by.

23 by 2 and check out episode 1 through 12 as well for timeless Photos. We try to keep it evergreen, so feel free to go back and find some other great photos.

Thank you.

Until next time. See you all later. Sam.