Leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again

I am sitting here in my hotel room for one last night in Melbourne before we fly out tomorrow morning. It will again be quite a journey. The breakdown is:

10:30 am Sunday (8:30 pm Saturday East Coast time): leave Melbourne
7:30 am Sunday (10:30 am Sunday East Coast time): arrive Los Angeles
(yes, I arrive in the US 3 hours before I left. This act of time travel amazes me too).

7:30-12:45 (LA time): go through customs, sit in the airport

12:45 (LA time): fly to Philadelphia
9:00 pm (Philly time): land in Philadelphia
9:01 pm: hyperventilate and cry with joy

So, as you can see, it takes a full 24 hours for me to get home. Add that to a day of traveling today (from Mildura to Melbourne it was 7 hours on a bus/train), and I will surely be exhausted. But then the next day (July 9th) is my 20th birthday, so it should make for a great homecoming.

I am sad to leave Australia. It’s been my home for five months, and I’ve done some truly incredible things during my time here. I made 23 amazing friends, and learned a lot about myself in the process. However, I am extremely excited to go home. While Oz is amazing, it is not my home. Though right now home does not seem real, it’s just this thing I remember from a long time ago. It seems very surreal that tomorrow night, I will be sleeping in my own bed.

I always have mixed emotions at the end of semesters, because I’m sad to leave but excited to be home again. This time it’s amplified to the extreme because who knows when I’ll be back here again. I will be back though, I know I will. Thank you Australia, for all that you’ve given me. Until next time, it’s been real. :-)

A very classy evening: Photo Class Day 12

On Friday night we had the opening gala for our photo exhibition. There was a good amount of people there. Between our class, our teachers and their families, local dignitaries, and a few random passersby, there was about 50 people there for the opening. We all felt out of place at such a classy event, since there was wine served and we were in an art gallery. Kind of funny because we were the artists.

The pictures all looked great together, and we were all really proud of our pictures. Two kids even sold their prints. Our pictures are in the gallery for another two weeks, so I’m holding out hope that one of mine sells.

After the opening, we went to the Mildura Brewery, which (as it sounds) brews its own beer. I hate the taste of beer, but I thought I’d try to expand my palette a bit. So, I ordered a sampler platter, which had 6 of their beers in about shot size glasses. Two of them were actually pretty good, two of them were terrible, and two were alright. After the brewery, I called it a night.

The night was a great culmination of our photography experience. It was an amazing two weeks. It was challenging but rewarding and fun at the same time to take pictures all day for several days in a row. Dark room developing tested my patience, but it’s a skill I’m glad I have now. The class was definitely a great way to end my Australia experience.

Last Day of School: Photo Class Day 11

On Thursday morning we touched up our black and white prints. Some of my prints had tiny spots on them where the picture was missing, so we had to fill them in with a special ink. Then I had time to make extra prints just for myself that I didn’t have to turn in. In the afternoon, we learned how to measure and cut our mattes for our picture. Then they were framed and we took them over to the gallery.

At the gallery, our teachers and the gallery curator decided what pictures went where according to theme and style. Then we hung them so the center was 1.5 meters off the ground, since that is the average eye level of people. After that, I had to decide on titles for my pictures and set a price for them in case anyone was crazy enough to buy them. It was another longish day, but it was very familiar to me. At the end of every semester, I spend most of my time editing video in the editing dungeons and then I am rewarded with a visit home. I’m glad that even in Australia, I have a familiar ending to my semester.

The weirdest 4th of July ever: Photo Class Day 10

Wednesday was a very long and productive day. I decided on my 2 final prints after some deliberation, and printed them. Finally my black and white series was complete. They are the above four pictures, who share the common theme of "light." Then I had to experience the really difficult process of narrowing down the 700 color digital pictures I took to two final prints. I chose one of a tree silhouetted against a sunset and another is of a glowing red/orange earth (above). It was a hard choice, but I’m happy with the two I picked. Tomorrow we will mat, frame, and hang our pictures in the gallery.

After class, I really wanted to do something to celebrate the 4th of July. I was really bummed to not be in the US because it is one of my favorite holidays. Why?

1.) I love fireworks
2.) I love hamburgers/hotdogs
3.) I love picnics/barbeques
4.) I love America

So I wanted to have a barbeque at our hostel, but everyone wimped out because it was raining. I had to settle for a McDonalds hamburger (yuck). It was the most American thing I could think of. And fireworks? I had to settle for one lousy sparkler. I was seriously disappointed in my 4th of July this year.

I hate test strips!: Photo Class Day 9

On Tuesday we started making our actual prints. First, we made contact sheets, which is a print of every picture in small form. Then I looked through all of them to find the best ones. From there, I had to find which ones would work with a theme. With help from one of the teachers, I decided on the theme of “light” and picked my four pictures.

The first print was a piece of cake. It came out no problem and I was done that one in under a half an hour. Then I moved onto my next print, which I had to abandon due to dust/scratches on my negative. So, I picked another picture. Of course there turned out to be a problem with that negative also. So I went with plan C. Luckily that negative was okay. I printed that one on four different settings and had to make the difficult decision of which I liked best. I made my decision and finished the end of a very long day with two of my four prints being done. It was definitely a frustrating process.

The Work Begins: Photo Class Day 8

We had another early rise as we went to Lake Mungo for the sunrise. The sand dunes were even more surreal through the early morning fog. It was really strange to stand on the top of a dune, turn 360 degrees around, and see no one. The colors of the sunrise were not spectacular, but I got some good pictures nonetheless.

We then drove back to Mildura and took some much needed showers. My hair smelled like dough when I washed it due to the previous night’s flour festivities. After we regrouped I headed to school and developed my 4 rolls of film. I again had some difficulty taking the film out of the camera, but at the end of the day I had 4 rolls of prints, so life is good :-)

A Lunar Landscape: Photo Class Day 7

On Sunday we left Mutawintji and drove several hours south to Mungo National Park. Mungo is part of a World Heritage Area due to its archaeological and cultural importance. Human remains were found at Mungo that were dated to about 40,000 years old, making it the earliest evidence of human occupation in Australia.

We arrived at Mungo in the afternoon and started to explore the bizarre scenery. Thousands of years ago, there was a lake in the area. Now it’s totally dried up and it left these giant sand mounds where its shores used to be. It’s really odd looking because there’s flat areas with vegetation where the lake bottom used to be and then this mountain of sand comes up out of nowhere. On the sand dunes were what appeared to be rock formations that upon closer inspection turned out to be made of sand. The sand was blown into really cool wavy patterns in some places. It was the closest thing I’ve experienced to being on the moon.

After the sunset we returned to our sleeping quarters. Peter, our cultural guide, taught us how to make Johnny cakes. Johnny cakes are just flour and water mixed into dough and then cooked over a campfire, and they are traditional food in Aboriginal camps. They tasted pretty good, but the real fun came during the inevitable flour fight. Hilarious. Then we learned some traditional Aboriginal dance which was great fun. The night ended when a local Aboriginal elder treated us to some guitar music around the campfire.