sonny photos

My New Video Camera MkII

 

My New Video Camera

hopefully this time it works

Merry X-mas everyone :-)

Storm Cloud Passing Over Avalon

Just had a quick swim with India to try out my birthday present ( a Hero GoPro - a super cool water video camera ) When I spotted a lot of clouds in the south, so drove home to get my other camera and then back to the lookout on top of Avaolon and Bilgola beach to snap these. A storm cloud approaching, and not very often you get to clearly see the front coming through like this, pretty awesome spectacle to witness. Sitting on top of Newport HEadland right now, sorry , not sitting, rolling over, and moving at a steady pace Just awesome really over Newport already and crossing over into Bilgola, so fast not slowing down no lightning with this though, was expecting to see some really coming close now, just about on top of us I'm not the only one here to document this spectacle, and would be a similar scenario all up and down the coast on top of us now, and this bright sunny day with no wind, has just turned, rather rapidly, in a very overcast day, and right now the wind just turned this second to a cold southerly right under it nature at work that's the blue sky warm day on the left :-)
looking south, it's looking darker, so more rain to come Just absolutely incredible to see, this massive dark cloud moving to the blue sky and leaving a dark grey

Fixing ma Chokito

getting the board fixed professionally this time, one of the neighbours does ding repairs, so time for some TLC on the Chokito

Parents in Oz @ Palmie

For Xmas, KEnny & I organizd for our parents to be here, and here we are sitting at Palmie having dinner with them at the house my dad built about 30 years ago Dinner with a view

Bangkok > Sydney

Early morning, somewhere south of the Blue Mountains Sydney apparently it has only rained while I was in Belgium, let's hope that's passed looking very similar to same flight from Bangkok back in October
distinctive sandstone from greater Sydney area, if not most of NSW great view of Botany Bay on the left, then Cronulla beach , Bate Bay and Port Hacking and the mass of darkness in the foreground is the Royal National Park, just south of Sydney, north of Wollongong coastline north of Garie Beach, and what the ..., never seen that before, looks like a water fall into the ocean, in between Garie and Wattamola beach woauw, it is too, never seen it or knew it existed. Maybe all the rain has something to do with as well, super keen to go and check it out now Edge of Royal National Park, bordering onto Bundeena and Port Hacking Must be Marley beach, never made it to this one either yet Port Hacking and Sutherland Shire Cronulla The curve of Cronulla Beach

Helsinki > Bangkok

Interesting landscapes, moulded clouds over snow covered... Russia ? First time I'm flying with Finnair, did not start to well, journey supposed to start in Brussel to connect to Helsinki. And knowing that the flight arriving in Finland would only have an hour before the flight to Bangkok would depart, I naturally had a mini panick attack when on the screen it said my flight would be delayed by just under 2 hours, eeeeek. So a few phonecalls later, it came close to me being re routed via Zurich then onto an Ethithad flight to Bangkok. But then word came through that the flight to Bangkok would also be delayed, and I would have about 5 minute to make it to my flight in Helsinki. So I did not let it get to me, enjoy my flight to Helsinki I thought ( after sunset by the way, so no photos ) But then prior to arriving, they could not provide me the gate details I needed to rush to , and to make it worse, the plane did not even stop at the gate, but at the tarmac instead, there goes my 5 mins I thought. And to make it even worse, as soon as you got off the ladder from the plane, the tarmac was 15 cm deep in a wet slushy snow, so not like people were walking at their normal pace to the bus, ratatata.....As soon as I got to a monitor inside, it was ok, as that flight was also delayed , and not going anywhere for another 1 hour or so, cool, ohj wait, no, not cool, I have a connecting flight in Bangkok, normally I would had 3 hours at the airport in Bangkok, but now 2 hours late, plus this 1 hour late, there's my 3 hours, yikes. anyway, let's wait till we get closer to Bangkok and find out I like this display they have on Finnair when you are looking at the flight map so yeah, where we are, in Kazakhstan maps need an update, as it shows the plane about to cross a big mass of water, but it is the now famous Aral sea, famous for it disappearing and all those photos off the ship cemetery not looking like it is shrinking today, but rather freezing up zoom out Frozen Aral Sea amazing detail
slowly leaving Kazakhstan I think, and heading to Afghanistan detail



love the shadow of the mountains on the snow below oh, still not Afghanistan, but Uzbekistan instead Malik, with Navoi airport Aydar Lake

what an amazing countryside, well mountainside
Snow on the Southern slopes so many interesting shapes so this is my set up, window is mainly closed due to people trying to sleep, so I catch up on Bill Maher's Real Time show, and on other screen have the flight map, so every 5-10 min I open the window to take another photo my plane :-) now we are crossing into Afghanistan
again, incredible sights detail massive detail stoked to get to see all this

what a country woauw




passing Kabul and about to cross into Pakistan

got to love a plane with windows in their toilets, to pee with a view like that, woauw gives me a chance to take some pics from the other side of the plane farmland Himalayas ! that's a big high mountain range End of India into the Bay of Bengal never get any good photos over India, everytime I look out it just seems to be always covered in a blanket of smog
next time I look out, we are crossing into Burma, and the province ( or is it state ) of Rakhine, with a great view of Cheduba Island, but hang on, what's that down there zooming in... Holy Schmoly, that's a lefthander breaking at the mouth of a river closer look, that's really lining up. Would love to have the time and money to get a boat for a month and go check it all out more river mouths a bit further down Pyunpye looking further south across the Sitsayan reserved forest and Bay of Bengal gold reflecting bay of bengal
what a trip, from the frozen lakes in Kazakhstan to the Tropics of Burma, and awesome imagery the whole way, awesome
Irrawaddy Delta reflecting tropical storm
amazing I just can't get enough of these, love it, sorry you might get a bit bored with it, I just love these images

probably river near Pyapon or Dedaye where the Irrawaddy Delta meets the Andaman Sea around the Thai-Burma border looking like one big tropical jungle getting close to Bangkok now Sri Nakaran lake going down in altitude. No more pics now, as I moved to the front of the plane. My connecting flight to Sydney commences boarding at 17:10 for a 17:55 departure. And as we approach Bangkok, it's already 17:25, so yeah, a bit worried about missing flight. Fast forward, so what happened was, the plane lands at 17:45, I had some ground crew already waiting for me, that ushered me through security screening, and then raced to my next gate, turns out I was not the only one which is good, as I was ahead of the pack being seated at the front of the plane. And then the funny part was when I made it on the plane, I was seated upstairs and had the same cabin crew from my flight to Europe from Sydney. So that was funny, naturally they were very helpful and calmed me down, as I was huffing and puffing from my little run across terminals. Now this must be one of my longest posts of cloud photos, hope you like.

Windy night

Next morning, after last nights event, has been blowing hard all night, and the pergola arch with honeysuckle growing through it got knocked down I guess sometime early in the morning. Just as I'm getting ready to go to the airport. So had to clear it all and cut it back so I could get to the car :-)

Hedgren Launch

couple of quick shots of the room before the guests arrive living room

Gory Love this shot, took this just over a week ago from early morning flight from Brisbane Fiji Paris Irina Diane, Phillippe & I at Diane;s hotel before the event Me with stylist/fashion designer Toon Geboers and photographer Zeb D Diane and Gory Bag pics on the wall aah, so glad Aglaia and Fredcha could make it, they have their new project up and running btw, check out their site Kim Peers. All these pics taken from Diane Pernet site here and here Phillippe Pourhashemi, interviewing me here at the begin of the night for an article he will do for Word magazine, read it here My Dutch friend Sonny Groo made it down as well, For more pics of the night from Oona's photographer, go to their facebook page
Romain, one half of RA popped down as well, going for the Meisel look and in the mood for picking up and being picked up Gory aaaaah :-) The girls responsible from Oona that made it all happen !! The man from Hedgren, that trusted the girls from Oona to make it all happen :-) And Tony Spackman, the man from The Non, that made the bag, so he also made it all happen :-)
And a little story on the night here as well