| Welcome |
| I’ve been fortunate enough to take a leap from nearly 10years of career in England to up sticks and see some of the world. The ramblings you will find here cover from the Summer of 2005 to present day. I’ve travelled across parts of Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific, before an amazing year came to an amazing end with some explorations of the USA . After a brief trip back home to England in Early October 2006 for a few weeks, I returned to Sydney, Australia where I’m now living and working… |
| Photography |
| The pictures you will see on my blogs, (unless otherwise stated) are 100% digital and are captured with either my compact Sony T-9, my Minolta A2 (From Oct 06-Feb 08), my Canon 40D (Feb 08 onward) or my Canon 5D Mkii (December 08 onward). If you see any pictures you like, my images and photographical services are for sale, please email for more information, Thanks - more at http://www.lukefonfara.com |
| On the iPod Recently: |
| Bloc Party, MGMT, Oasis, The Verve, Elbow |
| Into The Future |
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Doves @ The Metro
New Zealand - Snowboarding (Aug 09)
Bathurst Motor Racing
Coffs Harbour (Prudson Wedding)
Reunion Island
Paris
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| Other Stuff |
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| Easter |
| Tuesday, April 14, 2009 |
Barrington Tops, Central New South Wales.
This year, Australians (and 'temporary' residents such as I) in New South Wales have been duped. We have lost two public holidays due to them falling on a Saturday, and the government deciding that it would be in the best interest of commerce that businesses open on those extra days. So with no Anzac day off... we couldn't wait to get outta Sydney and take advantage of a rare long weekend in 2009.
Good Friday saw us drive from Sydney North about 4 and a half hours to a National Park called Barrington Tops. The Tops represent the Northern Most region of the Great Dividing Range that rolls from Victoria (North of Melbourne) up past Canberra & Sydney. The Scenery is basically like the Blue Mountains on Steroids. Far more rolling hills and many more valleys to stare down - at least it felt like that anyway.
 Rog & Claire had gone on a day ahead of us to beat traffic, and had set up camp at the Devils Hole Campsite. Which was about as far as a Honda Civic would go off road without falling off its axels. From arrival, it was simply a case of keeping warm and fed around an awesome camp fire... where the men on camp would have to go out on fire-wood scavenging missions - not so easy at high damp altitudes.
Cloud cover would often fall in faster than I could toast a marshmallow. You would look up and be staring thru gum trees, and get an image something like the Blair Witch Project. The first night, was cold... even with several glasses of Red Wine and Rogers infamous campfire Stew inside of us.
The following day it was time to see a little more of the place so we hiked the Polblue Swamp trail and checked out some huge Toadstools... or mushrooms - I'm never sure how to tell the difference. Regardless, it was very nice to get back to nature after spending the preceeding months at the city and the beach.
 Another night of huddling by the fire, Uno and drinks concluded out camp trip... by this point, nearly everyone present had caught a cold and was ready for an early traffic beating exit. After getting the place packed up on the Sunday morning; Lauren and I took the car back down the mountains stoping to take some shots here n there and appreciate the running water. Running water like I've only ever seen in other continents on this Earth. Nice.
 The remainder of Sunday back home, could not have been more relaxing. Sydney seemed empty, all aside from 32 Lindt bunnies Lauren had brought home from work. With a lack of chocolate not an issue... I lounged and tinkered with my photographs until the evening came... and then - oh the sleep of all sleeps after two cold ones at the Devils Hole. I kinda see why the campsite had an intimidating name... though maybe "The Devils Fridge" woulda been more apt.Labels: 2009, Camping, easter |
posted by Luke @ 4/14/2009 07:36:00 AM   |
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| One Day Like This |
| Sunday, March 29, 2009 |
 
V festival 09 - Australia, Centennial Parklands, Sydney.
I didn't make my feelings secret of how bad the last one of these was when I went 2 years ago... the lineup - so mixed up it made the UK top 40 sound like a Pink Floyd album in comparison, beer queues the worst I've ever seen and, well, that's enough.
This year... no margin for error, the lineup looked good, and I smuggled my own bottle of Vodka in to negate queueing up for beers full stop. Excellent move - cos guess what - those queues were still there... we're talking nearly an hour to get a drink - way to keep the festival vibe up V.
 Anyhoo, the festival... it couldn't have been a more perfect day. The sky had zero white fluffy stuff in it, the temparature while hot, wasn't a scorcher, and friends were able to sit on lush green centenial park grass watching Duffy open the proceedings up, despite her grumblings of being first on for the first time in oh - a year or two. She was fun and sounded great. Next up was Elbow, I've been a fan of theirs since Asleep in the Back and finally got to see them live, not lively, but I didn't expect that, and again, a great way to enter the festival atmosphere as my vodka started to cement a foundation for the evening to come.
 I did have to line up for some chips and a drink, which took all of 2mins, then I was back to the stage to meet up with Lauren and Oren again before heading off across the festival site to see Razorlight for the 2nd time in a couple of months - result! It was a very business like performance this time around, no frills - just fast hits with no small talk or smiles. By this point I was bellowing out every word of every song embarrassingly for the people around me I'm sure...
 Time now for some dinner whilst queing up for food... again, not a great time - about 30minutes for some chips, but the Kaisers were playing about 50metres away so not the worst way to wait for food. They had the crowd, and indeed some of the queue rocking. I ate the last of my potato snacks humming "oh my god I can't believe it, I've never been this far away from home". The vodka was nearly done. Last top up was gonna need to last.
Next up, ano ther trip across the venue to see Snow Patrol, The lead singer in very high spirits, so high, he kept forgetting lyrics to his songs, a little odd I must say, but everyone lapped them up and the stage show was great too...
Now for the grand finale... The Killers... Luckily we were all quite tipsy by this point, I'm pretty sure these boys were fairly average in reality, but banging out the hits from their first couple of albums was enough to get them through, even if the newer stuff was about as well recieved as a 3am wake-up call following on from a very spicy curry. I can't believe I've been going to V festivals since 1997 already, how time flies...Labels: 2009, Concert, Sydney |
| posted by Luke @ 3/29/2009 05:34:00 AM |
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| Russell Brand |
| Thursday, March 26, 2009 |
Russell Brand, The Forum
Well, I have no photo's, no real measure to describe the gig and nothing else to base this blog post on other than to record a moment of my life in some kind of form.
So, Russell Brand... supported by Merrick & Rosso (Australian DJ's - kinda like Ant n Dec) - he was toooo funny. He had the crowd in stitches most of the time, and it was great to hear the old Essex accent in it's broadest form - even if it's starting to show hints of Hollywood!
"They wanted to put me on the sexual nuisance list for that!
I don't wanna be on that list...
...not for that anyway"Labels: 2009 |
| posted by Luke @ 3/26/2009 10:03:00 AM |
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| Monday, February 23, 2009 |
Studio Lighting Day long workshop, Artarmon, Sydney
So as you may or may not know, I have been emersing myself in the world of photography over the past year or so, one thing that still felt very foreign however, was the use of off camera flash, and lighting people.
I decided to take a course with the same company I've done courses with in the past - a studio lighting course. I travelled over to Artarmon early in the morning and learned step by step how to light a low key shot and a high key shot with 3-5 studio lights, light metres and radio triggers.
The whole day was tiring, but massively beneficial to my learning and understanding in photography. I quickly shelled out for an extra brolly and a small softbox attachment for my flash... and started experimenting quickly.
Labels: 2009, Photography |
| posted by Luke @ 2/23/2009 10:27:00 AM |
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| Bring Change |
| Saturday, February 21, 2009 |
ShapeShifter & Kora at the SoCo Mobile Cargo Club, Sydney.
The format of gigs seem to be one of those things that don't get tampered with too often. A concert hall, a bar or two, a merchandise stand, a stage, a band, a big crown, a lack of sufficient air conditioning; they're pretty standard. So the SoCo Mobile venue pretty much sold itself to me before I even knew who was playing. Actually, this is a lie, since the aforementioned is generally true; I struggled to work out what the heck this mobile venue would be like.
 Benny and I decided to give this a whirl. We met before for a few beers discussing our thoughts of what we envisaged the gig to be.
 We approached the venue, which basically looked like 4 shipping containers side by side, with some noise eminating from the steel. The doorman was like a circus freak... no offense - he wasn't ugly as a slate layers nail bag, but he had the crazy shades, massive Outkast style afro styled out with flares and a psycadellic skin tight t-shirt. Mad. We get in after have a laugh with said door staff and are greeted by a girl with 8cm long eye-lashes who gives us some blig to wear. The gig was sponsored by Southern Comfort, so it was all branded accordingly. In we go - to see an inverted sea of twinkle lights - on the ceiling. Couches and a comfort zone to one side, a bar straight ahead, and a stage not much more than 10cms in height from the ground. The band playing could be touched, if you really wanted to. I think it was women singing about "Gash" if memory serves. Nice.
Benny and I made our way through many of the manlier sounding SoCo mix drinks right before Shapeshifter would make it out on stage. By this point, the coke, red bull, ginger beer and SoCo had kicked in properly - not to mention the foundational beers... all this adding up to a totally healthy night, as we rocked out to ShapeShifter - great crowd, great band (who even came out and partied afterwards). Great idea. See it, if it comes to a town near you.
 Labels: 2009, Concert, Sydney |
| posted by Luke @ 2/21/2009 07:39:00 AM |
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| Rock n Roll Lies |
| Friday, January 30, 2009 |
Razorlight, The Metro, Sydney
Damn! These guys, finally in Australia! I just couldn't resist snaggin' a couple of tickets.
I've been a bit of a Razorlight fan since early 2004, I saw em playing in the New bands tent at a festival in Ireland, before seeing them at Brixton & Glastonbury... each time, they went nuts. I went nuts. Everyone went nuts.
 After my recent ish bloc Party experience, I thought that they may have toned down their energetic act a little, but I was in for a refreshing surprise.
After again sneaking in my camera, under my jacket, we secured an awesome spot just behind the mixing desk, which at the Metro is great, since the sound quite frequently blows out when you're down on the floor or up high on the staggered seating. After analyising the playlist, I was convinced it was gonna be a good show, just enough new stuff mixed in with all the classics.
 Johnny Borrell came out, fully dressed as usual, before bursting into song. 2 songs in, he was getting to be his usual sweaty self... shirt buttons undone and his personal take on drama was there for all to see. Theses guys certainly haven't lost anything with age.
 As they played: "Fall, Fall, Fall" - a slow ballad - I made my move. I left Lauren up behind the mix-desk and shuffled my way through the flat footed crowd. I managed to walk, right to the front security fence. Just as I got there, the band burst into "Rock n Rolls Lies" I took this as my queue to get snapping. I blasted out a hundred and twenty frames over the course of that song before hiding my camera under my armpit, having a quick mosh for old times sake, and then making a swift exit back to the comfort and safety of my pre-reservered space. A throuroughly, as always, enjoyable Razorlight gig.Labels: 2009, Concert |
| posted by Luke @ 1/30/2009 10:14:00 AM |
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| INVADERS MUST DIE! |
| Sunday, January 25, 2009 |
The Prodigy @ The Hordern Pavillion, Sydney
Haha, wow. How am I supposed to give any kind of a review/blog to this gig!? In brief summary, it rocked the whole house. I have never seen an indoor gig go off so much. From the front to the back, the left to the right - it was like EVERY set of feet was jumping to every punk beat the boys from Essex could bang out.   Spitfire, Firestarter, Their Law, Breathe, Voodoo People... all the hits, and some how, I had the energy levels and adrenaline required to " 'ave it large" as I might have said about 12 years when I first saw these guys live. Awesome Awesome Awesome. Except - I think this may be the first gig where I went the entire gig without getting a clear sight of the dudes onstage. 
Labels: 2009, Concert |
| posted by Luke @ 1/25/2009 04:25:00 PM |
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| About Me |
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Name: Luke
Home: Sydney, NSW, Australia
About Me: Hey, This is Luke, I'm not in right now but if you leave a comment after the beep, I'll get right back to you...
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