Inspired by uses.tech, I’ve created a uses page on here.

I’m over 100 days into my black & white a day project.

I inevitably end up shooting around the house and neighbourhood most days. This is forcing me to find novel perspectives on things I regularly pass. It’s also making me appreciate the different light over the course of the day.

Some days I struggle to get something good. That’s ok, photography, like most things, is a numbers game.

Autumn is starting to peek its way in. The heat is retreating. Life is grand.

I moved my photography to rays.photos.

The existing feeds and links should hopefully redirect properly.

The last month has been a whirlwind as we’ve moved back to Perth.

I’ve taken photos down in Margaret River and around the old haunts.

It’s good to be back.

Some photos of Brisbane before we move.

I’m taking on a 365 photo challenge this year: capturing at least one black and white photo each day and adding it to my journal.

I haven’t focused on black and white photography since parting with my film cameras, so I’m excited to get back into it and hopefully improve.

Six days in, and I’m enjoying it so far.

Clouds at sunset snare me.

K’gari (Fraser Island) is beautiful.

We spent a few days there between Christmas and New Years.

It was the busy season and the island was packed with four wheel drivers. It felt like there were about fifty vehicles parked up for a swim at Eli Creek while we were there. We never felt crowded though, the island is huge.

Everyone bangs on about Lake McKenzie, and for good reason, it is beautiful.

The Illumina light show was an audiovisual delight.

The island is well worth a visit.

Here is the 2024 edition of my yearly Spotify playlist.

You can also check out my previous editions.

And here is my Last.fm listening report for the year.

Let’s rip though a bunch more media, and a couple of products, that I enjoyed in 2024¹.

Music

Music is easily the most consumed media for me this year. Here’s a few albums I enjoy.

Love Changes Everything — Nothing like a Dirty Three album.

Little Rope — Hell of an album opener.

Teenage Snuff Film — Digging into my Australian music history.

Wild God — Good to have another Bad Seeds album.

Eleanor Jawurlngali — An ethereal voice.

Songs of a Lost World — I don’t listen to The Cure much. This new album is great.

I’m totally fine with it 👍 don’t give a fuck anymore 👍 — Loving these guys.

No Name — Grimy Jack White.

TV Shows

Turns out I still watch quite a bit of TV.

What we do in the Shadows — Final season. Better than the previous one. It was the right time to bow out. Laszlo and Nadja forever.

The Diplomat — Caught up on the first two seasons. Bit of London. Bit of politics. Bit of espionage.

Fisk — Caught up on the first three seasons. Cracks me up.

Drops of God — Wine-based superhero comic story. Yep, that’s right.

Industry — Season three was the best yet. The finale was fantastic.

The Bear — Season three felt like it was a bit padded out, but it still had its high points, like the episode Napkins.

Outer Range — Weird as shit.

Shogun — Kept me rapt.

The Gentlemen — Geezers geezering.

Blue Eye Samurai — Makes me want to watch more animated fare.

Mr and Mrs Smith — Great mix of character and action.

Fargo - Season five was a return to form.

Black Doves — Worth it just for the Irish assassins.

Movies

I need to watch more movies instead of TV.

Dune: Part Two — Technically brilliant.

Furiosa — George Miller is a genius.

Books

I fell off the reading wagon pretty hard this year.

Wool — Read this after watching Silo season one. Good sci-fi.

Infinite — I’ve been fascinated with immortality stories ever since watching Highlander.

Rubicon — An ancient Roman violent soap opera.

Road to seeing — One of my favourite photo books.

Podcasts

My regulars with a couple of new entries.

The Rest is History — The lads continue to produce good series. The French Revolution and Custer hooked me.

Conversations with Tyler — The density of ideas in these remains high.

The Watch — One for the CR heads.

The Rewatchables — Makes me laugh.

Bandsplain — Love the Grunge season.

The Big Picture — The more unhinged the draft show, the better.

Dithering — I enjoy when they bring up new angles on tech-related news.

Lenny’s Podcast — New to the rotation. Good for getting a view of product management.

Acquired on Microsoft — Two episodes running through the history of Microsoft.

Games

Playing games is the most reliable way for me to “switch off”. I don’t play loads. There are a couple of new additions this year.

Balatro — Roguelike poker game. Is killer on iPad.

Astro Bot — Sony found their Super Mario.

Greed — Dice game that’s great for the whole family.

Products

Yeti stubby cooler — Keeps those drinks cold.

Apple Watch Ultra 2 — In Batman black for maximum stealth.

Le Creuset Casserole — Grab one on sale and keep it forever.

Fujifilm GF 63mm F2.8 Lens — A good sized, fast, 50mm prime equivalent for the 100S.

I’ve been giving Photomator a try for photo post-processing and it’s great.

I enjoy having the masking, healing, and rich editing features of Lightroom¹ in software that works natively with my Apple Photos library².

In effect, it replaces Darkroom and TouchRetouch for editing my native iPhone photos. If things get a bit tough to sort with my thumbs I can switch over the mac version of the software and everything is synced up.

Hopefully Apple keep the core experience the same now that they’ve acquired it.

My photo book tour continues with Australian Lustre.

Reading it transports me to every country town I’ve ever visited.

I enjoyed the juxtaposition of big things and suburbia the most.

It’s undeniably Australian and well worth a look.

Views of the new casino.

A bit of Brissy night light.