Frantic funny night of greyhounds and then free bar work party madness (apparently no photos other than the fish tank bar…!), followed by a slower paced wander through the State library exhibitions and a lazy late lunch the next day…

Today I was reminded why I do the job I do…this property had one of the most epic views I have seen yet…

While waiting for the sun to set I stood on the balcony and took in the city…from the buzz and boom, beeps and bangs of the traffic below, to the hustling bustling ferries that hurried around the harbour in front of me, to the whistling wind swirling around the 27th floor where I stood…from the bloody sunset in the east over the hazy Blue Mountains to a thunder and lightning storm in the moody clouds out over the Pacific beyond the Heads to the west…this city has a certain energy that I am loving…

Moved from 2 wheels to a metal box on 4 wheels…

Sydney has some of the worst traffic I have encountered, and a motorbike is definitely the preferable (and by far the quickest) way to get around it, but the comforts and security of everything being dry and warm after 6 months of carrying camera gear in all weather cannot be underestimated…

It has been one of the coldest and wettest mid winters in recorded history in Eastern Australia. After 13000kms and 6 months on the bike, I finally got fed up with riding in the rain for work and I bought a metal box..

The Buick Sail, Chevrolet Corsa, Holden Barina, Opel Vita and Vauxhall Corsa are all the same car sold in different parts of the world…

I bought a slightly worn out old cheap blue Holden Barina for excursions and work days when I just cant be dealing with the bike…hope she is good to me:)

It has rained pretty much every day in Sydney for about the last 3 weeks. It has been a very stormy month with loads of unsettled weather and cyclones hitting the NSW coast.

As I ride a bike for work frankly I am getting seriously fed up with getting drenched day in day out… (when I first got here I met a guy who told me it had been the driest November in recorded history here and he claimed that it didnt really rain in Sydney…!)

Today the bike broke down on the way to my last job (most likely waterlogged spark plug, circuits and airbox apparently) and I had to push the bike 6kms to the garage, most of it up hill in properly torrential rain. Other than my break down a few weeks back (4 inch piece of metal went through the back tyre, shredding it and leaving me stranded at 5pm on a friday about 30kms from home) I think its been my least fun day for a long long long long time.

Anyway, life goes on so here are a few of my favourite houses from May (skip image 1)…

1 week: 18 jobs, 522kms…

So the hand that deals dealt me a funny one today: Go to the Blue mountains (121kms from my house on a scooter that doesnt go faster than 90km/h especially not up a “mountain”), shoot 4 large properties there, and be back in the city by 6pm for a dusk shoot…253kms and a stiff neck later: mission accomplished…

HELLO WEEKEND!

78 properties, 3400kms and a bunch of new suburbs…that was March.

Shooting properties can be a weird job…I see everything from pokey studios in the inner city to decadent mansions by the beach, and everything in between. I see inside a lot of peoples homes and lives. I have found myself in some places I would never ever normally have been in, and I guess it satisfies an inquisitiveness.

The style that is used when shooting properties in Sydney is unlike anywhere else I have worked. Technically I have learned a different style of shooting termed HDR or High Definition Range which is still in its infancy. It essentially means the end product is a lot closer to what the eye sees than a photo can usually replicate. The example above is a blend of about 10 images covering a whole range of exposures to show the shadowed and highlighted areas at the correct exposure. In some instances I find the result ridiculously over processed resulting in a painting like effect while in others it works well. It is a style pioneered in Sydney and the biggest agent here is one of our main clients and seems to love it!

You may also notice that it is always a sunny day. I can assure that it is not always sunny when I shoot!

It is also pretty evident that there isnt a huge amount of creativity involved. In a sense there is a set format and my attempts to mix it up have not been met with much enthusiasm so far. Still, it can be enjoyable work and as long as I can shoot other subjects to keep my photography interesting, I am content with it to pay the bills. It sure beats office work…

I put up some of my favourite shoots from my first couple of months in Sydney here.

For work I went to shoot a property on Great Mackerel Beach. It’s a very small enclave in a national park on the outskirts of Sydney surrounded by bush and water on all sides. The only way in is by boat and the place actually has a real small island feel to it. There are about 100 houses there and no roads, just a winding dirt track that ends abruptly in the bush. There are no restaurants or shops and all food is brought in or grown. Despite being so remote, or perhaps because of it, property prices there are surprisingly high.

The house I went to shoot had been abandoned for 4 years and vines had grown over the whole building, making the shoot a challenge. Still, we got it done and then had a quick look around before catching the boat out.

I stand corrected. Apparently there are not 650 suburbs in Sydney, there are 763.

Through my real estate work I’m still visiting a couple of new ones pretty much every day, including a few way way out of the city (165km each way on the scooter in the rain aint that much fun)

At some point soon I will update my real estate portfolio to show some of my favourite properties from Oz so far.

Other than working long long days I’ve not had time for a whole lot of anything else really…except seeing Alice in Wonderland in 3D at the Imax (I was expecting an audience of kids and poor film and was actually surprised by it being pretty good and the audience being 90% adult)

So far, my overriding impression of Sydney is of bush with houses crammed in all over the place and a glimpse of water through the foliage somewhere. I’ve seen a thousand different versions of this scene and at the moment it just doesnt seem to get old…

Photo dump of yet more suburbs…

This month I emerged from my semi retirement slumber to shoot 44 houses (I will put some up in a post later), I’ve visited or driven through approximately 250 of the 650 suburbs in Sydney (many of which are named after English towns or suburbs), I’ve covered 2400km on the scooter (knackering), and earned…well thats none of your business but its certainly been the best month since leaving London 14 months ago…

Now just need a few more months like this to get back on my feet before the world turns to moosh, and then we can plan some sort of longer term future… This place is growing on me, its got a real sense of character with the water dominating everything in the east of the city…now if it just had some mountains within easy reach I could see myself sticking around for a while…

A few photos from various random suburbs I have liked whilest passing through.