Darwin and MyLife 2.0

Darwin, Centennial Park, Park trees against the light “G’day mate and welcome home!” says the Aussie stewardess to me with a big smile. All I said was “hello” with that “hallooww” Aussie twist to it. I should have been an actor. But thanks! Good to be home. I live at least 3 different simultaneous lives and it means I am usually home somewhere in the world. Good thing I do multi-tasking.

It is very good to be “home” again. I have spent almost a full year of my life in Australia so it qualifies as life no. 2 I should say. I touched down in Darwin 4am Friday morning; looked at my watch and counted 30 hours since I left my other life. Has to be hard to be worth it.

Darwin is a bit of a love or hate it affair but like Cairns – the more I’m here the more I love it. A cosmopolitan multi-cultural energetic tropical town with emphasis on town. It still is very much an outback town with some weird and crazy territorians even if there are now big flashy hotels and lots of new construction as Darwin is undergoing a rapid expansion. Weird and crazy. I fit in completely. I forget how much I love the tropics. It’s life reduced to a pair of thongs; shorts and t-shirts and 4wd trucks. It’s about 33-34 degrees tropical melting heat during the day and probably 25 degrees at night. It’s even hotter here than last year, the build to the buildup to the wet season must have started early as we do have some clouds and higher humidity. The heat, the sunrays are pure energy for a cold-blooded reptile like myself who depend on the sun to heat us and energize us. Why do we even attempt to live elsewhere but the tropics?

Darwin, Harbour cloudscape Darwin is I reckon the most multi-cultural city in Australia and you meet some raw but very friendly and charming characters. Darwin was completely erased twice, first by 350 Japanese bombs in World War II then by Cyclone Tracy. Erased from existence but rebuilt and I think this pioneering self-reliant strong spirit carries on in Darwin. As nice as the tropics and Darwin is; it helps of course that Darwin is the gateway to nature at it’s very best as there is not that much to do or photograph in Darwin itself. Kakadu National Park is to the East; Kimberleys to the South-West and my exploring starts Wednesdays!

There’s only a 7½ hour time difference at the moment from MyLife 1.0 to 2.0 but add 30 hours of getting here and land at 4am and it adds up to serious jetlag. This time it’s been at it’s paranoid best and especially bad, causing 2 sleepless nights so far. Seems to get worse with age; like stuff getting stuck in your teeth. I calculate I am still about 10 hours behind on sleep since Wednesday. It has to be hard to be worth it. Sleepless nights are hard. Paranoid twilight-zone experiences like The Machinist with Christian Bale. The things that get written in my notebook during paranoid sleepless nights read awfully strange in the morning. Fortunately I’ve learned a lesson from the last 2 trips and have nothing booked for the first days here; need some days to normalise.

Darwin, Centennial Park, Palms at Dusk So I’ve basically been tired all day for two days and just relaxed under palm trees in Centennial Park. Yes my friends I admit it’s not all work (I try and convince friends that photography is work). Work starts Wednesday! Which is why the only thing I’ve photographed so far is sunsets in the park; as seen in my 3 fairly ordinary photos to the right of extraordinary tropical colours.

I want to get up and run to Kakadu (all 300 kilometers) to get some landscapes but all good things to those who wait. Need energy back first; then we create art!

I know you’re itching to get the last part of the metal detector saga but nothing happened in Singapore. Not a single beep. Disappointing. Means that alien abduction implants can easily be smuggled through Singapore airport!

Click to see large size on my gallery! Copyright Flemming Bo Jensen PhotographyHawk Dreaming brochure PS. Visiting the brilliant Tourism Top End information center it was cool to find the Aussie Adventure Hawk Dreaming brochure – with my photo (see left) the front cover (see right). I knew it was used in the brochure but still cool to see it live. I think it’s the best brochure in the territory; I’m not even biased! Making my mark in the territory one brochure at a time!

9 Comments on “Darwin and MyLife 2.0”

  1. Well done on the brochure.
    It was 20 degrees here on the south coast of NSW and Im in shorths and a t-shirt, a far contrast from the last 3 miserable months in Western Victoria.

    Good luck with the shooting.

  2. Hi Thomas and thanks. Just returned from the Mindil Beach Market, was an ok sunset and the market is good fun although mega hot. It's hot enough already in the tropics, add a hundred hot food stalls and you're cooking! Literally!

  3. Welcome Flemming – Darwin certainly has it's pleasures, and the various markets through out the year are also one of mine. If you think its hot there now forget about Nov-Dec.

    enjoy 🙂

  4. You know h0w to put a different spin on everything 🙂 I'm sure there are some people who would be very familiar to a night like that…. perhaps for a very different reason though….

    The brochure looks great. Such a fantastic subtle image. Very very nice.
    All the best for when you get out amongst it

  5. Cheers Tony, yeah I'd like to experience the build-up sometime…from the comfort of aircondition 😀

    Stephen, thanks very much! Am now starting to feel normal, as normal as I get that is.

  6. Oh wow! You're published! Well done!

    I must say, your method of 'normalising' is definitely one of the best I have heard. I think I might use it when next I find myself in a far away foreign country. 😀

  7. Thanks Tyger, and yeah I've been published many times. But very often I just sell an image file and don't see the result so it's always cool to see the actual brochure, magazine, whatever 😀

    Yeah my normalising process worked great, I am now 100% again and off to Kimberleys tomorrow for 14 days of outback landscapes. I used to book stuff and do places like from the 2nd day I'm here and it's just a killer when you haven't slept at all for 3 days!

  8. Congrats on the Broucher mate ,
    Havent been to Darwin yet but planning on going some time soon . Hope your getting lots of shots up there

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