Link to Kim Koo's 21st Birthday gallery

THESE photo's were taken awhile ago when we headed out to one of Luke's famed restaurants Red Mint located at Pyrmont. It was quite the trek for a Friday night dinner and the girls turned up late. As if the dinner wasn't already too late for Kim's birthday (which was almost 1 month before).

The food at Red Mint in my opinion was kind of average. The dish I enjoyed the most turned out to be the teriyaki chicken even though it's a vietnamese shop. If you're planning on going don't plan on going hungry as the portions are quite small. The decor and atmosphere is modern western and done very well. It's a bit quiet for an asian restaurant, I've always been of the opinion that asian restaurants need to be noisy. I saw more europeans eating there than asians which is always a bit of a worry.

Nevertheless we did enjoy ourselves and Luke managed to shun the girls by not caring about the present they got him for organising the dinner. Being so close to Darling Harbour it was hard to resist a trip to the Lindt Cafe for a chocalate drink and dessert. All in all a great evening with some fine company.

Having just bought my shiny new 28mm f1.8 Canon lens what better place to test it out than a poorly lit but atmospheric restaurant. The lighting was very red and the poor old 350D just couldn't keep the noise away.

Link to the Vivid Sydney Gallery

THE Vivid Sydney Festival is an arts festival that is based around light. The festival consisted of many art displays scattered around the Circular Quay and The Rocks. Most of the displays had an experimental feel to them and really changed the look of the city areas. You could recognise the city but yet in some strange way it was foreign.

One of the more spectacular displays was the projections using the Opera House as a canvas. Projected from across the harbour the images would change once about every 15 minutes or 30 minutes. We managed to catch Fire Water which was a dramatic presentation of a sunken convict ship and tribute to those who lost their lives in the wreck.

Lights were everwhere, on the Museum of Contemporary Arts, around trees powered by bicycles, strung up above alley ways and cast along historic walls. Even the observatory had a few displays which really changed the atmosphere and how you look at ordinary objects. All the lights are apparently powered using smart technology aimed at reducing energy consumption. For instance the projector that casts images across the Opera House is powered by a generator which is fueled by waste oils such as used oil from restaurants.

Of course photographers were everywhere and why not. It was a beautiful night for photography even though the weather was very chilly. Playing with long exposures means that we got to do a few fun ones at the Observatory. Maybe next time I'll try some light writing. Thanks Ben and Matt for making this such a fun photography excursion. Just wish I had been able to take one more night to check out the other displays around town.