Published: April 19, 2022
The weather was not terribly bad today (April 13, 2022). It was rather excellent. The radiant sun peeking through the clouds brought in some soft golden sunshine in this early hour of an Autumn morning. The winter is about to set in. The leaves from the trees will start to fall off in just about a couple of days. The roads will be covered with those leaves giving it a surreal look in some parts of NSW. There will be spectacular display of those colors in a few days or weeks from now making those areas a crawling place for aspiring photographers and the like.
Over the last couple of days, I have been fantasizing to visit those places not only to see those wonderful colors but to meet someone new as well for the project. And I am excited to do something really fun or should I say, rather audacious. (Well, let’s see. For now, I will keep it as secret.) Anyways, so the gardens were closed for last couple of years due to covid but this year restrictions have been lifted and huge gathering is expected.
Seeing the sunshine, I was rather determined to go out from those early hours and finishing my household chores when finally, I was ready to go, I came to know that an earlier train which I was planning to catch has been cancelled for the day and hence I was kinda lazy as I took my time from home to the station.
When I reached, the station was rather empty. However, the wonderful sunshine, the blue sky and bright colors were there only to fill my mind with excitement. As I was waiting in the platform the orange-colored train front could be seen from a distance in a few minutes. In the bright sunlight, the colors popped against the greyed rail tracks.
There has been some construction work going on in one of the nearby towers as well. I noticed the height of that tower was quite low. Like many people I find such height of towers as menacing because people say the frequencies could even pierce through the walls. Previously those towers used to be put at higher altitudes to avoid tall buildings as those buildings could block the signals but now things might have changed, and the signals got stronger and can even go through those walls, perhaps.
With those thoughts in mind the trains arrived in about two minutes. And as the train was approaching, I kept an eye on the top deck and from outside I noticed the backseat was already taken so I went straight to the lower deck. The sunlight was hitting the train on the other side and with the cold air flowing from the air conditioning, my journey by train to CBD, was rather a bit of unease.
Getting off the train at St James today again I decided to take the exit that goes to the art gallery. Crossing the street, I went to where the hospital is. I talked to a few people there, but they all refused to come along.
There I walked and walked for quite a bit; Martin place, hospital area near Domain, and finally I am at my all-time favorite – Westfields. Busy as it was with heavy foot traffic, I approached a few I believe there as well. As all of them turned me down I was planning to come home rather early. I also noticed the blue sky, and the bright colors from earlier this morning is now replaced. The sky is now murky, and the radiance of the light is gone. Its rather dim. And finally, now I was heading to St James to come home somewhat earlier than what I planned for.
It was at the intersection near David Jones where we caught each other’s eyes for the first time as I was standing next to her waiting for the traffic signal to go amber. But I didn’t approach because I thought she might be going somewhere. Then, I saw her walking towards station as I am. My hunch was she might be catching the train and as such I decided to wait a bit. When I went inside the station, I found her waiting at the same platform as I would catch my train in a few minutes and there I approached her despite those thoughts and what a delight it was for me to do so. We walked out of the station and went to Hyde Park where we took many photos, talked about many things, shared many secrets, joked at each other and laughed for more than an hour before we went back to the same station again and departed. Due to privacy reasons though, I must omit many details of this chat and although it was quite fun and entertaining for both of us, many of those jokes and stories that we shared are totally off limit to be published here.
So, here is Alison Belle born in Germany and now studying Web development in Sydney and she is also a DJ. Father is Afro native American, and her mother is German.
Since she was very animated and smiling and making interesting faces with wonderful expression, I was curious to know if she has done this kind of photoshoots in the past and she confirmed that she did. Talking about modeling, I worked with some fashion models in the past some seven-eight years ago and from their experience what I learnt is that being a model for fashion can be sometimes quite amazing but most of the time its rather routine. She pointed out “they don’t even allow you to smile because its unprofessional”
“Have you been told before?” – I asked. “What did they tell you?” “Don’t smile” – I added.
“Whatever you do don’t smile” I jokingly said at which with both laughed. “And you keep smiling right”? the laughter continues…
All of a sudden, I noticed my camera started to mal function. I spotted a problem with focusing. The last thing you want is to capture something beautiful only to find out it had a technical failure. I have had it happen to me many, many times in the past when I thought I seized the moment but when I saw the photo on my laptop, I noticed its flaws. It literally ruins the entire effort.
Getting panicked I started to fix the problem manually. But manual focusing is tedious and very, very difficult and that’s why modern cameras have it inbuilt into the system known as “auto focus”. As I was trying to fix the problem, she was very patient, animated and in fact she didn’t show any unease or even rush for which I must admire her.
Shortly after, I was somehow able to sort out the issue. It was happening possibly because of some misalignment calibration which after trying this and that I stumbled upon in about ten minutes or so. Modern cameras have many bells and whistles and sometimes it’s kinda hard to figure out which one has gone out of whack.
While taking photos as I was looking at her through my camera, I noticed her piercings. Now, body modification is an interesting subject. Although it might be of some trend that many would like to follow, in some cases however, I spoke to people who told me about a fantasy film being the reason for such decisions. And hence, I wanted to know the stories behind. She pointed out “I kinda like to be edgy I guess” … “I also like it because I am dark skinned”
“Yeah… so that’s kinda like a sparkle.” – I said.
She continued “that’s probably the reason I do it, but I am thinking to get rid of them since I have them since I am seventeen” – she added.
Well, I didn’t insist that she keep it back then during our chat, but I think it would be a good idea to keep them for now as it goes with being “edgy” while also adding “sparkle”.
After a few more pictures we gave each other a big hug and wrapped up for the day and as we were heading back on the same train, we talked about many other things including architecture, building and history. Australia being a relatively new country it does not have that many architectures that could be considered as historical considered to that of Germany as we discussed.
The village, for instance, she is hailed from – Birkham in Germany (pronounced “yok-hum” I believe, as I remember) – is some seven hundred years old as she pointed out.
Our discussion, however, shortly went on about Auschwitz as she remembered visiting them on her eighth grade. The hair being on the display – of all those people whose heads were shaved before they would be gassed. “I felt very, very … very uncomfortable” … “something that tells me I am not supposed to be in there” – she added.
Bidding her goodbye shortly after, as I came home, there were showers later in the evening. While sitting on my chair in front of my desk I was somehow pondering about this unprepared, spontaneous meetup. A tight hug that lasted for a few seconds, some wonderful memories, some secrets, and some banters in this slightly cold afternoon in the dim light under the murky sky was all that remained of this delightful encounter.
