Last Day Downunder (Auckland, New Zealand)

Well back to the airport, and this one’s a long run. I have about 30 hours of transit in front of me, but I’d frankly rather not think about this now.

So do you want to know about my last day in Sydney? Well I’m telling anyway.

Which part do you want to hear, the part where Steve (British, cop, widower) woke me up by taking a piss on my bed before puking all over his friends’ luggage or the day I spent with the adorable Swiss reporter?

I knew you’d say that.

Je vous présente Sophie:


I introduced her to Jay, my homeless Korean/Chinese friend, which I met when I ran up the stairs of a church, seeking shelter the time to rearrange my gear, on my way to shoot the picture of the lightning striking over the Opera House a week ago. He said then that it’d be great for me to be able to capture the lightning in a picture (I tried without success to explain it wasn’t that hard), and on the way back to the hostel, I stopped again and showed in the photo.

This time Sophie and I gave him the rest of the Toblerone we shared earlier during the day, and I took a quick photo of him.

Jay was reading a book on global economy when I first met him. Ironic for someone who’s homeless because of a gambling problem. But the guy is happy “no money, no problems” he said, and he was interesting to talk to.


Earlier that day we went to the World Press Photo exhibition at the New South Wales State Library. It was interesting to see that a big crowd was interest in photojournalism, I guess what I do is not useless.

The World Press Photo, if you take out the fact the pictures are winners in their category and just look at the photos for what they are, is a great exhibit of photojournalism. Otherwise, you’ll often ask yourself who the hell are the judges.

The photo nobody is watching in my picture is the photo of the year. It’s not just a coincidence, people didn’t pay attention to that one, which means I’m not the only one to think it’s a mediocre photograph, at best.


The next photo is our friend Valentin Shkolny, a Russian political refugee, and fellow photographer. I took a photo of him, he took a photo of me. Don’t let the look of the camera fool you, it’s a Leica M7, worth just as much as my Nikon D3 (the best camera there is).

Valentin is seen taking a nap in the exhibition room.