I have been told many times over that I need to take more picture of the places I visit and write about.  I normally carry a camera with me so I started to wonder, especially after multiple requests, why I don’t seem to photograph everything around me constantly.  But I realized that it’s because some of the most beautiful and most interesting things I see here, are now just a part of my everyday life in Sydney.

The classic harbor view is always right outside my window (except when obscured by a large dust storm).  I walk under the Harbor Bridge and past bus loads of tourists taking photographs of the iconic Sydney Opera House almost every single day.  I watch bright rainbow lorikeets eat out of the neighborhood trees during the day, and then watch droves of massive gray headed flying foxes cross the harbor every night.  I have an almost 360 view of the city from my rooftop, and my choice of multiple beaches to go to every weekend.  So why then would I photograph something I see all the time?

But don’t think that I have started to take these things for granted.  Far from it.  With the Celsius rising here and the Fahrenheit dropping in good old NYC, I am more grateful every day for what changes this new hemisphere has brought to my life.  Now instead of angry (and occasionally very happy) drunks, the loudest things outside my window are the baby magpies on the front lawn and the flying foxes squabbling for fruit in the fig tree.  Although, the cruise ships do honk rather loudly when passing by, and the firework shows sound like the start of a war, but those both have a much more entertainment value than any 3am argument between your neighbors across the air shaft.

Within half an hour I can be anywhere I want in the heart of the city, or on a hiking path that seems miles away from any metropolis, marveling at the size of lizards and the spiders, which could probably hold their own against the lizards.  I commute by ferry at least once a week, which offers a far more pleasant view than the graffiti in the subway tunnels.  And every time I go to the beach, my favorite thing to do is just to sit back and take in the beauty of my surroundings.  It still amazes me that the water is so clear, and so full of life that I can watch fish swim underneath me and hermit crabs scuttle around me feet.

But you complainers are right.  The best way for me to share these amazing experiences with other people, is to photograph them.  So I hijacked the camera for a good portion of our hike our around the Bradley’s Head Reserve today.  I think the photographs pale in comparison to being able to hear the birds in the trees, smell the clean air and feel the ocean breeze cooling your skin against the powerful sunshine, but they are the next best thing.  So I pledge from this point forward to diligently document my daily appreciations.

You can see the rest of the photographs from today’s hike on my flickr set.  And I DO have other recent photographs on my photostream, so don’t forget to check those out.