December 6, 2016 - Emily Griffith

? Views from the top of the Sydney Tower

This pic was the winner for me

Going in to last weekend, I didn’t have many plans until Saturday evening. But of course the 24 hours after work on Friday ended up filled with unexpected activities.

First, myself and four others went for “one beer” to catch up after work on Friday. That turned into pretending we worked at a startup and going to an awesome startup party on a rooftop in Surry Hills. With a DJ and FREE booze! — Which is basically the most important thing when a case of sh*tty beer costs $55 here.

Then lucky me had to wake up at 6am the next day. But actually I was very lucky because a friend had a free ticket for a Nikon Masterclass at the top of the Sydney Tower, worth $300! I was able to borrow a fancy DSLR camera from my agency and I was ready to go. Thank God I took pictures because I was so tired I barely remember it.

JK, it was really cool.

FYI – the Sydney tower is that really tall building that looks like Seattle’s space needle.

Before being allowed to go out on the viewing deck, we had to put on these adorable blue onesies. Only four of us ended up going out on the deck (two were scared of the height, and one got vertigo when he got outside so he went back in) so we got some nice one-on-one time with the photography teacher.

It took me a few shots to remember the photography basics from my film days. I also learned a bit about shooting on a cloudy morning. The black and white photos added a very awesome mood to it. We even learned about bracketing (when you set the camera to take three photos in a row at different shutter speeds) so you can take the photo with the best lighting.

Looking out east towards the Pacific Ocean. Watson’s Bay and Bondi are out that way

This was such a cool way to see the city, and helped me get my bearings a bit more. I love staring at maps and figuring out how all the areas were connected, and after seeing this I feel like I can really picture Sydney’s layout. It’s nice to finally wrap your head around another huge city (I really only had Chicago down before this). ?

That famous beautiful harbour, looking amazing even on a cloudy morning

I experimented with zooming in a bit too. The below is looking over at Darling Harbour. I liked the movement of the boats in this, all going in different directions:

We were all taking photos at one point and suddenly the clear floor we were standing on made a loud noise and started moving outwards, so we were hanging over the city more. It startled the four of us taking the class ? Must be a funny thing they do to all the visitors at the Sydney Tower.

Our instructor making fun of us when they moved the clear floors outwards

The more west you go in Sydney, the more industrial it gets. The image below actually isn’t too far west, but you can tell it’s a little more industrial already. I think the black and white makes this look like it could be from the early 1900s. The big white building is the famous Australian Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour.

It was fun to see the Westfield lettering up close too (Westfield is Sydney’s biggest shopping mall chain). The below is tied as one of my favourite pictures – must be the typography nerd in me.

The below is Hyde Park. It looks small from here but walking through the trees in the park down there is magnificent. But maybe that’s because I love trees so much.