serenity now!
My passport and my 12-24mm lens arrived this week! (see above)
The more I look at my passport, the more I see it as a piece of art rather than an identification document. It has amazingly intricate designs that integrate elements of Australian culture (for example, Australian poems in minuscule print) with complex geometric patterns. The printing technology alone must be very advanced, as to ensure that kind of layer registration and resolution requires extremely high precision and repeatability levels which normal offset printers and inks aren't capable of producing. Additionally it has other unusual elements like monochromatic transparent holograms, ultraviolet inks and punched identification numbers (in decreasing size, with halos of UV ink). Looking at it under a UV source makes it come alive with colour; brilliant red in the designs of each of the unique pages, electric blue hidden serial numbers and tiny thread-like flecks of varied patterns and arrangements embedded in the paper. Even the seam sewing is UV reactive. If you have a recent Australian passport, check it out under a black light some time. Even the plain navy blue exterior has a hidden UV pattern. On a related note, in a few more months all new Australian passports will be issued with embedded chips to store biometrics and other info as part of the USA's new passport entry regulations. Weirdly, people who have a current passport won't be required to have the chip when entering the USA, so that means I won't need it for another 10 years (which kind of makes you wonder what the point of introducing it is).
The new camera lens is sweet. Unfortunately I was asleep when the courier came; having only gone to bed a few hours prior there was no way a doorbell was going to wake me, or indeed anything else shoot of a magnitude 7 earthquake. By the time I did wake up the courier had already finished their delivery run and taken it back to their depot in a neighbouring town, so later that afternoon I drove there to pick it up in person. It was also a good excuse to stop by my favourite pie store there! Mmmm, pie. It took a little longer than expected (about 40 minutes each way) due to road works.
I've only had a few opportunities to take photos with it as each time I head out it starts to rain, so the above photo will have to do for now. I'll post more in the coming days. Apologies for the low frequency of updates in the past week, it wasn't my intention. Now, time to get a break from consciousness...