100122_061730_4539 Ambivalence (Fri 22 Jan 10)

            Harris Street Pyrmont NSW Australia

This isn't quite the shot that I wanted, but part of the whole PAD process is to learn along the way. 

This part of Pyrmont is tranquil in the morning before most of the cafes and other businesses start to open. In the cool half-light of dawn (before the heat really kicks in, as it did later this day) the area around the Commonwealth Bank is particularly so. Unfortunately the bus service, while adequate, isn't wonderful and for practical purposes this was as early as I could get there. The light half an hour earlier would probably have made the point better.

To the right stands the World War I memorial to the men from Pyrmont and Ultimo who served.

If I'd had my wide angle lens with me I would have been able to close in and get a shot without as much vertical interference from the trees and poles, though whether I could have done it hand held without the 24-105's I.S. is another matter. Accordingly I just lined up the poles to divide the frame and hoped that in doing so they weren't too distracting. I'm still not sure about that; I'll revisit this image in the future and see what I think then.

Oh, the title? The reason that this is today's PAD is that it's time to pay rent again, right at this very branch, in fact. While that's still cheaper than buying a place, rent increases are starting to tilt the balance. Then of course there's the fact that while I benefit from being a shareholder in most of the Australian banks (out of strategic need rather than desire), and while I recognise the need that the economy has for them, I can't help feeling a distinct distaste for many of their methods.

And thus... ambivalence.

(Mind you, the shot also features two Telstra pay 'phones and while they make a valuable source of light in early morning shots I have no ambivalence about Telstra. Nor do many, many of their reluctant customers. If you know what I mean. And I'm sure you do.)
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Edit, August 2023: It's interesting to look back at this time and see how different it felt from now. The real estate agency gave us a deposit book and we would go along and make a deposit with it, as I note above. There was always a queue of people lined up for banking services. Bank branches seemed to be immutable, but it was a facade; the story of making cash deposits over the counter now seems like something from the 1990s rather than the tail end of the 2000s. According to the World Bank, in 2001 just over half of the Australian population used the internet. By 2010, when this shot was taken, it was 76%. (Now, about 96%.) Electronic funds transfers were inexorably choking over the counter cash transactions, and the bank branches that supported them.

Then along came Covid.

This seemingly eternal edifice shut its doors sometime between April and November of 2021. At the time of writing it was still for lease.

An interesting sidenote. The teller who I usually paid the rent money to bore a striking resemblance to my GP. But there was one, with multiple degrees and a PhD, at the peak of his profession... and the other earning relatively cr@p money in a job that is more often dead end than not. (Not every teller can move on to be a branch manager. Most don't.) Mind you, for all I know the teller could have been leading a life that to him was most satisfactory. He may not have even still been there when the branch closed, since I had not set foot in there for more than a decade. I've no idea what happened to him, nor to any of the others who worked there... merely that the job vacancies in banking certainly aren't what they would have been 13 years ago.

Also... now that fixed landlines and Telstra's effective monopoly of them have vanished and it has to compete on a more or less even footing with other telcos in the mobile space, it's become a bit less loathed. When most people needed a landline and Telstra had them over a barrel, they liked to lord it over their customers. Competition induced a dose of humility.
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Further edit, January 2025: By coincidence the PAD entry that I put up for yesterday, 15 years into the future from this shot, give or take a day, also dealt with the subject of banks and their future (or not) in shopping centres.

Taken on: January 22, 2010

Tags:

New South Wales

NSW

Sydney

Australia

Harris Street

Union Square

2 Union Street

Commonwealth Bank

New South Wales (NSW) « less

Sets appears in: • Hanging Out In My PAD; 2010 Visual Diary

Camera: Canon EOS 40D, f/8.0, 1/8 sec, 35mm, ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS 40D
Lens:	EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM
Aperture:	f/8.0
Exposure Time:	0.125 sec (1/8)
Focal Length:	35mm
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	-2/3 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop 25.9 (Windows)
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