What is the Question – February 2022

For February’s What is the Question Roland talked with Ballarat born and bred photographer, Greg Karslake.

 

What is your name?

Gregory Michael Karslake.

 

What is your occupation?

Former photographer – now unemployed.

 

What brought you to Ballarat?

Birth – I was born here in 1974.

 

What is your best decision – ever?

Marrying my lovely wife, Kelly.

 

What do you like to cook?

Hot chips, which stems from my grandmother. She had a woodstove and she cooked them in butter. They were perfection.

 

What is your favourite smell?

I have two. The Australian bush which is the smell of nature, and a sense of freedom. And asphalt when it has been hit by rain in the hot weather, it is a sense of relief that we have coolness.

 

What is the most expensive thing you’ve purchased – property aside?

Kelly’s car – a 2001 Subaru Forrester.

 

What is your most treasured possession?

Vinyl records which I have bought over the years. A big variety starting with Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden and Pearl Jam.

 

If you could ask your pet one question, what would it be?

Do you speak English? If they don’t speak English there is no point in continuing the conversation.

 

What would you change if you could edit your past?

I would move to another country with the current situation we are in.

 

What is your favourite holiday destination?

Fiji. We’ve been there three times. It’s where Kelly and I were married. Our two girls loved it when we took them there.

 

What music and television do you like?

Lots of different music. Currently, I am on healing music. I went through a soul stage six-months ago; and more recently, a band called Lead Belly.

 

What is your favourite word?

Grouse!

 

What person – living or dead would invite to dinner party?

 

My Dad – he died in 2009. He was only 55. Too young to die.

 

What technological/scientific development boggles your mind?

Quantum computing.

 

What qualities do you admire in other people?

My wife and my daughters putting-up with my nonsense.

 

What was your first job?

Medicine delivery boy for a local chemist. It was fascinating, and I met so many interesting people.

 

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

A truck driver. I wanted to follow in my uncle’s footsteps, but I couldn’t – I can’t seen out of one eye. In secondary school I wanted to be an architect.

 

What scares you?

My two daughters – Poppy and Milly – turning into teenagers.

 

What would you change about yourself?

I wish I could take stress out of my life. It gets worse as I get older. I would try and find a career which is not stressful. It has made me very anxious. I wish I could enjoy the moment more.

I wouldn’t have gone to an all-boys’ school, and then having girls in class for the final two-years was a terrible distraction. Boys and their hormones!

 

What do you wish someone had told you when you were starting out?

Buy property!

 

What is the best parenting advice you could give?

If you drop them, don’t worry about it as they bounce.

 

What phase did you go through in high school?

The grunge movement

 

What is something about you which is still the same as when you were a child?

My maturity level.

 

What would you do if you could live anywhere in the world and not have to work for money?

I would like to be dispensing the drunks in a fantastic beach bar. It’s about building relationships.

 

What about being an only child?

I wouldn’t do it again. I always wanted a brother or a sister. There is a reason for my loneliness. I spent too much time on my own.