Sun Setting for NSW bike riders?

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I gotta say the relationship between most NSW bike riders and car drivers is pretty toxic, the sheer anger that both expend towards one another is pretty crazy, you only have to look on the various social media and article sites with comments to get a sense of the feeling out there. Now couple that with some pretty interesting changes in the rules which come into force in March this year and its a all heating up 🙂

As a disclaimer, I ride a bike and I drive a car, I have used the bike to commute to work and I use the car to commute to work, I also use public transport – geez aren't I a model citizen 🙂 – i think i have a pretty balanced view on the situation but I can't really see how the introduction of these hefty fines is gonna make the roads (and footpaths) safer for everyone. I think possibly the 300 buck fine for not wearing your helmet might be the only one, note I am an advocate for wearing helmets anyway. The increase in fines might encourage more police to actually fine people for not wearing a helmet, while they are there, why not actually fine people for the other things which are illegal.. um like riding on the footpath, not using a light at night, i reckon if they nailed all the bike riders in Newtown the police could fund their next big polair chopper 😉

All jokes aside, the one aspect I find really interesting is the one where cars must give clearance to bike riders when over taking.. technically, if they fined everyone driving a car for not giving 1 metre clearance from the bike rider in the innerwest of sydney we could get rid of all the parking meters with all the funds generated from the fines 🙂 no, really seriously… how are they gonna enforce that rule 😉 I wonder if a bike rider records a number plate then says the driver did not give adequate clearance whether that would be enough ? or would hard evidence be needed? bike cams anyone.

Anyway, I really digress, onto the the photo, this is a great cycle way down at Sans Souci which runs along the foreshore there, one day i will get to it on my bike 🙂

What's new with you little dragonfly?

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It's been awhile since i have done any macro photography, its always a great pastime, really forces you to slow down, relax and be patient, even more so that landscape photography.

This little guy escaped my murderous run on the lawn mover so thought it only fitting that i should give him the time and get a decent shot. I would get some cool shots of spiders, but sadly they get eaten up by the mower, rather mercilessly i must admit 🙂

This was taken with a very old nikon 105mm f4 micro lens coupled with the PK-13 extension tube, this pretty well gets it to 1:1 ratio, the quality of the image from this lens has degraded since moving from my old crop sensor camera to a full frame, all the scratches and imperfections show up now 🙂

D750 coupled with Nikkor 105mm f4 micro (and PK-13 extension tube) @ 105mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 1/200s
External flash.
ISO 100
Out front – funky dragonfly

Somersby

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When i visited here on my way home the other day i was planning to skip these upper falls… they have been photographed so much and I thought the world does not need another one wink emoticon however when i got there.. I thought i'll just take one pano here smile emoticon Now I am glad I did.
I saw on the news today that a young bloke lost his life here just the other day when he slipped and fell from the top falls, i was not not gonna bother editing this picture, however a small gesture i can make to this young guy and his family is to dedicate this picture to them. RIP mate.

‪#‎somersbyfalls‬ ‪#‎somersby‬

Exif love:
12 vertical frames stitched together, then cropped a bit 'cause I did not like all that water in the foreground 🙂
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f18 and Shutter Speed: 3s
exposure comp -0.3EV
ISO 0.3 under 100 (to get the longer shutter speed)
Out front – CPL only and a beautiful set of falls.

Got Wheels

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and can use them

Way to go chaos! thats the 6th time on the new bike and the 6th time without training wheels, next it will be out riding with me – watch out world 😉

thankfully it did not take long – i don't think my poor back could handle holding the handle bars while running along much longer 🙂

All taken with a dinky little great little camera when your poor body is wrecked from carrying kids, pushing bikes and doing all da domestic duties..

Thats a big dude on the side of a building

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Now, this is art – two simple reasons, 1) cause the first thought is.. how the #@^& did they do that? and 2) #$@& that looks awesome
😉
and thats why I am such a sought after art critic.

note, this shot is only half the height of the artwork, there is a person kneeling on his back which reaches the third floor 🙂

I really should get out more and explore my neighborhood, there are so many cool things to look at.

Some Rock in the Ocean

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with his little friend way out there

There is nothing quite like a lonely rock in the water and the sun trying to smash its way though.

It's always interesting to see the phases ones photography goes thru and how sometimes one gets stuck 😉 what I like about this image is that it manages to isolate the rock without a super long exposure and maintain that dreamy feel to the frame, the sun peaking though just topped it off. The shot is a bracketed shot since the foreground was quite dark, particularly the closest side of the rock, given the flat horizon it was a very easy blend to increase the dynamic range.

Exif love:
2 images blended together
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 35mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 1/1.6s sky and 8s for teh shadows
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL and LEE Graduated filter 0.9x

Transition

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Ever since starting out in photography I have pretty well used the same program (Nikon's CNX2) to edit the majority of my images , i use Photoshop a fair bit now and Lightroom even more, but given the fact that Nikon CNX has gone the way of the dodo I have been trying to ween myself off it, sadly, the more I do, the more I realise the few simple functions that CNX (and the Nik Plugins) can simply not be replaced (with the same ease) in either lightroom of Photoshop, now photoshop smashes all over CNX2 but the key point here is the ease and speed of use, for which CNX kills them (for me anyways).

So, in another step towards removing myself from the addiction with CNX2 I am trying to edit a fewlandscape/seascape image solely in Lightrrom and achieve a result that I am happy with. Now I typically use Lightroom for most of my family shots but these typically only have global adjustments and a few control points so its all good, however my landscape stuff can often have a few more complex steps involved. This image is from LIttle Austinmer which I have solely edited in LR – i now note that this has a few benefits, one of which is the reduction overall noise in the final image, I guess going from one program to the next does increase noise…

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 24mm Aperture: f14 and Shutter Speed: 8s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL and LEE Graduated filter 0.9x

Ravaged

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Somersby is always a great spot to stop along the freeway, so much more rewarding that the rest stop at Ourimbah 😉 I have seen lots of images from here over the last several months, particularly during some pretty heavy rainfall periods, this has all had an effect on the area with a few of the trees coming down and changing the face of this familiar and popular waterfall. I last stopped here about may last year and pretty well too the identical image – without realising it, that's the great thing about getting old, is that you simply forget the spots and compositions you take, hence it always feels new 😉 well thats my theory and I am sticking to it 😉
The image from last year is here, check out the canopy and also the growth on that little landing rock 🙂
https://plus.google.com/+GerardBlacklock/posts/H1LvkfDKCgE
‪
#‎somersby‬ ‪#‎verticalpano‬

Exif love:
4 shot vertical panorama
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 4s
ISO 100
Out front – somersby falls with a Hoya CPL

Jetty

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long

I learnt two things from a nice old bloke who I met at the very end of this jetty. 1) you can catch some awesome prawns here smile emoticon (but don't tell anyone else 🙂 ) 2) They shipped houses over on barges to get to the suburb of 'Long Jetty' – no prizes for the reason why they called it Long Jetty.
Its always great to meet a local, they can really give a insight into a place that can't be had from reading stuff online or in tourist literature. The other interesting point he made was regarding all the weeds in the water, which extended out past the end of this jetty, apparently these are only fairly recent (that could be 20 years given the age of this bloke 😉 ) and are a result of increased nutrients in the water from surrounding suburbs.

I gotta say, these jetty's (and this one is one of the shorter ones) are really really long and looking at them from someone who has never been there before they seem kinda strange, however given that they were typically built back in the 1940's era when there was no access road to area and there was no bridge to the north it makes sense since everything was barged/boated in. It's a cool legacy to have and I bet all the local hobby fishermen love these jettys to go out and fish on.

Now that I know where this spot is now, I'll be sure to visit again, its actually not far off the freeway and makes for a great spot to spot on the way back from up the coast.

Exif love:
5 landscape orientation frames frames stitched together
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 35mm Aperture: f11 and Shutter Speed: 3s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL and LEE Graduated filter 0.9x

It's funny how some distance

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Makes everything seem small
I am one with the wind and sky

I am putting that out there for all those who don't instantly recognise the above lines, i think its my duty .. as one who has suffered (many times over), to share with the good people that I know the joy of the song 'let it go'.
Now if you still dunno what the hell I am banging on about, just plug 'let it go elsa song' into your favorite search engine, sit back, turn up the volume and enjoy (seriously 🙂 )
After climbing a few dunes, sliding down a few and getting my ass crack filled up with sand I decided enough was enough and this was gonna be the dune I took a photo of. So, the connection to the song, sadly, as I stood atop this not so inspirational dune, the only think that stuck in my head was … 'It's funny how some distance makes everything seem small' … ahh $%# … so instead walked further and took some cool pictures of frog tracks in the dunes instead 😉
(seriously, now go and put it into the search engine, trust me, money back guarantee)

Exif love:
2 frames blended in +Nik Collection by Google using – well done +Nik Collection by Google , the options to remove ghosting and movement worked perfectly here.
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 1/60s and 1/8s
ISO 100
Out front – me

Sans Souci

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Sneaky Sunset Sessions

Exif love:
4 landscape orientation frames frames stitched together
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 24mm Aperture: f11 and Shutter Speed: 1/2.5s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL and LEE Graduated filter 0.9x

Its a long way to the beach

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This image, for me, sums up how far camera technology has come, even in the recent years the advances in dynamic lighting and increased dynamic range still blows me away. Now, if only they could get rid of those flare spots 😉

Single image, pretty well straight outta the camera

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 1/80s
ISO 100
Out front – some poor animals plight to reach the ocean