Harvested

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Harvested - (c) Gerard Blacklock

D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 70mm Aperture: f9 and Shutter Speed: 1/125s
ISO 100
Out front – CPL only and a lonely tree.

this is how my brain feels nowadays 🙂

I love a good lone tree buried in a agricultural crop of some kind… but I am thinking the average factory farm operator not so much 🙂 I think having a lone tree in the middle of their paddock does not really serve much purpose other than to cause pain when sowing and harvesting.

If I ever meet a farmer I will happily point out that having that lone tree may be a pain in the ass, but jeez they make cool photographic subjects 😉 think of the artistic merit 🙂

I wold love to come back top this spot for sunrise or sunset, rather than midday, but one must make do with what one is presented with 🙂

Exif love:
a whole bunch of frames stitched together…
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 70mm Aperture: f9 and Shutter Speed: 1/125s
ISO 100
Out front – CPL only and a lonely tree.

Mosquito heaven

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Mozzie Heaven - (c) Gerard Blacklock

D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f14 and Shutter Speed: lotsa seconds 🙂 was about 4.5 minutes – 306 seconds
ISO 100
Out front – Lee Bigstopper and LEE GND (0.9x)

I love mangroves and particularly the lonely trees you often find, what I don’t like is the mosquito’s, I don’t think I have ever seen a swarm of mozzies like I did when was at this place.
Trying to prevent them from eating every inch of uncovered skin was hard enough, but to make matters worse lots of them just planted themselves on the front filter.
Whatever animals eat mozzies, birds? we need more of them.. lots more and they need to come out for sunrise

Exif love 😉
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f14 and Shutter Speed: lotsa seconds 🙂 was about 4.5 minutes – 306 seconds
ISO 100
Out front – Lee Bigstopper and LEE GND (0.9x)

Beans

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Beans - (c) Gerard Blacklock D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f8 and Shutter Speed: 1/100s ISO 100

Beans – (c) Gerard Blacklock
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f8 and Shutter Speed: 1/100s
ISO 100

Ironically, I did the shopping the other day and needed to get some beans but was bitterly disappointed at my large supermarket monopoly store when they had none left, I could have just picked a few from this field 😉

So, if you ever wanted to know what mass produced beans look like? well wonder no more, ’cause here they are, rows and rows and rows of beans which seemed to stretch endlessly into the hills.

This shot is from 5 vertical frame shots stitched together, luckily for me a cloud had just come over the field and blanketed the beanscape with some less harsh sun that was beaming down on me minutes before..

Exif love:
a whole bunch of vertical frames stitched together…
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f8 and Shutter Speed: 1/100s
ISO 100
Out front – CPL only and lotsa of beans

Cecil Plains

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This is the Hard Stuff - (c) Gerard Blacklock D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f10 and Shutter Speed: 1/160s ISO 100

This is the Hard Stuff – (c) Gerard Blacklock
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f10 and Shutter Speed: 1/160s
ISO 100

this is where the hard stuff is made

Exif love:
a whole bunch of frames stitched together…
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f10 and Shutter Speed: 1/160s
ISO 100
Out front – CPL only and some dodgy shack and lots of croppy stuff….prolly sorghum

End of the line chaps

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End of the Line Chaps - (c) Gerard Blacklock

End of the Line Chaps – (c) Gerard Blacklock
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f11 and Shutter Speed: 273.2s
ISO 100
Out front – Lee Bigstopper and LEE GND (0.9x)

careful where you put those toes..

I need to have a word to the engineer who cobbled this up, firstly, ya coulda made it just that little bit wider, surely rubble ain’t that expensive 😉 – lucky i don’t suffer from vertigo (don’t fret, that’ll come
) cause i reckon i would been in the drink if I did.

Secondly, and this is probably pretty obvious, but when I do fall in its gonna be kinda hard to get out with those nicely smoothed sides.

Exif love 😉
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f11 and Shutter Speed: 273.2s
ISO 100
Out front – Lee Bigstopper and LEE GND (0.9x)

Kids Portraits ain't meant to be perfect

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I have kinda learnt this over the years and come to accept that 99% of the photos of my kids will have them in some form of dissarray, this is a pretty classic example, the hair is half out, that said there is a clip still in there which is actually pretty good for her 🙂 a nice crusty nose and the remnants of the morning tea baby-cino are evident.

but.. and its a big but.. theres a smile and shes happy and that makes me happy 🙂 nicely played tickles

* Stick, Stuck in the Sand*

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So, whaddya reckon you find out on the sand dunes in Oz? (animals that is)

Well, i would not have believed it if I did not see it with my own eyes, but frogs… yep, way out here on the dunes with the occasional stick aka long gone tree there are a army of the frogs. Hopping each and every way, this one just one very small patch of dune which had half a dozen frog tracks, multiple this by 4 dunes (which I walked over) and thats lotta frogs!

so zoom on in and take a look if ya don't believe me 🙂

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f9 and Shutter Speed: 1/160s
out front : frog tracks 🙂

Figure 8 Pool

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Fancy a dip ? I dunno whether I would like to be the first one to have a crack at it, knowing my luck there would be a blue ringed octopus or something in there 😉

On another note, this spot is/was made famous recently by some freak waves that wiped a few peopel out and consequently resulted in a couple of helicopter rescues.

https://youtu.be/v39j49d-N8M

Exif love:
3 images blended together
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 35mm Aperture: f18
Shutter Speed: 1/1.3 s sky and 6 s for the shadows and the some extra highlights
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL and LEE Graduated filter 0.9x

Hidey Hole

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watch where you step

It takes a special kinda dedication to get up at silly-oclock after 3 hours of sleep and drive 45 minutes and then walk another 45 minutes (in the dark to) a awesome spot knowing full well there would be no clouds 🙂 (shoulda done startrails). But i was pleasantly surprised, if you look carefully there is one cloud down there on the horizon wink emoticon Thanks mother nature 😉

I guess one positive was the nice pastels you get when there are no clouds, however you gotta look fast 'cause they disappear very quickly.

This is a 3 shot image, the extra frames were used ot bring out some more exposure in the rock pool.

Exif love:
3 images blended together
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 35mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 13s sky and 30s for the shadows and the soem extra highlights
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL and LEE Graduated filter 0.9x

Angles

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I don't mind a good jetty, I only realised after taking these shots at 'long jetty' how long its been since I have stood on a jetty. I also now realise the complexities of taking a shot of a jetty with a handrail, wtf your thinking 😉 well you see.. to get everything to line up nicely, ie the bottom of the jetty planks to line up with the corners of the frame, the handrail to be 1/3rd up the frame and the vanishing point to be .. well where it is 😉 is actually more than walking out and plonking your dinky tripod down and firing off a shot, there is a lot of up tripod, down tripod… tweak camera position etc…
so the next time ya walk out on a jetty, think of the complexities 😉 (yeah, first world problem i know)..
‪#‎longjetty‬ ‪#‎jetty‬

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 1/1.6s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL and LEE Graduated filter 0.9x

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..