Two Worlds

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collide

There is a song about that 😉
This was the last shot of the day (well for sunrise anyways 🙂 ) The rain had momentarily stopped and the sun was making another grab for freedom from the clouds.

I stumbled about the rocks looking for that cool foreground as the rays of light shone down like some biblical scene, i suppose i did pray for some something decent but all it threw me was a bunch seaweed and some neptune necklaces 🙁 coulda been worse I suppose…

Here is a cool example of the polariser working, whilst its pretty well straight into the sun (polarisation is strongest at 90 degrees to the direction of the sun) the polariser let me get a clear glimpse into the world that lay at my toes..

Exif love ('cause I know your just hanging for it 🙂 )
2 shots, one for the sky and one for the foreground, really easy blend with the straight horizon.
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f18 and Shutter Speed: 1.6s (for the sky) and 3 s for the foreground
ISO 100

Madden Falls – Darkes Forest

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Madder version

I have been meaning to return to this lesser known set of falls down south towards Wollongong since way back in 2014 when I first bush-bashed my way in. The falls are located at Darkes Forest near Madden Plains and are actually a quite accessible, there is even a board walk to the falls – however and its a big one, the trek to the base of falls is not so easy – although i reckon third time round I will have the better track sussed out 😉
There are lots of slippery-ass rocks and trees to thwart the passage in so care must be had.

On this particular day I had joined the mad southies from the Focus group for sunrise at Little Austimner which was enjoyable, yet rather wet 🙂 i had a bit of time to burn on the way back so I thought it a very opportune time to check out the falls. It was great to have some company from some keen Focus shooters (Grant and +Mike Hankey ) and I am sure they had doubts about actually getting to the base of the falls 😉

This particular shot is from the first platform of the falls where Mike ended up first – I initially lost Mike in the trees enroute to the base of the falls only to see him perched up there with a prime view of the falls, it is a great view point on the falls and lets you get out of the way of the spray and capture the wide view of the scene with water some down onto the platform and also into the pool below, which by the way was pretty full, to give you a idea, the water flow on the very left into the pool was where I was standing last time i was here (see this https://flic.kr/p/nwZ2sF)

This image is blended panorama using two exposures for each frame (12 vertical sets), its the first time I have properly used a panorama head (thanks Rod and Lorena) and I can really see the benefits when at close range – it makes stitching a absolute breeze.

Gap

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hello little sunrise, fancy seeing you here

There was a brief moment this morning when it actually felt like sunrise, for a few fast minutes the sun crept out from behind the clouds and said hello.. then disappeared … and then it rained… again.

I sat in this spot trying to get the right composition and avoid getting rained on for quite some time, finally I worked out that I needed to be in the water to get the right perspective, so I battled a river of seaweed and the shifting stands and all in all it was rather fortuitous since all that time stuffing around the sun finally came out.

Note, seaweed around a tripod leg can create some mad vibrations in the tripod when under some strong current 😉

Exif love:
3 shot panorama (landscape orientation)
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f14 and Shutter Speed: 10s
ISO 100

Tunnel Spectre

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As you pass down into the depths of Tunnel No. 7 and past the fallen wicked mechanical prawn there is ventilation shaft that provides a pinprick of hope, a spot where you can escape the damp musty smell of the tunnel and get a glimmer light…but don't stay too long tho, there be others here 🙂

‪#‎tunnelNo7‬ ‪#‎lightpainting‬

National Aboretum

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Its like somebody stole one of the sails from the Sydney Opera House and dropped it in the middle of this plant nursery

Awesome place, can't wait to see how all the trees develop..

I took a different approach on the processing here, i originally had BW in my head but it did not quite convey the foreground very well, hence why I ended up with burnt de-saturated look

5 shot handheld panorama

D750 coupled with Nikkor 85mm f1.4 @ 85mm Aperture: f10 and Shutter Speed: 1/200s
ISO 100
Out front – bigass hill, some cool buildings and a bunch of baby trees!

On the Edge

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the road that is 🙂

I had this composition in my head before I went to this spot, however with most ideas in my head it looked nothing like it actually ended up.
The more I look at it, more I dislike it, i see all the dust spots, the stitching errors, the inconsistent colour smoothness..the noise..

I will chalk this image down to one of those ones which needed alot of beating over the head to get to the point where it looks like what you wanted it to look like… like the image in my head, but even then its not there. FYI, the image in my head was a large expanse of ocean with the road and cliff teetering on the edge of the frame.

Its a 5 shot panorama image at the height of the colour of the morning, which needed alittle help to really shine through 🙂

#‎seacliff‬ ‪#‎coalcliff‬

D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70 mm f2.8 @ 48mm Aperture: f18 and Shutter Speed: 18s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL and LEE GND (0.9x)

Torrent Hunting

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So they said 'ya gotta go there when its just rained or there is nothing' good advice chaps…just one small problem… too much of a good thing is not good 🙂
In the space of 15 minutes the water level here had risen over a foot in height, stand back i says 🙂

7 shot panorama image. In this one I varied the exposure of each frame to accommodate the light and dark areas of the scene. Usually I would just bracket the images, but I was trying to save time 🙂

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 21mm Aperture: f18 and Shutter Speed: 4s
EV -0.3
ISO 100

Out front – lots of smelly stormwater 😉

Sweeping

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I think the dudes (and ladies) who designed this bridge had us poor photographers in mind, its a very pretty bit of coastline, but then you throw in a minimalist sweeping road and its like nature and man actually worked together (yeah i know thats a bit of contradiction but hey..)

I visited this bridge to take photos waaay back in 2009 when I got my first DLSR camera and had no idea – i only have marginally more of an idea now it was also when I thought a sunrise session was getting there at sunrise 😉

Back then you could just walk on down the old road and construction road to get to the base of the bridge, this soon got quite overgrown and when I visited it again in 2012 with Ray (https://www.flickr.com/photos/ray_jennings) there was quite some bush bashing to get to the bottom (never heard the end of it either) – I did not realise (at that point) that there was another shorter way down on the right hand side of the bridge 🙂

Anyways, I did always wonder whether you could get to the top of the cliff and see the bridge from above, and it was not until recent years when images started to emerge from this spot up top that I knew it was possible to get there. It now seems its a bit of popular old spot for the photographers 🙂

Thanks to Rodney Campbell and Debbie Mooney for the company and also the last minute changes – it really did take 12 hours to decide on a spot to go for sunrise 🙂

‪#‎seacliff‬ ‪#‎coalcliff‬

D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70 mm f2.8 @ 48mm Aperture: f10 and Shutter Speed: 30s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL and LEE GND (0.9x)

Wicked World

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Down here, where things bleed blue and your path is strewn with fallen comrades, nothing escapes…. and there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

Rest easy fallen mechanical prawn 🙂 your in a better place.

Cheers to Rodney and Deb, don't think i would have ventured in here by myself 🙂 let alone walked the whole 1.5 kilometres.

D750 coupled with Samyang 14mm f2.8 @ 14mm Aperture: f/5.6 and Shutter Speed: lazy 202 seconds
ISO 100
out front – smashing light, a prawn, the devils bath tub and some rickety ass rocks.

Happy New Year

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goodbye 2015… hello 2016

insert inspirational quote here 🙂
I think we are overloaded with meme's and quotes nowadays and quite frankly I rarely read them now 🙂

On a day when we cram in over a million people into the city to watch the 5 million buck cracker show I think the only quote we really need is:
"have patience"

That goes for me too, after I lost my chops at a Taxi driver for cutting me off on the way home 🙂

Happy new Year all, have a safe and happy 2016 and most importantly, have patience 🙂

* P u r e C h a o s*

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I don't think i need that many words to describe this, chaos meets chaos 😉

4 shot panorama image (handheld) from our Nations Capital, the place with all da junk 🙂

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f4 @ 48mm Aperture: f5 and Shutter Speed: 1/1250s
EV -0.3
ISO 100

Out front – Spagetti Chaos