Chance

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I was cruisin' home from work with the plan for a pool session on wednesday night when the traffic, which is normally pretty good when I leave late, came to a pretty abrupt jam, it took a damn long time to get off the M5 tunnel and over to Wolli creek. It was only then that it was clear why traffic had come to a standstill, for a period of time both sides of the Princes Highway were shut and when I crawled through a contraflow on one side was in place. The reason for the delay became pretty evident with a Blue Commodore messed up on the side of the road past an intersection. I missed my session at the pool and it was not until the next day that I found out what happened. A female pedestrian had been hit by by the blue ute which had ran a red light, turns out the driver was pissed (4x the limit) as well.

Its hard to find compassion for people who make these kind of choices, which, thankfully only rarely end in tragedy, but I am sure this driver and his passenger never thought this would happen to them, but then again, the female who was killed did not even get a choice. Now sadly a family have lost their 22 yro daughter and two other lives are gonna be messed up resulting from what would appear to be two very poor choices, driving pissed and running a red light.

Choose wisely.

This image is for you Nicole – rest in peace.

Garden of Stone – Dry Canyon
10 frames, each frame bracketed
D750 with Samyang 14mm f2.8 @ 14mm
Shutter speed: 3s (normal exp) and 1/2.5s (under exposed)
Aperture: f/9
ISO 100

Katoomba Falls

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After a dismal sunrise, if it could even be called that 🙂 it was time for a breakie, Leura was the spot of choice and at the only Cafe that was open, quite fortuitous since the markets were setting up there just afterward and I could grab some not so local honey (it was good stuff apparently tho:) )

Katoomba falls is pretty cool, you can see it from the cable car skyway thingy and you can see it from the top at the park and I assume you can probably get to the base as well, however there also is access to the base of the first drop, a bit more than half way down – I remember taking a shot from the cable car a few years back and seeing some dudes down near this spot and kept that in the back of head for a time when i near here again..

So, here is that shot from a few years back, check out amount of water going over it and you can even see two people at the first drop and someone at the very top in a red jumper – definitely gives some scale to the falls.

https://flic.kr/p/s9TWw5

Fast forward and its pretty darn dry now, however that does have the advantage that you can walk out onto the shelf pretty easily, so in this shot you can probably work out were I was standing to get it, whilst it probably looks a bit hair raising its really not, hardly any water and its a pretty large shelf 🙂

The walk down is pretty easy, the walk back up, not so easy, however 20 minutes tops – next time I will get t the very bottom, if you can do that.

Garden of Stones

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Slot Canyon

The last time I went out to Newnes and the Glow worm tunnel was about when I was 6 years old and pretty sure it was with my old man (i'm looking at you here Alan Blacklock 🙂 ). I have been really keen to check out some the canyons out in the blue mountains for quite some time and the Dry Canyon at the Garden of Stones is probably the easiest option, bar the bone rattling drive in there.

So after a slight deviation in plans for another trip planned on this weekend and with Rodney Campbell and Suren hassling for some kinda of plan more than 15 minutes in advanced 😉 I locked in this spot, mainly 'cause Suren promised to drive 🙂 little did we know he had never driven on a dirt road before… or eaten a chiko roll …lols.

There are no signs and no mobile reception out at Garden of stones so I kinda wished I had spent more than 5 minutes reading some instructions on how to find the place, but after a quick reccy with Rodneys drone and some instructions from a old couple walking out we were on the right path. It is such a great spot and as promised nothing more than a stroll in the park with a few logs to hop over, it also gives a great insight into some of the other canyons in the Blue Mountains and what they must be like with water in them. Pretty cool to be able go the whole length and not get wet…

I quite liked this fern which had kinda gone wayward and fallen over, whilst not showing the real extents of the canyon it certain shows some of the quite lush foliage buried deep in the darkness of the slot canyon.

5 shot panorama with each frame bracketed
D750 with Samyang 14mm f2.8 @ 14mm
Shutter speed: 2s and 1/4s (under exposed)
Aperture: f/9
ISO 100

Bridal Veil Falls

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Taken a few years back when there was a bit more rain about – for some reason I was looking for a image deep under some magnetised bits of my hardrive when I found this folder and had a look in, plenty of unedited images sitting around waiting for some love (and time).

Located at Leura just under the main Falls (which I think is actually the Bridal Veil ones) its only a 30 minute walk down, a bit longer up since its mostly stairs 🙂

Nikon D7000 with the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 30s
ISO: 100

Bat Cave

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Damn I hate when the technical side of photography gets in the way of taking a shot. I have had a few goes at editing this panorama and it a real challenge, much more that the usual drama of a scene with really dark and really bright areas. I suppose doing it on an overcast day and in the morning or evening would certainly help – prolly help with the crowds too 🙂 although great see so many people out enjoying thee natural wonder of SE QLD.

I have seen some really nice images of this place over the years and during a recent visit to northern NSW we decided to drive and have a squiz.

I reckon they may have had problems with people swimming and jumping the fence here, I don't think I have seen a tourist place with soooo many signs saying no swimming and keep to the track 🙂 I think one of the main reasons is the colony of bats in the cave, which both tickles and chaos were very excited to see, even if it was in the dark at the end of the cave and they barely visible. The cave is surprisingly large and, thankyou mother nature, rather tall, no loss of brain cells for me that day 🙂

This image is probably about a 160 degree field of view and about 3 quarters of the entire cave. The panorama is made up of 5 frames (landscape orientation) with each frame bracketed, this way there is some hope of capturing both the really dark parks of the cave and the really bright outside and falls, which were in full sun. Editing was a real challenge to try and get that natural blend from light to dark and not get left with a flat HDR's style image, this is my third crack at the shot from here, i have a few others of varying composition, but i think I will leave those for a rainy day 🙂

D750 with Nikkor 17-35 f2.8 @ 26mm
Shutter speed: 1s (normal exp), 8s (over exposed) and 1/8s (under exposed)
Aperture: f/8
ISO 100

Plane catcher

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This image is a single shot of one the larger sculptures this year known as 'Signed' by Jonathon Leahey. The lighting in this one is pretty simple, lots of blue EL wire on the ground and flowing out from the pole, this effect is pretty easy to achieve by holding one end of the EL wire to the pole and shaking it slightly then letting it go and dragging it across the ground towards the camera, or radially away from the pole.

The red colour at the base and also on the top is by shining a red torch. The great thing about these kind of shots is that they are super easy to edit, very little required and all the hard work is done during the capture of the scene.

Exif / shot love:
D750 coupled with Samyang 14mm f2.8 @ 14mm
Shutter speed: 452.0s
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO 100
out front – sculptures by the sea art with a bit of EL wire and coloured torch

Sand Pumping Jetty

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4 or so shots merged into a panorama, using the Leofoto Panoramic Kit, this was just using the panning clamp and the rail since it was in the landscape orientation. This setup is actually really nice and lightweight and providing the pano is level about the horizon ie, not tilted up or down then it works fine.

D750 coupled with Nikkor17-35 f2.8 @ 17mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 20s
ISO: 100
Out front: Lee Graduated Filter (0.9x)

Fingal Head Sand Pumping station

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After becoming bored with the monster jetty, which I was not allowed to walk on – it did have a sign that said "No Entry! This means you!" I thought, really, are they talking about me ? 🙂

So a way down the beach, past the crazy dude on a bicycle and the driftwood shanties there was this neat tree stump washed up, well it was neat 'cause it was.. the only other thing on the beach other than that big-ass jetty, so I took a few pictures of it, this one is a fairly large panorama, which you can see several anomalies due to the inconsistent waves and/or my lack of timing 🙂