Never did i ever envisage visiting so many parks or for that matter really worrying about how many and how good they are until Chaos turned up. Now i am a regular park goer and even partake in a little of the climbing jungle gyms myself 🙂 Now i really appreciate a half decent park.
Clocktower Square, 3/35-75 Harrington St, The Rocks NSW 2000
Originally shared by +Jarrod Castaing
New prints arrived in the gallery this week including three of my favourites at 1.5 metres! Good excuse to drop in and say hi 🙂
Clocktower Square, 3/35-75 Harrington St, The Rocks NSW 2000
(as krudd used to say sadly..)
The Sydney Opera House, Australia.
+Aravindhan Padmanabhan has been posting some nice shots from his recent trip to the worlds best subcontinent and reminded me a few images I took when I was there.
This was back in the day when i started out in the hobby of photography (2009), I had only recently purchased a tripod and a pro quality lens (nikkor 17-55 f2.8) both of which i still have and use regularly 🙂
This was a b-sides shot from Wineglass bay, the place i had the best beer in the world (moo-brew)
It caught my attention because of the tiny figure in the foreground, dwarfed by the Hazzards…
Thanks to +Aravindhan Padmanabhan for making me take another look at my images from that era.
Someday images just roll off the screen, other days they need a mallet, an axe and a small construction zone to get them to work – in this case I am still not seeing the result I wanted.
The conditions could be considered epic i guess, brilliant orange burning on the horizon and ominous dark clouds directly overhead, this however, did not make for a easy shot, especially when i messed up the exposures 😉 I really need more than 3 exposures per bracket to give a smooth transition between the highlights and shadows.
Anyway, I used a graduated filter and also bracketed the frames but still struggled to capture the entire dynamic range and the composition certainly looked better in my head than what it turned out on the screen. I think i will chalk this one up to the one that got away.
3 bracketed frame panorama.
f/8 at 1, 4 and 15 seconds
Went for a sunrise session in the city, however, I really struggle to get excited about the Harbour Bridge and Opera House any more – must be Sydney icon-fatigue 🙂 I did even get a pretty cool pano of the opera house with some pretty cool cloud and colour, but this image taken later on appealed more to me, thus got more attention.
I quite liked the motion of the water complimented by the movement of the passing "Fantasia" boat coupled with the brillant yellow antislip steps which just popped out against the mossy and algae eaten concrete.
I also like the quirky composition, not quite following any rules but also not quite breaking any 🙂
Luna Park off in the distance set against the backdrop of Milsons Point and North Sydney, you can see a small fraction of the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Single Frame exposure
Aperture: f/19
Shutter Speed: 1s
Exposure Mode: Manual
ISO Sensitivity: ISO 100
I also think i have portrait orientation addiction…can't seem to get the camera back into landscape orientation.
very glad these are fed daily and there is a large wall and thick glass between them and me…
Lens: 300mm f/4D
Aperture: f/4
Shutter Speed: 1/500s
ISO Sensitivity: ISO 500
for some reason Ms Lioness i just could not take you seriously today , normally so dignified and aloft… 😉
Its not everyday you take a pano shot of lions but at 300mm i just couldn't get it all in 😉
I'll promise to post a better one of Ms Lioness…
Its like a mesmerizing blurry mirror that you can't tear your eyes away from, each second the shape, colour and contrast change as the light refracts through the ebbing water.
The light was fading very fast and the colour disappearing just as quick, i could see the campfire ablaze in the distance and a clinking of beer bottles was calling. Rather than wait the 2 minutes at f/16 for the bright exposure i took 3 frames at different apertures all at 30 seconds as a means to expedite my parched throat to the waiting beer. Said goodbye to the shy crabs and took another single frame before trekking back to the pinpoint of light that was our campsite.
Similarly to the last image, I processed it in Nik HDR efex pro2 using pretty much the same custom preset, now dubbed 'gerry's dark one' then finished off in my usual process.
I love reading the comments that people leave and I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed!
+Visit NSW
+Australia
+Coastal Thursday curated by +David Polzine +Jon Kahn
+ColorsOnFriday curated by +Karsten Meyer +Britta Rogge
curated by +Jarek Klimek
+Promote Photography
+10000 PHOTOGRAPHERS curated by +Robert SKREINER
curated by +Rolf Hicker
+HQSP Landscape curated by +Terrie Gray +Johnny Minor +Nicolai Neijhoft +Lani Banadera +Aamir Shahzad +Delcour Eric
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This image is a rare example where I have used Nik HDR efex pro 2 to automatically blend the image, in recent months/year i have been much more inclined to manually blend exposures in photoshop to obtain the required dynamic range i have found this gives complete control over process and i can dictate exactly how i want the dynamic range to look rather than relying on a program algorithm or preset to decide.
That said, i have become partial to the Nik HDR efex pro 2 plugin for PS since it often (not always) generates a fairly decent image which i can then edit as desired in my normal processing software/method. I find the 'balanced' or 'neutral' preset seems to give me the best latitude to do as I wish and it is more time efficient than manually blending 🙂
This image was 3 automatically bracket images varying from 1/2 second to 8 second shutter speed. f/16 @12mm focal length
Circular Polariser, and LEE Graduated 0.9 filter
I was waiting for a nice wave to flow right up the channel but ran out of time and patience.
See these dinky little rock pools with the glassy reflections? these are guaranteed shoe soakers…the ones with the all sandy bottoms are the worst, looks like dry sand to the casual glance until 'splash' i had two wet shoes for the next day of camping thanks to one of these 🙂
I love reading the comments that people leave and I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and in my opinion everyone has a valid point of view irrespective of skill and experience.
I love seascapes and I think the main reason is the unpredictability of what you are going to come home with. I sometimes get the opportunity to revisit a location and I always try and plan at least a couple of shots in my head, however more often than not i come away with totally different shots due to a lot of different factors.
On this day, i planned to be on that island out there..yeah..that long thin one you can see in the distance…so how did I end up over here taking this shot? I had a few sweet ideas in my head for long exposures off that really sweet rocky oil tanker shaped rock island but nature did not come to the party, sunset was at around 8 ish and low tide was at 5 pm, this little island is only accessible during low tide for a couple of hours, now i am always pretty keen but wading waist deep on a sand bar well past dusk did not sound like a good idea, plus i needed to be back at the campsite for a beer (i rarely get to have a few beers nowadays so thats a major driving factor 😉 )
Anyway, so i was stuck landside and this is one of the shots that eventuated, not quite the one I had in mind 🙂
Aperture: f/16
Shutter Speed: 4s
Exposure Mode: Manual
ISO Sensitivity: ISO 100
Circular Polariser, and LEE Graduated 0.9 filter
I love reading the comments that people leave and I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and in my opinion everyone has a vaild poitn of view irrespective of skill and experience.
This little rock that afforded me a perch on this particular morning I dubbed the chinamans hat, not the most politically correct name however it is on a beach called, yep you guessed it 'Chinamans Beach', also it, the rock that is, reminds me a switch often found in choppers, which…yeah you guessed it again are commonly referred to as 'chinamans hats'.. 'cause…well they really do look like chinamans hats. I never thought i would be able to use the word chinaman so many times in one sentence 🙂
anyway..here we have it…Chinamans Hat on Chinamans Beach and if i was a chinaman it would make for a really damn good story. :-/ no offence to any chinamen 🙂
After a hard night protecting the little boaties from the evil rocks this little lighthouse can take a well deserved break for the day and have a VB, if lighthouses could drink VB, maybe just someone polishing his lens would suffice, anyway I digress.
Seal Rocks, mid coast of NSW Australia, a beautiful part of the world and a location that has claimed many a life.
Stitched panorama, using bracketed images to achieve adequate dynamic range throughout.
As always, view large and thank-you for taking the time to have a look and comment on my images, it is appreciated.
Reaching its long tentacles up onto the rocky beach the sea looks to claim some more…seaweed 😉
This was taken well past sunset and there was but a tiny glimmer of colour left in the sky, tantalizing me to stay for one more shot, as luck would have it..i stayed for a few more 🙂 There is nothing quite like being completely alone with nature on the edge our great country.
Termeil Point
One of the best camp spots on the South Coast of NSW, Australia, it takes a bit to get in there and its pretty popular during school holidays, but for very good reason.