Choose the right Path

Damn, I have heard that a few times in my youth 😉

I have walked down many paths (not metaphorically now!) at all hours of the day and night and sometimes its nice to come across a path after bush-bashing through the scrub, gives oneself some feeling of comfort that your heading int the right direction 🙂 well at least were someone else has traveled, you know… less chance of shakey snakes etc 🙁

These particular paths I suspect are pretty well worn by fisherman and local walkers, one of which I bumped into quite unexpectedly in the wee hours of the morning, I think she was as surprised as me to see someone else was crazy enough to be out.

I never planned these to be a triptych, however after reviewing the images it seemed like the appropriate means to present them, however I do like the first image and think it could work nicely on its own (wih that cool 'S'' curve and all), however thats for a rainy day processing session 🙂 The trick with triptyches is to get the images to flow and match, which, is easy to say, much harder to do, one day I will go out with the specific purpose for this to make sure the horizons line up and the bits on the left and right of the frames are complimentary, rather then juggling and cropping them after the fact.

Exif love (typical for each image):
D750 coupled with 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f/10 and Shutter Speed: 1/5s
ISO 100
out front – Hoya CPL, Lee Graduated 0.9 Filter and some paths 🙂

https://blog.avernus.com.au/choose-the-right-path/

Its wicked world

and there's tiger striped rock hiding behind the bushes out to get you 🙂

view large

I originally started with 5 landscape orientation images stitched together, this got cropped pretty ruthlessly down to what you can see now, which is probably only about 3 or 4 images overlapped 50%
I was not quite sure what composition I wanted when i took the shots, all I knew I wanted to included the element of the tiger rock, the foliage/bushes and the spooky star trek Enterprise shaped island in it 🙂

Exif/setup love:
D750 coupled with 16-35mm f4 @ 30mm Aperture: f/14 and Shutter Speed: 1/2s
ISO: 100
out front – Lee Graduated Filter (0.9x) and Hoya CPL

Protection

Protection - (c) 2015 Gerard Blacklock

D750 coupled with 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f/10 and Shutter Speed: 1/1.3s
ISO: 100
out front – Lee Graduated Filter (0.9x) a bit of a wreck or something and some rockage

did not help this wreck
view large… its a crime not too 😉

Whilst the colour and clouds were nice, i really liked this channel that ran between the breaking waves and outer rock shelf and the next set of rocks (which I am standing on). The small rock cluster, only standing several feet high created a calm little bay with the waves just bubbling thru the rocks and occasionally flowing over the top – I did wait for that set of waves, since that would have topped the image off I think, ie some nice water flowing over the rocks, but alas, patience got the better of me and at the time I was not overly impressed with the shot, only after i reviewed it on the the computer did it get a look in.

4 landscape orientation images stitched together in +Adobe Photoshop, the scene has a bit of the bendy feel to it due to the wide angle and in hindsight taking several steps back and running with 35mm focal length would have been a much better option, or even better swapping to a longer lens.

Exif/setup love:
D750 coupled with 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f/10 and Shutter Speed: 1/1.3s
ISO: 100
out front – Lee Graduated Filter (0.9x) a bit of a wreck or something and some rockage

The Wedge

20,000 years in the making - (c) Gerard Blacklock

20,000 years in the making – (c) Gerard Blacklock
D750 coupled with 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f/18 and Shutter Speed: 20s
out front – Lee Graduated Filter (0.9x) and some big ass rock with a hole in its bum.

20,000 years in the making…

I was watching some show on the telly before about the oldest skeleton ever found, in England with some woolly mammoths head 🙂 apparently its 29,000 years old.. thats pretty old.. the cave where they found it is right on the ocean, however apprently back in the day when the body was buried there the water was significantly lower 200 something feet and there were plains and stuff not the sea!

It never ceases to amaze me that in my short life time I can revisit a place, like this, several times in my life and I am pretty well guaranteed that it ain’t gonna change due to natural forces..and yet to form this little isolated island rock out cropping it would have taken thousands of years… yep i feel pretty insignificant.. especially given the billions who have came before..

well at least they did not take photos here I suppose 😉

h/t to mother nature again 🙂

4 shot panorama (landscape orientation)
Exif/setup love:
D750 coupled with 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f/18 and Shutter Speed: 20s
out front – Lee Graduated Filter (0.9x) and some big ass rock with a hole in its bum.

Time stands still for no man (or woman)

 

Time stands still for no man (or woman) - (c) 2014 Gerard Blacklock

Time stands still for no man (or woman) – (c) 2014 Gerard Blacklock
D750 coupled with 16-35mm f4 @ 32mm Aperture: f/10 and Shutter Speed: 243.9s
out front – Lee Graduated Filter (0.9x), Hoya CPL and LEE bigstopper

Summer brings with it very early sunrises, like in the order of 5:30am kinda early, this does make it a challenge to get up, travel to a location and get there in time for some sweet light. Throw into the mix the variable weather and of course the prospect of non-sweet light and its one more factor for staying in bed 🙂

I have been trying to get back to this location for some years now and finally I had the opportunity to do so, with no regard for weather or sunrise time I made the venture out, noting that the weather radar indicated showers, just my luck. There is always trepidation arriving at a location (alone), even one with I have been to before, in pitch blackness armed with a torch, a pair of shorts and camera gear, even moreso when its a hike in through the bush, things can look very different in the day 🙂
But, today was different, i had a freshly purchased mozzie repllant spray 😉 which I applied in excess amounts to my bare skin, which consisted mostly of my legs 🙂 I thought.. yeah this will thwart them f’ing mozzies 🙂 and it did… for the first 15 minutes :(…but they were the least of my worries, battling my way thru the dark with one tripod leg held high i was doing hard battle with another forest fiend.. .. the mighty spider that hangs across the path waiting for the unsuspecting walker to face slap..now these are probably pretty harmless (or not who knows?) but the fact that they are fat.. hairy and large and on your face will make even a grown man squeel 🙂

Anyway enough of the bush bashing stories, just imagine me arriving at this stunning location with remnants of spiders on my head and a swarm of mozzies in tow and you get the picture… segway, speaking of pictures, this cool rock formation and some sweet cloud action provided some very nice atmospherics for a short time, all of which screamed at me to be photographed.. so I did.

Single shot
Exif/setup love:
D750 coupled with 16-35mm f4 @ 32mm Aperture: f/10 and Shutter Speed: 243.9s
out front – Lee Graduated Filter (0.9x), Hoya CPL and LEE bigstopper.