Camp

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We have all seen it, most togs have been here at one stage or another and today… +Rodney Campbell and I went there 😉

First shot off the rank, just as the sun disappeared over Manly or somewhere thereabouts!
Standy by for the triptych, 3 images of this little shed looks much better than one 🙂

Anyone know what the hell this shed is actually used for? sewerage pump ? nav station, shark net storage, drug running? 😉

Single frame
Exif/setup data:
D7000 coupled with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @11mm Aperture: f/9.5 and Shutter Speed: 238s
out front – LEE graduated filter 0.9, LEE bigstopper and screw in circular polariser
out to the right – Rodney Campbell

As always, I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed

Its not until you view from afar, do you realise that even when surrounded by many you are still very small

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Its a bit like a molecule lotsa space between stuff 🙂 view large

I have been reading a photography book (a fairly recently published one) which was a recent gift and was filled with very nice images and lots of very interesting information (most of which I have forgotten already 😉 ) however the images within reminded me of a saying which a few peeps who know me are probably sick of me saying.. but anyway, basically its simply that I reckon its pretty easy to take a nice picture of a stunning location – take iceland for instance (and not knocking anyone who has been there, i would love to go) but I reckon I could give my 4 yro bundle of chaos a point and shoot camera and she would come back with some fairly nice keepers.
Now one aspect I have always tried to aspire to and I seen a few photographers over the years, mainly ones who just ooze talent so much that you hate them 😉 who can make stunning images from nothing, from regular scenes, from walking down the road, a unspectacular sunset, they always come away with something dynamic, different and soemthing I would call art and go 'wow'. That is a goal that strive for.

Anyway all that waffle has a point, and you guessed it, its related to this image 😉

Trying to make something from nothing. This image was a bit tricky, it is several images stitched to make a pano, however large expanses of water and very little fixed items makes the old +Adobe Photoshop struggle a bit, however, after some bashing over the head it did my wishes and squeezed out the desired pano, with a few errors (not too shabby tho)

D7000 coupled with Nikkor 105mm f2.5 @ , yep yo guess it 105mm Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: 1/500 of a second
ISO: 100
out front – a cliff.

Thanks for looking – I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Cosmic Railway

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Its a dizzy ride to the centre of the galaxy

I learnt a few lessons from the last star trail session at the sandy side of Anna Bay, firstly.. go somewhere where there is no sand, tick. secondly set the timer correctly, tick
(note the malfunction from last time was actually due to the fact that I set the camera mode to single shot, this meant I missed an interval every shot and hence the 40 second gap between shots in my last one. It needs to be set to continuous low or high.
I still have a slight gap in the extreme view of the frame, but still better than the other attempt.

So with those key points addressed – for the next star trail session I think i need the following.. warmer location :), set the white balance to something consistent 😉 and take care of local wildlife or farm animals 😉 There was a cow terrorising this railway the following morning 🙂

This was a set of images from a fairly short time period, just over 2 hours, I do have another set at over 5 hours, however the moon rose within that period and there was some pretty funky autoWB changes throughout that set, thats for a rainy day processing session!

techie stuff
192 images stacked together using the statistics method in Adobe PS CC
(see here https://plus.google.com/100975265940134223422/posts/VnN5muFSypj)
The foreground image included a bit more on the bottom which gave me the ability to get a slight vertical pano shot happening.

D7000 coupled with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm- Aperture: f/2.8 and Shutter Speed: 45.5 seconds
ISO: 3200
out front – long metal things commonly referred to as railway tracks.

Lovely jubbly and thanks for looking – I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Gathering

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view this large and count the kangaroos – perfect for those with super panoramic view across multiple monitors:)
Life at 300 mm.

So, here i was, stuck in the car after volunteering to drive Tickles around while she slept, you know, never wake a sleeping baby etc, thus a little drive thru the countryside proved interesting and also an opportunity for some good recon of locations for the day when I have lots of time and the kids have grown up 😉

I did find a awesome old barn, a sweet dead tree conveniently positioned and a cool windmill in the perfect position for some southward facing star trail action. However, on the drive back i noticed this lonely big tree up on a ridge and a bunch of what I first thought were cows, however after slowing and further inspection it became apparent it was a bunch of grazing roos. Now this tree was a long way away and with the car now stopped there was a real danger of this baby waking up, however i could not let a lone tree like his go un-photographed…ya never know it might not be there next time 😉

So with some sneaky sneaking i popped the boot and got the 300mm lens out and whacked out a several vertical frames to stitch into a pano, after only a minute or so I turned back to the car and who was peering out the window with a big grin on her face ? yep thats right.. tickles, that was the end of that, I quickly ducked back into the car and took off, luckily she went back to dream land for another 20minutes, especially since it was boobie time and well.. i ain't no good in that department 😉

This would have been spectacular at sunset, however sometimes you gotta just take what you can get, this was pretty well at midday.
Techie data:
D7000 with Nikkor 300mm f4 @ 300mm- Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: 1/750s
ISO 100
out front – one tree, some grass and a bunch of funny roos.

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and I always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

The final Moments

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like a baby drifting off to sleep
Ya might as well view this large since it really should be viewed in full pano glory 😉

I never was much of a kid person 😉 however one of the defining moments for me was (and still is) holding my child (and not so recently version 1 – Chaos) and rocking her to sleep. I love the moments as I gently rock, pat and sooth (i am pretty good at that now 😉 ) and every now and then I catch her eye and a sly smile erupts from her only to have her bury her face in my shoulder – I know sleep is close – this reminds me of the final moments of a beautiful sunset before it disappears for another day. Sleep tight little tickles.

As for Chaos, when she goes to sleep now, its like a tornado going thru the house 😉 (in a good way of course) I guess I'll have to photograph one of those soon 😉

There was not much in the way of clouds this day, however the small amounts of clouds and the classic QLD evening turned on a very nice show of warm and cool colours all within the space of several minutes.

Techie data:
3 shot bracketed panorama (3 sets of 3 images, manually blended together)
D7000 with Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8 @ 17mm- Aperture: f/11 and Shutter Speed: 1/1.5s, 1/6s & 3s
out front – nothing but some light fog

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and I always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Galaxy Bounce

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smile.. your on camera Galaxy

I could use all the cliche terms and phrases like ..there must be life out there, one in a million..billion? blah blah blah.. buts its freakin Monday and my jaw is killing me from my dentist visit – on that note, I gotta say dental care in this country is pretty good value really, when you think of the technology they have at their fingertips (and have had for quite some time) in terms of instant x-rays, Local anesthetic etc its pretty amazing that you walk away for a few hundred bucks 😉
anyway that never makes me feel any better when the dudes pointing a horse sized tranquilizer needle in my mouth :), its all good tho, just a few renos on a few old fillings.

This image is from a recent run to the stockton dunes, which btw the way is due for another visit very soon 🙂 The image was was the last of the evening at this spot before making the long walk out with +Rodney Campbell and +Suren J. To be honest I really only bothered taking this pano image 'cause +Rodney Campbell was taking so freakin long with his fishy images 😉

Techie love:
8 odd frame (non-bracketed) panorama 🙂
Stitched in PS CC.
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm- Aperture: f/2.8 and Shutter Speed: 21.4 seconds
Iso 3200
out front – nada.

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Rodneys Log

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(don't take that outta context)

After spending half the morning rearranging the driftwood on the southern end of Newport beach for +Rodney Campbell , we finally had a log in the water with some level of decency about it (the previous attempt only got another larger log halfway to the water;) )

Even with the foreground interest , it was a real struggle to capture something worthwhile, the colours where pretty bland and it was one of those sunrises with a band of cloud across the horizon but not blocking alot of light – hence leaving a really high dynamic range scene (even with grad filters).

This image was composed with the warm sun (with alittle accentuation) to the right away from the bright part of the morning and of course with the ever moving 'rod's log', which shortly thereafter departed this position bound for better things

Exif/setup data:
D7000 coupled with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @11mm Aperture: f/19 and Shutter Speed: 1.5s
out front – a wet LEE graduated filter 0.9 and screw in circular polariser

As always, I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed.

Holy softness and the stick of death

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welcome to the cotton-wool ball

I will be back for you little stick out in the ocean, i'll be back for my selfie 🙂 and its gonna be epic (unless i get washed off, then not so epic, just tragic 🙂 ) I need soem pole dancing moves, anyone know any good pole dancers that could give me some tips 😉

Single frame
Exif/setup data:
D7000 coupled with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @16mm Aperture: f/9.5 and Shutter Speed: 256.5s
out front – LEE graduated filter 0.9, LEE bigstopper and screw in circular polariser

As always, I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed.

Natural Death

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After looking at the remains of many of the trees in this part of the Stockton Dunes, it did dawn on me that there was at some time human intervention on alot of the trees, most trees had been sawn off – maybe that's why they banned camping on the dunes? people cutting down the nearest tree for some firewood 🙂

4 frame (non-bracketed) panorama 🙂
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 13mm- Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: 1/1.5s
out front – absolutely nothing but fresh air

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

The lighted Gerry Tree

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After the storm

I would never of guessed that less than a hour after this shot was taken https://plus.google.com/100975265940134223422/posts/iNhPV4DsepV
that sky could turn up another display of colour and twilight brilliance.

With alittle helping hand from an additional light source to give the some depth and light we have quite a nice scene

D7000 coupled with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm- Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: 165 seconds
out front – absolutely nothing but fresh air and plenty of sand.
to the left and subsequently the right right – white coloured LED torch.

Spiral vs Spiral

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The natural vs the unatural
The old steelwool is getting pretty cliche nowadays, however its still fun to bring it out to jazz up a landscape. It was only a afterthought to bring along the gear and pack a ciggy lighter, which by the way really should have gotten lost, that darn thing with the safety lock means you could not burn down a gas station, i think i wore off all my skin on my thumb just trying to get a freakin' spark.

Well there was no chance of burning nuttin' down out there, with the recent rain, like 1 hour before hand and teh well.. serious lack of fuel the only thing burning was my thumb.
Although, if +Rodney Campbell had his way i reckon he woulda burnt the tree down 😉
Anyway, enough whingeing, here ya have it, the spiraling galaxy vs the spiraling of three nutters out on a freezing winters night in the middle of some sandy sand dunes.

Single frame – +Gerard Blacklock on da wool, +Rodney Campbell on the colours and +Suren J on the white fill.
Exif/setup data:
D7000 coupled with a sand filled Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @11mm Aperture: f/6.7 and Shutter Speed: 376.8s
out front – nada, yep nothing
to the left and right was Suren and in the tree was Rod.

btw +Rodney Campbell this would have been a perfect place for star trails – the centre of rootation is in the perfect spot in this frame..

oh well, have to go back now 🙂

The gerry tree

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Finally after years of flying over this spot I found this tree perched on the side of sandy sand dune on Stockton Beach, thanks to +Rodney Campbell and +Suren J for the company, it would have been a miserable walk in and out by myself 🙂 and I hope ya's had fun.

I spotted a number of trees a few years back while flogging over the beach into Williamtown in the back of a Lear35 after a recent flight earlier this year in the front of a smash-8 i had a nice clear view of the dunes and spotted, what I have now dubbed, the "gerry tree". It did look quite different from up there, however it met my criteria for lonely and interesting, thus the quest for a photo of it started 🙂

+Rodney Campbell, +Suren J and myself spent quite sometime photographing the tree from various angles and using multiple techniques (see one of rods version here: https://plus.google.com/102418874970398612673/posts/7pZCMjNudd4)
one of the shots was a result of some funky light painting on the tree while at high isos to capture the sweet milkyway view and hence the first of a few images of the gerry tree

D7000 with a sand filled Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm- Aperture: f/2.8 and Shutter Speed: 20 seconds
out front – absolutely nothing but fresh air and plenty of sand.
to the right – blue coloured LED torch.

Death by a slow moving sand invasion

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much like what is probably gonna happen to my camera and lens 🙂
Sand, not so glorious sand.. and camera stuff, just just don't mix very well. Nonetheless, out at Stockton there are some wonderful spots where you can venture into the dunes and find many interesting compositions and subject matter. +Suren J and +Rodney Campbell joined me in search of a long lost tree perched on the side of dune which I spotted several months ago whilst flying over the dunes. Whilst a 4wd would be handy and probably much quicker, it was good to walk in, sometimes limiting oneself can help achieve the best in a location and photography session.

This shot was taken only a few hundred metres from the tree, which is fairly distinct, (more images of this later), the rain was just setting in here and it was a mad dash for cover after it was completed.

Single frame- even at 3 seconds the clouds do have some motion blur which conveys the speed at which teh clouds were moving in.
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm- Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: 3 seconds
out front – absolutely nothing but fresh air and plenty of sand.

The frozen world below

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Along the Zenith Line
Continuing a fine tradition of cloudless sunrise's with very little colour means one must work a bit harder to achieve that shot that gets a few star rating.
What I really liked about this spot was that at the time the rock behind me created a shadow across the gulley and it meant I could turn that foreground into some a bit more interesting – with a long exposure of course 🙂
I pulled the graduated filter all the way down to the shadow line to preserve the highlights in the bright sun drenched rock and also the hill beyond, I then exposed the frame during some of the rare swells which washed up over the finger rock creating some nice blue and surreal colours.
This was in the same train of thought as a recent image from kurnell (https://plus.google.com/100975265940134223422/posts/5GBrbgqpp2n)

Single frame – glad to say all the dust bunnies are gone sine the last long exposure at Kurnell.
Exif/setup data:
D7000 coupled with a sand filled Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @11mm Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: 184.8s
out front – LEE graduated filter 0.9, LEE bigstopper and screw in circular polariser

As always, I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed.

gerry vs storm

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Storm 1, gerry 0

I don't mind the odd selfie here and there, to mix it up alittle I made this one a pano, this was quickly bashed while scurring over some dunes to the next spot and being chased by some very menacing clouds, which did eventually bring some rain. What made things pretty funky was the sunset glow which was peeking out from below the rain clouds creating a very eerie glow which can be seen in the centre of the frame.

About 7 minutes after this shot it rained 🙁

7 frame (non-bracketed) panorama 🙂
D7000 with Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8 @ 20mm- Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: 1/2 seconds
out front – absolutely nothing but fresh air and plenty of sand.
It was a bit out of focus, the focus point was on the foreground very close to the camera (from the last shot) this coupled with the fact the clouds moved very fast meant it all, except for the rock solid model 😉 was a bit soft.

Cheers for the company +Rodney Campbell and +Suren J