Progress

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The scene of progress in Botany Bay Sydney, NSW.
Now these gantry thingy's are really cool and make for some sweet photo subjects, whilst dropping past the new container terminal one evening I thought to stop and take a quick snap or two. After setting up on the pedestrian/cycleway overpass I had a visit from some friendly security guards who informed me that it cool to take photos of the new container terminal, but not the old one (left of frame), given that i really don't need ASIO checking up on my ass I said sweet as bro, no probs, i'll just point this way 🙂 and we all went on our merry ways. But it did get me thinking, why the old terminal? maybe its the millions of litres of fuel there? maybe they think people taking photos might be plotting some drug smuggling racket? In all seriousness I guess its fine to say you can't take photos of key industrial sites but only part thereof… confused.

Well, anyways, the sunset was not much to look at but there was a neat storm coming through on the left, if only I had more time 🙂

What lies beneath

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Here is a interesting question, how do you to take a photo? or more to the point how do you achieve your artistic vision?
For me i have bundles of images bouncing around in my head and never once have I had one come out on the screen just how my mind imagined 🙂 Someone asked me the other day, 'how do you see the images you take'? my first thought was, stuffed if I know 🙂 but it got me thinking.

With that in mind I went out the other day for a dabble of photography and 'cause i love getting up at silly hours and explaining to fisherman that yes..i am just taking photos..anyway digress.. so I thought how do i 'see' a image the best I could come up with a simple fact that I see different elements in a scene then somehow i try and meld those elements into the constraint of a portrait or landscape (or pano) shot…

In any case I am still no closer to answering that question and to be honest, i think i like simply going out and mindlessly taking shots 😉 and often i end up with the most pleasing images (for me anyway) this way.

Anyway, in this image i really like these cool jetty/boat ramp posts that were partially submerged and that formed the basis for the composition, everything else was simply constrained by the light or by distracting elements outside of the visible frame 🙂

This is a manually blended image to achieve the dynamic range of the water in the foreground and the horizon brightness..

techie love:
D7000 coupled with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: 69.9s and 30s
out front – 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. Maybe with this one crop from the bottom a fraction?

Queenslake

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A peaceful lakeside community with great fishing and natural and relatively untouched surrounds. This particular afternoon had quite some nice colour in the sky and the clouds provided some excellent layering to show some deep blues and also some warm tones as the sun disappeared over my right should, so why opt for a BW conversion? I guess simplicity..the fact that converting to monochrome accentuates the actual composition and rather than relying on bold colours it can in my mind make for a image with a more lasting impression rather than a image with a fleeting glance.

I also enjoy BW images since for me it means more concentration on the tones and composition than the visual impact of colours, don't get me wrong I love colourful and bold imagery, i guess its just nice to simplify with BW at times 🙂

Also i need more BW practice 🙂

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

This image was created using a blend of 3 images to achieve the dynamic range and tonal detail in the trees. I used +Nik Photography's to do the initial processing and BW conversion followed by it being finished off in . There was a little struggle with the clouds, but not surprising since there was some substantial movement between the frames 🙂

Upper Gledhill Falls

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Trying to find the fairies and elves at the secret falls 🙂

Techie data:
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm Aperture: f/13 Shutter 30, 10 and 6 seconds
Hoya screw in circular polariser and neutral density filter (3 stops)

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

Foggy Glen

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View large

This is from a spot which I refer to as the fair-weather photographers spot 😉 if your looking for a quiet accessible waterfall then this is your location, a short walk down some steps and there is a nice sheltered spot to setup your tripod and take in the beauty of this small final waterfall in the Leura Cascades.
I have taken photos of this waterfall a total of 3 times now and each time I have come away with differing images do the conditions but also due changes in the way I view a scene and compose it. To be honest I don't think I have necessarily improved on previous attempts, moreso just generated different images 🙂

The falls are quite small and required quite a wide angle lens, in this case, rather than run with a single image I decided to try and encapsulate the scene pretty well in its entirety, well as much as my pano format would allow! As always a scene like this, even on a rainy overcast day has quite some dynamic range in the light, as such i bracketed each shot in this panorama, this meant I had alot more control of those shadowy areas 🙂 There was quite a few portrait orientation shots (about 8) taken for this and then it was cropped fairly heavily from the top and bottom.

Techie data:
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm Aperture: f/8 Shutter 20, 6 & 30 seconds
ISO 160
out front – Hoya screw in circular polariser and neutral density filter (3 stops)

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

Graveyard

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I can only imagine what this place looked like 50 years ago, all those other mangroves would have looked awesome when still standing.

Hopefully I will get to revisit this location at low tide soon which will create an entire different feel to the images.

techie stuff:
D7000 coupled with 17-55mm f2.8 @ Aperture: f/16 and Shutter Speed: 185.5s
out front – LEE bigstopper, LEE graduated filter 0.9 and screw in circular polariser

Suggestions, comments and improvements? they are always warmly welcomed!

Parched

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An alternative view to the recent Cecil Hill series, rather than de-saturate the frame in this case i have accentuated the natural colour of the cracked dry earth and very recently bulldozed embankment.

Thanks to +Ian Browne for some great feedback on the previous shot which made me revisit a similar shot from the evening.

As with the previous image, this could be mistaken for being out west somewhere, not in the heart of western sydney a mere hour drive (pending traffic chaos) to the beach.

Techie data:
D7000 with Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8 @ 17mm Aperture: f/8 Shutter 30 seconds
out front – LEE Graduated Neutral Density Filter

Suggestions, comments and improvements? they are always warmly welcomed!

Bums on the edge

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Flow to me
Sometimes to achieve that composition there is only one way to do it – wet feet and bum out over the edge of the next waterfall, whilst confident that a missplaced step would send me over the edge i had some comfort in the fact it was only a few feet down 😉 not like the falls below that 🙂

Anyway, itsa great little spot Leura Cascades and whilst you can go for the fair-weather positions there is plenty of scope to reach out and pull a composition of the cascades that has some originality to it 🙂

Techie data:
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm Aperture: f/8 Shutter 10 seconds
ISO 160 (don't ask me why 🙂 ) this was one of the first shots so the old brain was a bit fuzzy 😉
out front – Hoya screw in circular polariser and neutral density filter (3 stops)

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

Green and Gold

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I tried a new processing technique with this one, rather than the usual one handed effort (the other hand is rocking 5.5month old tickles) – which by the way should excuse my terrible spelling and grammar 🙂
anyway,..this time i pulled out the baby carrier, or as i refer to it as..the back killer, clearly not designed for large men….and plonked tickles in it, this means i can process with two hands, spend quality time with tickles and listen to classical whilst she falls asleep…multitasking is my middle name…the other is lazy 😉

In all seriousness, this is another image from Lawson, this great set of falls permits one to easily climb up onto the rock steps and compose as one wishes, in this case I am going through a little pano waterfall phase and as such follows that theme.

3 frame pano image, each frame manually bracketed to achieve the desired dynamic range.

Techie data:
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm Aperture: f/8 Shutter 10, 3 & 30 seonds
out front – Hoya screw in circular polariser and neutral density filter (3 stops)

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

Narrabeen – contemplation

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After a very wet day there was little promise of a interesting sunset however I have wanted to check out this spot for sunset for sometime and since I was in the area I thought I would give it a go. I reckon its probably one of the most photographed seascape locations in sydney and its hard not to see why, a nice sea pool, a great gorge in the rocks (which is next on the cards for me) and Turimetta just next door 🙂

Conveniently positioned people adds a little interest and there has the slightest hint of colour before it return to a dark and gloomy finish to the day.

Panorama made up of 4 landscape shots stitched in CC.
D7000 coupled with 17-55mm f2.8 @ Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: 1/4s
out front was the LEE graduated filter 0.9 and screw in circular polariser

Last man tree standing

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View large, its a crime to only look at the thumbnail 🙂

Pretty much the first shots of the morning, as you clamber over dead wood dodging spider webs laid out over night this is the first isolated tree out in the bay. The tide was coming in, which I noticed very quickly since between the first shot and last shot of this pano the tripod was being inundated. The second issue was after the first shot the mozzies tracked me down and proceeded to make a meal of my legs..and it was certainly a serious meal ;(

It was only about 30 minutes before sunrise but the subtle hues of the blue night sky and the golden horizon were disappearing fast, this image was made from 3 landscape orientation images stitched together in PS CC.

techie stuff:
D7000 coupled with 17-55mm f2.8 @ Aperture: f/16 and Shutter Speed: 30s
out front – LEE bigstopper, LEE graduated filter 0.9 and screw in circular polariser

I do appreciate all the feedback people leave and do very much appreciate those who go out of their way to critique and provide suggestions to my images.
I do try and at respond to everyone 🙂 Rest assured I am always checking out my commenters streams (when i probably should be doing something else 🙂 ) even when I don't directly respond 🙂

The Weeping Swirls

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The beautiful thing about the Weeping Falls (or as I know them the lower Bridal Veil falls) is the amount of different perspectives on the falls, over on the left crouched between a few rocks I noticed this nice little eddy current swirling around (only after taking the first 30 second shot 🙂 )

The lush green foliage, the fog and the filtered light worked perfectly to light the scene, even at 30 seconds it was a striggle to capture all the shadow detail.

Techie data:
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm Aperture: f/9.5
out front – Hoya screw in circular polariser and neutral density filter (3 stops)

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