Romsdalshornet

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So I send a message off to my good mate (well he is now 😉 ) Havard saying we are looking forward to staying in your airbnb (have you figured out that I am a fan of airbnb yet ? 😉 ) and seeing some more cool mountain views. Noting that we had never been to this area or seen any imagery of it.. so Havard messages me back and says, 'yeah we have some nice mountain views', excellent, that sounds promising I thought… well if they reckon this is nice I can only image what a Norwegian thinks awesome views are 🙂

I took a drive up the valley to a dead end where the was some cool looking blocked off tunnel that resembled something out of a James Bond movie, then hiked 3 hours in the driving wind and snow to get to this spot (.. well ok.. maybe it was not that long 😉 but it was cold and apparently its summer).

The peak here is Romsdalshornet and it stands about 1500 metres above SL, i passed a couple coming down from the rock face on the right who had ropes and stuff that looked like they were out for more than a late night stroll, note it was past 11pm at this stage 🙂 There was also a bunch of teenagers setting up a tent for the night (if you can call it that 😉 ) back a few hundred metres, awfully civilised too. The other cool thing, I had the whole place to myself 🙂

Old Man Storr

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I was keen to see this spot – but not keen for the walk up to the tower, we did have a crack at it though, just call me packhorse since I piggy-backed tickles just about all the way 🙂
This perspective is actually from the north side as you drive down towards Portree – I met a local Scottish photographer Christopher McLeod (http://www.christopherpmcleodphotography.com/) at Neist Lighthouse and he gave me some good tips on shooting this spot, however we did not have time to come back for sunset – i'll leave that on the list for next time 🙂
Anyway this one will have to do, the light was much nicer here than on the other side where we hiked up to the base of the tower steps.

‪#‎scotland‬
‪#‎oldmanstorr‬

4 shot panorama, each shot in the landscape orientation
D750 coupled with Nikkor 70-200 mm f2.8 (with a 1.4x converter) @ 120mm Aperture: f7.1 and Shutter Speed: 1/200s
EV: -0.3 (Needed to maintain those dappled highlights)
ISO: 100
out front: phallic rock and the remnants of a old volcanic crater

Bjärred

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Jetty fantastico

Our last night staying in southern Sweden we decided to head out and try and capture another swedish sunset. I can't be passing up a good jetty now and these did not disappoint, the beach, or what the Swedes call a beach was .. lets say interesting. Bjärred is only a 20 minute drive from where we were and with the ingenious idea of the swedes to actual make smart traffic lights (ie ones that sense your coming and turn green) we were there in no time. Plenty of jetties and cool boats which make cool photographic subjects and easy ones too.

After leaving the beach on the way back to the car we did spot a Hedgehog, pretty neat little creatures, with very little fear, we chased him into the bush to grab a few photos 🙂 another animal checked off the list.

3 shot panorama, each shot in the landscape orientation
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f18 and Shutter Speed: 2s
ISO: 100
out front: jLee Graduated Filter (0.6x)

Herbusta, Isle of Skye

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We stopped at the Museum of Skye which is a collection of original style buildings each set out as it would have been back in the day, it was actually a very cool place and the entry fee to get in very very reasonable – this is important when travelling with kids, since you may only stay for a very short time, we ditched a few castles since its not worth shelling out 50 bucks just to get in and only spend 20 minutes chasing kids around 🙂

Anyway, another neat feature of this place, is that it sits up on hill off the A855 overlooking some very very cool rocks out in the ocean, there are plenty of these kinda of rocks around the isle of Skye and I really wanted get a shot of one of them, a long exposure image was what I was after, but time and kids would not permit that, hence a few long shots at 280mm stitched into a pano would do. (thanks to +Cameron Fong for the loan of the lens too, much appreciated – i whacked the 1.4x on it for this one).

Its pretty easy to see why traversing these waters by ship would be dangerous – the number of rocks like this and moreso ones which are just above/below the surface would have surely brought many a ship unsuck..

ya gotta see this full res too.

3 shot panorama, each shot in the landscape orientation
D750 coupled with Nikkor 70-200 mm f2.8 (with a 1.4x converter) @ 280mm Aperture: f8 and Shutter Speed: 1/500s
ISO: 100
out front: epic rocks in da ocean 🙂

Veitastrond

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Norway, where the sunsets last for ever 🙂 I drove 10 kms between spots and the sunset colours where still going 🙂

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f13 and Shutter Speed: 2s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL, Lee graduated filter 0.6x

House by the Lake

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Holmane, Norway

After checking into one of our less than optimal accommodation choices (there was only two for the whole trip 🙂 so our strike rate was pretty good ). I had some time to check out google maps to see what was around, interestingly we had visited a few Glaciers on the way down to this point, all which come off the Jostedalsbreen National park area and I noticed a little back road up to a southern access point to this place, never seen any images of this place, but it was only 30 kms away so a little drive was in order.

Now, I really bang on about these Norwegians and their darn tunnels, well this little drive really galvanised it for me. This road up to Veitastrond, which is a village of less than a thousand people has 3 tunnels with a 4th being constructed, now these are not tunnels to punch thru mountains but simply to avoid having a bit of windy road on the lake 🙂 ie just cut thru the edge of the hill. We here in Oz struggle to get a freakin tunnel in our largest city to service…hundreds of thousands of people, yet here I was driving thru tunnels (each a few kms long), albeit single lane ones, to a village that has only a few hundred people… mind blowing. What was also really cool was that the tunnels had no lights and were full of fog.. very very cool 🙂

This was just one a few really nice houses sitting bit the edge of the Veitastrondavatnet .. yeah try and pronounce that 🙂

3 shot panorama, each shot in the landscape orientation
D750 coupled with Nikkor 70-200 mm f2.8 @ 82mm Aperture: f8 and Shutter Speed: 5s
ISO: 100
out front: epic house location

Swedish Turbine

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So, in Sweden they have a mix of energy production with the majority being hydro, kind helps when you have all that water handy 🙂 they also have a few nuclear plants one of which is pretty large, the other source, which i think is about 5% of their power, is wind turbine, in southern Sweden around Lund where we stayed the countryside was completely dotted with these turbines. I would have to recommend that certain Australian politicians (and ex pollies) not to visit here since they are so significantly offended by the sight of wind farms 😉

I quite liked the sight, these tall slow turning towers to me simply represent a low impact renewable energy source, it was really cool that all you could see is a tower and a slow turning prop, all the electrical cables are buried under ground. The noise is well.. almost non existent.

I do like my lone trees in a paddock or on a beach, so it was cool to spot this lone tower on a late night drive on the first night in Sweden. The sun had just gone down (11pm ish) and the pascals had come out.

3 shot panorama
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70 mm f2.8 @ 50mm Aperture: f7.1 and Shutter Speed: 1/2.5s
ISO: 250
out front: Lee 0.6 Graduated Filter

Ben Nevis Waterfall

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After camping overnight at this spot myself and my best photographic buddy for the holiday, aka chaos, walked the 20 seconds from our campsite to this little stream, which by the way was an excellent watersource, never tasted such pure fresh water in all my life.

We both clambered over the rocks and made our various compositions and I was particularly proud with chaos for chasing down those different views, I can't wait to see her images from the trip 🙂

6 shot panorama, each shot in the landscape orientation
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 5s
ISO: 100
out front: pure mountain water stream

Trollstigen

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So, the Norwegians love a good tunnel, but.. it appears from time to time they like a good windy road, maybe its the joy of watching people cycle up these or something to keep the motorcycle population happy, in anycase, this one (Trollstigen) is certainly a cracker, even in our little stationwagon punching on up this road it was pretty hair raising, especially when a bus came the other way!

The viewing platform up the top is neat, but I think I need a bigger camera, i could not fit all those norwegian hills in 😉 even at 16mm and 9 portrait frames stitched together I could not get all of the big waterfall in 🙂

The bottom of the where the windy bit starts is about 300m above SL, this spot here is 700m above SL, not a bad hill climb.

It would be awesome to do a night time shoot here and get the car trails in the frame, however for me with the sun not really setting until 12 midnight there was no hope, I'll let that go to the keeper for the next visit 😉

6 shot panorama, each shot in the portrait orientation
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f10 and Shutter Speed: 1/80s
ISO: 200
out front: just a few hills and a windy road with buses, summer skiers, mountain bike riders, campervans and motorbikes 😉

Morar

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Beachside in Scotland

So its summer in Europe at the moment apparently, however I think our friends on that side of the equator kinda need to have a think about what that really means, we spent our last day in Edinburgh where the summer temperature was.. 13 degrees, we flew back to sydney to the heart of our winter and it was 16 degrees… 🙂

Anyways onot those beaches, yes in Oz we have some awesome beaches and we take it for granted, however we did find a place (thanks +John G Moore ) on the west coast called Morar which had sand which was an excellent excuse for a beach 🙂 truth be told it was quite nice and we (particularly the kids) were pleasantly surprised.
Anyways, i went for a stroll after chaos and tickles were asleep and checked out the surrounding area for a seascape or two, not finding much ringing my bell, i headed up into the hills to see what was there, not much either, but I did find some sheep, lots of wet boggy pastures and some other crazy nuts out trying to get a photo, hence this shot 🙂

Its a 6 shot pano, which had some nice colour in it, however I could not quite get it to represent what I saw on the day, and it seems the BW brings out the nice texture of the clouds anyway..

6 shot panorama, each shot in the landscape orientation
D750 coupled with Nikkor 70-200 mm f2.8 @ 120mm Aperture: f5 and Shutter Speed: 1/500s
ISO: 100
out front: boggy hills and some crazies :).

Nordfjord

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I think one of the best things about holidaying with ya family (other than all the quality time you get to spend with one another of course 🙂 ) and doing photography is that it forces you to be very opportunistic rather than being able to plan everything around a shoot, this was certainly one example.
Let me paint a scene for you here (forgive the pun 🙂 ) we decided to divert our route to check out one of, if not the oldest Monasteries in Norway at Maloy and consequently checked into one of our best airbnb in our Norway trip (thanks Trygve – even though i can still not pronounce your name, sorry mate). This airbnb was located 10 kms out of Nordfjordeid in a farming area and was an old, yet amazing farmhouse with, in my opinion, an amazing view, not one from a pre-canned location or lookout, but a true-blue style view that this little village of about 5 homes shared. The place even had one of those really cool old telephones, the ones with the windy handle!

I took this shot a few times over the two days whilst sitting at the window opposite a warm wood fire, this particular one was about 11pm-ish as the sun dissapeared from view – there was no hiking, no sitting in the cold, just chilling out with a cup of tea, my tripod and camera whilst the children slept 🙂

I'll be sure to post a few of the others from this spot, which have a very different feel, it was amazing how much the scene could change with fog and rain rolling in.

5 shot panorama, each shot in the landscape orientation
D750 coupled with Nikkor 70-200 mm f2.8 @ 155mm Aperture: f8 and Shutter Speed: 1/800s
ISO: 250
out front: no filters, just another epic landscape.

No Trains today

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cause its a bit wet out there

I do like this spot, its always busy with keen bean photographers and tourists but it's still enjoyable, even now with standing room for about 3 people 😉
you really need to see this place when there is no water there to gain an understanding of how much water this is -hence in the below links you can see it with some water and with no water…

https://plus.google.com/+GerardBlacklock/posts/9jXWanonyXT
https://plus.google.com/+GerardBlacklock/posts/htM9D5NA9Rk

Capturing images in the wet is challenging, made more so when its actually pouring down with rain and blowing a gale, even with an umbrella and all the wet weather stuff for teh camera, which by the way consists of a ziplock bag and a rubber band, its a painful process of trying to keep the spray off the, here's gerrys tip of the day, when shooting crazy ass waterfalls in the wet, choose a lens that has the biggest lens hood on it 🙂

5 shot panorama image
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 70mm Aperture: f13
Shutter Speed: 3s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL.

Wanaka Nudgee Tree

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breath

So, if you do a google search for 'wanka tree' (yes even with the incorrect spelling as I did 🙂 not deliberately either ) google throws you straight to a bunch of spectacular images of the famous tree in NZ, along with a few tours, on the other hand if you google 'nudgee tree' you get a few very nice images and mostly adverts for tree removal services 😉

Hence, here's my push for some tourist love for the Nudgee tree, rather than jostle with the 20 or so togs you will be with at the Wanaka Tree in NZ, you can have this one all to your self and if your feeling a little lonely just omit the inspect repellent fora whole bunch of instant friendships 🙂 you can have it with mud, or in a knee deep water, at sunrise or sunset.. the possibilities are endless 🙂

Exif love:
two shots blended together using luminosity masks
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 20s and 8 s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL, Lee graduated filter 0.6x

The Lower Empress

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Empress falls is the first real set of falls you find when making the trek down into the valley of the waters, its also one of the most spectacular and (if there could not be any more 🙂 ) its a great spot for canyoning/abseiling.

This particular spot is on the stone steps that pass over the creek and probably the most popular spot where everyone stops to grab a shot. What I really like about this spot is that nature has arranged everything quite nicely for the panoramic shot 😉 log in the centre, angled so nicely too, boulder off to the left to bookend the frame, a little glimpse of foggy foggy forest (you need to read kids book to get that joke 🙂 ) off to the left and the ferns on the right hiding that sneaky little path back out of the falls. For those familiar with the spot, you will note that I have omitted something from the frame 🙂 any guesses ? 🙂

This image was taken a month or so ago, but never processed however I heard in the news recently that a young lady lost her life at the falls just below these (Sylvia Falls), hence came back to have a look, as such, this image is for those who have not made it out of the valley. RIP.

Its a 5 shot panorama, uploaded full res.
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f14
Shutter Speed: 20s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL.

Out of the Wild

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and into civilisation again

Now, you need to look carefully at this image, its fairly large resolution so you can zoom in all ya like – but over on the right side, nestled amoungst the big dunes on the horizon, you can see a big white boundary pole marker… thats where I walked back to civilisation from 🙂

Whilst you zoomed in there, don't forget to appreciate the amazing sharpness that is my secondhand (A$160) nikkor 105mm f2.5 lens 🙂

4 images (landscape mode) stitched together – shot handheld
D750 coupled with Nikkor 105mm f2.5 @ 105mm Aperture: f8 and Shutter Speed: 1/1000 seconds
ISO 100
EV -0.7
Out front – a seagull and some lady.