Last Man Standing

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Apparently we (Australia) are like in the top 20 deforesting nations of the world :-/ (note there are not really any comparable countries on the list, like NZ, US etc) Its kinda embarassing when we have all these people from around the world saying that we are such a developed and innovative country and its followed up with our continual support for some pretty bad things like the deforestation and coal production and the continual bagging of wind and solar power….

As the iconic Australian saying goes.. 'not happy Jan'

It would be great to come back to this field one day when the crop is more established and the rows more defined, the sheer size of it and the lonely old tree are just a minimalist's dream, couple this with subtle pastel sunsets and I think I could be out here every weekend if I could 😉

In the past I have rarely worried about hyperfocal distance, however now being on a full frame camera and using a 14mm lens it really comes into play and you gotta be careful to make sure you do have a enough depth of field to keep everything (front to back) nice and sharp. In this image you can see the leaves at the very base of teh image are a bit out of focus, these are quite close to the camera also, possibly pushing up to f/18 might have helped a bit there.

+Landscape Photography

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Samyang 14mm f2.8 @ 14mm Aperture: f/13 and Shutter Speed: 2s
ISO 100
out front – beans..beans.. and more beans… than a tree and some sky.

The Land down under

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I have been on a little self imposed ban on these planetoid images, however a recent pano of the Sydney skyline from Bradleys head has inspired me to do one of these again – in preference to the actual original pano image dare I say it 🙂

9 images stitched together than wrangled into a planet shape

Exif love:
D750 coupled with 85mm f1.4 @ 85mm Aperture: f/14 and Shutter Speed: 15s
ISO 100
out front – Lee Graduated 0.9x Filter

Navigation at the edge

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A little Sneaky Sunday sunrise at Bradleys head, the wind was cold, the parking ticket machine ate money and gave no love, the sky uninspiring and the water cold. The company was better 😉 +Rodney Campbell and +Deb Mooney.

This is the view of Sydney that I like 🙂

Exif love:
Single image
D750 coupled with 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f/16 and Shutter Speed: 186.1s (that 0.1 made all the difference)
ISO 100
out front – Lee Graduated 0.9x Filter and LEE fatstopper

The Foothills

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The great thing about cloudless skies is often you can get some lovely pastel colours as the sun retreats over the horizon. These hills in the distance are the last peaks for many kilometres and are the remnants of two volcanos from a few years back…20 million to be in a rough ballpark 🙂

This is a 3 shot panorama image with a graduated filter fitted (0.3x), capturing the fine pastel details is a challenge and getting the exposure just right can make the difference between a gaudy image and a pleasant image. In this image you can see that the sun has just gone over the horizon (behind the camera and off to the left) which leaves the horizon in the opposing direction filled with a warm glow, this only lasts a few minutes and is gradually replaced with a band of blue (sky), pink and purple (horizon).

I will post another image of this tree in a slightly different composition and a few minutes later to show what a difference even just a few minutes can make for the colours.

Exif love:
3 shot panorama, stitched in PS CC.
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70 f2.8 @ 44mm Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: 1/20s
ISO 100
Exposure Comp -0.3EV (why i dunno 🙂 )
out front – graduated filter (LEE 0.3x) and a cool dead tree on the fence to a rather large paddock

https://blog.avernus.com.au/the-foothills/

Searching for that 4 leaf clover

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Its certainly gotta be easier when the clover plants are up around your thighs, from up at my heights its like trying to spot a pin in a haystack 🙂

Nicely played tickles, even if you did not find that elusive clover you certainly had fun trying to and looked great in your little red dress and hat – clearly dad did not dress you that morning 🙂

techie love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70 f2.8 @ 42mm Aperture: f/2.8 and Shutter Speed: 1/1250s
ISO 160
out front – Hoya Circular Polariser

This is Australia

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where the land rolls endlessly and the sunsets dream on.

WIndmills, these are staple item across the plains of outback Australia, in this case NSW and boy, do they make great photographic subjects 🙂

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70 f2.8 @ 48mm Aperture: f/7.1 and Shutter Speed: 30s
ISO 100
out front – couple of tanks and a windmill.

Silence

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The silence of silence - (c) Gerard Blacklock

the silence of silence

the silence of silence

Communication when there is is silence can be more effective than spoken words. Its what is not said that is often what is the most important.

Sunsets in the country are quite a different beast, especially when the landscape is quite flat, one moment the world is bathed in golden light then the next its a pastel wonderland, followed by a inky blackness devoid of cultural lighting (thats not a bad thing either 🙂 ). In the summer months by the sea sunrise is quite prolonged, or at least it feels that way, giving one the opportunity to take in different compositions and savour the moment, in alot of way I prefer the fast setting sun, it forces one to really focus on the task at hand, a skill that should be used across the board in life 😉 (says he who just sat and procrastinated in from of the TV with a pizza;) )

Cheers to +David Brodrick for being my chauffeur the night before allowing me to scope out some of these locations.

I had pulled up here on the dirt road after spotting this lonely tree standing amongst the bean plants and it was just about the perfect tree, it could have grown on the top of the hill, however lets not complain too much 😉 As i got out of the car there was no movement save for several kangaroos off in the distance getting a free feed on the beans, the silence was pretty well deafening, except for the calls of a small birds it was like being in a empty music / radio studio.

So after a trek up into the field across some snake infested thigh high grass, i set up and watched the sun go down over horizon off to the right, out here, crouched in the bean plants…..

…. the world seemed to be a better place.

Vivid Rock

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Vivid Sydney from blues point

To be able to see the bridge pin-striping as part of Vivid Sydney you have to get on the western side of the bridge to be able to get full appreciation of it. Blues point is pretty perfect and on this particular night it was low tide and the few rocks were showing, the lights on the bridge are actually pretty darn bright, hence the intense reflection on the water. The pin striping does all kind of funky animations but i really just like the solid blocks of colour.

This image was taken down on the sand and I used a little LED torch to illuminate the otherwise dark and shadowed rock. Its a couple of images manually blended together, there is quite a huge dynamic range with the bright lights from Luna Park and also the bridge.

Techie love:
D750 coupled with Samyang 14mm f2.8 @ 14mm Aperture: f/4 and Shutter Speed: 1/30s (overexpose) 13s (normal exposure) & 5s (under expose)
ISO 100
out front – a very vivid rock

https://blog.avernus.com.au/vivid-rock

Chaos vs the dome

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I know what I am getting for christmas…. a smoke machine! The artwork of the dome is very cool, however this sculpture attracted kids like cake at a birthday party, they just could not get enough of it! from peering into the dome thru the smoke to running around like crazy chooks in the wafting smoke as it dissipated into the night.

I had promised Chaos I would take her to see some vivid lights this year, but there was no way I was repeating the experience from a few years back taking her into the city, that was mildly epic (and that was just getting in there). Sydney uni however was the perfect venue for little kids, plenty of space, lots of other kids and most importantly, manageable crowds, plenty of accessible food and drink too (albeit at inflated prices ).

Anyway, chaos loved the Mirador dome and made plenty of friends whilst there, tickles on the other had was much more reserved and found running off into the dark much more fun :-/

a rare moment with no one else in the view 🙂

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70 f2.8 @ 42mm Aperture: f/3.2 and Shutter Speed: 1/500s
ISO 1000 (methinks I could have dialed this down a bit lol )
out front – chaos vs the dome!

Sydney Opera House

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Are tired of vivid shots yet ? well you have another week of it until it all gets wrapped up but I am sure the images will still flow long after that 🙂

The Sydney Opera House is probably the most premium location and canvas for the Vivid festival, its seen by millions (thats just my guess without any real data 🙂 – but considering how many see it just in their daily commute i reckon its gotta be in that realm) so you wanna get it right.

I was not overly enthused by the display this year, very animated and not many wow moments. I did however do a bit of research on these mad projectors (Barco) which project the images / animations onto the sails, pretty cool things, the lens must be something pretty special and the bulbs that sit behind them… wowsers, however I did note that the bulbs have a life of 500 hours which i pretty good i reckon, you could do quite a few vivid sessions on a set of bulbs 😉 although you do have quite a few projectors for just one location :-O

The following images are a selection of some of the better projections imo 🙂 I did love the big bold colours as opposed to the funny animations 😉 Be sure to zoom in, its large res just for that 🙂

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70 f2.8 @ 62mm Aperture: f/3.2 and Shutter Speed: 1/4s
ISO 1000
out front – colourful opera house.

https://blog.avernus.com.au/sydney-opera-house/

Alien Body snatcher

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watch out for the giant the hand

those paying attention would have noticed that this feature, dubbed Mirador, is a repeat from the Sculptures by the sea a few years back ( )

Check it out here : https://plus.google.com/+GerardBlacklock/posts/g6PDoARQetK

Designed by University architecture graduates Ivana Kuzmonovska and Rachel Couper. Each part was modelled in Rhino 3D – just for all you CAD junkies out there 😉

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Samyang 14mm f2.8 @ 14mm Aperture: f/16 and Shutter Speed: 2.5s
ISO 100
out front – crazy alien dome

Vivid Sydney University

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gif-a-holics unite

Be patient with this one, its a pretty large file and over 200 frames, but I reckon its worth the wait 🙂 – I think this is probably the best set of projections for the festival, the combination of the building and also the length/diversity of the projection really made it standout.

Alot of it is themed around Aboriginal Reconciliation with some great imagery themed around Aboriginal culture – and there is some really cool classic building crumbling style projections here too.

Light

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Its pretty amazing how a just a bunch of different coloured lights can change the way something looks.

Many years ago I walked through that arch after graduating, never would have guessed it would have ever looked like this 🙂

Zoom in to check out the details and standby for some gif-age