they put them everywhere 🙂
Tag Archives: stockton
Out of the Wild
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.
Spatial Disorientation
This scene reminds me of many stories told about spatial disorientation, basically a condition, usually when flying, where one loses sense of which way is up or down, typically results (for the inexperienced at least) in a graveyard spin, no guesses for what that means 🙁
In this case, whilst the the removal of colour adds to the effect, in reality it was a struggle to distinguish a horizon, couple this with the blurring of the ridges from sand being whipped up by the wind and I reckon it would not take much to end up walking on ya head 🙂
Luckily I was not doing much walking at that point 🙂
Exif love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 25s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL
Oasis
I journeyed for days and nights to finally reach the oasis that lay between the death that is…
well kinda of , I did walk a really really really long way and all there was sand and more bloody sand:) I did however fall back in love with a old lens of mine, one which has been neglected for many a year now, relegated to the bottom of the bag or the box of photographic stuff, which is actually remarkably small 🙂 This is the Nikkor 105mm f2.5 lens, I always forget what a joy it is, so very sharp and punchy and in such a small form factor, in recent times I have been swayed by the neat luxuries of the autofocus lens, but no more 😉 any enough gaff 🙂
ya gotta view it large, go on, zoom in and find that naked person ;), – this pano is actually half of the what it originally started out 16 portrait orientation images at 105mm
16 images (portrait mode) stitched together – shot handheld
D750 coupled with Nikkor 105mm f2.5 @ 105mm Aperture: f8 and Shutter Speed: 1/250 seconds
ISO 100
EV -0.7
Out front – oasis
Burning Galaxy
Probably the last of the images of the 'gerry tree' which I will post, however similarly to Rodneys version I did take a partial liking to the vertical composition and also the option for a milkway background to the wool spin. This image was taken from a recent trip with +Rodney Campbell and +Suren J to the Stockton Dunes, by the way chaps, it is quite possible to walk to the ship wreck too, keen? 😉
Two frames manually blended together, one for the milkway and one for the steel wool spinnage.
Exif/setup data:
D7000 coupled with a sand filled Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @11mm Aperture: f/6.7 ISO 100 and Shutter Speed: 169s (steel wool)
Aperture: f/2.8 ISO 3200 and Shutter Speed: 25s (milkyway)
out front – nada,
As always, I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed.
Candyfloss
A conveniently placed cloud at sunset on the dunes of Stockton beach made for which my daughter now refers to as the fairyfloss picture 😉
Single frame
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm- Aperture: f/13 and Shutter Speed: 1/3 seconds
out front – LEE graduated filter 0.9
As always, I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed.
The Stuttering Trail
don't stare into the vortex
Damn I hate equipment malfunctions, well it was probably a operator error, however it does feell better to blame it on the equipment…on the topic on things that crap me off, writing a post on gplus and to only have it disappear by pressing the backspace button a few times or something, very irritating, you would think that google in therr wisdom (like in gmail or docs) would have an auto save function when writing a 21 billion word post, cause it gets a bit annoying having to rewrite it… 😉 oh also while I am at it, how about a input box that your can resize ? its like typing on your mobile phone when your actually in front of a bazillion inch screen lol.
rant end.
Star Trails are actually pretty easy to create, simply find a nice dark spot out on a moonless night and plonk ya camera down on a tripod. Point it somewhere in the vicinity of south and take a few shots every now and then, best to leave it and come back a few hours later, or better still come back the next and hope your camera is still there and some clown has not pinched it 😉
Adobe PS CC makes it pretty easy to create the image from the 14.5 billion images you took while the camera was sitting out waiting to be stolen, CC now has the Statistics function built in, simply load your images up in file>scripts>statistics and using the maximum option zap them together for some trail fun.
Alternatively just use the load files into stack option and zap(blend) them together using the lighten mode, don't forget to whack in your nice foreground shot.
The foregound shot can simply be a shot taken at dusk to get the scene nicely illuminated or you can get you torch out for some funky light painting. But, and a big but, if you do light paint (and this is very important and error that many make) be sure to do it off the camera position (at least a dozen steps away) and get low, this will help create texture in the scene (see here https://plus.google.com/100975265940134223422/posts/d5z6TCzuzRj) and give your scene depth.
techie stuff
D7000 coupled with a pre sand filled Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm- Aperture: f/2.8 and Shutter Speed: 40 seconds
ISO: 1250
out front – absolutely nothing buts lots of wind and plenty of sand.
to the left – white coloured LED torch.
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.
Natural Death
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
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
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
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
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.
gerry vs storm
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