Real men go to vivid

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…when its raining and with kids and have a picnic.

I had promised Tickles I would also take her to see the vivid lights after last time leaving her at home and only taking Chaos, so this time we prepped up with homemade hot soup in thermos's, snacks, bread and soft drink (settle people this one has got less sugar than orange juice 😉 and I needed some bargaining chips 🙂 ) and headed into battle.

So we busted our way down to Kirribilli and had a giggle at the throngs of photographers losing their lollies over the 'puddle' shot 😉 and setup for our picnic. It was pretty nice, hot soup, great view and company that pretty well refused to to let me take any pictures (i did sneak a few in tho 😉 ) – on that note, the only opportunity to get a shot of chaos and tickles where they would let me, I could not for the life of me (in the split second I had 🙁 ) remember how to adjust the flash to rear curtain sync, the last time I did that was like 4 years ago 🙂 Its very useful for using the flash to get some light on the subject but allowing the shutter to drag (ie 1 or 2 seconds), long enough to pull in some the light in the background, hence my only shot of the picnic was crap, but its a nice memory.

So about half way thru our soup tickles pipes up with 'can we go on the bridge?' ….. yeah sounded like a great idea at the time, but when the good folk 85 years ago built the harbour bridge they did not really have dudes with prams in mind, i had to carry the blasted thing loaded with stuff up 5 flights of stairs, at least the cycle side (western side of the bridge) has a little ramp in the middle… that would be like really useful on the eastern side too.
Anyways we trundled across the bridge ohh and ahhing at the lights and we even made it to the south pylon where tickles promptly fell asleep, chaos and I were like … c'mon man it was your idea! Then it rained. I guess she timed the sleep well I suppose. So back across the bridge in the pouring rain, some might say a umbrella would have been a good idea at this point.. but real men don't use umbrellas 😉 they also carry their pram and child down 5 flights of stairs 🙂 Did I mention a ramp would have been useful?
All credit to chaos tho, not a single whinge at all and even when we could not get a icecream, seriously it would have got washed away 🙂 she stoically battled on 🙂 h/t chaos.

In Album 11/06/2017

Vivid

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So chaos says to me, 'gee i am lucky to have you as a dad' to which i say 'yeah whys that?'
'cause your so tall and you give me piggy backs'
'uh-huh'…

anyone know a good chiro ? 😉

I have seen Vivid a few times now and the crowds are probably the worse part of it for me, however the joy a seven year old gets for seeing it for the first time (yes I know she saw it last year but thats like a million years ago in a kids mind) makes the crowds bearable 🙂

I did not even make any smart-ass comments about the $9 hotdog (faarkk!!!… ) and yes we did bring our own food as well

In Album 29/05/2017

The church of

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i am tempted to say gerry… but it should really be Sydney I suppose 🙂

So I kinda messed this up – i spent all this time waiting for the perfect moment when there we no boats cruising through my shot and took 3 exposures for all of the 4 frames…. except one, the far left frame did not have the over exposed frame, as a result i never bothered to look at, however given the instigated by +Kitten KaboodleInc​ and +Rodney Campbell​ i thought why not give it a smashing with the treatment.

Its a shot from the Kirribilli side of the harbour during the vivid sydney festival (#vivid), hence the buildings are lit up with various colours and the crazy spot lights from darling harbour can be seen over the southern bridge pylon.

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70 f2.8 @ 58mm Aperture: f/3.2 and Shutter Speed: 5s (normal exposure) 1/1.6s (underexpsoure) and 30s (over exposure except for the last frame…. grrrr)
4 frames stitched together in PTGUI as a blended panorama.

you know how hard it is to get 40s on the harbour with a damn boat floating thru your frame?? i deserve a medal for just that alone…
ISO 1000
out front – gerrys church 😉

Vivid Planet

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So, i only have about 14.5 billion images from vivid this year, so I think its only fair that I inflict some more vividness on the world… in light (hahaaa get it? vivid ..festival… light.. – ok bad dad joke) of the recent splurge of its only sensible that I do one of the pinstripped Sydney Harbour Bridge.

To save time I tried with just a single image (yeah kinda of lazy) just see how it would work out.. surprisingly well, i could have blended multiple exposures to get some more dynamic range and stitched a pano… but in the interest of saving time, here we go, tiny planet from a single 14mm shot.

Techie love:
D750 coupled with Samyang 14mm f2.8 @ 14mm Aperture: f/7.1 and Shutter Speed: 20s
ISO 100
out front – a very bending SHB

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/