Another beach sunrise

We caught the flu travelling overseas a couple of weeks ago and have all been in bed. It is the first time in years we have been so sick with a virus and I had forgotten just how long it takes to recover. The good news is that we are finally all on the mend. I have postponed our mothers day lunch out at our favourite restaurant until next week (as a courtesy to the other diners lol).

The worst part of the flu is being confined to the house with no energy or motivation. This morning the dogs woke pre dawn to be let out, so I decided to jump in the car and drive to the beach to photograph the sunrise. So pleased I did. Not a great sunrise as it was too clear but there is always something uplifting in watching a new day dawn. A wonderful start to the day.

Photos were taken with a graduated neutral density filter which I have just purchased. Great idea except that my camera was on spot metering so exposure was all over the place. Definitely need a clearer head to try out new camera techniques. I can see greater depth to the sky in the shots, which brings it closer to how the scene actually appeared. Will need to experiment more.


First light.

Sunrise

Cormorants with wings catching the warmth of the rising sun

Enjoy your Mother's Day Ladies!

Beach sunrise

Finally managed to get out of bed early enough for another beach sunrise this morning. There was some colour pre dawn which soon disappeared. Still beautiful and worth the effort.

These are some of my photos.

 

 

Have a wonderful week and I hope that you are all safe from the floods.

A weekend in the clouds

We spent the weekend away living in the clouds (Bunya Mountains). It rained most of the time and when it didn't we saw the mist and clouds billowing down the street. It was wonderful! Cooler and a welcome break away. Bushwalking was limited, however we did manage a short 4 km walk on Saturday afternoon between showers.

Magnificent scenes to photograph but the most difficult conditions to get good photos. Low light with high contrast. I set my camera at ISO1000 and shot at low apertures at anything from 1/15 second. Lightroom has helped somewhat but I definitely have an incentive to return in better weather.

Here are some of the better photos:

Tree roots as art.

 Moss on rocks.

 Pristine rainforest.

The walking track deviated through the roots of this wonderful banyan tree.

 Bunya nuts, the size of watermelons, were falling from the trees. The trees set cones every 3 years. Does anyone get hit by falling cones. I wonder.

Looking up. Treetops are in cloud.

The girls loved the Red Necked Wallabies and especially the mothers with babies in their pouches. Such fun to stand on the balcony watching the Wallabies.

Have a wonderful week everyone.

Gentle reminder

God's gentle reminder that beauty and joy follow sadness and pain, and that even in times of difficulty happiness may be waiting to shine.

Yesterday was a day of overcast skies and continuous rain. The skies started to clear just at sunset and this is the beauty I captured. Pure magic!

Mangrove wetlands

Slept in this morning although I had planned to photograph the sunrise. Plans sound good the night before but not so at 4:30am in the morning when the alarm goes off. We did however manage to get some photos later in the day at some local mangrove wetlands.

 And this is the view of the Glasshouse Mountains from a small beach adjoining the wetlands. We are blessed to live in such a beautiful part of the world.

 Have a wonderful week!

Film vs Digital

Much as I love the convenience of digital, when I go back through older slides I am scanning, sometimes I wish I could replicate the colouring and overall look of slide film. My favourites were Kodachrome 64 and 25 (my current camera does not even go down to ISO25!) for the blues of mountains, oceans and rivers and Agfachrome 100 for the browns of deserts. Black and white was always shot with Ilford thanks to a friend who had an unlimited supply of this film. These were the days of conserving film and I remember on trips having to ensure I did not shoot more photos per day than my allocated daily quota.

Here is one photo recently scanned and scrapped:

I love the light in this photo of the market place in Manakha, Yemen. I was doing what I usually do when travelling. That is finding a vantage point, where I can sit with a camera and long lens and view people without being too obvious. On this occasion, I was sitting on the side of the road running just above the market place. Now if I had had a digital camera back then, I would have taken hundreds of photos instead of the full 36 film on that day.

Here is another scanned slide, this one from India.

Now onto digital.


On photography days now, it is not unusual for me to shoot hundreds of photos. My photography aim for this year is to focus more on lining up and composing photos, rather than shooting away with the hope that one is "acceptable". This seems to be working as I am rarely cropping photos now but with 600 plus "keepers" in my lightroom database for January alone, there is still some work to be done... ;-)

Some recent pages from recent photos.

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Rain, rain and more rain ….

My gardens appreciated the rain last week and the beans are thriving but the rain of the last 24 hours has now turned the yard into a bog. Lucky the vegetable garden drainage is OK so for the moment eggplant and beans will survive.

Between rain storms, we went down to the creek which runs parallel to our street. I always love to take photos when the water is high and flowing fast. It was still raining and quite dark so photos are not the best.

Our path is now covered in water and there is no way to get close to the river.

A log has been carried onto the bridge.

No possibility of walking down to the creek as the path is under water, but looking at the debris in the trees, the water would have been 2 metres higher last night.

More rain expected.

Luminance for depth to skies

More photos yet again taken at the beach. It is summer here and the light is strong with well defined and strong shadows. I usually get an exposure setting, for my photos, on the object I am wanting to photograph, which results in correct exposure for the object I have in focus but unfortunately there is often a washed out sky. Skies have been beautiful over the last couple of weeks here as there is rain around and although sunsets have been without colour, they are truly stunning in monochrome. It is disappointing then to download photos to lightroom and find the less than impressive skies.

A trick that I use often to give depth to skies is to decrease luminance of blue and aqua in Lightroom. Sometimes I will also bump up saturation but only if required. This is what I have done in the following photos taken late Saturday afternoon.

In all cases luminance of both colours has been decreased by up to 50. (Lightroom 4 Beta version)

Have a great week everyone.

Blacked out ........... for a cause

Are you wondering about blacked out sites across the internet today? Show your support.

Details here and  here

Following are some of my 365 photos from the last couple of weeks.

After the rain (this morning)

Dogs and bubbles. What a mix!

Sunset in monochrome. Photos taken with a friend.

Hope your 366 is going well.

A New Year ....

Last year was tumultuous. I started out with optimism but quickly moved into "back to basic coping strategies" as problems exploded. Two months later and I was treading water. Life was starting to become "manageable". A few bumps but nothing life threatening. Then came the worst day of my life. No words, just tears and back to treading water. On the good days that is.

Then came light from an unexpected corner. Darkness receded to the power of light.

This is how we ended the year. Too many changes, too many ups and downs. We start 2012 higher than a year ago, now that is an achievement!


I wanted to welcome in the New Year with "Light" so headed to the beach to catch the first sunrise of the new year. Sand, water, light - a wonderful combination.  Leaving home at 3:30am, I was back before 7am. Here are some of my photos.

Pre dawn with first light:

First light:

 Then full light:

What can be more beautiful than the first rays of sunshine showing you the possibilities of a new day?

I wish you all a wonderful 2012!