BLUE SKY DREAMING

Because it’s been raining and I had to cancel a shoot, how about I cheer everybody up and show you what our summer is going to be like. This is the road into Purnululu National Park about 110 km north of the town of Halls Creek and 250 km south of Kununurra in the north east of Western Australia. A landscape of beehive-shaped sandstone formations, deep chasms with palm trees. Traveling on this type of road for a few hours is dusty work.

TERRIGAL DAWN

Terrigal used to be the home to a community of fishermen and timber fellers. Today the town is better known for it’s sandy beaches and cosmopolitan cafe’s, boutiques , night clubs and accommodation. The morning of this image the people of Terrigal were awoken by the waft of salt sea spray to the start of their day. Not a bad way to get things moving.

SAME SCENE DIFFERENT IMAGE

I have been going through some of my RAW images, looking at files I may have passed over the first time around and, I have just processed two more from this series I shot back in March, when the weather was a little warmer. All photographed from the same spot, but moving the camera a little and waiting for different swells in he ocean. Thats one thing I find fascinating about the landscape its always moving. The trouble is, I dont know which I prefer. Sometimes I lean to the darker versions, I feel there is more drama in the image, but then again some people prefer a more open lighter photograph. They were captured on a Nikon D700 fitted with a 20mm Nikkor, at 4 and 2 second’s.

BIRDIE BEACH

I arrived really early, to early in fact, at Birdie beach this morning. It was so dark, no moon, that I had to use my torch to find my way along the beach, but when I got to where I thought I wanted to be it was still so dark that I made my way back to the car just to get out of the wind and wait for some light in the sky before trying to cross the rock’s. I didn’t want to become another statistic. I came back with about 5 images these are just two. Shot on the D700 with a Nikkor 20mm f2.8 and a 0.6 ND Grad filter.

YOU CHOOSE

Morning or afternoon. What’s the best time to photograph the landscape? Well it’s all up to what you want the picture to be and when does the light paint the best picture. These two images are of Toowoon Bay NSW Central Coast, the first was photographed just after the sun had set behind the headland, creating this cool looking image, the second was photographed just as the sun broke the horizon line over the ocean creating a warm image, two day’s after the first. In this case both images work quite well, so it’s just down to the viewer and the feeling each image gives you. Both images were captured on A Nikon D700 mounted to a tripod a 24-70mm was used for the evening shot and a 20mm for the morning image. The preset light balance on the camera was set to cloudy. Back in the studio the RAW file images were processed in Nikons Capture NX, but I think that’s about to change, more on that later. It’s very important to shoot in RAW, especially if you want the best image quality your equipment can give you.

LITTLE BRIGHT BOXES

What better way to feel better about the rain than when we look at bright clear photo’s. This is Terrigal beach on a sunny summers morning.  A straight shot, I only tweaked the levels in Photoshop.

ANTI AD NAUSEAM

The weekend was spent shooting photos around Bateau Bay and Wamberal. I’ve been taking advantage of the weather, trying to capture some drama in my landscapes rather than the pretty pictures people have been shooting, you know what I mean, blue skies, soft pinks and mauves at sunset, they seem to be photographed ad nauseam these days. I love the skies in these two images they give depth to the landscape.

This morning for an hour I’v been talking to Bryce, a friend of mine who has just made me depressed,. He’s off over seas for a few months shooting pictures, bummer. If you want to check out his work take a look HERE I think he will be someone to keep an eye on.

THE SKILLION TERRIGAL NSW

I have lost count how many time I’ve photographed this place. The Skillion is one of the icons on the Central Coast, every place seems to have something that everybody knows and relates to that town or city. Well this morning I was down there again, but I had a great surprise this time the tide was really high so the only safe place to photograph from was rock ledge out of harms way, I was glad I was there too because a few waves came in and I thought my feet were going to get wet. I seem to take more photographs in the autumn, winter months than any other because there are less people to worry about, the colours are stronger, horizon lines are sharper with less pollution hanging around, plus I like the cold.

These two images are a good example of how light effects the mood of a picture taken within minuets of each other in exactly the same spot, but two different photographs. Camera D700, 20mm Nikkor @ f/18, a natural density 0.6 grad filter was used then a slight levels adjustment in Capture NX, finished.

OUT AND ABOUT

Three images from my outings this week. I started the week of by going up the Yarramalong Valley, I wanted to capture the mornings light coming through the trees and the mist. The Norah Head shot as shot at dusk on a 20mm Nikkor @ f/20 an off camera flash was fired into the foreground to highlight the flow of water in front of the camera. exposure was 5/1 sec.