Tag:photography
Once a year, hubby and I make our annual pilgrimage to King Valley Camp, visit friends, take photos, cruise the wineries, and have some ‘downtime’. And with no internet at the camp, downtime is total. So I found myself driving down the road each day and pulling up to the side of the road to catch up with emails and FB. Shocking, I know.
Rain, Rain, go away
The weather forecast for the weekend was rain, but we were lucky with no rain except late at night when we were all in bed. So we could do a bit of travelling around during the day.
On Friday, we drove up to Powers Lookout. Named after the bushranger who reputedly had a camp there in the 1860s, he used the high vantage point to watch for approaching troopers. We usually just stop at the upper lookout and take a few shots.
Powers Lookout
This time, feeling a bit stupid and adventurous, I decided to try the ‘other’ northern lookout. The steps seemed ok at the start, heading downhill via steps cut into the rock, but ok. Then they got steeper, massive, single steps where really two would have been better. The stone steps kept going down, then changed to steep metal stairs, shimmy through a gap, past a big rock in the middle of the path (glad I hadn’t had lunch yet), then UP metal stairs to the northern lookout. (I should have stopped and taken photos of the track, but I was saving my energy to keep the lungs and legs working)
The northern lookout gave a different and better view, so the walk was worth it. But OMG I paid for it the next day with very sore legs. So we shot off quite a few photos, then started the trek back, with lots of stops along the way to catch our breath, admire the view.
Chrismont Winery
From Powers Lookout, we headed to lunch and then Chrismont Winery. It’s a beautiful building that won a design award and offers magnificent sweeping views of the valley from the tasting room. I may have liberated a couple of bottles of their delicious Prosecco while I was there.
That evening we played with some light painting, new toys, trying out various ideas.
We did see some rain that night, but the following day was lovely and sunny again. We enjoyed a slow start to the day and then headed up the road to Lake William Hovell. Fabulous reflections and very quiet, we had the place to ourselves, apart from a few fishermen.
We had planned to do more light painting that evening, but the rains really came down not long after dinner, and we were futilely huddled under the awning waiting for them to pass, which they really didn’t. The Olympus held up well in the rain, but I found that the wi-fi to my iPhone doesn’t work too well when I have cold, wet fingers. So mental note to self, make sure I have my wired remote in my bag!
Floating fruit, creating images with fruit that floats or levitates isn’t hard, but loads of fun. You do need Photoshop (or similar software that removes elements from photos) – but don’t need to be an expert. The first time I ever tried it, I used a carrot. I had fallen in love with images I had seen of the bananas but had none in the house. So a carrot pressed into service.
Harder fruits or vegetables are much more manageable than soft ones. When I did get around to the banana, it was a lot more temperamental than the carrot. Being softer, the toothpicks slid and moved quite easily. So, where to start.
Lighting
All of mine have been taken inside, with good filtered window light. If you have lights or a flash, that may work for you. I prefer natural lighting or continuous lights over flash, but that’s just me. Setup your ‘scene’ with a nice background and base… something non-intrusive as the fruit is the star of the shot. All shots below were taken against a white melamine board background and on a wood panel look wallpaper.
I used a standard 24-105 lens, F5.6, ISO, and Shutter speed to suit my light. Choose good quality, firm fruit without blemishes and slice it to your preferred shape. Then ‘construct’ it back together with toothpicks.
Fire up Photoshop
The toothpicks hold the fruit into the shape you want, plus support it to stand upright by itself. Once you are happy with the arrangements, fire off your shots and then import them into Photoshop. Make sure you are working on the flattened image, and from here, the magic starts. On the left side, toolbar choose the polygon tool. It’s the third one from the top. The polygon tool is like a piece of elastic. Choose your start point and click, go to the next point and click, next and click, etc., finishing back at the start point. Once you join the two together, you’ll get the marching ants.
Once you have the marching ants, you hit delete on your keyboard, and the content-aware menu will pop up. N now click enter, and the toothpick (should) disappear like magic. If it doesn’t work, try doing it in smaller sections. The ‘maths’ behind it is replacing what you have chosen with the tool with what is nearby. So you need to let it know exactly what you want gone and have some space for it to pick to replace it with. In some instances, I had to remove the toothpicks one at a time even though the two were close side by side.
Keep going until you have removed all the toothpicks, then edit your image as your normally would. Try Apples, Pears, Banana’s, Tomatoes, Carrots, Kiwi Fruit, any Citrus works well. Have fun!
Our plan was Phillip Island & San Remo and for the weekend. Phillip Island is only around 2 hours from home, and while we had been there before, it had been a few years. So we decided to head back this easter break. We started our photography plans with a drive along The Blvd. You can walk it, but we decided to drive it. This was because there is only one place you can stop along the way with a small lookout. Parking is not allowed on the verges. It’s supposed to be one way as it’s too narrow for cars to pass each other on many parts of the road. Not that it stopped some young idiots in a convertible coming from the opposite direction. You access it by driving to the Nobbies visitor centre. From there, you take the road off to the left as you approach the carpark.
There are some fabulous views along the way. We spotted a hovering Kestral that I tried to get a shot off. However, he was too far offshore and dived before I could get a picture every time. The only time he came close was so close that I couldn’t get a shot, either. Because the long lens wouldn’t focus – he was TOO close!
We booked a lovely house in San Remo for our stay as our main photographic goal was to shoot Cadillac Canyon – and the house was only 5 mins drive from there. Cadillac Canyon is accessed from Potters Hill Road.. from the carpark at the end, it’s a short walk to the start of the stairs down to the beach, 138 steps in total but nice wide, solid wooden steps with lots of landings along the way — they need a seat at the halfway point! 😉
Panhandle Flats
Once you are on the beach, Panhandle Flats is off to the left. To the right, at the other end of the beach, is Cadillac Canyon. We first went down there looking for a sunset, and while the light was excellent, the sunset wasn’t happening. The tide also made getting out onto Panhandle a no-go. So we decided to come back again in the morning.
The weekend daylight saving had finished in Victoria, so sunrise moved from 7.09 am to 6.09 am. We were up at 5 am – coffee and out the door arriving at the beach in the dark. Even though it was still dark, a car was already in the carpark before us. It turned out to be a surf fisherman. It had been a full moon the night before. So torches weren’t needed with the moonlighting our way down the steps and across the beach to Panhandle Flats. Tide was also with us. At 6.22 am, we could get out on the flats and set up with the low tide.
The colours in the sky didn’t look that promising. But just before sunrise, the sky popped a glorious red for a few minutes. We got our shots quickly because it was very short-lived.
Once the sun was up, we moved across to Cadillac Canyon. Apart from two surf fishermen, we had the beach totally to ourselves.
Pelicans
By now, it was just after 8 am, and we were starving. So we headed back to the house for breakfast and a rest before heading into San Remo to watch the pelican feeding at the pier. The feeding is free, though they have a collection tin for donations. Feeding takes place every day at midday outside the fishing co-op.
The birds are not worried about the humans. We were roped off from the feeding area (not sure for whose protection, lol). One late pelican arrival just barged into the throng of people, pushing his way through the spectators to get to the feeding area.
Pyramid Rock
Later that afternoon, we headed to Pyramid Rock on Phillip Island. It would be a good sunset spot – and is on our list for next time. The walk to Pyramid from the carpark is an easy 800m return. It has only a slight elevation; even with tired legs from the morning’s stairs, we cruised it in.
We had a fabulous weekend at Phillip Island & San Remo and hope to go back again in the summer months.
I had long been fascinated with the water drop and fruit splash shots seen on the internet and decided to try it myself. The first time out was spectacularly unsuccessful. I didn’t have a flash, and even doing it in an area with plenty of light and constant photo lights didn’t work. Take two was with Deanne Holmer using her Godox lights and triggers to sync them to the camera. This did work much better.
Fruit
We started off with plastic ice blocks for our Fruit Splash and then moved to strawberries, limes, and lemons. The images were taken against a black or white perspex background that was easy to wipe over (we had water everywhere). We found that keeping the front of the water tank free of water drops was essential. So lots of wiping the tank between shots.
Paint
From the fruit, we moved on to paint drops. Having no idea what we were doing, we squirted paint of varying consistencies into water, vases, onto perspex, etc., until we hit on something that worked. The table surface looked like a Pro Hart painting – we had a ball, and in the end, did get the results we were looking for
Water Drops
Still wanting to try the water, I headed over to my niece’s house to have another go there. She had done it before using a regular flash and instead of burst mode like the above ones were, she had timed the shot to the drop. This took a bit of practice, but once I got my timing right, I got more photos than I missed 🙂
It’s quite addictive and loads of fun. Waiting on pluto trigger arriving now, try the next level – water collisions!
In December 2017, Melbourne Zoo opened a new exhibit – the Carnivores Trail. The new enclosure houses the Lions, Sumatran Tiger, Tasmanian Devil, African Painted Dog and Snow Leopard. I had been to the zoo many times and failed to get a ‘shot’ of the tiger. He always seemed to be hiding at the back of his old enclosure, so I decided another trip was in order.
the Carnivores Trail
On the day we visited, the Lions weren’t on display as they were adding new tree trunks for them to climb on. Considering we visited in February and the ‘Trail’ had only been opened for around seven weeks, it was disappointing and poor planning on the zoo’s part. Another disappointment was that the trail wasn’t circular like the map at the entrance. Once past the invisible snow leopards, the trail was blocked, and a sign told us to retrace our steps. So while the trail was open to the public, it seems that it’s certainly not finished.
Snow Leopards and tigers
The snow leopards have mythical status as they are hard to find. When we visited again, they were nowhere in sight. A fellow photographer had visited five times since the opening of the new trail and had not seen them once. The new Tiger enclosure is excellent. We were lucky to see him wading back and forth in the water for a good ten minutes.
Lemur Island
From the Carnivores Trail, we headed off to Lemur Island. Not actually an island but a fully enclosed walk-through exhibit where the Ring-Tailed Lemurs swan around relaxing and observing the visitors…
Gorilla Rainforest
Lemur Island leads to the Gorilla Rainforest. Among the Western Lowland Gorilla and other animals, it’s also home to the tree-tops apes and monkeys.
Butterfly House
We headed to the Butterfly House from the Gorilla Rainforest. This is one of my favourite exhibits at the zoo. It’s home to hundreds of butterflies fluttering around and landing on people.
The Great Ocean Road is one of my favourite road trip destinations. Loads to stop and see along the way, great lunch spots, and very, very changeable weather. We have had sunny, hazy days, cloudy overcast days, rainy days and one glorious sunny day. We have been chasing the elusive sunrise and sunset several times over the last few months.
Redwood Forest
Determined to get that ever-elusive sunrise/sunset, we travelled down the GOR in December, January and again in February…
Heading down in December, we stopped off at the Redwood Forest in the Otway Ranges. Beautiful Californian Sequoia Trees planted along the Aire River in 1939 now rise majestically up to a canopy towering above your head. The ground is covered with rusty red leaf litter; it’s a stunning, serene place to walk in, peaceful and silent like a cathedral of trees. The Aire River meanders through at the back, lined with tree ferns. It cascades across rocks and under fallen logs. Its vibe is otherworldly. You almost expect to see Frodo or Gandalf walk out.
Peterborough
Leaving the redwood, we skipped Apollo Bay and headed towards Princetown. Being the height of the Christmas period, the coast road was packed with tourists, so we had decided to stay a bit further along at Peterborough, passing the Twelve Apostles. The roads were lined with barriers to stop parking on the side of the road, LED signs in both Chinese and Australian, and gazillions of people swarming over the boardwalks and lookouts. Staying further along was looking like a great plan.
When we arrived in the sunshine, the following day was very grey and overcast. So we decided to beat the tourist buses by getting out early. It was nice and quiet, just a couple of others out, not cold, but overcast and windy, not the best weather.
Princetown
Skipping ahead a month, we went back in January. This time the sun was well and truly shining as we headed down
revisited all the stops that we did in December, as well as taking in Lorne, but this in lovely sunshine with blue skies
We were staying at Princetown itself this time. It is a sleepy little place with a tavern (with great food). Accom (very basic) and a general store that keeps surprisingly short trading hours had dinner at the tavern (great food) and then went to the twelve apostles for sunset wasn’t bad but still not a box ticked. I got back to the carpark well after dark and headed back to our accommodation at 9 pm, and everything was closed, a sleepy little place Accom (very basic), and a general store that keeps surprisingly short trading hours.
We were up for sunrise the following day at 5 am and should have stayed in bed. We were definitely out of luck or over-optimistic but going on the cars at the carpark, we weren’t the only ones that thought a sunrise at the twelve apostles on Great Ocean Road was a good idea.
ah well, there’s always February
After Christmas, I admired a location shared on a FB page and asked privately where it was as I thought it would be a great light painting location. The reply, while polite, was a firm “an urban explorer never divulges a location. However, if you keep it a secret and include us we will tell you”. A meetup was arranged at a coffee shop to ‘suss’ each other out. We must have passed as they took us to the location, and a shoot was planned for the following week. Light Painting with Urban Explorers was on!
Getting there was easy enough though you had to accept wet feet to access the location.
Skipping ahead a week, we had observed the weather for the next week, and with no rain for the past few days, the night was on! It was a lovely warm night—no rain on the horizon, which was a good thing. I didn’t want to be floating downstream if it started raining!
We started off with coloured LEDs wands and orbs before moving to my favourite… steel wool!
Light Painting with Urban Explorers accomplished! Thank you to Bill and Deanne Holmer from Melbourne Light Painting and Mark and David for sharing their location.
Following on from earlier concept shoots I took part in, Deanne and I decided to run one of our own. But what theme? We had several ideas in mind, but the inspiration came one night when I was at a light painting shoot with Bill and Deanne Holmer from Melbourne Light Painting. Bill was attaching sparklers for the next shot, and he put the torch in his mouth to free his hands up for the job. Uncle Fester!! And we had our Addams Family theme.
Deanne and I set about gathering the photographers. With that in place, we came up with a cast of characters, with some photographers doubling as models. We decided to schedule the shoot for November to the plethora of props and the like avail as it was post-Halloween.
Preparations
Over the coming months, Deanne created and sewed Addams Family costumes, plus making available a wedding gown we could use. So our cast grew to include a bride and groom. Then we had to have a bridesmaid (I never know when enough is enough 😉 Carole sourced props from op shop crawls, I made some at home, we hunted around for a suitable studio, found one, then it fell through, so moved onto the next one.
At the last minute, we ‘lost’ our groom, so we did a cast change with our current Lurch swapping to the groom role and Bill stepping in as the new Lurch. Roy even went as far as shaving off his beard for the Gomez role! All in all, a lot of fun and well worth the work that went into it. though it will be a few months before I attempt another 🙂
Credits
Photographers
Bevlea Ross
Website www.rustyramblers.com Facebook Rusty-Ramblers
Deanne Holmer
Deanne Holmer Photography Instagram Deanne Holmer
Our Models
Morticia – Kirstyn Perry
Gomez – Roy Powell
Wednesday Addams – Brooklyn Garrett
Lurch – Bill Holmer
Fester – Kyle Donovan
The Bride – Lucy Formosa-Mort
The Groom – Heath Garrett
The Bridesmaid – Amber Formosa-Mort
Grandma – Ann Jeffre
HMUA
Michaela Hannan – Gomez and Fester
Kirstyn Garrett – Lurch and Wednesday
Costumes
Wednesday and Bridesmaid costumes by Deanne Holmer
Fester costume by Bevlea Ross
Wedding Dress by Maggie Soterro
Cakes
Carole Perry
Staging
Bevlea Ross
Thank you to Julie, Lisa and Suzanne, who also contributed to the prop stash
It was our last full day in Queensland before heading home the next day, and we decided to drive down to Byron Bay, see the lighthouse, and visit the Crystal Castle. Set in the hinterlands above Byron Bay, Crystal Castle and Shambhala Gardens and rainforest with massive crystals brought across South America.
Byron Bay
We woke to beautiful sunshine. At around 5 am again. I had breakfast on the balcony and read for a while before heading off towards Byron Bay at around 8.00 am. It’s only 90 mins from the Gold Coast, and we were there by about 9.30 am. Arriving in Byron Bay, I couldn’t get over how busy it was. There were people out and about and heavy traffic everywhere. Don’t people sleep in Queensland? Heading up to the lighthouse, people out walking, pushing prams, jogging, I have never seen such activity at a lighthouse. It was like it was the central meeting point for everyone in Byron Bay. And it was only 9.30 am!
Byron Bay Lighthouse
The lighthouse has around three car parks, each higher and closer to the lighthouse than the last. We drove up to the top one the parking attendant!? directed us to an empty spot. So we got out, donned hats, grabbed cameras and joined the throng to walk up to the lighthouse. The lighthouse itself is a beautiful little castle-like building at the base with battlements overlooking turquoise and blue sea. We wandered around and down the other side to get shots from the lower vantage point.
Crystal Castle
We stopped for morning tea from the lighthouse, then headed up into the hinterlands. Just 20 mins from Byron Bay is the Crystal Castle and Shambhala Gardens. Entry is $25 and totally worth it. A memorial gate to Tori Johnson is inside the gates, donated by his family. Tori was tragically killed in the Lindt Cafe Siege in 2015.
I would have liked more time here to take in some of the daily events… we missed the music of the plants as by the time we had walked around the gardens, it was quite warm, and we wanted a chair and cold drink 🙂
The Stupa
The gardens are quite large, and to be done properly, and you really need a full day here. We stopped at the Peace Stupa and availed ourselves of the umbrellas dotted around for protection from the rain or sun while we enjoyed the music emanating from the Stupa.
with our walk around finished. We enjoyed a delicious lunch in the cafe before enjoying some retail therapy in the crystal shop. From there, it was back to the car and back to the apartment.
Our last night on the balcony, we finally took some night shots of the city lights. The next morning it was pouring with rain, and all the next week too, but we were home by then 🙂
Today we planned to go to Seaworld and enjoy a whale-watching cruise. Another epiphany we came across in Queensland is morning comes SOOOO early. Like around 4.30 am. We’d wake up in bright daylight thinking OMG slept in, check the watch, nope, it’s 4.45 am! Queenslanders say they don’t need daylight saving. It would help! Mornings would start a little later, and daylight would last past 6 pm. Everyone is up with the sparrows. Sitting on the balcony at 5 am with a coffee, the roads are starting to build with traffic. People are walking to bus stops.
Whale Cruise
We left the apartment around 8.30 am (virtually mid-afternoon to a Queenslander) and headed to Seaworld, which was only about 13mins away. Massive queue when we got there after queueing for about 20mins we found we were in the wrong queue and were sent to a smaller building for Whale watching/Seaworld tickets. You can’t buy a combo ticket for that at Seaworld. You have to buy it from the Marina. I know. It makes no sense to me either. Queenslanders defy logic. We wandered over, bought our tickets, and boarded the whale watching vessel. Very nice, new, and comfy.
Just as we were heading out, we came across a mother and calf in the estuary, which is unusual, so the boat took on the task of herding them back out to sea.
Once out on, we went hunting for whales in earnest and had quite a successful day of sightings. Sadly, whales turned out to be as hard to shoot as birds. They’d be breaching and have a grand old time; the boat would race over, and nothing, nada. Whales gone. Then we’d see them off in the distance again and repeat the process. Another pod would swim past us a few times as we floated there, waiting for the original show-offs to emerge. Overall we saw three breachings and many tail flips. Quite a few mothers and calves. And a mother and calf being escorted by a ‘bodyguard’ whale.
Seaworld
At the end of our cruise, we headed into Seaworld, grabbed lunch and went for a wander around. The Dolphin and Seal shows were later in the afternoon. And by now, it was hot, and we’d had enough of lugging the massive lenses around, so we headed straight for the polar bear enclosure.
Seaworld had been on our list to visit once we heard that a baby polar bear had been born, and the timing of our holiday coincided with him going on display. Unfortunately, I think he was asleep in the cave cause we only saw Mumma Bear, and she kept going back to the cave, possibly checking on the cub. Who remained a no-show sigh But we did see Mumma Bear. Seaworld is the only place in Australia that still has a polar bear display.
Passing the Dolphin enclosure on the way out, we added a few more tails to our day haul of Tails. It was now 30C in the shade, and we headed back to the car and our apartment for a shower and cold wines.
Murphys Law was running true to form as we’d had four days of misty, cloudy mornings up at O’Reilly’s. The day we left to head to Springbrook National Park, and the Natural Bridge was blue skies and bright sunshine. Waterfalls are never good in bright sunlight.
We set off back down the winding, narrow road to Canungra and then diverted to Springbrook, arriving around 11 am. The walk to the Natural Bridge is a loop. With the recommendation to do it in a clockwise direction or else you have a lot of stairs coming back up, we were still worn out (and hot) by the time we got back up, but doing it clockwise was better. There were a lot of steps going down, and I would not have liked to do all those stairs in reverse!
Natural Bridge
By the time we got to the Natural Bridge at Springbrook National Park, the sun was high in the sky, and the rock opening was being hit but loads of sun. It blew out the highlights even with five image HDR stack. We did find some interesting mushrooms growing on a log on the way back.
Fungi
Leaving the Natural Bridge, we turned left instead of right, and a few kms down the road came to the border. a quick photo stop before we turned around 🙂
Borders
We stopped for a quick lunch and then headed to the ‘Best Of All Lookout’, yep they really called it that. The walk to the lookout was an easy 350 metres through the rainforest.
Goomahlara Falls
Our last stop before we headed down to Surfers Paradise was Goomahlara Falls. It’s an easy 200m walk from the carpark that brings you to a little lookout with the waterfall off to the side, and you cant get to the bottom—crappy point of view for a photo. Heading back to the carpark, Carole left the path, and we headed through the scrub to the stream. Goomahlara Falls, which made a much nicer shot 🙂
the edge of the rocks drops off to a sheer cliff, so this was as close as we went. From here, we headed down to our apartment in Surfers for the next four nights. We had chosen one with a city view, and I was hoping to get some nice night shots and maybe a timelapse
Today, our plans were for an O’Reilly’s Segway Ride, one tick off Carole’s bucket list. We had about 40mins of training and then set off the segway. The O’Reilly’s Segway Ride is off the road. However, they usually go down dirt tracks and through a small stream; we stuck to the roads. We walked to Morans Falls, leaving the Segways in the carpark
“I realized something on the ride. I realized if I wait until I’m not scared to try new things, then I’ll never get to try them at all.”
Marie Sexton, Between Sinners and Saints
The walk to the falls was pretty and not too arduous. But we were on a tight schedule as Rob, our guide, had to be back to ferry a heap of guests up to Moonlight Crag for a wedding. Therefore our pace was much faster than we usually do at a waterfall with lots of steps.
Back up the top, it was off on the Segways again back to O’Reillys. All went well until about 10ft from the end when Carole came off the Segway. No significant damage, but the knee swelled up over the afternoon, and she was on crutches the following day. We took it quiet for the rest of the afternoon and relaxed in our room before heading down to the dining room for dinner and drinks.
