Dawn on the Canefields.
This is an image I shot a few mornings ago. As the weather cools up here in the tropics and the wind drops it is great conditions for early morning fog around the canefields. I had been looking for a high vantage point and believe me they are few and far between, but I went up a road called the “Highway to Heaven” and found this spectacular view!
Actually very restricted in shooting positions due to the intrusion of power lines, which are the bane of my photographic existence! Shot just as the sun illuminated the fog in the foreground and within 20 minutes it was all gone!
Crystal Creek
On my way home from Lucinda, I had a little bit of time up my sleeve so I headed into the mountains to see if I could find some waterfalls of which there are many in this area. About halfway up the Paluma Range, I came across this beautiful rainforest stream by the name of Crystal Creek.
Spent a rather enjoyable couple of hours here before the busloads arrived and this was the last image taken before the rain settled in with a vengeance! By the time I made it back to the car, I was sopping wet but my camera gear survived. Good onya Lowepro! Made it back home just before the rain covered Nth Queensland for the next week and flooded most of the roads.
The Waiting Game.
G’day Gang,
First up, apologies to all for not participating in the blogosphere as much of late. My new job is to blame, early starts,long days & plenty of ‘em! Not quite what I was envisioning but that is the marine tourism industry sometimes. GFC, what GFC? you would not know it existed here at the moment, a large improvement on previous months!
Needless to say, I have been as busy as a one- armed paperhanger and have not had much time for photography related activities.
This image is testament to an old adage of repeatedly visiting a place until you get the shot. Every time I come to Tasmania I visit this spot at least once a day usually at sunrise or sunset, because you just never know what may transpire. Even so, I have been caught out a couple of times after packing the gear away after a fruitless wait only to see the conditions come together within minutes!
This particular morning everything came together nicely for about an hour and I came away with a good selection of images. Enjoy!
Cradle Mt.
Only made it up to Cradle Mt. once this time around. True to form, the weather was cold,blustery and RAINING which is the norm rather than the exception in this part of the world. I sat in the car for a while cursing my luck and eventually a break in the rain came through so hopefully I set off to a couple of spots that I wanted to check out.
Of course, 100 meters away from the car and a light rain started. I pulled out the camera gear a couple of times in the hope of getting a shot that wouldn’t have water spots on the lens and this was the only useable image.
I call this an environmental portrait of Cradle Mt. with the mountain taking a backseat to it’s surrounding environment of buttongrass plains which cover a large part of the surrounding area.
Anyway, hope you all like it!
The Road less Travelled.
After having a bit of a look around the West Coast of Tasmania and vowing to spend more time in the area next time I am in Tasmania, I decided to head up the Western ExplorerRoad as this would cut a lot of travelling time to my next destination.
With little information about the condition of this road which has been pushed through the Tarkine Wilderness I headed into the wilderness hoping my hire car was up to the task! As it turned out the road was in good condition but rarely have I felt more isolated, even in the Kimberley! For the next 3 or so hours I saw no sign of civilisation apart from the road I was on. If I had any sort of problem it was going to be a long wait for any help.
About halfway I stopped to stretch my legs and saw this scene behind me which summed what I was feeling at the time perfectly!
Myrtle Mystery.
Of all the forests and bushlands I have wandered through over the years, I think the type of forest that gives me the greatest pleasure would be the Myrtle Beech forests of Tasmania.
To me, they are places of magic and mystery. Cool damp forests mostly found along alpine streams, the only sounds you hear are the burbling of the stream or the occasional thump as a wallaby scoots off into the brush.
The colour palette here is a lush emerald green as nearly everything is covered in a variety of mosses and lichens. Looking about, I nearly expect to see elves and faeries to be perched on a log looking at me quizzically.
Photographically, they are a delight, you could spend all day in one of these places and travel no more than 100 metres. Sunbeams,mist and the sheer variety of colour, texture and shape will engage your senses for hours!
Shot near Pencil Pine Creek on the edge of the Cradle Mt- Lake St. Clair Nat. Park.
Tablecloth
Another quick one from Tasmania. This was processed and stitched in Lightroom & PT Gui on a Netbook!
Once again I am champing at the bit to see these on my big screen at home!
Mossman Canefields
I found this neat little scene on my way back fro Mossman to Cairns. Took off up a side road and drove for miles to find a spot where the sugarcane wasn’t obliterating the mountains in the background!
This is a scene that is so typical of FNQ and the fact that the Great Dividing Range is so close to the coast makes it a great area for photographers.
On another note, this will probably be my last post for a while. I am just about to head to Gladstone for 5 weeks as the Master of a 40m barge with a huge backhoe on it, basically a non-propelled dredge which is part of the push to build new infrastructure for the Port of Gladstone in Central Qld. It will probably be fairly dull but the pay is well worth it, which means a long overdue camera upgrade is definately on the cards! 
“Altered Landscapes”
Trawling through some of my early files, I came across these three early attempts at some Photoshop selective colour techniques.
While they wouldn’t win any prizes, I thought i would jump on the ‘ältered landscapes’ wagon for a bit. I always love seeing a plant growing where they have no business being! it always delights me to think that no matter how much we try to tame the natural world and smother it with ashphalt, concrete or any other atrocities such as poison, nature will have the last say!
These images are my little commentary on that theme.
I’m off sailing for a week, see you all soon!
Country Road Sunset
Hope everybody had a great Easter Break. Judging by the lack of activity here, you all found better things to do than turn your computer on. As for me, I was back at sea for the first time in nearly 2 years!
Yesterday. I had to travel to Townsville for a doctor’s appointment at which they gave me some better news than I was expecting. The down side was they kept me waiting for nearly 2hrs and I nearly missed the great light in this image.
I had scoped out this area on a quick drive through on the way up, but had little idea of the area and what the light angles were going to be around sunset. Hightailing it along the Flinders Highway I could see some really nice light on the peaks in Bowling Green Bay Nat. Park. Sun was sinking fast and there were some large black clouds hovering along the western horizon.
Taking a chance, I ducked down a side road hoping I could find somewhere to take advantage of these conditions when this bent -up windmill appeared. I managed to fire of a 5 image stitch and a couple of single frames before the light disappeared. Whew!
Sometimes you just gotta take what you get and hope it works!
I think I just got away with it this time.
Looked like it would be a good sunset so I hung around for a while and then figured that it was a dud and started on the 3hr drive home. Looked into the rearvision mirror to see the lowering clouds lit from below beautifully, but by then I was in the wrong place heading in the wrong direction. Oh well, next time!
Old Gum Tree
Just looking through my files and I found this image of the same tree but with a looming storm in the background. Whatever the conditions, that tree seems to draw your attention and to me both images are quintessentially Australian!
It ain’t over ’til the Fat Lady Sings!
I went up to Dingo Beach the other afternoon to get a range of images so I could test out a Plug-in for Lightroom by the name of L/R Enfuse. The plug-in is an HDR plug-in put together by Timothy Armes and is available from The Photographers Toolbox. I have never been a big fan of HDR as a lot of images look a little weird to me but that is just a personal taste.
So far the results look pretty good and I will be playing with it for a while to get the best out of it. Here is one of the images I came back with.
This shot nearly didn’t happen! I had been taking a range of images with a fairly un-inspiring sky. I wasn’t particularly worried as It was more about the process rather than the image this time. The sun had set and I waited for a while just in case. Judging that nothing was going to happen, I was in the process of packing up my gear when I looked up and noticed that a bit of colour was appearing in the clouds. Setting up my gear again I managed to get a couple of very nice images over the next 10 minutes.and it all faded as quickly as it had appeared!
The title of this post says it all!
Reflected Glory
This is one from the same morning as my last post. I’m not sure I like the colour quite as much but the reflections of the clouds make up for it.
What do you think?
Kimbeley Storm
The Kimberley, an ancient, timeless land where man’s influence is so far, fairly minimal. That could change in the future if the gas,mining companies and government have their way! Like the Tasmanian SW this is an area that should be left as a wilderness, free of ugly gas plants, disfiguring mining operations and the like.
Traveling through the Kimberley by sea you get a good sense of how insignificant you really are and you get a feeling that the land is watching you,impassively,waiting for you to make a mistake.
On most days during the dry the landscape is a magnificent palette of colour, dominated by the ochre colours of the sandstone of which the area is comprised. Contrasting with the blues of the sea and endless sky as well as the greens of the post-wet season greenery it’s easy to fill a memory card pretty quickly.
But on the rare occasion when a thunderstorm rolls across the landscape, it seems to take on a more primitive & malevolent feeling. You almost expect a dinosaur to make an appearance somewhere and indeed there are dinosaurs around in the form of crocodiles.
This is my attempt to communicate that feeling you get.
Monsoon Skies
We have certainly had some rain over here in Queensland this year! At the moment large parts of Southern and Western Queensland are under water with flood records broken left,right & centre.
Here in the Whitsundays it feels like the sun has deserted us although as I speak the sun is is making a rare but brief appearance. The ground is saturated and soggy but the good news is that the local dam is flowing over the spillway for only the second time in it’s 30yr history.
For the last couple of months I have driven countless miles around the surrounding cane fields trying to capture some of the awesome looking skies that come with this sort of weather in juxtaposition with the landscape that consists of miles of flat canefields and a couple of low mountain ranges.
The best time to do this is at the end of the cane harvest when most of the cane is still short,for most of the year you can’t see anything because of the height of the cane obscuring the skyline.
Up until yesterday I had not shot anything that I was completely happy with, just couldn’t get all the variables to line up and I was beginning to despair of ever getting an image that portrayed the wide open landscape, the ranges and the skies that happen with the tropical wet season.
I think the couple of images below may be getting close though! (Click to view large)
What do you think?
Sunlit Sands
Just been playing around, so I thought I would post another view of Langford Sandspit
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Early Morning at Langford Spit
I’ve been thinking for a while that considering I live in the Whitsundays on Queensland’s tropical coast, I haven’t been posting many images of the area! While I haven’t been out around the islands for a fair while due to health reasons, I did manage to capture a few images from the area before I was grounded.
This was taken early one morning looking from Langford Spit toward Hook Is.
Here the overnight high tide has washed away all the footprints left by the many visitors the spit gets each day and left it’s own footprint of current induced sand waves. A much nicer design I think!
Cradle Mt.
Andrew Brown & Jamie Patterson have been posting some great images of the Tasmanian Icon that is Cradle Mt, so I thought I would add my paltry efforts!
These have been lurking in my archive for ages and frankly they’re rather boring images compared to others that are out there.
These two images above were shot in my early days of digital photography, so please excuse the quality. A rare beautiful day up in these parts!
These last two illustrate the extremes of weather up in the Alpine regions. It can go from a beautiful warm sunny day to freezing cold and nasty in very short time! Many people have been caught out over the years, some with fatal consequences.
My father who lived at Cradle Mt for many years and knew the area intimately treated the area with great respect even if he was going for a short daywalk.
Many times i have driven up to the lake hoping for that moody, broken cloud pierced by the setting sun type of weather. So far it has eluded me but I will get lucky one day!
Morning Mist II
After a couple of suggestions from Mark Stothard and Andrew Brown here is the revised version of “Morning Mist”.
I think this one works a little better, thanks Fellas!
Morning Mist
This image is another one to inspire Jamie Patterson on his next trip to Tasmania!
This is what Christian Fletcher would call a ‘drive-by shooting’. Scenes like this one are very common early in the morning in Tasmania, problem is that finding a place to pull over on the side of the road so you can set your gear up is not that easy!
When I saw this scene I was on a main road with long grass verges which may or may not hide a large ditch. Pull off the road as far as you dare, hope your car doesn’t (A) Get sideswiped by a log truck or (B) Capsize into the ditch!
Mist was dissipating quickly, so quickly put on a telephoto lens, run across the road and squeeeze a couple of exposures at a shutter speed that really is too slow for for hand-held shots. Thankfully there was a fence post that was reasonably clear of blackberries to brace myself against.
I am actually amazed that they came up as good as they did!
A Place of Mystery.
There is something about waterfalls that calls out to your soul. From the awesome power of places like Victoria Falls also known as “Smoke that Thunders” to a hidden little cascade that burbles merrily through the forest, I reckon they are places of mystery & hidden power that can stir your imagination like few other places!
I was out at Cedar Ck Falls the other day taking some close-up images of the falls as well as some timelapse images. While processing this image I tried a selenium tone preset. As soon as it came up on screen, images from “Lord of the Rings” started flashing through my head as well as many other fantasy novels that I am quite partial to!
Not your normal green lush waterfall image I know, but I can nearly see Orcs, Elves or Wizards in a setting like this!
Misty Mountain Hop.
A couple of images of Mt. Roland to inspire Jamie Patterson!
Hope you like ‘em Jamie!
Leave the Kimberley Alone!
Hi All,
Haven’t posted for a while as I am recovering from a hip operation that has made it painful to sit at a computer for too long! Good news is that I appear to be mending quickly,thank God!
I was reading a post by Christian Fletcher about the proposed Gas Plant at James Price Point near Broome and in the comments section I came across a scary piece of information found by David Bettini about a proposed copper mine near the Horizontal Falls!
I have spent quite a bit of time at the Horizontal Falls in my day job as a charter vessel skipper, and have driven tourists through the falls many times in all conditions. This image does not show the Falls in full flight as they are very dependant on the range and state of the tide. At maximum flow on the biggest tides of the year (11.5m range) they are an awesome sight with a 3m difference in level in the outer gap and a 5m wall of water in the inner gap. Water speeds reach up to 20 knots with huge whirlpools and turbulence, driving a powerboat through these is to be on the edge of control and very much an adrenalin surge to put it mildly!
The surrounding area in Talbot Bay is an ancient,rugged and unforgiving landscape that will punish any lapse in concentration on land or sea. Huge tides, crocodiles, sharks and a rugged rocky landscape with little fresh water makes it a place to keep your wits about you!
It also has a beauty and grandeur about it that is awe inspiring at times,especially when you look at how the sandstone strata has been pushed, pulled and twisted by unimaginable forces over millions of years.
To really get the best perspective of these forces and how this landscape has been formed flying over it is the best way, a truly unique experience!
The ancient rythms of life hold sway out here and make it a very unique area but unfortunately a mining company can’t see them. What they see is potential profit by changing and perhaps ruining an ancient landscape forever! And the politicians will be all for it if it looks viable.
I seriously hope people fight this and the Gas Plant near Broome tooth and nail and tell those in power that there are some places that are out of bounds!
If you want to see some more of what there is to lose, check out this brilliant video by Michael Fletcher!
Don’t forget to look behind you!
Another one from Tasmania.
Beautiful sunny day near Sheffield, I was trying to get some shots of a hayshed and haybales with my favourite Mt Roland as a back drop. As the sun got lower in the sky, the light angling across the mountain was looking pretty good and I was debating whether to open a gate and trespass so I could get a better angle for a stitched pano.
A little bit of cloud would not have gone astray either just to give some interest to a boring sky but that wasn’t happening.
I turned around and saw this nice little scene that was looking just right in the late afternoon sun!
I like it better than what I was trying to get in the first place.
And yes, I did open the gate!
