Blush
This is an image from one of the rare times that the mainland wasn’t obscured by low cloud and rain!
The mainland around Far North Qld is where the Great Dividing Range comes back close to the coast and is home to some lofty peaks, thick tropical rainforest, and some magnificent waterfalls. Australia’s wettest place, Tully is just in there somewhere!
Mt Roland Sunset
A couple of quick images of my favourite mountain at sunset. Went to Cradle Mt the other day hoping for similar conditions but as usual it rained!
Can’t wait to see these on my big screen when I get home!
Sugar Shed
I have just arrived home from a little adventure! A good friend of mine who is taking a 60 ft luxury catamaran around the world needed a hand to sail from Airlie Beach to Cairns. Along the way she heard about Carnivale in Port Douglas so we ended up there instead with a stop at Low Isles along the way
Weather was pretty ordinary for most of the trip with strong winds and squally weather so good photo opportunities were few and far between.
Carnivale was in full swing when we arrived and the town was heaving with people and the local businesses were cashing in while they could! Port Douglas is a very pretty town and the locals are friendly. Managed to get a few images while I was there although the light was not the best for most of the time.
There are a couple of very good photographers in the area, Michael Seebock and Gareth Kelly stood out for me and another wildlife photographer whose work was outstanding!
Seeing their work and what I saw while driving between Mossman and Cairns makes me want to return and spend some time exploring a little more thoroughly.
This image is of the old sugar wharf at the entrance to Port Douglas on the one halfway decent sunset I saw.
There will be a few more images from this little trip coming up.
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!
Steep Island Moonrise
I am just about to see if I can put together a good image of the moon rising over Cedar Ck Falls. As i was sitting there thinking about how to go about it, I was reminded of an image I have of the full moon over Steep Is. in the Kimberley.
This was just an experiment to see how to put together a composite image but it came out so well that I thought I would share it with you all!
The beauty about this image is if you were in the right spot and the moon was in the right spot, this could be real (ish)!
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!
The hours suck, but the view out the window is great!
Another one from the vault. This is an image from what used to be my “öffice”. One of my favourite anchorages in the Whitsundays, Stonehaven is tucked up on the NW side of Hook Is. Secure holding,surrounded by lofty hills, close to some of the best snorkelling and diving in the Whitsundays and you get to see some great sunsets like this one!
Hopefully I will be back out there soon!
Fire in the Sky
This was taken the same evening as my last post. A little difficult to create an interesting foreground out of featureless sand flat but hopefully the sky and reflection make up for it
!
Hope you all have a safe & happy Xmas & New Year!
Ho Ho Ho!!
At the End of the Day
This is an image I shot the day before my recent visit to hospital. It looked like a thunderstorm might be building so I drove down to Wilson Beach which is about half an hour away, in the hope of an interesting sky.
Dead low tide which meant extensive sand & mud flats. An interesting cloud formation in the western sky looked like it might be worth shooting but there was no interesting foreground apart from the reflections in the still water.
I hung around for about an hour shooting some panoramics whenever the cloud texture looked vaguely interesting but the light didn’t really fire up as I had hoped. Still it was nice just watching the cloud change shape for a while.
Just as I was thinking about heading off some fishermen came around the corner to the boat ramp and suddenly I had a foreground just as the light got interesting!
Shot about 4 quick frames as they were waiting for the trailer and it turned out that the fishing was a bust for them.
I walked away with a couple of nice images!
Dead Calm
One of the delights of ‘messing about in boats’ is pulling up into a sheltered anchorage for the night, sitting out on deck with a well earned beverage and having a 360 degree view of your surroundings. On occasion you get sunsets that are pure magic!
This particular evening, it looked like we may get a thunderstorm come across with an associated windshift that would make this bay exposed.Luckily, it didn’t happen and as the sun hit the horizon, the wind dropped, a gap in the clouds opened and gave us a 10 minute light show that was gold!
The title alludes to a film that was made in the area that starred Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill and Billy Zane about a romantic sailing voyage that went horribly wrong. A classic.
“At sea, no-one can hear you scream!”
Sailor’s Delight
Back in the days when people used to look at the sky and be able to gain a fair idea of what the weather would bring, there was an old saying; “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight, Red sky in the morning, sailor’s warning!”
Recently we had two days in a row of sunsets like this, which is quite unusual, but it has been a funny year for weather anyway. Must be all those farting cows and belching sheep.
Save the Planet! Kill them all and throw them on a BBQ plate.
Gloucester Is.
Cape Gloucester is about an hour drive from where I live and a place I visit often, nice beaches, uncrowded and one of the rare places you can watch the sun set over the water while still being on the mainland.
Took a drive up there recently hoping to get a couple of shots of the sun skimming across the contours of Gloucester Is. which sits just off the Cape.
Thin cloud was passing across the sun when I arrived which made the light fairly patchy and low contrast so it was just a matter of timing to get the sun on the hills and the beach in the foreground.
The cloud looked like it might make for a nice sunset and I am glad I decided to hang around!
One of the best sunsets I have seen for a while!
A Bit Dusty!
No, I am not recovering from a lager frenzy! You have probably all heard about the dust storms that have enveloped the eastern states over the last week. Well they even made it into the tropics, not as severe as further south but they have hung around longer. The light and visibility have been pretty ordinary over the last week, not the beautiful blue skies we are used to at this time of the year!
I havn’t really bothered shooting much till it all goes away but I did manage to get a couple of worthwile images one afternoon.
Look familiar Fletch?
Myridi Bay
These are a couple of images of a place called Myridi Bay in Yampi Sd. The first one is some amazing cliffs that change colour as the sun sets on them. If you look closely you will see some bending in the rock strata. There are even more extreme examples around this area that make your jaw drop when you think about the forces involved!
The second image is what you see next morning on the other side of the inlet. Polarising filters come in handy up this way.
