the question could be - what animal looks as beautiful from behind as it does from the front? Well close to it anyway. Beautiful deep tones and feather formation from the peacocks wandering around near Cataract Gorge in Launceston. In the city itself, Macaque monkeys donated By Japan. you can see them in photographs of Japan sitting in hot spring baths in the snow. I’d rather see them in the wild myself. They kept themselves entertained but no substitute for a natural environment.
You don’t expect snow in the last month of spring. I’ve photographed at Cradle Mountain, Tasmania many times, even in winter but this is the first time it snowed here. Pretty lucky for a 3 week window at this time of year. There were 2 straight days but it didn’t settle on the first though the weather was dramatic - windy, rainy, sleety, snowy. From photography viewpoint I love the mixture of monochrome and colour in the same shot. This region also has beautiful, deep yellows and browns that stand out nicely against the snow. I haven’t uploaded and portrait oriented shots due to the software distorting them. Nevertheless, there’s a good selection for the moment.
I’ve been lucky enough over the past few years to travel around Tasmania. The coast has been a source of many productive photo ops. A geologist’s dream you could say. When viewed in passing from the roadside it doesn’t look like much ad so a lot of places can easily remain unvisited by photographers unless you know what to look for. Anyway, here’s another batch of images from the north and west coast taken this year.
Well, home away from home anyway. About 5 kms from Mt Roland as the crow flies. From here you can observe a multitude of moods as the weather changes, which it does here a lot. A few days back we were treated to a decent snow fall at Cradle Mountain, about 40 kms from here. A circuit of Dove lake there took 5 hours. If we weren’t so absorbed in photography it would be close to 2 hours. Snow in November is not usual, so it was quite a treat witnessing the transformation of the landscape. Tasmania has plenty of places worth visiting and with relatively easy accessibility given the small size of the island. Mountainous regions, rainforests, lakes and a beautiful coastline packed with features.
Late afternoon - Mt Roland
I should mention something about the camera’s performance in the wet. I only brought one camera on this trip - the Olympus em5 MKII. For most of the shots I used the 12-40mm f2.8 lens. Longer shots were taken with the 40-150mm f2.8 with a 1.4x extender. I had the camera out the whiole time for the 5 hr walk. For the first day ( we went twice for approx the same time each day), it snowed and rained of and on. I shot hundreds of images in these conditions without much concern. Only on the last part of the walk on day two did I start to worry about the effects of the weather. The small lens began to fog up. I tried drying it with the car a/c with seemed to work but through the viewfinder the image was not clear. After an overnight session by the fire, the next day it was back to normal and no problems since then. Given the amount of moisture it had to endure I’m pretty happy with its performance and I kind of expect it from any half decent camera these days. The images also are first class and I expect to print several 1 metre canvases on return.
Tucked away in Leura adjacent to the Lily Pad Cafe is the Light & Shadow Gallery. Peter White, the gallery owner introduces the work of Peter Hill currently being exhibited. Peter (pictured centre) works exclusively in black & white and has some excellent examples from his rather large body of work on display for the next couple of weeks. They share the gallery space with the work of the iconic Australian photographer Max Dupain. Not bad company. Peter White's mother who worked with Max Dupain for 20 years is also represented in the gallery. Upstairs are 2 more exhibition areas with other works by various photographers. Well worth the visit to this hidden gem. The gallery also offers a good variety of quality photography in the form of cards and matted prints in various sizes. Plenty on offer.
A recent addition to the Elemental Fantasy series...
