Peacocks and monkeys...

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.

Cradle mountain in the snow

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. 

Around the coast of Tasmania

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.

 

View from ‘home’

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. 

New project

As mentioned in a previous post I have been working on a project which incorporates anything from 6 up to 30 images in one, resulting in an abstract and sometimes ethereal representation of the natural world. A more detailed explanation is available on the last addition to the site. The project is titled Elemental Fantasy and will be added to from time to time.

Overlooked

I came across a couple of images I had overlooked on the first round. The first is from around 2014. The second is from early 2017. I'm sure there's a few more... they'll have to wait.

Tree and ripples

Still summer - a month to go but now its raining over a few days. Some bushfires over the past weeks but nothing epic fortunately. I'm taking the time to walk around and see what's what. Many gum trees shedding bark due to very hot conditions. Not so with the european trees. Below some ripple shots looking almost reptilian.

Photo op

New year's eve and a picnic at the beach. Rainy weather predicted seemed to keep people away. Rain didn't happen and a friend asked me to take some shots which would be used back in China. It was achance to have rock shots which some 'life' in it.

Variations

Changes in weather are always a signal to me to go for wander and see what has changed in the environment. Especially the case after significant rainfall and sunshine. Treatment of images, and by that I mean in the conversion process from colour to black and white can yield dramatically different results. All to taste of course. A bit like how much spice you add to a meal. In this case, whether to isolate a subject or highlight texture. The first two images below are maybe 4-6 ft apart. But how they are processed can give very different results.