Naturally reflective (mostly)

I'm not a big fan of the digital images that have no organic origin or at least have been altered so much that none is visible. That's not to say there is no market for them but they don't hold much attraction for me. Overly saturated nature scenes fall into this category as well especially where very little else is featured except for say, a sunset.

Having said that, I was photographing by a stream today and one image in particular, admittedly subject to post processing, reminded me of a stained glass window in a church. Other shots of the moving water were more abstract and contained some beautiful colours. The original palette was modified somewhat but for my eye resulted in a pleasing effect. The third image (shown here) is a subtle out of focus effort with water in the background.

Day 5 bush fire shots

Its been a couple of weeks since my first visit to this area. There are several tracks around this area that you can walk. Progressively, the green will return especially since there will be significant rain over the next week at least. Nevertheless, black and white images remain of interest to me. In this burnt environment however colours provide an interesting mix. In particular, the blackboys look a little like roman candles against the black of the surrounding bushland.

Some bird life from the bush fire zone. Neither the Kookaburra nor the Black Parrot seemed to be turned off by their surroundings. There are still food sources for both of them. Although I have other images of black parrots, none of them show the beautiful detail in their tail feathers.

Beautiful and strange

Bush fire scenes naturally supply graphic black & white images with leaves curling and turning pale. Quite a bit of colour remains though with these objects standing out among all the black and providing some beautiful and at times strange images. This was from a third day trip to the fire zone. As it is now spring we can look forward top some new growth and more green in the landscape. The final photo here appears as though it might be the final moments of the bush fire. However its mist and not smoke over the land.

We heard some muffled calls, then we came across this....

Post fire

Another opportunity to explore some of the burnt out areas in the Blue Mountains. I was hoping for some light rain or mist (as I always do). I t didn't eventuate. Nevertheless, some interesting shots were had. A few B & Ws here including one of a a log that drank too much.

Hello possums

New Zealanders look away now. I saw a friend off this evening and found a family of ringtail possums on their way out. We had some torches with us and a quick dash inside produced the 5D MKII with my favourite 135mm f2 lens. These are very sweet animals and like others will keep fairly still when the lights are on them.