A few weeks ago I went down to Clifton Springs near Geelong in Victoria to photograph the remains of an old pier that was constructed in the early 1900’s. The top deck of the pier has long since been removed and all that now remains are the old pylons.
Pentax K7, Pentax DA* 16-50 mm, ISO 100, f/16, 1 min.
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This year in Melbourne we have had one of our driest and warmest summers in decades, and last Sunday I went down to Chelsea Beach to photograph the sunset.
I have put a couple of the shots from my visit below and the colours in the first one reminded me of the movie poster for the classic 1960’s surfing movie Endless Summer.
These shots have not had their colours changed in Photoshop, I used a 8 stop ND filter when the images were made, and the sunset of the evening did the rest of the work. These shots were taken with a Pentax K-01, which is really starting to grow on me and in many ways it is better than my K7.
This second shot of the pier I found more difficult, but maybe it’s just me, but I found it challenging to symmetrically line up the pier such that the poles were evenly placed at the start of the image while the end of the pier was centred. Anyway after a bit of mucking around I finally got there and came away with this shot.
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Have you ever spent a bit of time looking at other people’s photography or blog posts and thought that if only I were in that exotic location I could take some great shots too! I’ll admit it, I do! Well I can wish all I like, but the reality is I’m not going to Machu Picchu, Nepal, etc anytime soon; what with working part-time and a very busy toddler to look after.
This brings me on to my last post where I mentioned that Pentax Australia run a monthly photography challenge on their Facebook page that is open to anyone in Australia with a Pentax camera. This month the challenge was In and Around Your Town. I really enjoyed this months challenge and found it to be well challenging! The suburb of Melbourne where I live is not really blessed with fabulous landmarks like beaches or spectacular churches. It’s an older area of Melbourne that has a high amount of secondary industry and is currently undergoing somewhat of a renewal with several buildings being rebuilt, and a general effort by the local council to try to spruce the place up a bit.
I found this challenge to be a really good exercise in trying to see objects and places that you see everyday in a creative way. I actually treated as I would with any location photography work that I do, so with my camera backpack on and my Pentax K7 around my neck I headed out my front door to see what I could find. We were allowed to put in 10 photos for the challenge and I have inserted a selection of my entries below. If you would like to see the rest of them you can check out my Facebook album.
Cool Kombi Van
The Mask
Slide at a local playground.
Over the last week or so in Melbourne we have had a fair number of rainy days, plus it’s winter and the amount of daylight hours are relatively short. All of this makes it difficult to get some photography done. So what do you photograph when the weather will not play nice? Well I decided to shoot the rain drops.
During the odd break in the rain I would grabbed my Pentax K7 (love the fact that it’s weather sealed) and attached my Tamron 90 mm f2.8 SP Di Macro lens and headed outside. This first shot was taken at f22, which on a “normal” lens would give a very long depth of field, but as you can see from this shot the area behind the leaf has been rendered as out of focus.
Rain drops resting on a new Eucalyptus leaf.
This second shot was taken at f3.2 and shows a very shallow depth of field.
Rain drops clinging to a Hakea
Using a macro lens presents a unique set of challenges. The first of which as you can see from these two examples is their extremely shallow depth of field; even when stopped down to f22. This can present a challenge for accurate focusing so having a sturdy tripod can be a big help as it will prevent the camera from moving. I’ll post some more detailed comments on macro photography in a future post.
Even if the weather is not on your side there is still likely to be an opportunity to do some photography. Keep your eye on the window and when the rain stops go outside and take some photos!
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