Charlie's WorldTuesdays on the beach
Posted on November 3, 2010
As luck would have it, I have to run big’un around on a Tuesday, so it means I get almost an hour of photography in before I have to collect her again.
At the moment, that hour happens to be the golden hour just before sunset, which is awesome for photos.
Last week, I took the old jetty shots and was pretty happy, so I gave that location a miss this time and went further on up the beach in search of some boats and things to get up close and personal to with the wide angle lens.
Mangles Bay in Rockingham is where all the boats anchor and it’s really cool, underused and very quiet. The yacht club could do with some updating, but apart from that, its lovely.
However, this whole place is under threat from a massive marina development (please visit http://handsoffpointperon.com/) which is will destroy hundreds of hectares of previous ‘permanently preserved native bush’ (yeah – that status was overturned – amazing what happens for a quick buck) and replace it with millionaires canal side houses, apartment blocks and an enormous marina. Nice.
Anyway, so before we lose this wonderful place forever (which, lets face it, once the money starts to flow, no amount of local objection is going to make any difference whatsoever), I thought I’d get some photos.
The light was amazing, clouds make such a difference to the sky and the feel of a shot, plus the circular polariser creates outstanding definition between white and blue.
Thats all for now – I’ll be back out later in the week or next week for another location, work and personal commitments being equal – so if you like the pretty pictures, check back soon.
In other news – its the middle of the week, which means – Red Wine Wednesday – stay tuned 🙂
if at first..
Posted on October 27, 2010
..you don’t succeed, then try try try again.
You may remember I took a few photos of the jetty (again) last week – well, I wasn’t happy with them, so I went out again last night to take some more
My fave of the night:
Same view, just a slightly different range of colours – I think this was a slightly longer exposure
And lastly, a random view back towards Rockingham that grabbed my attention that actually came out rather well.
Of course, all the time I was doing this, I didn’t really notice that the sky to the west (the jetty faces pretty much North) had lit up bright amazing red and would have made a fantastic backdrop to some of the other westerly facing beaches and jetties. Ah well, I’m still stoked at these shots and don’t really care!
busy, like a fox
Posted on October 19, 2010
A rolling stone gathers no moss, as the saying (proverb?) goes, and this week, I am certainly free of mosses, lichens and any rock growing greenery – I’ve been out with the camera again. I know, amazing, you’re all thinking – he never does that.. **rolls eyes**
Anyway, dear readers (of which I have around 100 a day at the moment, apparently – feel free to leave a comment if you like the purdy photos..) – I popped out to the jetty that I took these pictures at in March for a retake with my new wide angle lens.
There were a few people there already taking photos of a couple, the wife heavily pregnant, so I had to wait a few minutes for them to finish. I have to say, given that she was using the pop up flash on the camera and a kit lens, I don’t have that much faith that the photos will be any good.
/bitch.
As I set up, the Coogee women surf boat team were out practising.
In bikinis.
And I learned something new. Apparently, for grip (or something) they have to, how do I say this, splash their bottoms with water and hoik up their bikini bottoms and give themselves a wedgie, exposing their bum cheeks before sitting down. Classy.
And I’m stood on the jetty with the camera, waiting for it to finish a 4 minute exposure, with nothing to do but loiter and pretend I’m not a pervert.. Awkward.
So, the photos. Hope you like them.
Looking along Palm Beach to Mangles Bay
Jetty with the 10 stop (almost completely black) filter on
Jetty a bit later with just the circular polariser on.
I made a few composition errors and the sky was a bit bland – next time I’m going to go back on a windy as well day with clouds to try to capture the motion in the sky more.
And now, its late and its bedtime in this little corner of the world.
Catchya.
New stuff!!
Posted on October 14, 2010
So, in the background whilst I’ve been posting all the holiday photos and stories, life has been carrying on as normal!
I’ve missed a Red Wine Wednesday (but I have the wine photo and blog post ready for next Wednesday, so stay tuned, vino-fans) and loads of other fun stuff has happened (but I’ve forgotten already), but the main and most exciting thing is
I have a new toy!
I know, it should have taken precedent over everything else, my bad, what kind of techno photo geek am I?! LOL.
So, Jon, one of my friends on Flickr was selling a lens he didn’t need any more as he’s much more into film photography these days, so I bought it from him.
Its a Sigma 10-20 wide angle lens, which is brilliant for landscapes and crazy angle photos – I’ve been hankering after one of these for ages and now, its mine! Thanks Jon, you’re a superstar.
Sigma 10-20 lens
So, you may be thinking, what’s the big deal. Well, its super wide angle – take a horizontal photo whilst standing up and you’ll get your feet in the shot. So for landscapes, it means you can get a whole load more in than ever before.
So, here’s some shots for you 🙂
Firstly, my ‘work from home position’ – ok, normally, I’ve got the coffee cup in my hand too 😉
The study taken from the door – you can see the whole room – plus the red wall where all the black and white photos are going to go, once I print them out!
Looking straight up in my back garden – I have lots of lovely shady trees!
Palm trees in my garden, looking straight up from the ground
Tia the doggy. She really did not want me to take this shot! Mind you, as the lens is so wide, this glass was only about 3 inches from her nose when I took this!
Rockingham beach. I popped down there the other night at sunset – shame there were no clouds.
Sitting in the dark inside my car.
I can see myself getting lots of use out of this lens, including stupid self portraits with crazy perspectives. I’ve already done a few and yes, I look like a prize winning dickhead!
slackest blogger award goes to..
Posted on June 29, 2010
er, me. bugger
so, whats new in my world?
1. Its got cold.
A feet numbing kind of cold. Infact it’s almost record breakingly cold in Perth. We’ve had a couple of frosts this week and night time temps have generally been around 1 or 2 degrees all week. I know, I know, its not exactly cold compared to Europe or the US this winter, but remember that our houses aren’t really insulated, we don’t have central heating or double glazing, as normally, the temperature is in the teens or higher.
We do have ducted gas heating, but it’s way too expensive to run – last year, winter cost us $1500 in gas, so that got switched off and out came the blankets until it got so cold that we gave in and bought a wood-fired heater.
A big pot belly stove now sits, roaring in the corner of the open plan, kicking out no heat whatsoever until I get up and light it. So I still have cold feet, but later in the day, the house is well toasty. And it chews through wood like it’s going out of fashion. 2 trailer loads and 3 20kg bags and it’s only been a few weeks – it might not be cheaper to run than the gas at this rate, but I do get to play with matches, so that makes it worth it.
2. Work.
I’ve actually had some. Quite a lot and multiple projects too, which I must confess (to any potential employers) I find kinda challenging. Not the work bit, it’s the multi-tasking context switching bit. My job is normally quite involved and detailed and requires a lot of analytical thinking – I find I need time to settle my brain into the zone and then I can do what I need. If I have to keep jumping in and out of different trains of thought, everything takes 4 times longer. Well, not 4 times, but you get the idea. I have a 10 minute window where my concentration ebbs away, so if I can get back to my zone within that window, then we’re all good, but if not, I have to come back up for air, change the air in the tanks and begin the long journey back into the depths of the ‘zone’
3. Busy.
Although I cannot for the life of me remember doing what. So here’s a photo of a kid with a mullet that I saw wandering around the DIY store. His Dad had one too. And the smaller son had twin plaited rats tails. Classy. I am in Australia, not West Virginia or someplace aren’t I? People of Walmart, eat your heart out!
Oh yeah, just remembered whats been taking the time every weekend so that I haven’t been anywhere – gardening – had to rip out a load of stuff from next to the fence cos its broken. Fences here are stupid – they’re big sheets of fibreboardy stuff that are actually dug into the ground then joined together at the top with a metal bracket. When they break (as they do), they have to be dug out with a special machine and new ones put in place. So all the plants (massive honeysuckle and a big creepery thing) along a 20 metre section have had to come out. I now have a pile of cuttings 3 metres tall and 5 meters around to be fed into a chipper that I don’t have the funds to buy just yet.
Plus I’m painting the girl’s bedrooms at the moment – a nice shade of lilac with a deeper colour accent wall (their choice, I blame their mother and her arty ways). That was pretty much the whole of this Sunday and last night (and I foresee every night this week) taken up
So that’s taken up lots of time. No slacking for me after all then 😉
4. Photos.
Precious little of that recently due to the mysterious loss of time due to the above point 3. However, I do have a few pics to show and tell.
reflections
sunset
So there you go 🙂
Next post – my lovely new camera! Oh yes.
first shots
Posted on March 28, 2010
As I mentioned previously, I bought a B+W110ND filter – a wondrous thing which is basically a piece of very dark glass that reduces the amount of light into the camera by 10 stops.
For those that have no idea what I’m talking about – a stop on a camera is, for example, like the difference between a shutter speed of 0.5 and 1 second.
So if your camera was going to shoot at 1/125th second, adding a 10 stop filter means you have to shoot for 8 seconds to let the same of light in. Which means you can have quite a lot of fun at sunset when exposures are already down to a second or so without the filter. You have to check the exposure based on the aperture settings you want, frame the shot, get it to focus where you want, switch the camera to manual everything (inc focus), screw the filter in, which is so black you can’t see anything anymore. Then work out the correct exposure with the filter on, set the remote timer and basically leave it to do its thing for the 200 odd seconds that is needed.
Anyway, all this technical mumbo jumbo is all well and good, but the upshot of the camera being open for at least 3 minutes is that the ocean is totally smoothed out and the camera has captured the clouds moving.
Like this:
And yes, I am pleased with the results!
Next step, more location scouting and to start thinking in black and white…
new toys
Posted on March 20, 2010
I just bought some new stuff for my camera as I’m very interested in long exposure shots.
I got a B&W ND110 filter reduces light by 10 stops so enables long exposures during the day (interesting, but not *that* useful) or more importantly, longer exposures at or around sunset.
The longer the shutter is open on the water/rock/beach sunsets that I like, the smoother the water and the sky become. So focus onto something nice and sharp, like a jetty or a bold rock and set the camera to take a shot for 5 minutes, you’ll get (hopefully) amazingly smooth looking landscapes which tend to convert well to black and white.
I had a little go today, but I didn’t get anything totally fab, just the slight oddness of a daytime shot with smooth waves over rocks.
I need loads more practice, but at least I have something to aim for.
take a look at these guys if you have time
http://www.davidburdeny.com/
http://www.silverlandscapes.com
http://www.michaellevin.ca
Some target, eh? 🙂
club night
Posted on March 15, 2010
I go to a photography club every month in order to learn from other people, but also to have my photos judged by some top class judges from locally in Western Australia and also nationally.
I’ve only been going for about 6 months, and so far, I’ve managed to get at least one photo each time I’ve been in the top 3 of the submissions – at least I’m doing something right then!
Last month was no exception – managing to get 1st, 3rd and 4th in the open (non modified) class – I was pretty pleased as I think I’m improving month my month.
The club has a monthly theme, which I aim to have a go at if I can – however I’m normally rushing about at the 11th hour trying to think of something to take a shot of! So, in order to avoid that this month, I thought I’d start early. The theme is “abstract macro” which is tougher than it sounds. It really requires a macro lens, which I do have, although it’s only a 50mm which is really the wrong focal length.
Umming and ahhhing over what I’d take, I had a go with some flowers and a chilli in the garden, but as nice as the shots were, they weren’t abstract.
see what I mean?
Nice, might even do well blown right up onto a canvas, but not abstract enough for me.
So, onwards and upwards, we try again, this time, a different subject
can you tell what it is? I think the first and last shots kinda give it away, but I’m not submitting those 😉
style
Posted on March 15, 2010
I was determined to be a cool street photographer.
I had designs on my camera collection down to a simple Leica M6 or M7 35mm rangefinder and a few tasty lenses, shooting exclusively in black and white and generally taking cool shots a-la Cartier Bresson and his ilk.
Well, the nearest I’ve got is my Trip 35 (which, despite being very cool and unflappable is still woefully underused)
and a couple of second hand autos from the 80’s
You might think I’m a bit gutted, and in some ways I am, but it transpires that I’m actually starting to like landscapes and also, rather incongruously, sports photography. Neither of which lend themselves to the Leica in any way shape or form.
I’m on the save up for an ultra wide angle lens for the D300 plus some very tasty filters that would enable me to take the shots that just can’t quite get with my current setup. Handily, I’d like to use said ultra-wide angle for sports photography too.
Here’s some recent landscapes that I’m rather fond of..
Okay, true, they are all sunsets, but I haven’t invested any time into daylight shots yet (plus I need better filters, mine are fine for sunsets, but tint clouds purple during the day). I have a few location ideas in mind which I think I’ll start to work upto in the next few months, especially as the cooler weather is coming.
So we’ll see how it goes, I might be getting up at the crack of dawn to catch that sunrise yet.
girl on film
Posted on March 6, 2010
An homage to the missus. Taken with the Holga and (mostly awful) Diana Mini.
looking good, wifey 🙂
Charlie's World 