Twilight Cove Esperance

Another set of images stitched from my recent trip to Esperance back in May.

Twilight Cove Esperance as the name suggests comes to life at twilight and after dark when there is a full moon. Because of the location of this cove, the sun sets behind you, over the ocean, but looking out over the cove there is also ocean with no sunset just a moon rise, strange for a Perthite to witness and comprehend …

On this night we camped at the beach thus the name of the image as the Maui van was our hotel for 10 days. After taking a few sunset shots, we retreated to the van for food and a little red wine (myself). Stepping back out the van with wine bottle in hand I saw that the moon was up and it was freakin bright, getting the crew back on there feet we went back out for another shoot this time by moonlight.

With the full moonish we witnessed the rocks light up like a christmas tree, with the very light cloud cover diffusing the light and seemingly spreading it evenly throughout the cove all while lighting up the rims of the rocks brilliantly, you could not ask for more, well maybe more  red wine to help me sleep (Jamie and Kirk snore in tandem). Tried some light painting and shot a ton of images. Looking over them today this series of 7 caught my attention first to process and post for the blog. Hope you enjoy …

iMac For Sale

Yep folks you read right, I have a mac computer for sale. So time for someone to either enter the world of Mac or someone to pick up an upgrade they have been wanting.

Here are the specs

20 inch iMac

• 2.16 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 4 gig ram 667 mhz DDR2 sdram
• Ati Radeon x1600 Vid Card
• 250 gig HD

Comes complete with keyboard, mouse and Tiger Operating Software and all original Apple software like Itunes, iLife etc complete with original box.

All my current images have been processed on this machine, so you know it can handle those stitched images using either ptgui or cs3

Reason for selling : Purchase of a quad core tower …

Heres what it will look like on your desk

Price AU$1400.00 delivered to anyone within the Perth metro area. Outside the Perth metro area shipping costs can be discussed.

Cheers

Neal

Bridalveil Falls Yosemite National Park

I have struggled with producing an image from this location from all the files I took back in 2008. I visited this location 3 times in the time I was there and snapped away dozens of pics each time. All the area captures I took were for stitched panos. Once I came home I tried a few out but was never happy with the results, so much light and color variations that each stitched pano they just looked too busy.

In the end I just put it to rest and thought to myself, well that was a blown opportunity, how and when can I get back there to shoot it again. Thats the trouble with visiting new places, trying to come away with that KILLER shot. For me anyway it is always a struggle to understand the location fast enough to capture it in the brief time I am there.

Well today after not viewing these raw files for many many months I went in with a clear head and fresh eyes and tried again. So here are the results, finally happy with the selection of files I used and the end result … Am I still going back – you bet I now want a snow covered one

Cheers

Neal

Australian Sunsets

A winter sunset in on the beaches of Eastern Australia ….

Mindarie Keys

A few weeks back we experienced a late season summer storm come in from the north. Watching the clouds all afternoon and feeling the humidity something was going to happen. So I ventured up Mindarie Keys just north or Perth, Western Australia. Any further south and the effect of the thunderstorm would of been a lot less. I would of liked to be further up, but really there is nothing on the coast up there to shoot. So mindarie it was.

Heres the pic, a bout 2 mins later it turned grey to black very fast and came down buckets …. I love tropical weather. Hot and wet

I need one of these over Sugarloaf, Canal Rocks or pretty much anything 3 hours south of Perth

Muir Woods

Long time no posts … Just been processing and processing and more processing of late and I had a consignment job to complete for the State Government that took up my photography time for around a week or so. But we should be back to posting on a regular basis soon with images from the great Southern Region and with my trip to New South Wales coming up I am looking forward to posting some new locations.

First up is a little stitch job of Muir Woods just outside of San Francisco. If you are visiting this area one would be forewarned to go during the week and early in the day, the tour buses are a nightmare and parking is near impossible, the second time we went back we got lucky with a parking spot although we had to wait to get out of the car as a mother deer and her young where hell bent on poking their heads through my drivers window to see what we had inside.

Also the State Parks like this and around 220 other may be closed throughout California due to the State going broke through extreme mismanagement of its budget through spending way more than it takes in. What a disaster that would be, could this be a premise to what may happen to the rest of the country seeing as though the federal government is now spending vastly more than it can afford. One should hope certain folks come to there senses. No one wants to see the 8th largest economy (California) and biggest economy (USA) on the planet go broke, we will all feel it, even this far away … Are your freakin listening Rudd and Swan … Enough with all the spending what we do not have.

Ok rant over  …. for now  …

heres the pick …

Esperance Sunset

Ok family pics are over for the time being back to some Esperance Great Southern Western Australia stuff. Since I took a shit load of images when I was down there. Shot every morning and evening and sometimes throughout the day non stop, its about time I processed a few more and posted to the blog. So heres what was pretty much the best sunset of the trip, bouncing around from 2 beaches I tried to capture as much of this light as I could.

The windmill right on the beach was I thought an interesting subject matter to be on the coast so I included this in the shot. Yes another stitched image, are they anything but these days, not freakin likely the 50mm 1.2 ROCKS! Thanks Rod

I need more sunsets like this in my life, will Maui have them in December ?

Its all about the light

Been meaning to take this type of image now for some weeks, but between finding the right time and the wife going nuts with her camera there has not ben a chance to get an opportunity. But this afternoon provided an opportunity.

I don’t normally take or post images like this, but been really happy with the result I thought I’d post this one this time around.

Two of the three girls in my life taking a moment of glorious afternoon autumn sun. Most of my regular readers have seen the third one in my life and this time she was right below these two on her back wanting a scratch and a photo as well. She received both.

Stirling Ranges Western Australia

While we do not always get the conditions we like when shooting landscapes adaptation is a key ingredient for me, something that has taken myself a lot of shooting in a lot of different locations and weather situations to begin to understand. I think I am beginning to see what is before me and not what I want to see and achieve.

Here is a situation where I had seen many images of farms and mountains and thought one day I want one of those. All with great sunsets, full fields of crops, clear creeks running and the occasional tree for foreground interest etc. What did I get this time around, pretty much a cloudless evening and very dry cracked earth with a backdrop of mountains ( a little hazy ) and a tree line. But at second glance when I looked a little harder I saw a tree line turning orange the sky turning dark blue and dry cut fields turning orange. So I slapped on the 70-200mm set up at f/11 and 140mm and went nuts shooting as much of this golden glow of the cut fields and tree line as I could in the very short space of time that the light lasted.

This particular image is a 13 image stitch at 140mm … Detail  is amazing at full size which came in at around 93inches at 250dpi …. An Australian Farm

Giant Sequoias

A blast from the past. Been holding on to this image for near on 12 months, why I have no idea. It’s one of my favorite from the trip last year to the USA. After processing this image I folded it away and thought I’d post this on my next post. Well maybe 100 posts later here it is. I actually came across it a couple of weeks back while going over files for Australia Stock Photos and said to myself as soon as I get back its going up. So after the initial burst of Esperance pics I thought time to dig out this gem and post.

The Giant Sequoias Of Mariposa Grove just inside Yosemite National Park. Some of these trees are 4,600 years old and the trunks are the size of homes. So amazing to be up close with them. There is a certain feeling you get being right next to something that still living after 4,600 years and so damn HUGE.

Anyone up for a trip back to Northern California I know a ton of great locations I’d still like to shoot next time round.

4 image stitch