Split Point

Captured below is The Split Point Lighthouse near Aireys Inlet.  Known as the 'White Queen', the lighthouse guides ships rounding Cape Otway.

Southbank Gas Brigades, finally!

Well I had become a little obsessed with trying to capture the gas brigades firing in front of Crown Casino, on Melbourne's Southbank.  But I think the results are a worthy reward!  I am having this printed tomorrow in a large 90cm panoramic print, and fingers crossed it will look fantastic.

I have been saving the photographs I have taken at Melbourne's Southbank (well most of them, the really really really bad ones I quickly deleted), and while not all of these are of the gas brigades (there are a few others that I have captured along the way and already posted on this blog), the total number of photographs is 555!  To be fair, because I have been using a high speed shutter release, I have probably averaged capturing three images every time I've pushed the button, but there has definitely been a few photographs to finally get this one right.

On Saturday night the gas brigades were firing at 8pm, 27 minutes past sunset, and with a clear sky it was the perfect time.  Light enough for a fast shutter speed to capture the fire balls, and dark enough for the city lights to be glowing along the banks of the Yarra River. 

Originally I was trying to capture this as a single photograph like the one below, and three months ago I would have been ecstatic at the result.

However the longer this mission went on the more obsessive I became.  I was lucky enough to meet Sean Davey (a professional photographer, originally from Tasmania and currently touring Australia taking panoramic photos at some of Australia's most iconic locations) on Queensbridge one night.  Along with reading 'A Photographers Guide to Photoshop' a couple of months ago, these two sources gave me the inspiration to capture this scene as a panoramic photograph. 

Any other panoramic photo would have been pretty simple, by ensuring that the same focal length, aperture and shutter speed are used, it is as simple as loading them into Photoshop, merging the photographs, and magic!  So on Saturday night when I got home I tried this method in Photoshop, but because of the difference in light between the image above and the remainder of the landscape, Photoshop refused to automatically merge the photos.

So I had to switch to manual mode.  I used Photoshop to automatically merge the four photographs that I shot of the scene without the gas brigades firing, and then I overlayed photograph of the gas brigades firing on top of the panoramic scene.  With a fair bit of moving, tweaking and re-touching, I could align the gas brigades and crop them into the this final image below. 

It is fair to say that I have learnt an amazing amount about my camera and Photoshop through trying to capture this image over the last few months, but finally I am pretty happy with the result!

With all that I have learnt, now on to the next obsession......

Torquey to Lorne

These photographs were captured during my drive on the weekend from Torquey to Lorne.  The first two photographs are at Torquey surf beach, where the grass in the foreground frames the waves rolling in with the surfers in the distance.   The second photograph was taken at the pier in Lorne with the waves crashing against the rocks.



I have captured the lighthouse at Airey's Inlet with the only vivid blue sky of the day.

And lastly I returned to Torquey and captured the crashing waves at Bells Beach.

 

A few random photographs

Here are a few photographs I've captured at random locations over the last couple of months.  Capturing the first two scenes in monochrome accentuates the clouds in the sky.

The first is a dilapidated fence at Mernda.

 ... and a hay bale in a paddock captured through the wire fence.  By using a polarizing filter the contrast of the clouds in the sky are emphasised.

This waterfall is at Stanley Park in Macedon.  The shutter speed has been slowed to 0.3 seconds to emphasise the running water through the stream.

My last photo was taken this weekend, at Erskine Falls in Lorne.  Unfortunately there were so many tourists walking along the rocks at the bottom of the falls I wasn't able to capture the full scene, so I zoomed in to photograph the detail of the water falling on the rocks.

Southbank.... again

After endless trips to Southbank to capture the gas brigades in front of Crown Casino firing, I achieved my best photo yet on Saturday night.  I turned up, with only a couple of minutes to spare, for the 8pm show.  Unfortunately at 8pm the sky was a little too bright, resulting in a flat and uninspiring background of the flames. 

While I waited for the 9pm show, I took a walk along Southbank and captured the photographs below.  For the night shots a slow shutter speed of between 1 and 8 seconds, with a sturdy tripod of course, allowed the night's blue sky to shine through.  The second photograph is my favourite, a slightly unusual view with the Sandridge bridge to the left and the lamps along the Yarra River to the right.

After enjoying my walk along Southbank, I was a little distracted and time slipped away from me.  At five to nine (the gas brigades were due to fire again at nine) I was still on the other side of Queensbridge.  A mad dash down Southbank to Kings Way ensued, which no doubt resulted in some confused glares from the tourists along Southbank.  I still hadn't arrived at the bridge when the gas started to release from the brigades (the gas releases for about ten seconds before the brigades start firing) and then the brigades started firing.  I changed my camera settings on the run, and hoped for the best when I arrived at the bridge.  There was not time to set up the tripod, so I had to hope for the best.  Luckily the shutter speed was fast enough to minimise the impact of camera shake.  The resulting photograph is below, and oddly enough without a tripod, captured on the run, was my best photograph of the gas brigades yet.

 (18mm, ISO 1250, f/8, 1/20 sec.)

Southbank at Dusk

I am still trying to capture the gas brigades outside Crown Casino at just the right time.  I was hopeful that my visit on Sunday night would be just the right time.  With the change of season from summer to autumn the brigades should have been firing an hour earlier at 8pm.  I say should have been, because someone forget to tell the little man lighting the flame for the gas brigades, at 8pm, no flames! 

So like every good photographer I looked for other opportunities, and the city skyline after sunset came up trumps.  I've captured the skyline using six separate photographs merged into one.  The key trick to this photograph is ensuring that the same settings are used for each image, panning the scene to capture both banks of the Yarra River.  For those who are familiar with the area, you can see a train moving past on the city side of the Yarra River (left bank) and Flinders Street Station alight in the distance.

(32mm, ISO 400, f/11, 1.30sec)

A hint for taking panoramic photos that I read recently, before you commence panning across the scene, take a photograph of your hand pointing in the direction you are intending to pan.  Finish the sequence with another photograph of your hand pointing in the opposite direction to close the series.  With these two indicators marking the start and end of the sequence, it's alot easier to select the series of photographs for merging when you get back to the computer.