Wild and Wet

Towards the end of June I was in Margaret River along with some wild, wet weather (which I love). I went out to Canal Rocks hoping to get some awesome wave shots but the wind and spray was just too much for my lens. I couldn’t keep it clean for long enough.

In an attempt to get some cover from the spray I went out along the viewing bridge but there was still too much spray. With the awsome storm surging over the rocks and under the bridge I saw a shot that I wanted to get but it took me two mornings to get the right shot.

The first morning I just got rained and sprayed on. Not that I minded but the front of the lens was a mess. The second day I used a shower cap over the front of the lens which allowed me to focus and get the right exposure. I then took the shower cap off for a second or so while I took the shot and then re covered the lens. Seems fine in theory but I had to keep going back to the car to clean the lens as the wind, spray and rain still made it difficult.

In the end I got this shot. The sun had just peeked up from the horizon behind me and through some of the cloud cover.

Elephant Rocks, Redgate Beach

This is a picture that I took in early march this year. It was in amoungst a batch I took from the beach itself and it wasn’t until I started to work on the rocks at the bottom of the pictures that I realised it’s potential.

I entered it into the Open section of the Projected Images competiton last night and it wa placed first.

Pity I hadn’t saved it for the Lanscape contest as I think I may have a hard time finding a better one for that.

 

Elephant Rocks

Margaret River Art Auction success

For the last 4 years, the Margaret River Art Auction has been held to raise funds for the Nyindamurra Family School located just south of the town in the South West of Western Australia. The auction has quite a number of contributors, some of whom are well established artists.

As the Principal is a friend of ours, I donated a recent photo of a Redgate Storm to the Auction. Printed and framed it was about 1.2m wide.

I was pleased not only that it raised $625 on the fall of the auctioneers hammer (3rd highest price) but that out of 70 art objects I was placed 2nd in the People’s Choice award. This recouped the cost of printing and framing.

Redgate Rocks

Redgate Rocks

Seems like I spend a lot of time at Redgate Beach in Margaret River but I love the fact that it’s got those beautiful red rocks and crashing seas.

I was down there again for the ANZAC long weekend and spent some more time on the rocks. This view is looking from the way in front of the Redgate lookout out to sea.

The image is a 30 second exposure at 5:30 in the afternoon.

How did I do that? With a ND x400 filter which I originally bought for the partial eclipse on Australia Day.

I always wondered what I was going to use Live View for on my 5D II ! It’s impossible to see through the viefinder with this filteron.

I’m back down there again there this weekend but I might go to Indijup this time.

I got published!

In my last blog I posted an image of a Storm rolling in over Redgate Beach near Margaret River.

The Editor of the Augusta-Margaret River Mail saw it posted on my website and asked if they could use it.

Well my Sister in-law finally got around to bringing the paper up to Perth and it got published in the March 11 edition.

Unlike many on my BlogRoll its my first published so I am really chuffed about it.

I am back down in the MR region again this Easter long weekend so I will see what happens. It looks like rain – which I like!

See my Redgate Storm image here

Wow, that was some storm

I spent the long weekend in Margaret River and got up each morning before sunrise to see what images I could get.

Saturday was average but on Sunday I went to Redgate beach. At 6:30am it looked ordinary but as the morning went on a storm approached. 

I stood out on the rocks off the Redgate observation area and waited for the storm to come. As it headed towards me I started getting worried as it had rained (thank goodness for the shower cap trick to keep my camera dry) and the thunder and lightning started. I felt like a lightning receptor!

This panorama is 5 stitched images about 20 mins before the storm hit Redgate.

Approaching Storm - Redgate Beach

 

 

 

 

 

As the storm approached I packed up and got into my car just as the biggest downpoor I have been in for some time hit. The lighting and thunder was fearsome and the drive back to MR was slow.

I will post more of the storm next time.

Redgate Revisited

Well yesterday I posted an image of Redgate Beach on an overcast morning.

I must admit that I wasn’t really that happy with it. As a jpeg reduced sized image it was dark and had a lot of random colours (magenta, blue and red) in the sky caused when I used Topaz Adjust plug in.

Originally I had tried to get rid of the colours by using NIK Color Efex Pro but with little success. Then during the day I received my Photo club’s (Workshop Camera Club) newsletter  where there was an article on Removing Chromatic Aberration using Photoshop. It demonstrated how to use the Hue/Saturation tool to remove the purple fringing using the magenta channel.

I applied that to the sky (using a layer mask) to the magenta, blue and red channels and it worked well. I also increased the brightness and this seems to have helped the image as well.

Redgate Revisited

 

 

Redgate at Dawn

I went to a wedding at Clairault Winery in Margaret River this weekend. As weddings go it was a nice one with an excellent setting.

I woke up late on Sunday morning and missed sunrise but luckily I was down a day earlier and went to Redgate Beach. It was dull, overcast and windy but having seen an earlier post by Kirke Hille, I decided to look at the beach from a different perspective.

Previously, I have shot from the car park but on Saturday I went down onto the beach and shot from the rocks.

I liked this perspective as the image has something to rest on but features the sky. Shot with my new Canon 5D MkII at ISO 800, its initially been processed in Lightroom then in Photoshop using the Topaz plug-in with some extra work with the NIK Color Efex Pro filters.

Redgate at Dawn

We’re nearly there

Well yesterday I managed to post an image and tag it. I also subscribed to a few other blogs, so I think I know most of the basics but I think the advanced stuff will take a while to come to grips with.

Yesterday’s picture is one that I have been working on for a while but I have a couple of issues with it.

The first is that the sunlit headland which is my point of interest, is bang smack in the middle of the horizontal frame with the horizon dividing the image in half. The second issue is that I have over-processed and lost the brilliant colour of the sun hitting the headland.

The problem with the first issue is where to crop. I thought that the sky added some drama and punch to the scene but I really liked the texture and leading lines of the beach.

I think I got into this mess because I was photographing off of a tripod about a foot off the ground on a wet beach so I was having trouble bending down and framing the scene. In hindsight I should have used Liveview on my new 5D MkII but it was new and I hadn’t learned how to use it yet.

Nick Melidonis, a successful Perth professional landscape photographer, suggested that I crop off the beach like this:

As cropped by Nick Melidonis

While I liked that, it lost the beach so I tried cropping some of the sky out like this:

Gracetown with Sky Crop

I think I like mine better but I regret losing the sky!

If there’e anyone out there, let me know what you think

As for the clolour issue – I will post a correction for that tomorrow

Are we there yet?

Well I have spent the last day or so exploring the functionality of this Blog tool and am starting to get the hang of it.

I have managed to add to my BlogRoll (mostly Western Australian photographers that I found here) and added some links.

New on line tools always take some getting used to and when you master them you wonder why it was so hard to get there!

Today I thought that I would try uploading a photograph and try some tagging.

This image was taken with my new Canon 5D Mk II in the South West of Western Australia at the Gracetown launching ramp early one recent morning. Gracetown is about 15 Mins drive north of Margaret River. It was one of those nothing days but as the sun came up it reflected off the headland and the clouds rolled in to finish it off.

I think I will add Gracetown to the Free Photo Guides site as it has some nice landscape around it.

Gracetown Early Light