Pilbara Gems: Conzinc Bay

After buying kayaks or indeed, any kind of water vessel, this place really opens up. The lifestyle here is second to none. Most have the opinion of the bigger the boat the better, however we love cruising around in our kayaks. Where else can you hang out with six manta rays?

One of our regular trips is to a place call Conzinc Bay on the Burrup Peninsula. The colours on these trips are truly spectacular - turquoise, aqua contrasted with red, black rocks, white sand and brown (and green at times) spinafex.

Thanks to a dry bag I now have capacity to take my SLR with me on these adventures to take advantage of the more remote gems we visit by kayak! My husband fishes, I take photos, it's a good system!

Conzinc Bay - Canon EOS 50D, f/11, 1/100 shutter, ISO 160 18mm, manual, polarizing filter, adjustments in Adobe RAW. 

 This is only one section of the bay - it actually extends well around the rocks. Here, once again, I am clambering over hot red rocks in bare feet. I really need to remember to take appropriate footwear.

Dolphins - Canon EOS 50D, f/5.6, 1/640 shutter, ISO 250, 200mm, cropped, Vignette and colour adjustments in RAW.

Dolphins awaken in me my inner child. It makes me think of Shirley Barber's book about mermaids. Yes, I had a very innocent childhood, but these creatures are so majestic and just scream fun! I must admit though, I was a little frustrated by the shine on the tail in this photo. Everyone hopes to capture that perfect dolphin moment, jumping from the surf over a perfect sunset...yeah, I'm not into a cheesy shot like that...besides, these guys just would not jump any higher and I was in no position to chase them to do so!!

Also, now that I am posting this, I'm not sure I'm a fan of the vignette.

Betsy, f/5.6, 1/800, ISO 250, 18mm. Two landscapes stitched using Adobe RAW presets, lightened, sharpened, colour adjustment in RAW

One of the many panoramas taken that day. I did some experiments with the polarizer...before I start on that I think it probably warrants a post for itself. Standby!

Mythical places

A lot of photos these days look as though they belong in a mythical wonderland. You look at them knowing that that's really not how they look in reality - such as photos of star trails, HDR images of sunsets with glorious amounts of colour in the foreground and background and you think, no way. But in a way it's great to have these digital images of mythical places that resemble reality. Yes, I called them digital images rather than photos - while there is heaps you can do with HDR and I'm sure they are photos, a lot of them just have an unreal quality about them. I hope I don't reach that stage where touching up is a touch overdone.

Anyway, there are certain things that take me back to my childhood games of mythical places and one of these are huge tree trunks in green forests, with big roots and screaming calmness and fun all at the same time. I thought you could not get any such places in the Pilbara. Turns out when looking the right way, you can!

I fell in love with these roots over the rocks at our campsite! Canon EOS 50D, f/7.1, 1/250 shutter, ISO 500, 20mm.

This tree is my favourite. Behind my position here is dry riverbed, spinafex hills and red rocks. But here is one slice of oasis, complete with tree tunk and an attractive root system! Enough to inspire some kind of magic. A pity this scene doesn't surround you - you have to be looking one particular way! EOS 50D, f/7.1, 1/250 shutter, ISO 500, 18mm

Lesson #10: Always review your archives before deleting them

They call me snapper. I'm not happy unless I've taken ten photos of the one thing. My workflow consists of this:

Snap heaps of photos experimenting with settings...
Load all onto the computer filed according to year - month - activity...
Go through, pick out favourites, sharing, WOW factor and images to edit...
Edit images and save into respective folders - facebook, flickr, blog, photography...
Start all over again...

Leaving hundreds, thousands of photos left in my archives! What to do with them? Get a bigger hardrive? Delete? I'll be honest, a small part inside of me dies when I delete photos, even if they are complete and utter rubbish! (This is coming from someone who as a child would waste a whole film on taking photos of her bedroom...and keep the photos...) but there is no point keeping photos that are blurry, exactly the same, over-exposed, too dark, or will never be looked at again.

HOWEVER, before you go and delete all those folders GO BACK AND LOOK AGAIN. Check and double check. This is not me being obsessive compulsive this is coming from experience. I nearly wiped my card once without checking. Had I done so I would have missed out on this baby.

While travelling my faithful HP computer decided to crash, hence I needed to transfer my photos first onto an external hardrive, then onto a new computer...which consequently crashed requiring a second transfer onto a third computer. In the process I somehow lost 150 photos. Gone. Have no idea what I am missing, except I know there was a lighthouse there, as well as some great caves. All I now have of these photos is this blog post. And yes, part of me is dead.

So always check and double check when deleting photos, moving photos. Not to mention, it's fun! When I went back through my archives recently, I found these little images taken on my Olympus. My Olympus u-900 is a great compact digital camera, if a little beaten up now. I still use him regularly on the water in his case, and he doesn't take too bad photos really! These were taken in my student days when we were first married and I was just starting to really get into taking more than snaps.

In the back yard - I remember liking this photo because the nodes were in focus..and nothing else!! 

Purple. Need I say more?

Pilbara Gems: River

There are many places to camp in the Pilbara, if you are prepared to battle the rocks, the spinafex and the lack of shade. But we were delighted to discover camping in the riverbed is nearly like camping on the east coast - there is shade! 

For a weekend away, I strongly recommend finding a river and driving down it, respecting all signs, gates and fences of course, and finding a nice waterhole. You may even find a dragon fly among the peacefulness!

Our campsite - ignore the blue esky...EOS 50D, f/9, 1/640 shutter, ISO 500, 18mm.

Sleepy dragonfly - here's a tip, photograph dragonflies in the morning! They are really sluggish. Betsy (EOS 50D) f/5.6 1/200, 200mm ISO 500

Flooding tall trees

The Pilbara may be a dry and arid place but don't let that lull you into a false sense of security. The old saying of 'When it rains it pours' is really applicable to this place and it is not uncommon for roads to be cut due to rain and swelling rivers. Rain itself is just uncommon.

Of course, say that to a local and they generally scoff, but I think they forget places down south or over east where it is very irregular to have a month go by with absolutely no rain at all. That's just common, dreary everyday life here. There isn't even a regular, stable wet season like there is up north. There are odd patches of rain (usually a storm) and cyclones, both brought in by a low pressure system from the ocean (that believe it or not can cause nasty headaches as well).

We remember these flooding rains when camping in a riverbed. Dry most of the year, with tiny streams running through it, it is easy to forget you are actually in the bed of a mighty flood prone river. The only clue is really the bridge when you turn off, and trees like these that line the bank.

In the absence of rushing water - Canon EOS 50D f/14, 1/125, ISO 500, 28mm, manual mode polarizing filter

Mid-Spring Long Weekend

You can't speak to anyone in the Pilbara without these three questions: 1)How long have you been here? 2) Where are you from? 3) Do you enjoy it?

Don't get me wrong, it's a great conversation starter.

People are split into three camps (generally speaking) - those who hate it but are here for the money, those that love it and are here for the money, and those that genuinely love it.

The people that hate it here are depressing and those that just love it generally scorn those who are in between. You do get really tired of people thinking you live and work in the Pilbara just because of the money, but let's fact it without the opportunities on offer here, what do you have? It's remote, it's hot, there's cyclones and virtually no shade! It's not everyone's cup of tea.

Fortunately though, I love it. It's unique, it's beautiful it's own way, the colours are amazing and as long as the cyclones behave themselves by not destroying my house I enjoy the rain.

It's the first week of October and we are heading back to QLD for a visit. Migration home is inevitable each year. We live about as far away from 'home' as you can get on mainland Australia. 'Home' is south-east QLD, a little pocket of paradise.

Further into a general Pilbara 'How do you do?' conversation, you get to the part where you talk about what you most miss about 'home' - wherever that may be. For me, I miss the green. I've had locals laugh at me, look down and me and scorn when I say that, followed by a quick retort of 'It's green (when it rains) here!' Um, yes it is but you can't sit and relax on spinafex, even if it is green! Nor does it provide shade. I think they just seem to have forgotten the pockets of paradise this country has - such as SE QLD, the Daintree, Victoria, the Tasmanian forests...They are kind of spectacular and I miss them - the dense trees, the shade, the rainforest, the damp smell.

So in honour of our long weekend back to QLD to visit family, I am posting some photos from the archives in the hopes that in my love for the Pilbara I am not blinded to the fact that there are some other beautiful parts of this country!

PS: When I say from the archives, I mean it! These babies are some of my first panoramas, taken pre-SLR.

View from one of our 4WD trips. I can't even remember if this was taken with my Olympus or my first camera, a little Kodak. I just like the green grass - that is stuff you can roll around in!

The Daintree. Where the rainforest meets the ocean. It. Is. Amazing. (panorama not so good - taken on my $100 Kodak camera when we were first married. I said archives!)

This post would not be complete without a view of the Glass House Mountains. Only a few hours drive from where we lived, this is on the Sunshine Coast Hinterland...otherwise known as paradise! (Panorama generated in-camera on my Olympus u-900)

Spiny hazards and prickly situations

Taking landscape photos in the Pilbara requires more than a camera and a beautiful landscape. You need to be prepared for the conditions as without a doubt you will come across these prickly sensations:

Betsy, f/13, 1/500 shutter, ISO 500 200mm

That's right, unless you are careful you will experience slow and painful death-by-spinafex!

These guys are tough. You can see they can grow out of the rock, they sneak up on your ankle when you are trying to balance and when they are green they lull you into a false sense of 'It's-ok-I'm-just-grass' security!

After a month of celebrating Pilbara wildflowers I thought I would 'point' out that to take photos of wildflowers you are constantly battling nature's pin cushions!

So, don't leave the house without long pants, preferably made from canvas, boots, gloves and any and all other forms of protection.

When not threatening you with their pointy spikes that do actually sting and itch, they are rather stunning to see covering a hill...from a safe distance.

I am Pilbara! One of many spinafex-ed hills. Betsy, f/13, 1/500 shutter 18mm manual