Macro Bucket List

Upon purchasing a macro lens, there are a number of things I have wanted to take a photo of - predominantly insects and other creepy crawlies. The top of the creepy crawly list was a bee. At Gregories Gorge, I had that opportunity. Small amount of wind, bright sun and a hungry bee made for one happy shutterbug!

Canon EOS 50D, f/5, 1/500, ISO 100, 100mm Macro 

This image is cropped and edited in Photoshop, but I must say I do like the composition. I had to keep trimming before I was 100% happy, it was a rather awkward one as there were continually highlights on the edges, but when removed the bee wasn't prominent. As it is he is a little stuck in the corner. It helps that purple and green is my favourite colour combination at the moment. This is the best angle of the bee that I captured. Not perfectly ideal, but not bad for a first attempt I would say!

Bonfire

Short but sweet. I wanted to share with you this photo of a fire on the beach. It struck me when I was going through my photos how you can see the logs, which remained still while the flames licked and flicked around them. The moon in the background is a nice touch. It's just another small, low-light experiment. The sort of thing I find doing when I have my camera and I allow myself to get distracted. Or rather, my mind takes me to other places before I can recognize the distraction and put an end to it. But, should I really worry about that?

Canon EOS 50D f/29, 4 seconds, ISO 100, 22mm.

Along the Narrow Path

In case this blog is not evidence enough, I like to share my enjoyment of photography with others. I try my very best to do so in a way that is not obtrusive, arrogant or obnoxious. But I am a little obsessed, so if I come across as any of those things, I apologise from the depths of my heart. I really do just love capturing photos. 

So when, on the night of the moon rising with the sun, a nice lass who I don't know very well was kind enough to alert me to the shimmering path to the moon that was appearing now that darkness had enveloped the pinks and blues of sunset. Thankful for the tip, I ran to the car, grabbed Betsy and off we went. As luck would have it, two of the stray people wandering around (as they often do on these nights) just happened to be walking up this straight and narrow path.

Canon EOS 50D, f/5, 1/50, ISO 1000, 100mm

Proverbs 4:26-27

Watch the path of your feet And all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right nor to the left; Turn your foot from evil.

It is almost a Christian cliche to talk about the narrow road, but I came across this Proverb above. What does it mean? Each of our lives is nothing but steps - forward, backwards, or to the side. We can be heading one direction, but change direction very quickly. It we are not careful we can be misdirected, detoured unintentionally, and leave the narrow path. 

The photo above is unedited - woohoo! I do so love it when that happens! In learning about Photoshop, virtually all my photos are edited, but not this one above. I love the composition, the people, the colours in the sky and on the ground. I can't improve it. Nature could have by having the moon slightly lower to decrease the gap between it and the reflection, but hey, I'm not picky and in all honesty, was probably too lazy to go to the car to change lenses. 

This one below, however, is edited. While I can't improve on the one above, I did try...

I warmed it up a little, but all it seemed to do was increase the noise. 

It's a dangerous business Frodo, stepping out the door. And if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off too...

Rising with the Sunset

"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him?" - Psalm 8:3-4

The amazing thing about the moon is that it does not have any light of its own, it reflects the sun. It's incredible to the think that when it is full, it gives just enough light to see by, to light your path, yet it is not produced by the moon, it is given by the sun. This is how our relationship with God works in this world. None of our good works, our love, is our own, but a reflection of God and his great love for us.

This evening of the picture was particularly beautiful. It was a staircase to the moon evening, which normally entails watching a full moon rise over mudflats creating a visual effect of a staircase leading to the moon. On this night however, the Moon rose as the sun set. This created a beautiful golden orb shrouded in a coat of colour.

Canon EOS 50D f/6.3, 1/250, ISO 1000, 100mm (Macro lens)

So, the photo quality is not great due to the high ISO creating noise, but it's a start. I had hoped to capture the colours more than anything - there were too many people froliking to do anything to serious. Or at least, that's what I keep telling myself when I experience the photography dread that occurs when you return home to eagerly look at your photos on the laptop only to discover Betsy's LCD had lead me into a false sense of security regarding the quality of the photos! The lesson here - never trust the LCD, and never use an ISO over 800 until you know what you are doing!

I do want to share a (relatively) successful experiment I had on this fine evening. This was the split filter experiment. Would you believe it is only the second time I have used it, only this time I held them against my lens rather than mount them, as I don't have an adapter ring for my Macro yet. Check out the differences:

Without filter

With Filter

Ok, so maybe I didn't quite master the whole "keep the filter still" technique, but you can see the effect of the neutral density quite nicely. Definitely something to continue investigating...

All in all, regardless of the photo quality I wouldn't trade that view for the best photo in the world. It has left an indelible impression on my soul. As a famous Christian band once said: "I want to be the moon, because it reflects the sun. Don't want to be the star that shines on everyone. I want to be with you, because you're the only one...who heals my lonely soul."

"Praise Him, sun and moon,
             Praise Him all you shining Stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens
             and you water above the heavens"

      - Psalm 148:3-4

To Edit or Not to Edit

There are a lot of people in the world of hobby photography who have never been trained to edit an image - myself included - they just do whatever feels is natural to them. This is something I long to rectify in my own photography. Reading books and articles just doesn't cut it, and quite often my photos come out unrealistic. But then - a lot of edited images are like that. Take this guy for example. He has some great shots of the Pilbara but every time I seem them pop up on my Facebook feed I appreciate the image as an image, not a photo. I know that it is the editing that has got them to that particular style. It's true, some are much more edited than others, but knowing the landscape, you can't deny that some form of post-processing has occurred. 

So, below is a little attempt of my own. I wasn't going to put it on here, but then I showed a friend of mine and they were impressed so I figured I would share it. It's a Pilbara landscape but fairly heavily edited as the sky was quite overexposed and the foreground dark. I think I just need to get better at using my splits and getting the colour right in the capture.

Gregories Gorge - Fortescue River. Canon EOS 50D f/9, 1/320, ISO 100, 10mm. Wide Angle 

It's a pity the trees don't look real. It took my off-road boots, trekking up shale and dodging my father's rocks tumbling down the hill to get this photo.

A flood of fireworks

Last year I took my first fireworks photos at the FeNaClNG festival. So when it came around again for 2014 I decided to try and repeat the experience. Be prepared for a flood of fireworks, these babies are so much fun to take photos of!

Of course, this year I complicated things by trying to take photos on my smart phone...at the same time. This is never a good idea. The shutter gets left open for too long.

Nevertheless, while these are all cropped (I had to switch to my wide angle lens as the 50mm just didn't cut it), they are all edit-free and there were no salt spots interfering this time!

Canon EOS 50D, f/18, 3 sec. ISO 100, 19mm

Canon EOS 50D f/18, 4 sec. ISO 100 19mm

Canon EOS 50D f/18, 5 sec., ISO 100, 19mm

Canon EOS 50D f/18, 5 sec, ISO 100, 19mm

Looking Under Rocks

Apologies for my silence of late. I have been taking photos, but not uploading them to here due to an inundation of parents visiting the Pilbara. Now to share the memories of times with family and friends.

My father is a nature guy - I grew up on an acre property which over the 15 years I was there grew into middle earth, banana plantation, orchard and mulberry heaven (just to name a few). My Dad loves the outdoors, loves to grow things, catch his own food and just generally be out in amongst the wild side of life.

So when we took him and my mother traipsing around the Pilbara, my Dad, being so far away from home, started to identify plant species, inspect the fish in the rivers, the bugs in the grass and the flowers that were blooming. He also decided that it was fun to throw rocks off a hill and see how far they could roll down.

Upon lifting one of these rocks destined for a fast trip to the bottom of the hill, he discovered another love of nature - a lizard. A gecko to be more precise. A little one. As fate would have it, the macro was on my camera, and the poor guy was so stunned to find himself in daylight he sat obligingly for a good two minutes.

This one is for my Dad.

Canon EOS 50D f/3.5, 1/200. ISO 100, 100mm Macro Lens