We succumbed to the Pilbara Tradition

The Pilbara tradition of buying a boat.

Ever since moving here we have toyed with the idea. We bought the kayaks to explore. But we weren't sure we wanted the added expense of owning a boat.

Then I went out on a friends boat. And realised how much fun a boat in the Pilbara is.

My Dad has had a boat on holidays. We go out fishing and snorkeling which is always really fun. But I always get sea sick. It kind of takes the shine off it. Even when we go diving, it's a huge thing for me to juggle seasickness and seeing cool stuff while diving. (With diving however, you are compensated by the fact that going down below 5m is one of the best cures for seasickness - it literally disappears. It's the boat time between dives you have to worry about!)

So I've never really been too fond of spending every weekend out on a boat fishing. But the thing is, just off Dampier is an amazing array of islands known as the Dampier Archipelago. This provides a lot of shelter from choppy-ness. Add to the fact that compared to many places on the east coast it's not fished out, it makes for a pretty fun day out with friends.

So we bought a boat. So far, we haven't looked back. Just forward to the wider circle now open to us for exploration.

Here are some photos I took from our maiden voyage.

Tranquility in Tigre

To escape hectic-ness in Buenos Aires we took off to Tigre, which is on a spectacular delta with whole suburbs only accessible by boat. We were graced with hummingbirds, the best bed and breakfast I have stayed in (I very nearly stayed forever), and a sweet town on the river.

We toured the delta, walked around the town and drank matte. Here are a few photos from that blissful getaway! Again, you will notice the portrait theme happening...

Taxi - how to get around the delta. Canon EOS 50D f/9 1/1600 ISO 500 70mm

Canon EOS 50D f/9 1/1600 ISO 500 200mm

Art Museum along the river, had the most picturesque pillars. Canon EOS 50D f/9 1/1250 ISO 500 18mm

First attempt catching fish! Little difficult in the shade, and again, should have maybe put on shutter priority! Canon EOS 50D f/5.6 1/500 ISO 500 20mm

Smooth sailing through a tunnel of trees. Canon EOS 50D f/5 1/500 ISO 500 50mm

January Experimenting

So I realise that in my zeal for posting about South America I have neglected to share some of my experiments for January! And since today is the 31st and also a Friday I thought I might give you a little, fresh off the lens teaser!

That's right ladies and gentlemen, I am now the proud owner of two more lenses! I live life by extremes - so the 100mm macro and the 10-22mm wide angle are two completely different but equally awesome additions to my humble collection!

So, I would like to share with you my latest experiment. Since being here I have always wanted to go down to Dampier at night and take photos of the lights. I finally managed to do this this week!

In half an hour I got one photo I was pleased with - even still it is a little soft. I need to do a bit of research on getting the most out of my lenses.  I used a tripod but found it very difficult to focus on the right place without moving the camera slightly as soon as I took my finger off the button. It's a pity I didn't have my remote with me.

Anyway, for my first attempt at industry lights, I didn't think it was too bad! With the Macro and all!

Happy Friday!

Dampier Port - never sleeping. Canon EOS 50D, f/16, 10 second shutter, 100mm on a Canon EF-S 100mm Macro lens

A whole lot of luck…and uncommon sense

Sometimes photographers, amateurs, hobbyists and professionals alike, spend too long looking through the lens to actually notice the world around them. This weekend I had the opportunity to go kayaking and I decided to leave my water camera (The Olympus) at home and just enjoy the morning, and being in creation rather than endlessly trying to capture the photo of the century.

I did however take my new dry bag with my SLR backpack securely tucked away from the splashes for on land later, but that’s not the sort of camera you want to take out while kayaking in the ocean. Especially not when you are chasing wildlife.

This is a wildlife story. Previously I have spoken how I do not hunt wildlife for photos (particularly birds) because they are not obliging, and apparently a woman running towards you with an SLR is a scamper-worthy sight! My motto for taking photos for wildlife is, if it moves it’s too hard, take what you can by luck, or grace.

Well as luck would have it this Saturday morning was the most wildlife prolific of our kayaking adventures. Probably because I didn’t have my Olympus or the GoPro (which has gone to a much, much more exciting cause at the moment!). Murphy likes to play games with me like that. We saw a pod of dolphins, turtles, and a massive spotted ray all within ten minutes of hitting the water.

We paddled on and spotted movement on the horizon. A pair of manta rays were cruising around on the surface feeding – a pair! So we paddle over and just cruised with them – they weren’t fussed! They dove under our kayaks, they came up right next to us, they even invited their friends. At one point we had six manta rays all within 5-10 meters of our 12ft kayaks. Largest wingspan was the length of the kayaks. We even saw two of these beauties breaching about 100m away. It was magical.

After some time, the numbers dwindled, my husband says to me ‘Hon, I think you need to get your SLR out.’ We are in the middle of the ocean, can’t see the bottom, the kayaks are rocking (although, these kayaks are pretty stable, you’d be hard pressed to capsize them) and my camera is tucked/buried in the dry bag a the front of the kayak. This means I need to edge forward, undo the dry bag, dig out my camera and move back without tipping the kayak, without letting Betsy touch either me who has had a dip already, or the kayak which has water in the bottom. We debated about it for a little while, but the opportunity outweighed the common sense of leaving the SLR in the dry bag.

I got the camera out. The Manta rays vamoosed.

Again, one of Murphy’s games.

We spotted them about 100m off. This meant I had to paddle – carefully so as to not splash poor Betsy – after them, breaking my rule of not hunting wildlife for photos. Three times we did this to no avail, they simply stopped being obliging. It was at this point that I literally started to pray. ‘God,’ I said, ‘You have created these amazing creatures, I have my camera out, please send one back for a photo!’ One of those prayers that’s like a kid asking their parent for a special treat…and sometimes they give in. He sent two of the mantas back and I started clicking madly away. Next thing this creature is right next to my kayak, I could not have asked for a better swim by. I was blown away, not only was I able to capture one of these amazing creatures but it brought home a little lesson – that God does care about the little, seemingly insignificant things and does delight to see people happy in his creation. Sometimes it’s the small mercies that make this life worth living!

It was about now that I realised, hey this guy is gonna swim right past me! EOS 50D f/6.3, 1/640 shutter, ISO 250, 120mm, manual. Polarizing filter. Adjustments in Adobe RAW

Now he is right next to my kayak! Woo! EOS 50D, f/6.3, 1/640 shutter, ISO 250, 35mm, polarizer, adjustments in Adobe RAW

PS: Pirate Instagram

Just as a postscript to the previous post, I also snapped this Instagram of Pirate Cove, just to prove how impressed I was with the colours! (I was also impressed there was phone reception there…not so remote after all!)