Waiting by the Waterfall

We were lucky enough to have my sister in law and her fiance visit us in April. Naturally we wanted to show them the best the Pilbara had to offer and that meant one thing for me - Karijini.

Not to mention, this was probably going to be one of the last opportunities to visit this wondrous place before children become a concern.

But I've got to tell you - at six months pregnant they already are!

There were some severe limits to what I could do and what I couldn't. One gorge a day seemed to be my limit and I contented myself with staying by a waterfall reading while we sent the others off to adventure.

Luckily for me I married a terrific man who stayed by the waterfalls with me. He even walked in and out of Dales Gorge an extra time to go and get me my 18mm-200mm lens when it became obvious that my wide angle lens was broken. (insert sad face...).

I took many photos though. Some with the offending lens (which was crooked - I must have accidentally hit it on a rock) some with the 18-200mm.

But I reiterate - waterfalls are the happiest places on earth.

Fortescue falls - broken lens and all.

Fortescue Falls again

Water Like Cotton Candy

While on holidays at Cape Range National Park, was reading my book 'Understanding Exposure', which was great, it had a few tips I hadn't yet come across, although much of the information I had already read elsewhere. I found it funny that he described the 'misty water' effect as making it look like cotton candy. I guess I can live with that.

What I can't live with is the fact that I nearly lost my camera this morning. I had my tripod, was looking for leading lines and had to keep the shutter open for about 30 seconds as the sun wasn't yet up. Of course, the predictable happened - wave came along and I am very lucky that it only splashed a little bit of salt water onto my lens!

What that meant of course, is that the photo shoot was over, or other wise useless. I had nothing on me to clean my lens with me on the beach (I was in my pyjamas with a tracksuit on top - I got ready in a hurry) so the rest of my photos all had salt spots on them darn it!

It has just occurred to me that many of the misadventures I share with you on this blog involve me being quite clumsy...

Misty water in the sunlight

On this last trip to Karijini we managed to take my parents up and down each and every gorge you can visit in the park and then some.

We visited this little known gem, Kalamina Gorge. It's not really that interesting, but it does have some lovely little cascades. We were there late morning, but the shade was just nice enough to expose the cascades correctly to mist them up nicely while still getting the greenery around.

This photo actually caught me by surprise - it's one of many I took for a HDR, but I think it works just fine on its own.

Back to the Handrail

Last time I took photos here, I ended up with a canvas on my wall.

I didn't set out to recreate that photo. But my husband and parents decided to go further down the gorge. It didn't look camera safe (we had not dry bag in this gorge...not that it did us any good down Joffreys!) so I stayed on the rocks. And took photos.

Hancock Gorge - #6

This is the last one from Hancock I promise!

But, I did save my favourite till last.

This baby is three photos taken with my wide angle stitched together for a panorama. The top is a little dark, and I have not yet mastered HDR photography, but I do love the lines, the water and the colours in this photo. It has everything you like, and the darkness at the top gives it a nice frame, or space for something to be written.

All in all, I call it a successful trip down Hancock Gorge.

Hancock Gorge - #5

Panoramas.

I wanted to take the wide angle down the gorges and take some panoramas. I got two in the end, that I was pretty happy with.

The first is below. It has a couple of muppets in it, but hopefully that gives you an idea of where we were, how we traversed the rocks and water to the views, and the kind of terrain I was taking photos in!

Also, this one is particularly cool because I had an accidental whirlpool! Cyclone Gorge!

Hancock Gorge - #4

So there are going to be a few more of these than I realised.

I did spend a good deal of time with the water in Hancock gorge, given that we missed it last time!

It's great when you discover little gems. Both of these photos were taken as part of would be panoramas, but the final product of them individually was enough! Loving the wide angle lens down the gorges!

PS How cool is the whirlpool???

Hancock Gorge - #3 (Kermits Pool)

One of the most popular spots at Karijini - Kermits Pool. Green pool, in a narrow gorge, fed by a waterfall. Paradise!

I love the colours in this shot. They have been played with a little, but only to bring out the pool's natural beauty.

The other thing I love, even though it's over-exposed, is the flash of orange and red flowing into the pool from the other side from further down the gorge. It adds a depth of colour. This shot was taken as part of a set of three with my wide angle, but when stitched together they were not as appealing! This one does just nicely I think.

Hancock Gorge - #2

Karijini is the kind of place where you can spend half an hour taking a photo, then take two steps down the gorge only to find another angle, another viewpoint, another perfect spot.

So of course, before heading down the spider walk in Hancock Gorge, I looked back at the little waterfall, and realised, oh my gosh that's just as stunning, if not more!

A key feature of Karijini is the flat rocks. I love how the water cascades over them. In this photo I love how the gorge is reflected on the cascade but made blurry by the movement.

It was very difficult to get the colours right in this shot, as the water is supposed to be a beautiful turquoise but I think the water was still settling from some recent rain.

If only there weren't spots on my lens!

Hancock Gorge - #1

We went to Hancock Gorge last time, but didn't get great photos because we went at the wrong time of day. This time, I made sure I was down that gorge in the morning, before the sun got there, and before the backpackers and grey nomads alike.

There are numerous shots of Hancock, so there will be numerous posts.

The only thing that was annoying is that I knew we were being followed by a bunch of loud backpackers. So I had to be quick. As quick as I was, they still managed to photo bomb a few of my shots! Over the next few posts, see if you can spot the backpacker...

But this one is nice and clean...I stopped to take it despite the oncoming loudness because I had not seen this section in shadow before. Seize the opportunity!

Hello Karijini...we meet again

That's right. We went to photography paradise. Karijini National Park - not the only place you can break your neck while taking photos, but in this part of the country, the odds do increase dramatically.

It's just stunning. Every time I visit, it blows me away. So this visit, I tried to take a few photos that we missed last time.

Sometimes I feel bad about making people wait for me to take photos. But not this trip and not here. How can you complain about waiting in a place like this?

So, let's kick it off with a nice little cascade from Dales Gorge, where we went the first day. I missed these cascades the first time around, and we were in the gorge just before the sun went down so the light was even. How could I resist?

I don't want to speak too soon. But I think this is a favourite. I was pleasantly surprised to come across this baby while editing.

Greenspool

This place in Williams Bay National Park is stunning. A natural pool for swimming, snorkling fishing and generally just chilling. A lot of people know about this place. Therefore there are thousands of photos of it.

We went down to take photos at sunset so I could get some misty water photos, with some rocks. This was a lot of fun. I think I took the same photo 100 times and they all pretty much looked the same...but still, I think I am getting better at editing the colours in the sky. There is a graduated filter added to this photo to bring out the tones in the sky and balance out the colours. I like to think of them as pale but intense pastels...

Editing the Sunset

Sunsets (and sunrises too...though I hardly see them) are unparalleled. Nothing beats a good sunset, and no matter how good of a photographer you are, you can't beat God when he turns it on. Sorry, but you can't. It is not possible to capture all those colours as once, even in the highest dynamic range.

Though, it doesn't stop one from trying.

I'm fairly terrible at HDR photos, so I have not attempted them much. What I did experiment on below though, was gradient filters in Adobe Camera Raw. It's not perfect, but its a stepping stone closer. I wanted to capture the running water, and the sunset at the same time. I knew it was fairly futile as I am sill learning, but I thought the result was interesting.

It's a pity about the spray on the lens as well...ahh well, it's all a learning experience!

Happy New Year Reflections

Sorry. It has been a while since my last post. There is no particular reason for this, I just got lazy, both in the writing world and the photo taking realm.

I have been flat lately. In need of some serious inspiration.

The end of 2014 saw us take a holiday back home in QLD, then down south in WA in a place called Denmark. Gorgeous place, although, half of Perth seems to think so too - they had to same bright idea.

It was at one stunning sunset in Greenspool Denmark that I finally received some inspiration - even if it was spurred on by my competitive spirit.

My husband and I had taken some curry down to the beach, with plenty of time to get into a good, rocky position for the sunset so I could take some cracker photos of moving water. Having staked out the perfect sunset spot, we huddled out of the wind behind a rock to eat our dinner. The curry was delish, and we were having a nice relaxing afternoon.

As the sun went down, lo and behold! A pair walk past us....right into my photography spot - MY SPOT!  - with a camera and starts setting up. I couldn't believe it. I grabbed my camera bag, jumped up and scrambled up my rocks to set up my tripod. YES, I was set up BEFORE THEY WERE.

I did feel a little bad - but I mean come on!

Camera nerds.

Anyway, they were interested in the sunset while I was more interested in the low light for the swirling water, so we didn't actually get in each other's way.

They left with the sun.

Suckers.

As I turned to leave also, I noticed the moon. Amazing! Best shot of the trip is below.

Maybe I should put it up, with this verse to caption it:

“A new command I give you:  Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.”  John 13:34-35, NIV

as a reminder of my poor attitude towards the other people who were simply trying to capture another of God's beautiful sunsets the same as I was.

God does not bless us with what we deserve, but the blessing comes because he loves us in spite of our failures. 

The Seascape

Seascapes are beautiful in that they combine the early or late light of sunset or sun rise, with the dependency of coastal rocks, and the fluidity of the waves crashing into them. They are stunning.

While camping at Warroora I had the perfect opportunity to capture my first seascape. In honesty, this is my second attempt - the first ended in zero results but a lot of lessons. The first of those being not pointing the camera directly into the sunset (sunrise is too early for me) - the light overexposes when the shutter is left open to create the mist. I suppose this would be easier on the east coast where the sun sets away from the water. But here on the west we are left with the conundrum of trying to have the light to our back or to the side to light the rocks but not overexpose the centre.

The first attempt at Maggies didn't feel like it went well - however I was pleasantly surprised by my photos when I returned. I liked the ones I took on the first night more than the ones on the second. The second I sought high ground on the rocks to avoid having to rescue my camera and tripod from freak waves - based on experience!

Taken the first night. Exposing the dark sections was the trickiest part - done in photoshop. Also, cropped to make a more pleasing composition. Canon EOS 50D f/22, 0.8 seconds, ISO 200 10mm. I kept the ISO down to reduce the noise. 

I like the mist in this once, but the noise due to the low light is a problem. Canon EOS 50D f/22, 20 seconds, ISO 200, 19mm

Taken the second night with the sun behind me. You can just see our camp. Canon EOS 50D f/9, 8 SEconds, ISO 200, 10mm. I tried to improve composition, and escape the waves by seeking higher ground but the impact is less. 

The Slippery Spa

It is a rare occasion that I wake up early, let alone get up to see the sunrise. On this particular morning, I did both (largely because we were camped in a swag and once it was a teensy bit light I wanted to be up and out).

Photographs of the sunrise will come. This post is about the difficulty of traversing Hamersley Gorge and its folded rocks to reach the spa pool and shoot it before the sun crept over the gorge wall and polluted the scene with its light. (Bit of a strong description there, the sun's not all that bad!).

The spa pool is one of the most photographed pools in Karijini - it's stunning. Ken Duncan's shot it, this guy has, Ben Knapinski who is responsible for many of the Pilbara and Kimberly post cards also has a shot, as well as any other photographer - Pilbara or otherwise - who has visited Karijini. Basically, I didn't want to miss out. Some say photography brings out my competitive side. Well, maybe, but I also like to think it brings out the inspirational side as in "This place is beautiful. Look at what these people achieved! Can I do that? Let's give it a go!"

I had the 4WD boots on for this adventure. No bare feet, this was serious business!

We reached the pool. My husband took himself off adventuring further up and I placed my backpack precariously on the rocks. Let me tell you something about where I am standing - the rocks have been folded so that while they are flat they are not horizontal. Anything but! Completely uneven ground, almost impossible to make sense of.

Luckily I had my trusty $30 tripod with me. I set up, making sure that there was no chance of the camera crashing to its death on the rocks, or drowning in the deep pool. This meant I would press the button, while guarding the tripod as if my life depended on it by encircling it with my arms without bumping it. All the while having my feet in bulky boots, balancing on these incredibly uneven rocks. I changed vantage points many times as one side of the pool was already becoming more and more exposed to the sun. I also wanted to avoid the overexposure of the background. I could have experimented more with HDR I suppose, but I haven't had much success with them in the past.

Eventually it got to the point where I had to jettison the boots as they were more slippery than they were help, go barefoot into the slippery, mossy channel and crouch down for balance so I was basically sitting in the water with my camera and a deep pool in front of me. Precarious. I have never been so nervous about dropping my camera! The sun was creeping further and further into my frame so eventually I conceded that if I didn't have the photo already, it wasn't going to happen that day.

Fortunately I did manage to snap a couple I am happy with. Check it out.

Canon EOS 50D, f/14, O.8 seconds, ISO 100, 18mm, (10-22mm Canon Wide Angle)

Canon EOS 50D, f/20, 2.5 seconds, ISO 100, 10mm (10-22mm Canon Wide Angle)

Canon EOS 50D f/22, 2.5 seconds, ISO 100, 16mm (10-22mm Canon Wide Angle)

Pretty happy with these. A shout out to my husband who drove me here and put up with me photographing these spot for at least an hour before he could go for a swim. He's a legend. It was a 275km drive to Hamersley, I was up before the sun, and spent an hour shooting on completely uneven ground in one of the hardest positions I have found myself in. Worth it? Definately. The things you do in the Pilbara.

Mysteries of Misty Waters in Karijini

As promised, a second edition on the Karijini expedition. The jury is still out on the third. This trip was surprisingly good for water shots, despite the incredibly bright sun. Once down in the shade of the gorges, and the sun had started to disappear, water shots were so much fun to take. There is something so satisfying about setting up a shot, leaving the shutter open for a few seconds, and eagerly checking the LCD screen to see if the water is misty while the rocks are crystal clear.

Can I just say, I am so glad I do not have a film camera for water shots? Star trails - different story. I learnt so much from shot to shot - composition, timing, reducing camera shake, or in my case, tripod shake. Some of these things you just don't know with film until they are developed!

Once you have the settings done for a particular gorge, you can go from little run of water, to small waterfall, to bigger waterfalls, composing shots and taking misty water photos. I say again, it is so much fun. What would you do down those gorges without a camera I ask you?

The other thing that was really valuable from this trip is the amount I shot in RAW and had to process later. Only then did I realise I had the white balance wrong for a lot of my water shots, and it needed to be corrected in Camera RAW (a lot of my water had an odd blue tinge).

Check out some of my water shots below:

Handrail Pool, Weano Gorge Karijini NP. Canon EOS 50D (Betsy), 1 second shutter, Manual program, f/14, ISO 100, 18mm focal length. Increased contrast, vibrance, saturation in Camera Raw. Also slight warming with magenta tint.

Handrail Pool is a great spot in the park, although it is precarious going down the rail you see to the right, carrying camera gear. It's amazing this shot looks so peaceful, there were backpackers jumping off rocks on the other side! This has got to be my favourite shot of the trip. I know I said that last time about the spider, but you go to Karijini for the gorges, so this trumps a golden orb any day!

I've had people say, why not just Photoshop the rail out of the photo so it all looks natural? Well, one, that would be extremely fiddly and I think difficult (too much like hard work) and two, it's called Handrail Pool for a reason...

Dales Gorge, Karijini NP. Betsy again, with EF-S18-200mm lens set at 50mm. 1/4 sec shutter, f/25. Much the same RAW edits as above - warming and magenta tint, contrast, vibrance and saturation adjustments.

This was quite spectacular. We went down Dales Gorge hoping for some interesting light options at sunset and were rewarded with good conditions for water photos plus some really great golden reflections. I promise you, the gold has nothing to do with Photoshop. This was taken at the top of Fortescue Falls, but I thought, if I call this photo Fortescue Falls everyone is going to look at me like I'm crazy!

Knox Gorge, Karijini. Betsy once more (I only have one!) set at 18mm focal length. F/22, 2 sec shutter. Increased contrast, saturation and vibrance with a magenta tint in Camera RAW.

Just as above, the blue has not much at all to do with Photoshop (it may be slightly enhanced) - Knox Gorge really is blue in parts! This is a good example of smooth running water and gives a good indication of the terrain we were carrying camera gear over! But in all seriousness - blue rocks and purple rocks. Really impressive.

Cascades in Knox Gorge, Karijini. Canon EOS 50D with my Nifty Fifty (EF 50mm f/1.8 II), 0.8 sec shutter, f/22, ISO 100. Contrast, brightness, white balance adjustment as well as vibrance and saturation for two photos before stitching in CS4.

I realised on this trip that while the EF-S18-200mm is a brilliant all rounder lens for traveling, it does not specialise well. It's a pretty good zoom in a tight spot and the wide angle does capture a good landscape, however I do tend to miss out on those crystal clear shots. So I complemented it with my Nifty Fifty - this is literally the cheapest Canon lens you can buy. And I love it. It will take some time to master, but it's F-stop can go all the way up to 1.8. Brilliant. It doesn't give you great depth of field for landscapes usually, but I thought I would try it for some of the water photos in Knox Gorge to try and get increased sharpness. Above is the resulting photo - it's actually a panorama. I learnt to edit these RAW images by processing the first image, setting a preset of the settings so the second is processed exactly the same before stitching together.

You may have noticed a lot of talk about editing in Camera RAW in this post, and the captions on the photos indicate pretty much all my photos are edited slightly. I read once that all digital images usually require at least some tweaking in contrast and brightness. But for some purists, I may need to defend myself. When capturing a RAW image what you are actually doing is capturing a digital negative - that is, all the information collected by your camera's sensor. You then need to process them on the computer and it is not much different to developing a negative (not that I have ever done that - I'm pretty sure there are at least a few more controls...). All I really change is the contrast, brightness, vibrance and saturation. For my Karijini photos I warmed up the white balance and increased the tint to the magenta side for most photos to capture as many colours as possible. I will give you an example of what this does below:

Fortescue Falls, Dales Gorge Karijini. Betsy, at 18mm on tripod, 1/4 second, f/22, ISO 250.

This is the unedited version of this shot. One of the last I took before we headed up to the top of the gorge for the sunset. It is dark and the white balance is incorrect. Below is the processed version.

Same shot, only the colours have been corrected by adjusting the white balance and it's brighter and clearer. You particularly notice it in the water - the water has a slight blue tinge in the first shot, and is white in the second.  Could I have done this with my camera on the day I took the shot by adjusting settings? Good question. I like to think not as it was a custom white balance I set on the computer - I already have my camera set to capture slightly saturated images and as I said before, my 18-200mm lens is great at everything but a master of nothing. With more time and fiddling, I could have set a custom white balance on the camera that day, but when you are standing precariously on wet slippery rocks, with your camera pointing down this waterfall and you have to let it go for a few seconds - you want to make as little adjustments as possible!

As I understand it, it is no different than photographers who used to develop their own negatives and get all arty-farty with contrast and colour. Occasionally I mess with hues and gradients but with digital editing I have come to realise that less really is more.