Editing colours of flowers

I just wanted to do a quick post to demonstrate to you the difference between editing JPEGs and RAW photos.

I have trouble sometimes with the colours of RAW because there is just so much information that I can never quite replicate the colours taken with the JPEG that my camera puts out. So I edited both the JPEG and the RAW image of this photo to see just what the difference was and was astounded but also delighted to find that despite its trickyness, the RAW one still came out way ahead of the JPEG.

Yes, it is more mulla mulla. The edited JPEG is first, the RAW second.

I like how the JPEG captures the glow of the light, but you can correct the white balance in the RAW - notice how the first image is slightly green? Not true colour - we are in the Pilbara remember!

Pilbara Bluebells

Bluebells are normally a sign of Europe - somewhere. United kingdom, I don't really know. But they make me think of Beatrix Potter, perfect English gardens and forests with foxes and rabbits.

In the Pilbara, we have what most people call Bluebells - but they are Pilbara style. Tough, rough, hardy and glowing in the morning sun.

It's quite funny, I uploaded this photo to ABC Open Pic of the Week when I took it (the rules are you have to put up photos taken that week). It got picked up by ABC News and went onto their Facebook page across the country and there was quite a debate on what these flowers actually were. Funny thing was I did actually research (briefly) what the name of these gems were and found 'Rough Bluebell'. I think this matches perfectly so that's what I'm sticking with.

More Mulla Mulla on the Station

Seriously, you never, ever grow tired of Pilbara wildflowers.

Here are more of the same mulla mulla, just from a different angle.

Let me tell you about the place we were camping. We went on a church camp to Kialrah pool on Warrambie station. The owners go to our church and are some of the ridgy didge locals.

We had an amazing time of fellowship and fun out here - peaceful, tranquil, surrounded by Pilbara mountains, wildflowers and joy.

Fields of Mulla Mulla

Mulla mulla are everywhere in the Pilbara. They are the wildflower that connects pretty much the entire region. That's probably why it is the official flower of the Pilbara.

We organised a church camp a while back.

Photos from this camp are bittersweet for me. As I write, my camera, Betsy, is in the mail, destined for the Canon service centre and she literally stopped working overnight on this camp. I am truly devastated but secretly hoping she may be beyond repair and I can upgrade....is that wrong?

Anyway, hopefully by the time this is published she will either be back in my hands and I will have taken more photos or I will have a new camera, all without a bump in photos on the blog.

So, on this camp one morning I got up to take photos of the mulla mulla. These guys, standing tall in the morning sun are glorious and epitomize what the Pilbara looks like. If only you could feel the wind, smell the spinafex, hear the rocks as well and you would know what this harsh landscape has in store for you and you too will never leave.

Table Top with a View

One of the things that escapes me about 4WD-ing is the fun of climbing steep, rocky hills. Especially when you are miles from anywhere and meeting someone coming the opposite direction would mean certain death.

We drove up a mountain the other day. In the Pilbara. My only regret was not seeing an iron ore train from above the car level - that would have been terrific. Still, the colours, the scene, the Pilbara, does kind of take your breath away.

Mulla Mulla at the Station

We went 4WDing with my in-laws recently. We may have gotten slightly lost, due to some misdirection - or faulty directions. It's hard to say which ones which.

But the scenery. We reached our destination, ate a late lunch and by the time we were about to leave, the sun was entering the golden hour. Not only that but there were mulla mulla carpeting the Pilbara Savannah. Despite not wanting to get lost on the return trip in the lowering light, I was distracted by the light and made the most of it.

PS Compression did not do the second one justice!

Colours of a Sunset

Editing Sunsets in Raw is hard. There I said it. There are too many colours, too many tempting options too many sacrifices to be made! Do I enhance the orange and sacrifice the green? Do I add a magenta hue for dramatic effect?

Photo editing has become a way of life for people - look at photography blogs all over the place and you find over-edited photos, HDR photos that REQUIRE editing to even exist. So to those who turn their nose up at photo editing, I really don't care because it is an art-form in and of itself.

But, nothing beats taking a photo that requires little or no editing. That's how I approach sunsets because they are too difficult to edit to my satisfaction! The best creator of colours at sunset is God so I try and capture what he does at the end of each day rather than make my own creation.

I was trying a few techniques from the Understanding photography book, using the flash for the foreground while retaining the sunset colours. This required no editing.

Backlight Sunlight

I've seen quite a few photos taken recently into the sun during the golden hour at sunset. They are stunning. These are not silhouettes or overexposed, just golden goodness.

We took a trip down to Cape Range National Park to camp by the reef, so being by the beach watching the sun go down, I took the opportunity to give this technique a go.

I found some purple flowers in the sand that added some tremendous colour to the landscape, and were lit up with the back light of the sun. So, I crouched down, at all costs preventing my camera from falling into the sand and causing disaster, and started shooting away. I'm pretty happy with the result - as always, not quite what I had pictured but you get the idea.

Bubblegum Flowers

My favourite wildflowers up here are these purple ones. I have completely forgotten their real name, I have just aptly named them 'bubblegum flowers'. They smell like Bubblegum.

Mulla mulla wannabees

These flowers have always confused me. They aren't mulla mulla but they look like mulla mulla - kind of. I call them mulla mulla wannabees.

Took advantage of some morning light and used the macro to capture these fluffy, purple beauties. Who would have thought fluffy and purple would be words to describe something of Pilbara beauty?

Sunsets and Wildflowers

While the wildflowers were not out in force as much as they have been in previous years, they never fail to amaze and inspire me. Whenever I see them I think they are beautiful and I just have to capture them!

So I've been trying to identify creative ways of doing just that, seeing as I have many stock standard mulla mulla and desert peas now.

I took a lot of sunset photos in September, to road test my new backpack. It's safe to say that I am now kitted out - the backpack is a little large so people might look at me weird but oh well.

With all the sunsets and not many places in Karratha, I had to get creative. On my walk up the hill to shoot the sunset one evening I came across a patch of mulla mulla by the road. These flowers are stunning when the light is behind them. It makes them glow.

Canon EOS 50D f/13, 1/40 sec, ISO 160, 22mm (10-22mm Wide Angle lens)

The Macro, Depth of Field and handheld photography...while balancing on Pilbara rocks...

...in bare feet.

What is the photographer's ideal when sighting a new wildflower to snap? Perhaps, having a macro lens already attached to your camera body, and that body already attached to a nice sturdy tripod that you can set up perfectly, not a breath of wind and good solid ground to stand on to get a good view in the viewfinder.

HA.

Welcome to the Pilbara. More specifically the Burrup Peninsula which is covered in rocks. Mounds of rocks. And that grass in between? Spinafex. What do I do when I go kayaking up the Burrup? I take my camera...and no shoes.

Here I am, climbing a rock mountain to test out my wide angle lens...in my thongs that I decided to ditch because they were more trouble than they were worth. I take an ordinary photo of the bay, and start to amble down when I stumble across a purple flower I had not seen before. You beauty! Luckily I had the macro in my backpack. Upon sitting down to change my lens however, I discovered not a skerrik of flat rock to keep one lens while I took the other off. I only have two hands, one of which has to hold the backpack and my thongs, the other that has to hold my camera, all the while unscrewing a lens, unscrewing the macro dust cover, switching the lenses, re-screwing everything, all the while not dropping anything to its certain death down the rock hill.


I achieved the impossible and miraculously managed to change to the macro without a single crash. So I set about trying to shoot this purple flower. Tiny they were, under a centimeter across. I had no tripod with me and there was a slight breeze. At 100mm, a slight breeze is all it takes. I don't know how long I sat on that uncomfortable, unlevel rock, precariously clutching my camera at all focal lengths trying to get the depth of field just right...only to have a breath of wind breeze past moving the flower just far enough out of focus to ruin my shot. Incredibly frustrating. I employed a quick shutter and patience....and many many photos. (I had to stop and delete some off my full card...twice). Eventually I got a couple.

Canon EOS 50D f/2.8, 1/1250, ISO 100. 100mm macro

Canon EOS 50D f/6.3 1/400 ISO 100, 100mm Macro - Cropped

Canon EOS 50D f/6.3 1/400 ISO 100, 100mm Macro

I really quite loved playing with the depth of field. The tiny branches taught me a lot about focus...and patience. Hopefully next time it will continue to be better than ever!Still can't believe these guys were growing on a rock mountain.

Macro Meandering

The second lens I purchased in January is a Canon 100mm Macro lens. I tossed up between this one and the L series which to be honest with you, would have been awesome. Just an extra few hundred dollars. For what I do, I didn't think I needed it.

Now, I have always wanted a macro lens. It has been top of my list forever. When I bought my first camera to get into photography, I just used the macro setting most of the time. It is something I want to get good at.

Canon EOS 50D f/16, 1/250, ISO 100, 100mm

These are just a couple of shots I got down at Cleaverville Beach on the Australia Day holiday. I am still getting to know the lens, but it was great fun to go down and experiment!

Canon EOS 50D f/3.2, 1/1250, ISO 100 100mm

Canon EOS 50D f/3.2, 1/1250, ISO 100, 100mm

Canon EOS 50D f/16, 1/160, ISO 100, 100mm

Wide Wanderings

One of my new lenses is the Canon 10-22mm wide angle lens. I haven't used it a great deal but I know that I love it. I don't think I will ever go back to using my 18-200mm unless I need the zoom! You can just get so much more in the picture!

This year I am also going to be working on my composition - trying to take attractive and interesting photos. So far, this has been fun with the wide angle - I particularly love getting so much sky. I'm not sure why, but I think it's because it creates a sense of an expanse.

I went down to Cleaverville beach for an experiment on the Australia Day holiday. There wasn't too much there for the wide angle unfortunately, but I thought I would share some with you so you can see what I mean.

Canon EOS 50D f/4.5 1/1250 ISO 100 22mm. I know, it's just another desert pea. But I like this shot because almost the whole plant is in focus, while the grass behind isn't. Yes I was on my belly for this shot. 

Canon EOS 50D f/10, 1/250, ISO 100, 11mm

Wildflowers Post-Script: More Mulla Mulla

Mulla Mulla are by far the most prolific wildflower in the Pilbara, and it would be a tight coin toss as to who would win a most-photographed flower here between them and the Desert Pea. Mulla Mulla photos are a dime a dozen - from the top, from the bottom, from the side, in bunches, on their own, against the sky, against the ground...the list goes on. 

But just as a little appendix to my September of Pilbara wildflowers I thought I would share with you my first Mulla Mulla photo against the sky. This particular variety does not have as green leaves or stems, begins to lose its purple from the bottom and has more accented purple spikes. I think they are pretty spectacular.

Until next year I bid the wildflowers adieu!  Although I make no guarantees that they won't appear on this blog between now and then, they are simply too colourful!

Canon EOS 50D, f/10, 1/200 sec shutter, ISO 250, 50mm, manual, cropped, contrast and colour adjustments in Adobe RAW. Not to mention  I was on my knees, neck cricked and back hunched to get snap this sucker!

Pilbara Gems: Wildflowers - Part 5

I finish September and the beginning of Spring with my favourite wildflower. This guy is small and mighty. Small bursts of colour surround your feet, contrasting the red rocks and the green leaves. They are too beautiful for many words. Happy Spring!

Betsy, f/13, 1/250 sec shutter, ISO 800, -0.3 step exposure bias, 130 mm, shutter priority

An instagram shot I took of these fellas on top of Karratha hills - Sunset, red rocks and gorgeous flowers. Hello Spring!

Pilbara Gems: Wildflowers - Part 4

I am a real sweet tooth. I tried the whole giving up sugar thing and it just didn't work. I love sweet things. When I go to Cold Rock Ice cream, I order lemon sorbet with skittles and or nerds. Basically a bowl full of sugar with a dash of lemon - the ultimate sweet and sour!

So when I discovered wildflowers in the Pilbara that smelled like bubblegum, I was pretty darn excited!

That's seriously what these guys smell like! Sweet bubblegum and they are purple to boot! I keep forgetting their actual name, for me they are affectionately known as bubblegum flowers. Smiles!

Aside from that, I am also fond of these guys because we first saw them when we decided to end our travels and plant ourselves in the Pilbara (yes, I took this photo two years ago, it's from the archives). We have never looked back since! These gems are a perfect example of the small, good packages that are in this place, and the good gifts that God gives to his people...just because he can.

Betsy - f/6.3, 1/400 second shutter, ISO 100, 200mm. Manual. I took numerous photos of this flower. 

Pilbara Gems: Wildflowers - Part 3

Blue bells, cockle shells, evi, ivy, over...

We used to dance to that little rhyme in the playground, you know, you join hands and turn around. (sometimes known as washing the dishes...).

Blue bells are dainty, bell shaped flowers that for some reason always sound so posh and British. But here in the Pilbara, we have our own version of blue bells. They are not quite bell shaped, but the plants can stand head height and when the light hits them they glow and you can almost hear them ringing with colour. Gorgeous.

Betsy - f/6.3, 1/640 second shutter, ISO 800, -0.3 step exposure bias, 200 mm.

Discovering the New

Have you ever met those people who can just find stuff? $20 note? No problem! Rare animal? Sure! Satellites at day time? What's so hard about that?

Well, I'm not one of those people.

I'm always the last to see, hear, do anything. So when we were out camping on the weekend, and I spotted a wildflower I'd never seen before, I made my husband stop in the rocks so I could run out...in my socks among the thorns...to take a photo, thinking I had struck something amazing - a wildflower I had never seen before that was redder than the rocks!

Canon EOS 50D (Betsy), f/18, 1/250 sec shutter, ISO 500, 200mm, manual mode with polarizing filter. Contrast, brightness and white balance adjustments in Adobe RAW. 

Turns out, there were quite literally squillions of these things in patches dotted up the riverbed. The seeds must be carried down when the river is in flood and deposited in small patches - they only grew in the river bed and I have never seen them anywhere else!

I tell you what though, the red was absolutely stunning! It made me think of the Poppy scene from the Wizard of Oz. I even started yawning! If anyone knows what these lovelies are, I am all ears.

Like I said, a more vibrant red than even the rusty iron-ore clad rocks! Betsy, f/18, 1/250 shutter, ISO 500, 20mm, manual mode with polarizing filter. White balance, contrast and vibrance adjustments in Adobe RAW

P.S. If I find out these are weeds, I will surely die!

Pilbara Gems: Wildflowers - Part 2

Of course, you can't focus on wildflowers without a nod to another of the region's most prolific and definitely one of the most impressive flowers I've ever seen. Sturt's Desert Pea is technically the floral emblem for South Australia however in our travels the place where desert peas were most prolific is here. It is astounding. They are like tongues of fire spreading across the ground.

Betsy, f/10, 1/800 shutter, ISO 500, -0.3 step exposure bias, 50 mm, shutter priority

Betsy - f/14, 1/800 second shutter, -0.3 step exposure bias, ISO 500, 130 mm,  Shutter Priority

I must admit, I am a little obsessed with these little gems - they are stunning! I can't count how many times I have taken pictures of these. What is particularly remarkable about these guys, is that they are not always black and red...more of that to come!