Ever Changing

Plage Sud, Atlantic Ocean. Yep... another sundown, and yet I never tire of photographing them. Every time I visit the beach in the evenings it feels different, ever changing, just like the waves. This evening, the light was so soft and the sun was smothered with clouds, yet it still managed to draw subtle golden colours from the sand and sky. The ocean was a strangely calming, yet dark viridian green, with uneven breaks of tumbled, frothy waves. After our jaunty but short walk to the beach, my best friend and Charlie the dog wandered patiently around, allowing me time to play with my camera. Charlie was very happy to have a new companion on the beach with him as it ment he no longer had to stand still while I took my photos, he could wander, sniff, wag and woof to his heart's content. It was a great first night back on the West coast- beach walk, dinner, family and friends. One happy Me.

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Snow Caught

Somewhere in the suburbs, late afternoon. After triumphantly leaving work in a giddy excitement of snowjoy, I went over to my friend's house to embark upon a sledging adventure (who said snow is just to be enjoyed by kids?!). I took my camera along for the fun. Heading through the overgrown pathway, we came across the ball court, snow completely undisturbed. It was caged snow waiting to be built upon, but as we had already discovered, this was the wrong kind of snow for building creations, so we left it untouched and I took a photo instead. The wintery sky made for an interesting picture, but I'm still missing that wide angle perspective a new lens would give me. I've been good Santa... honest!

1/60|f8.0|ISO100|

Horizon Fire (for my dad)

Atlantic Ocean, Biscarrosse. I took this photo with my Dad.  We had walked to the beach together, DSLRs in hand with the intention of capturing a firey west coast sunset, and we weren't disappointed. It was a fantastic sundown, which just kept improving with time. So much so, we ended up being late for dinner, neither of us really wanting to leave and had to stumble back through the forest in dusky shadows, chilly from the ocean breeze and disappearing sun.
My Dad is my true photography inspiration- someone who has a really natural and instinctive understanding of how to take a great photo. He grew up as the photographer in his family, and as a result we have countless brilliant photos and slides of days gone by. He had his own darkroom in his teens and learned the fundamental balance of light, aperture and exposure. Growing up on family holidays and trips, Dad always had a camera and as a kid I was always fascinated by all their buttons, and lenses and the way he handled them so carefully. It wasn't until I was in my teens that I took a real interest and was allowed to have a go with his camera- with his supervision and advice. Aligning the two focus planes was my first challenge, leaving him to set all the other variables to ensure my first sucessful shot. Since then, I worked my way through various point and shoot cameras until finally getting my first SLR. This in turn inspired me to undertake a course in black and white SLR photography and development. Dad passed on various camera bodies and lenses to me, and allowed me to experiment myself- but always taking a shared interest. We even set up a dark room one winter at his house, but his ancient enlarger was leaking light like a sieve and the results were hazy at best! DSLRs were a natural progression for Dad, and I soon followed suit after enviously looking through his great shots of his world travels. 
To this day, Dad is by far a better photographer than I am. The evening of this photo, I took what felt like hundreds of photos. Even now I am not fully satisfied with the end result. Dad however must have taken a third of what I took, and managed to get a shot just as good, if not better than this one. He also got to appreciate the sunset more, as he wasn't messing about trying to figure which things to change to further improve his shots. I think, the time may have come for me to dig out my SLR again to brush up on the basics...

1/10|f13|ISO200|

Ocean Stacked

Great Ocean Road Twelve Apostles, Victoria.  Watching the sun slide beneath the horizon from a rocky outcrop with a sharp wind numbing my fingers and body. This was one of those times where I almost did not appreciate quite how staggeringly beautiful the view was until I got home and saw the pictures again months later through a fresh set of eyes. The ocean erroded limestone coastline, with the pink candyfloss clouds and cobalt blue water- I went into photo overload. Not really a clever or admired technique but it was one of those once in a lifetime opportunities I didn't want to miss or mess up, and felt that one of the pictures I took would give a close representation that would match the one I'd sellotaped in my head forever. It is also nailed on my bedroom wall. 

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