When Lightning Strikes

I’m out with a camera.  If I can be.  Which is not as often as I’d like (either the lightning or being out in it).

Tonight I overheard two passerbys exclaim, “Ooh, lightning!”.  My ears pricked up and I raced outside to see if they were seeing what I hoped they were seeing.  They were.

I live about 100 metres away from the sea, and once before I’ve gone to investigate weird orange flashes spotted faintly over the neighbours’ house to find a lightning storm out to sea.  I grabbed my camera then and took a tonne of photos including the above one, but messed up the focus. Tonight was my first chance since then to do better.

Tonight’s shot: f/4.5, 8.0, ISO 1250

Camera settings:

• Focus to infinity. Remember that infinity is actually often just a smidge to the left of the mark on your lens. Each lens is different.
• Low ISO – 100-200
• Aperture: f/10-f/16 – but it varies depending on closeness of the lightning.  The aim is to minimise the brightness of a bolt with a narrow aperture, and the long exposure compensates to bring up the rest of the image to a good exposure.
• Shutter speed: Varies depending on frequency of lightning. 8-15 seconds is a good starting point.  Long exposures increase noise, so lots of frequent shorter shots are better than one long exposure. A bright close bolt can also completely blow out your image.
• If shooting through a car window, use a polarising filter to cut through any reflections

You’ll notice I didn’t manage 2/3 of the important exposure settings. My excuse is that there was so much activity in the cloud that I didn’t want to leave the shutter open much longer and a lower ISO wasn’t capturing enough detail.  I have to say most advice I’ve seen on lightning photography doesn’t mention storms over 200kms away!

Beyond the Camera:

• Night shots are easier, the longer your shutter speed is open, the better chance of capturing a bolt
• An approaching storm is ideal, so there’s not too much rain between you and the lightning.  A downpour will, ahem, considerably dampen the clarity of the lightning bolts.
• A tripod is absolutely necessary

Post-Processing:

As with any other photo.  Light balance is a funny one, my camera has recorded lurid purple with lightning. Many photographers head to the Tungsten setting to create an electric blue cast.  It’s all a matter of taste.  The clarity slider is a fun one to play with, along with contrast and highlights.

Another fun thing worth trying is stacking several shots together to group the lightning into one image.

Stacking:

1. Use Starstax or Startrails
2. OR, if that doesn’t give the right results, in Photoshop:
3. From Lightroom, select all and Edit In -> Open as Layers in Photoshop.  From Bridge it’s Photoshop -> Load files into Photoshop Layers.
4. Move your favourite layer to the top, it will then act as the base, or anchor layer
5. Activate Lighten Blend mode to allow the lightest pixels visibility through the layers
6. Check colour balance and adjust any odd frames if needed (ctrl-B for Colour Balance menu)

Lurid purple, stacked in StarStax

Next I’ll try stacking the photos I took tonight.  The second shot above is one 8 second frame, but most of my other shots only have one bolt and some cloud colour in them.  I’m not sure stacking will work given the amount of light that was in the cloud, but there’s only one way to find out!

Photoshop: Handy Panorama Empty Space Trick

Turn this:

Output from Photomerge

Into this!

Content-aware Fill

First, use Warp to fix any perspective issues (if needed):

1. Merge all layers into a new layer – Layers -> Merge Layers
2. Ctrl-T/Cmd-T to open the Transform tool
3. Right click in the middle and select “Warp”
4. Drag the edges of the image around until it looks right.  The lines are very important, use them to help keep it realistic.  Ctrl-R will also give you a ruler which you can then drag to wherever you need (eg to align a horizon).
5. Ctrl-H to hide any lines to check your work
6. Click the tick at the top when you’re happy

I tried using Warp on this image but found it looked better without it, Photoshop had done a reasonable job on its own and my skill levels aren’t up to making it better.

Optional – if you know you’ll want to crop regardless, crop here.  It’ll save time rather than having PS fill empty areas you’re only going to cut away anyway.

Then use content-aware fill to cover any gaps:

1. Hold down Ctrl/Cmd and click in the thumbnail of the new layer.  This will select the area with pixels
2. Select -> Inverse, or Ctrl-Shift-I/Cmd-Shift-I
3. Edit -> Fill, or Shift-F5, then select Content Aware and OK
4. Wait for magic to happen!
5. Ctrl-D/Cmd-D to remove selection outline

It’s not perfect, and with this image I still cropped a bit, especially to the left as there was unnecessary space there anyway, but it meant I was able to keep the silhouette of the fern which I really liked (mind you, had I realised the fern was there when I was taking the panorama in the first place, I would have taken more photos to the right to capture it.  It was very dark though!).

I was very excited to see how the panorama would turn out, so I’ve only done the barest of post-processing on this image and I’m not entirely happy with it yet (a bit green perhaps?).  I’ll write-up more on capturing this panorama in another post.

Evening on the Story Bridge

A few days before my birthday, I received a marketing email from one of the few companies I actually don’t mind receiving such emails from.  Skimming the email from CameraPro (excellent photography shop in Brisbane), four words, or more accurately, one word and one phrase caught my eye.  “Photography” and “Story Bridge climb”.

Story Bridge at Night

The Story Bridge is one of Brisbane’s two most iconic bridges (the other being the Gateway), and like the Sydney Harbour Bridge they now run walking tours up and over the bridge.  Usually these tours don’t allow people to carry cameras for safety and financial reasons (the guides take photos you can buy), but the Story Bridge Climb company in conjunction with CameraPro have been able to get around both issues and now run a photography tour.  When I first saw the email I thought it was a one off, it was pricey but it was near my birthday, and how many chances would I get?  Turns out probably quite a few if I kept my eye out (I think they run once a month), but sometimes you need a sense of urgency to actually do the cool stuff in your local town.  So I signed up.

The tour is unique.  Usually several groups are on the bridge at any one time, but the photography tour is on its own.  The group is kept small, no more than six people, the tour is longer at over three hours, and it’s run at twilight so you get the best light, then the city and bridge at night.  It’s definitely a rare experience.

The tour guide (who’s name, to my shame and annoyance, I’ve forgotten) ran through the expected safety procedures, and how we’d be rigged up.  He then gave us some valuable hints and tips to photograph the bridge, accompanied with a slideshow of his own photos.  His photos were great and set a high standard I hoped to be able to approach.  His challenge to us was to take different photos from the usual; he’d seen thousands of bridge photos and they were “all the same”.

We rigged up in our climb suits and tethered our cameras, and looking like a line of blue telly-tubbies we trundled out under the bridge.

Girders

Carpark under the Story Bridge

More girders

Plenty of girders

The Story Bridge opened in 1940, and hasn’t changed much in that time.  It was still bright sunlight, so girders were the order of the hour.  I spotted a sinking moon lit by the sun from under the bridge.  With the different photo challenge in mind, I figured this might be a good start.

We proceeded under the bridge, through the bridge, up the bridge, across the bridge, and down the other side, in the space of over three hours and covering 1176 steps.  It didn’t feel much like exercise at the time, but wow did my muscles feel it afterwards.  On the way I tried to find a few different angles than just more girders (although I must admit really liked the girders).

Different?

Be Swept Up in the Story

Self Portrait

Girders over nature

Non-paying visitor!

The group in their telly-tubby outfits

The sun set while we were in the middle of the climb and the bridge.  Not a spectacular sunset, quite clear skies, but some nice colours around.  As the light faded I started playing more with long exposures, and discovered for myself just how much a bridge moves.  The tour guide had warned us of this, and gave us a couple of techniques to try and combat it:

1. Cushion your camera on your elbow folded over a railing
2. Watch the traffic and time your image so you don’t need to open the shutter for too long.  The traffic is controlled at either end by lights, and there are plenty of times when the bridge is empty.  To capture light trails it helped to time your capture with the timing of the lights.

The tour guide had some spectacular images with light trails, some taken with 30-40 seconds exposure.  I couldn’t even come close to this and still end up with an image vaguely in focus.  His hours of experience and steadier hand made an immense difference.

I also tried for a panorama of the CBD glinting in the day’s final sunlight.  It’s far from tack sharp if you take a closer look, but I like it anyway.

Brisbane CBD from the Story Bridge

I came away from the photography climb actually feeling a bit disappointed with myself – I didn’t feel I’d taken anything I was happy with or near the standard of the tour guide’s, all I had instead was a deep appreciation of the hours of patience and practice he must have put in to learn the bridge’s foibles and work with them.  Still, as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve become a bit addicted to post-processing in the last year or so.  Post-processing really came into its own here, and when it came to processing I had a lot of fun playing with what would otherwise be very similar photos of girders and lights.  Contrasty monochromes were an obvious start, although after a while I got bored of that and tried for dreamy girders instead.

Do girders dream of metallic sheep?

In the end I’m glad I did the tour, the photos don’t do the experience of being up there with the changing light justice.  I might even do it again some day.

Story Bridge

Cairns to Brisbane by Sunlander train

My well-travelled friend asked for a trip report of our journey by train from Cairns to Brisbane. We took the Sunlander train which takes a leisurely approach with an average speed of around 60km/h. We went Queenslander class which is the luxury way to go with fine dining and accommodation. If you like the sound of that, book now as the Sunlander trains finish this year with the last trip on New Year’s Eve – a trip that is if not fully booked, pretty close.

Sunlander from the front

It often takes me a bit to get into the holiday groove, particularly after a busy week at work with a combination of awkward problems, interesting challenges and exciting news. In some ways it was probably best that we took the train back from Cairns after I was relaxed enough to enjoy it properly.

The 30 hour journey from Cairns to Brisbane started with a 6am alarm. Peta and I had sorted pretty much everything the night before, so for once we were ready to leave earlier than planned. Which was handy when the route we took for the theoretical 5 minute walk to the railway station took more like 15 minutes (which would still have been ok as we had allowed 15 minutes, but never let it be said that I let an opportunity to worry pass me by).

Once we got to the platform, getting the luggage checked in and onto the train was straightforward, and we had 40 minutes or so to wait before the train even left (they kept announcing final boarding calls). While waiting we were invited to the lounge where they’d be ‘preparing welcome drinks’ which I took to mean champagne cocktails or something for breakfast but turned out to be tea or coffee (apparently they got a bit confused and other trips get actual welcome drinks – maybe our train was too early or something!). Still, once the train took off we went through to the dining car for breakfast. We were pretty hungry so I tucked into a full cooked breakfast and Peta had bacon with toast.

The lounge car

Breakfast on the first day

After breakfast we returned to the lounge car for a bit of watching the world go by. To set the scene a little, the countryside was a mixture of jungly rainforest (palms, vines) and the obvious impact of widespread cultivation of cash crops – sugar cane seems to cover large swathes of north Queensland and banana fields fill the gaps. We entertained ourselves by looking for cane trains – I actually saw one in motion – a very small locomotive about to connect to some cane – which we decided was nearly as good as seeing a cassowary or a crocodile (we saw neither on our trip) and nowhere near as good as seeing a tree kangaroo (although we did meet someone who had seen one the day before, so my TreeKangaroo score is now 2). I spent some time reading much more information about the whole cane train system.

Cane train!

Dark satanic mills

We also learned (there were regular announcements about stations or other key features on the route) about Mount Bartle Frere – about 40km south of Cairns it’s Queensland’s highest mountain at 1622m. It’s easy to assume that most of Queensland’s so-called mountains are piddly hills, but at least some of them are genuinely mountains (actual definitions for mountains vary – the UK uses 2000ft, and the US uses 1000ft – either way there does need to be a proper cull of Wikipedia’s List of Mountains in Australia (it lists Wild Horse Mountain at 123m!))

Watching river crossings was really watching for crocs!

We had the opportunity to stretch our legs at Tully for 25 minutes – that’s when the drivers had their breakfast and then it was back aboard for card games while watching the scenery change. There were plenty of birds to keep an eye out for – ibises and cattle egrets (elsewhere known as rhinoceros egrets – but we saw them with horses as well as cows, but not with camels or shetland ponies, which we also saw on the journey), ducks and black swans.

Birds flying over sugar cane

For lunch I had the seafood platter which was fantastic – the oysters were stunning, the calamari was cooked to perfection and the Moreton Bay Bugs and prawns were also excellent. I did feel a little diddled with the bit of crab I got as it wasn’t a proper bit of claw, but I guess they just divide crabs up between passengers. Dessert was apple and rhubarb crumble and ice cream – I’m usually no good with fruit based puddings but this one was really good.

About to tackle the seafood platter!

Excavating the Moreton Bay Bug

Townsville was the next opportunity for a leg stretch, and we got to see cars being loaded onto the train (apparently your car can go free with your train journey – but as we’d flown up that wasn’t much use to us, but worth knowing).

By this point we’d realised one of the train staff had a bit of an Elton John obsession – there was a tablet in the lounge hooked up to speakers, so you could just select whatever you fancied (from a short list of albums, only a few of which were actually worth listening to). But whenever she thought the music needed changing, it got changed to Elton. This got quite infuriating by the tenth time, so we had to take regular cabin time. In general the staff were lovely and very friendly, we had a number of good chats over the course of the trip.

Will checking out the view from the lounge car

Once it got close to 4pm, we decided it was drinks time, so off to the lounge for fizz! The fizz came from Sirromet, a local winery with a cellar door at Mt Cotton, about 30 minutes south of Brisbane; we’ve been there a couple of times now, once for wine tasting and once for a Day on the Green.

We got to enjoy some of the countryside, particularly the impressive Burdekin Bridge between Ayr and Home Hill. The latter is now a haven for caravanners as to boost its economy the town provides free 48 hour camping sites so there were lots of vans to be seen.

The sun was setting as we got to Bowen (famed for murals we didn’t get to see from the train) and the sun set behind the hills as we left – this was the last place we’d really see until the morning.

Fields at sunset

A terrible attempt by Will to capture the mountains at sunset through the lounge car windows at an angle

 

We got to Proserpine (the gateway to Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays) as we sat down to dinner. We were sat with another couple, George and Mary-Ann who were in their seventies and had some great stories to share – we shared a bottle of cab sav with them and got on with them very well. I had crab and avocado for starters, prime rib steak for main and semifreddo for dessert – all very enjoyable. As we finished dinner, the train finally left Proserpine – apparently the police had had to remove some people from the train!

Some countryside that was not gum tree, sugar cane or banana plant!

After a brief sojourn to the lounge car, we decided to head back to the cabin where we had some more wine and read either the internet or the kindle (Peta might have played Angry Birds). We were intrigued as to what was going on when we got to Mackay and people started walking up the outside of the train with torches. Looking for stowaways under the train? After that it was bedtime and so nothing more to report until we woke up at 7:15 as we were leaving Bundaberg station.

Peta and Will in the lounge car

Breakfast didn’t seem as good the second day – but we were ravenous at breakfast time the day before, whereas we were probably quite well fed from all the meals on the train.

Inflation makes some penalties seem a little trivial

We spent the morning alternating watching the world go by with reading. As I got closer to Brisbane I became less and less keen for the journey to end and tried to watch more and more of the journey.

Before we got to Nambour we had the final meal of the train – morning tea, including sausage rolls, quiche, salmon tarts and finally profiteroles. We were hoping we’d get a final lunch but the train was pretty much completely packed up by then – everything shut!

The bush got more eucalypty as we went south

We passed through a lot of places that I’m not yet familiar with, before we got south of Nambour and we got to the Glasshouse Mountains, passing Tibrogargan close up, then Beerburrum before experiencing the average Caboolture commuter’s daily experience. Peta went for a nap around here, while I watched the industrial entrance into town through Petrie, Strathpine, Sunshine and then past Northgate for what I assumed would be a standard journey into Roma Street. But no, one last surprise as the train took the Exhibition line and thus skipped Fortitude Valley and Central entirely.

All in all, the 30 hours passed almost too quickly for me – we passed our time through eating, sleeping, drinking, reading, and keeping an eye on the passing scenery. It’s a difficult balance – too much watching the world go by can be dull at times but not enough misses the point!

—

Photographer’s note: I tried not to get caught up in trying to take photos through fuzzy reflective windows while on a juddering moving vehicle, so only carried my lil Fujifilm x100s around with me for snapshots.  Turns out the train supervisor was an amateur photographer and had been eyeing up an x100s for himself, so we had a good chat about it.  I always find it hard to talk about the technicalities of photography – I don’t do it much so as to not bore everyone around me, so I’m not used to translating whatever happens in my head when I take photos into words.  This is something I should practice, I’m happy to share I just need to learn how!

Question from the Floor

Sandgate Palm

You constantly take great photos. How many does it take to get a perfect shot?

My brother-in-law left this question (and kind comment) on facebook.  The image he left it under was actually a straightforward one for me, where nature did all the hard work (although I had to remove a couple of power lines).

I can’t remember exactly how many shots I took, as I’m brutal with deleting shots that are near identical, but from memory it was only 2-3, and that’s only because my camera pretty much lives in “burst” mode.  I was out walking and nearly home when the sky caught my eye and I grabbed a couple of quick shots.  Sunset (and sunrise) light changes fast, clouds move quick, and that sky wouldn’t have been there for long enough to get many more.

But I am a “million monkeys” photographer – if I take enough shots, one will be pretty good, right?  Digital is cheap.  Certainly that was and to some extent is still my ethos, although my camera lives in burst mode because I also love taking photos of birds and other wildlife even in my own suburbs and “shoot and spray” is the only method I’ll ever capture those creatures when walking about.

Being a million monkeys photographer means I come home with hundreds of shots when I’ve been out on a dedicated shooting mission, which then get whittled down to a third or less, and maybe just a handful get seen by anyone else.  Learning what to keep and what to junk has been a skill in itself; realising that no-one will ever see the ones I don’t pick helps.  What if I need… need what?  When am I going to need a near-identical image with a slightly different angle?  Choosing which lines, angles, light is the best of the bunch is part of the learning curve.  Which has the best composition?  Where is it best to have more space?  Giving myself options by taking a bunch of similar photos helps my eye and improves my composition skills.  Sometimes an image I thought was composed great in camera was actually better in a slightly different composition taken before or after when seen on the big screen.

Looking back over older photos, as I do a lot when uploading to art sites in particular, I have noticed that being a million monkeys photographer isn’t enough.  Sure, it’s netted me some beauties, but if the basics aren’t right then it doesn’t matter if I’ve taken one or one hundred or one thousand photos.  I cringe when I notice some of the mistakes I made on my earlier work – wrong aperture/wrong ISO are two classics of mine – and sometimes those mistakes have ruined what could have been good images (especially for printing and selling).  Some don’t see the light of day as a result, or are only uploaded to my family snapshots smugmug page.  I wonder if taking many shots gave me a false sense of security.

So how many photos?  Usually a lot.  Rightly or wrongly, it’s how my technique has developed.  Being more of a purist would mean less time spent in front of a computer ditching the runners-up (and maybe net me a million dollar sale!  A gorgeous image, but I bet I couldn’t promise to have only taken one shot), but instead I’ve worked on improving my workflow to save some of that time.  It may also mean I may have spent less time at the camera perfecting and checking everything before I took any shot, but I would have missed a few shots in that process as well.  For me, having lots of results to review has definitely helped me work out what works and what doesn’t, then apply that next time I’m out and about.  I don’t track my ratio of rejects and keepers but hopefully it’s improving!

Shooting the Stars

Lately I’ve become interested in astrophotography.  Not so much shooting galaxies in deep space (yet), but capturing star trails and the Milky Way are my two of my latest challenges (along with panoramas, HDR, and all of Photoshop.  Focus, haha, is not my strongest point).

So far the most important lesson has been that you can focus past infinity!  Who knew!  Turns out beyond infinity is quite fuzzy and doesn’t make for the greatest photograph.  I had my best luck by having the camera focus on something at least 10 metres away, like torchlight lighting up a tree, but I learnt the hard way to check, check, then check again zoomed in as much as your camera will allow on your LCD.  Infinity is often slightly to the left if where it’s marked on your lens; on my to-do list is to mark exactly where it is on my lenses.

Otherwise, many of the usual things for long exposures apply to astrophotography:

• Tripod
• Remote release or timed release – no vibration from shutter pressing
• Turn off IS/VR
• One I keep forgetting: Take a black exposure, ie with the lens cap on.  It can be used to remove noise by stacking software
• A focus trick: Turn off auto focus.  Look at Live View, zoom aaaaaall the way in with zoom buttons, manually focus on a bright star until it’s a sharp point.  Don’t touch the lens again!

For the Milky Way:

• High ISO
• Likely no longer than 30 seconds exposure, otherwise you’ll start to get star trails.  Test this however, it is dependent on your focal length
• Get that black exposure!

Conversely, for star trails:

• Low ISO
• 20-30 second exposures, but play with this.  The longer the exposure, the more noise, but also more stars
• Multiple exposures, for at least an hour

I strongly recommend Charles Niauton’s “How to Photograph Stars” tutorial, it helped me immensely.

For star trails, I’ve had some reasonable success with Star Stax.  It’s not perfect, but it was how I was able to put together this star trail taken over my house, in suburban Brisbane (yes the house is ugly, we’re planning a renovation which has its own blog at Gecko Reno).

Southern Celestial Pole over my house

I’d like to say I knew the Southern Celestial Pole was there, but I did not.  I was expecting some arcs and mostly just out there to learn and practise, so it was quite a kick to see the pole.  Given it’s my first attempt I’m not unhappy with this at all.

My first Milky Way is less successful.  This was taken up near Ballandean, in Queensland’s Granite Belt region.  The Granite Belt is up to 900 metres above sea level, and the coolest region in Queensland, so it makes for beautiful clear skies (I wrote about a previous visit to the region here).  Unfortunately the weather wasn’t really playing ball; a strong wind blew regular clouds and rain squalls over us so I only had a short window to play in.  This is the best attempt, but I’m not really happy with the noise or the composition or the wow factor of the stars.

Milky Way over the Granite Belt

The following night I had another short go.  My husband insisted on trying some 60 second exposures – I was dubious thinking we’d end up with star trails, but actually that was ok.  Less ok is the noise and the hot pixels, but then they’re only visible when pixel peeping which is a bad habit of mine developed from submitting images to stock photography sites.  I’d be interested to know which photo people prefer!

Milky Way 60 seconds

Will also liked the stars being blue.  Post-processing these images is an art in itself which I can’t claim to have come to grips with but I’m working on.  These Lightroom presets by David Kingham, and the accompanying videos, have helped immensely however.  The presets are donation-ware and I’ve donated, if you find them useful I recommend that you do too.  I can vouch that sussing this stuff out on your own isn’t straight-forward, especially the white balance.

On a final note: my uncle sent me this interesting video of a lecture given by Barbara Cunow.  Cunow is an amateur photographer who’s photographed all 110 Messier objects, with minimal equipment and terrible light pollution but some smart photography and processing techniques to compensate.  A lot to learn!

Beyond the Camera

Once upon a time, I was one of those anti post-processing “purists”.  “I love the natural look, I hate processed photos”, I bleated to myself.  What I’ve since realised is that what I meant was, “I don’t know what I’m doing”.

This obviously doesn’t hold true for all photographers who keep their processing minimal.  This wonderful presentation by National Geographic photographer Michael Melford taught me a lot about bring out the best in an image without serious post-processing – National Geographic have a policy of only presenting real photos to their customers and will not accept overly-processed shots from their photographers – and I have nothing but admiration and respect for his gorgeous images.  But I’m not a National Geographic photographer.

And now I LOVE post-processing.  I love playing with my photos.  I love experimenting with colour and shades and shade and shading, painting my little adjustment brush all over the place, cloning out that distracting branch, softening the focus with low contrast and clarity or making everything razor-sharp with the reverse, tinging my highlights and shadows, cropping and flipping and and all and any combination of the above.  The magic of those little Lightroom sliders… I love it.  I may love it more than taking the photo, especially if taking the photo means getting up at 4am.  I feel a little disappointed when I look at a photo that’s pretty fine with minimal adjustments and think, “Is this as good as it gets?”.

Lightroom is what turned me.  It’s something you can play with without much knowledge, although youtube videos quickly helped me understand the magic.  Lightroom is non-destructive, so I can layer change upon change then turn back time with a click in the History panel.  It lets me take snapshots so I can capture a few of my favourite experiments then directly compare them.  It’s a tool like any other in the photographer’s bag and skillfully wielded it can turn an ok image into a grand sight.  I’m not all that skillful but I love it.

And that it’s hardly a new thing is something I knew but it only really hit home recently.  For example, here is what Ansel Adams had to say about his famous “Moonrise” photo:

I decided to use dilute D-23 and ten developer-to-water sequences, 30 seconds in the developer and 2 minutes in the water without agitation for each sequence. By using ten developer-water cycles I minimized the possibility of uneven sky.

The negative was quite difficult to print; several years later I decided to intensify the foreground to increase contrast. I first refixed and washed the negative, then treated the lower section of the image with a dilute solution of Kodak IN-5 intensifier. I immersed the area below the horizon with an in-and-out motion for about 1 minute, then rinsed in water, and repeated about twelve times until I achieved what appeared to be optimum density. Printing was a bit easier thereafter, although it remains a challenge.

There were light clouds in a few areas of the sky, and the clouds under the moon were very bright (two or three times as bright as the moon). I burn-in the foreground a little toward the bottom of the print. I then burn along the line of the mountains, keeping the card edge in constant motion. In addition, I hold the card far enough from the paper to produce a broad penumbra in its shadow; this prevents a distinct dodging or burning line, which would be very distracting. I also burn upward a bit to the moon to lower the values of the white clouds and the comparitively light horizon sky. I then burn from the top of the moon to the top of the image with several up-and-down passages. – Taken from Notes On Photographs

He did what who where?  There was no Photoshop, but while Photoshop didn’t exist photo manipulation did and had done for as long as photography has existed.  Photoshop wasn’t born out of thin air, it was wanted by photographers to be the digital equivalent of all this work film photographers did (and still do) in the darkroom.  You can see the difference between the straight from camera print and Adams’ post-processed one here.

I recently subscribed (I’m not that keen on the subscription model but the Black Friday sale won me over) to Photoshop.  I used Photoshop a little several years ago but hardly any since, and just opening it is daunting.  I don’t even know where to start.  I really should get to grips with it, add this powerful tool to my bag for special occasions, but I feel I’ve been handed a chainsaw to peel an apple.  I rarely feel the need to leave Lightroom… suspect I’m scared!  Back to youtube I should go but this feels more like a chore than a pleasure.

Anyway, I’m completely on-board with post-processing now.  It definitely helps to get as much right in camera as you can.  But even when you do, sometimes there’s an extra je ne sais quoi you can add in Lightroom.  The eleventh secret herb or spice.  The touch that makes this photo mine rather than any other photographer’s who’s stood in the exact same spot, and I’ve stood in the same places as many, many photographers.

Am I misrepresenting the world?  Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.  Sometimes I’m merely adjusting for the camera’s desire to average the world’s colour to grey (“no, lil camera, the sunset really was that red”).  Sometimes I’ve flipped the world in a mirror, removed parts of it, changed the colours, lit it up… But while it might not end up the exact scene I photographed, it is what I felt.

Lil Nanshe

When I was a teenager, I would only write in my diary when I was sad or angry.  I don’t want this blog to become the same thing, but as Banderas’ final post is here, it seems fitting to place lil Nanshe here too.

Nanshe checking out our wedding rings. This photo is in our wedding album

Banderas and Nanshe curled up in a cupboard

Lil Nanshe liked lil boxes

Nanshe used to love to lick the shower after Will had been in it.

She often crossed her paws like a little princess.

If it was small and dark, Nanshe was probably inside

Nanshe did not like moving house. This is her after one move, having found the smallest space she could get into in the flat/

The last photo I have of Nanshe, from June last year.

Nanshe was put to sleep yesterday.

Nanshe came to us at the same time as Banderas, coincidentally around the same time my husband and I first got together.  I went from a single person living alone to having a partner and two troublesome cats in about a week.  The cats were truly troublesome; they were about two years old, and had come from a small house with 18 other cats in it.  Neither cat was at all socialised and for several weeks we could barely go near them.  Over time, with bribes of food and toys, they came to allow us to pat them and hold them.  Neither really ever became lap cats, but they did become a lot more affectionate.

Nanshe had additional troubles, as the runt of her litter.  I couldn’t tell if she was eating at all at first, and she wasn’t properly toilet trained.  Again, over time and with patience, both problems were resolved.

Nanshe’s favourite means of getting your attention was to “dust for fingerprints” – with her hugely fluffy tail, she’d back up to you and vibrate it against you, somethng I later learned was the ultimate cat compliment.  She’d follow me around the house, which unfortunately earned her a few kicks as she was impossible to see when walking in the dark at night!  Often when coming home, she’d be waiting near the bottom of the stairs to greet us, her squeaky purr at the ready (her puur sounded like she needed oiling).  She also loved to follow me into the bathroom, and got most confused when I had a bath, sniffing the water and looking at me like I was a crazy lady.

She was such a small cat she became our international standard of small, and of fluffy.  Her hair was unbelieveably soft, never changing from that kitten softness that most cats lose.  Her name is the Sumerian goddess of dreams, as she reminded me of soft fluffy clouds.  Despite her tiny size and soft hair, she was easily the bravest of the two, dusting and winning over strangers when they came to our house, and she loved going outside when she got the chance.  Our last flat in London was in a loft extension, and in the evenings she’d roam the rooftops of Hammersmith, but came home when called before we went to bed.  Bar one night, when she didn’t answer.  The next morning she still wasn’t home.  During the day at work Will and I created flyers to put up that evening.  Upon getting home later that day, she was sitting in the lounge like nothing had happened.

Another night we had a house guest who didn’t realise Nanshe was outside and shut the window.  The next day it was pouring with rain, absolutely bucketing.  I realised Nanshe was missing, and opened the window and called and called, although with the rain it was loud.  Eventually she dashed over the rooves and into my arms, wet and shivering.

Her favourite way to wake me was to stand right by my ear, and utter one loud “mew!”.

Nanshe loved fitting herself into boxes, the smaller the better.  She would claim a favourite box until her squishing herself into it would finally break one side.

Good night lil Nanshe, I’m sorry I left you.

Don’t Call Me “Tog”

I don’t know why, but I have an irrational hatred of the the nickname “tog”.  Maybe because it made me feel like an idiot – the first time I saw it used, I had no idea what it meant and it took me a while to suss it out.  Tog = Photographer.  Better than a “phot” or a “graph” or heaven forbid, a “her”, I suppose, but something about the sound of the word just jars with me.

I like being a photographer, or at least aiming to be one.  To my ear it sounds elegant, masterful, the science of technology combined with the art of the eye.  I’ve always been interested in technology – indeed currently I work in IT – but have always had an artistic side.  When I was younger, it was dance.  In the background was always writing, which never amounted to much beyond private diaries and a few travel blog posts, and in the background to all of that was photography.  It’s only been in the last few years that I realised that photography is the expression of my artistic side that I revel in the most (well, and that my body can still do!).

Having spent years just taking photos however I felt like whenever I felt like it, with no thought to the technical side, I’m now catching up.  Learning to use a DSLR has meant quite a lot of missed or ruined photos, but when I get it right… wow now that’s fun.  The technical side of photography isn’t just the camera though, it’s everything around you.  Choosing the light, considering the angles, determining the depth of focus, framing the world.  Suddenly taking a photo of that neat looking tree takes on a whole universe of options.  Practice practice practice will make this second nature, but for now I’m constantly evaluating and re-evaulating everything I do.  Sometimes I suspect I get caught up too much in the details and lose my image.  Other times I try so so hard but still miss one little thing that later I realised has ruined the shot.  Sure, with digital there’s “no cost” in taking hundreds or thousands of images that are no good, but it’s still a blow when that I can’t translate what’s in my minds eye to the screen, and of course plenty of wasted time.

Recently my husband and I went to the Bunya Mountains for a long weekend getaway.  I was determined to make the most of all the technical advice I’ve been soaking up recently.  I searched google images for inspiration and learnt about the local famous flora, the distinctive Bunya Pine, and resolved to capture one.  Sunsets were also supposed to be spectacular.

I didn’t get a good Bunya Pine photo, and the day I was ready for sunset disappointed me with an almost perfectly clear sky and not much of interest, so I came away feeling like I hadn’t really made full use of my time there, photographically speaking.  Practice, practice, practice, so that’s what I’ve put that weekend down to.

Bunya Mountains themselves are a sliver of ancient bush surrounded by ploughed fields and tamed land, topped with mobile phone and tv towers.  I’ve never been to a national park with better mobile coverage.  We walked by day (over 13kms one day) and shivered by night, never quite getting the hang of lighting the fire on our cottage.  There was phenomenal clear air at night when the clouds parted, but the impending super moon and the bitter cold kept me indoors.  I wussed out, basically.

Still, here is a collection of images that despite my despondence on returning home, I’m actually fairly happy with.  I may not have captured the images I was hoping for, but these aren’t a bad surprise (Mouse over for captions and in some cases, the story behind the image).

We pulled up to our cabin, I looked up and the sky had turned this amazing dappled pink and purple through a huge thin blanket of cotton wool clouds. The area around our cabin was simply not up to the task. “I need to see the sky!” I declared to my husband, “I’m going for a drive!”. He kindly chose to accompany me. We hadn’t had a chance to scope out the area and I had no idea where would be best to drive to capture this amazing light. We went back up the road to a lookout we’d passed on the way in, and found there was a great big ruddy mountain in the way of the shot I wanted, but I did manage some mist rising from the folds of the foothills.

Frost-bitten Stinging Nettles

Beautiful Bunya Mountains mobile masts

View over the cultivated land beyond the Bunya Mountains. Bunya is marked by many unusual and ancient fauna, like these grasstrees, some estimated to be several hundred years old.

Grasstree at sunset

Missed the moonrise, but had some luck with a few breaks in the cloud

Clear sky sunset. BORING. I took a tonne of photos anyway, since we’d gone to the effort of walking with tripod and waited ages to do this. This is the only one I felt I could inject some interest in by using an unusual crop.

Red-Browed Finch. A juvenile, so no actual red brow yet. There were tonnes of these beautiful lil birds flitting about the bush, our quiet steps disturbing them before we could reach them, and they’d flit up the path away from us. This one was quite the poser though, perhaps too young yet to be afraid.

Taken from the car while driving down the Bruce Highway. I was taking these out of desperation since I wouldn’t be home in time to capture it rising from the bay near my home. Many thanks to Canon 7Ds fast shutter speeds for this one decent shot.

Go With The Eye

So many times, something has caught my eye when I’m not really looking for a photo, but I do like to have a camera to hand when I can, so I reach for it and start shooting.

I start with what I saw.  Then I move left, move right, zoom in, pull out,  stop up, stop down… play for as long as time permits.

But so often it’s the first view that works the best.  The main exception is the aperture setting, as generally I leave it as wide as possible which isn’t always the best.  But what is often the best is that angle I first saw and wanted to capture.

So many times I’ve read that you must move around your subject.  And those writers are right, especially when you’re coming up to a well-photographed landmark or a common subject.  When you’re out specifically looking for a photo, then yes, move around, then move around some more.

But when something unexpected has leapt out at you and you’ve just HAD to stop and take that photo, even when your partner has disappeared into the crowd or you’re in danger of running late, then often that first image is the right one.  Time and time again I take a string of photos only to return to the first one, or first few, those with that exact composition that caught my eye in the first place.

Walk around, because there just might be something better, but don’t be afraid to trust your instinct either.  I had twenty-four photos of these ballet shoes hanging from the bar at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, snatched with a point’n’shoot in the final minutes before the performance started.  Guess which in the series this is.

Celebrating the Bolshoi Ballet in Brisbane, their first visit to Australia in 19 years.