Ghost House

25 01 2009


Ghost House, originally uploaded by Stuart Forsyth.

I’d love to know whose property this is. They have a number of derelict sheds right next to the road which as absolute gold for a pair of photographers out looking for something to shoot. It’s interesting how much a scene can change by taking a couple of steps forward or two the side. When Rob and I compared photos at the end it was almost like we’d been shooting completely different scenes.

I made my initial basic adjustments in Aperture; a little sharpening here, a touch of contrast and vibrancy there and then I round-tripped it through Nik’s revolutionary Silver Efex Pro where I applied a high contrast orange filter and a couple of localised contrast adjustments to bring out the natural texture of the shed.

It’s a beaut, of a location and I hope to go back for a couple of bracketed exposures in the not too distant future. Also thinking this would look OK on a large canvas mount in the living room.

Time to think about an Epson 3800 or a newer model with the multiple black cartridges. Any printer experts out there for a bit of advice?


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Seeing Potential

19 12 2008

I often find that when I put a camera in the hands of my eight year old son I am blown away by the results.  It’s not about great photography by any stretch of the imagination but rather about seeing the world in a fundamentally different way; a young mind is relativity unfettered by convention, he doesn’t know about the rule of thirds and phi is something you bake in the oven. Sitting flicking through his photographs I stumble across a few real gems taken of a subject I would never have thought to photograph or from a perspective that is completely original.

The lesson I take from this is that sometimes just the act of taking a photograph, even when the potential is not immediately apparent is worthwhile in and of itself.  Forcing myself to change my perspective to try and see the world around me as fresh and interesting – even when the muse is stale – to in some respects unlearn the conventions and rules frees me to be a better photographer and react to the light and the moment when it arrives.


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A Ragged Bluff

9 12 2008

On that day in August I had a feeling of standing looking out at one of the wild places on the Earth.  Pregnant clouds hung in a leadened sky and an icy wind blew in from the South driving the dark waves relentlessly against the sharp rocky outcrops which clawed their way from the sea.  I was witness to a spectacle of nature, a raw and unfettered moment in time and I thought back to Scotland.  I last had a similar feeling standing in the chilly wastes of Glen Coe whilst the tinkling of water running under ice was carried to me on the wind. There a cold wind howled over the highlands and you could almost feel the lost souls of the Campbells and the McDonalds battling still amidst the wild wind-swept heather.

Timing is everything in photography, some might have despaired at arriving at the 12 Apostles in the rain but after seeing how the photos came out I could only rejoice.


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Land’s End

6 12 2008

Title Land’s End
Taken on 25 August 2008
  Cape Otway Lighthouse, Melbourne, Victoria
EXIF f/4.5 1/320 ISO200

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I Love a sunburnt country

24 11 2008

I was asked on another photo-site, what the significance of this picture was; good photograph but what did the sign mean?

The above is a tribute, shot in the Australian Flora and Fauna area of the Melbourne Zoo, to a poem written by 3rd generation Australian poet Dorothea Mackellar called My Country.  The words on the sign, highlighted below are taken from that poem.

My Country

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold -
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Dorothea Mackellar

 More information on Dorothea can be found at the official website.


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Captive Eyes

6 11 2008

Title Captive Eyes
Taken on 4 November 2008
  Melbourne Zoo, Melbourne, Australia
EXIF f/5.6 1/40 ISO100

I have an incredible respect for the conservation effort of zoos around the world as they provide a vital role in the fight to preserve endangered species. My family and I went to the Melbourne Zoo over the weekend to spend a lovely day in the sun and the fresh air. 

Walking past the elephant enclosure I was struck by this framed photo of a female elephant as she leaned against the giant bars of her enclosure; those eyes seemed to have both an air of sadness and bordom in them.   

Born and raised in Africa I have spent a fair bit of my free time in the bush I know just how much space elephants need to roam and the vast distances they can cover in a day. Here this elephant had a space smaller than my house and garden.

My only hope would be that she didn’t ever know the size and freedom of the wide open places of the world before coming to live here.


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Picnic at Hanging Rock

2 11 2008

Title Picnic at Hanging Rock
Taken on 4 August 2008
Hanging Rock, Melbourne, Australia
EXIF f/5 1/1000 ISO250

 

Valentine’s day 1900 a party of schoolgirls from an exclusive private school travel to Hanging Rock in Victoria’s Mount Macedon. Three girls and the teacher climb to the top and mysteriously vanish; one girl is found later with no memory of what happened. What happened at Hanging Rock?


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Dark Rocks

20 09 2008

Title Dark Rocks
Taken on 23.09.2007
  Dullstroom, South Africa
EXIF f/9 1/30 ISO100 Aperture Priority

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Cape Otway Signal Station

1 09 2008

Title Cape Otway Signal Station
Taken on 24 August 2008
  Cape Otway, Melbourne, Australia
EXIF f/8 1/160 ISO200 Aperture Priority

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The Howler

30 08 2008

There is a mixed bag of opinion about what is going on when you lie looking up at clouds floating overhead and see faces and animal shapes in them – you know, by guys in white coats holding little bits of ink-sploched paper who seem very interested in your feelings towards your parents.

Finding shapes in things is something I loved doing as a child, we had a house built up on a hill and I used to lie up on the flat roof with huge empty sky above me and pick out shapes and faces and all sorts of fantastical things. It is still an ability which comes pretty easily, you can’t put me in front of wood-grain or stone without me seeing a menagerie of the imagination hidden there.

Sometimes though you find yourself in places where your imagination can, like a hyperactive 5 year old on too much chocolate, run riot.

The wet dank forests of Southern Victoria are amongst the most beautiful places on earth and they have the most wonderful trees, the one below I call ‘the howler’ tree and even the most underdeveloped imagination can probably pick out the cavernous maw and slitty eyes. If this were Middle Earth I could quite believe that in the dead of night under full moon it would lumber up out of the damp, wet mossy earth perhaps ruminating thoughtfully on any stranger unwise enough to have looked for shelter within the inviting hollow.

Title The Howler
Taken on 25 August 2008
  South Victoria Rainforest, Melbourne, Australia
EXIF f/4.5 1/30 ISO200 Manual

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