Tag Archives: photography

Darling Harbour

Darling Harbour has come such a long way from what I remembered of it in the late 80s. That pink shopping centre chic on one side and the aquarium way over on the otherside are almost lost in the vibrancy of buzz going on. I remember grandma at the aquarium (way back when) going to each of the exhibits in turn saying (in Chinese): “that one’s nice, that one’s nice, that one’s delicious, that one’s nice…”

A ferry terminal from which to do a round trip to Circular Quay via Cockatoo Island, and more restaurants and cafes than you can poke a bread stick at, my favourite discovery was a gelateria next to Imax which served black sesame gelato. Not quite as nice as the ones we had in Kyoto, but still very yummy.

A walk all the way dorn Sussex Street to Chinatown to find some dinner, I was disappointed at the vibe of the street and mall offerings, so ended up going up into a food court and getting some Japanese from there. Which was all the more disappointing for its gooey tofu and half cooked gummy over garliced gyoza. From another stall I’d hoped for a bubblecup but got an oversweet lychee tea with stodgy pearls in it. Good thing I had a kilometre to walk the experience off.

Sydney CBD

Having finished my meetings for the day, I decided to get some air so grabbed the camera & went for a bit of a stroll. The Four Points Sheraton at Darling Harbour (which does an absolutely gorgeous seafood buffet) was a pretty location, but all the moreso as the room I had faced a multistoried carpark and traffic as opposed to the (soon discovered) Darling Harbour itself.

I discovered from one of the local attendees that a Banksy and others exhibition was being held at Cockatoo Island, so thought I’d do a recce do find where and when to catch a ferry. First stop, I zigged instead of zagged and ended up in Sydney’s CBD so took the opportunity to have a look around. It was only upon reviewing the pics that Anna pointed out they were a bit Jeffrey Smart…

Geelong photoshoot

A meeting of diaries finally coincided that I could catch my good mate Kev, and have a bit of fun with his new D5100. It has an amazingly fast and responsive focus typical of most modern DSLRs. We played with a variety of lenses, from the stock 18-55mm to my 18-200mm workhorse, the 35mm f1.8 and the 85mm micro. I used both of my D300s and D70 bodies, but had completely forgotten that I’d whacked the D70’s ISO setting to its maximum of 1600 which gave a very noisy/grainy finish to all of my day’s shots. An easy enough beginner’s mistake… The D5100 like the D300s laugh at an ISO of 1600, but I was trying to make the old D70 feel not too unloved.

Kingston SE

Not to be especially confused, but there are apparently 2 (if not more) towns called Kingston. The one we want is Kingston SE, home of the big lobster. We were initially sad as the lobster season was over a month away, however as it turned out, they’d started early so we had a delicious seafood lunch from the little shop by the pier.

Cape Jaffa was a revelation as the last time we were down that way, there was no marina as such (just wee scale models, and posters of happy families pointing skywards to the future). Stage 1 looked completed, but were it not for Cape Jaffa being so far from practically anything (and possibly also the economic downturn), it would otherwise be a booming place.

Having found the beaches of Little Dip, we thought we’d make a return visit to get some proper sunset pics.

Little Dip Conservation Park

It’s with a little irony that the conservation park around the corner from our accomodation is protected from all things, except for 4WD vehicles. We noticed on a walk that the erosional damage in some places was almost a metre deep. Still, we have to draw arbitrary lines somewhere…

Our (my) concern was getting back in the dark after some sunset photography, particularly as the clouds looked especially rainy.

Robe Holiday

We find Robe the perfect place to go for a break, it’s nicely far away but not too far & usually bereft of the fordes that make holidaying a bit unbearable. A stop at Penola was a revelation as the town was buzzing. Partly due to a long weekend, but also the anniversary of Mary McKillop. The town’s a lot more alive than I remembered from previous visits.

Robe itself is fairly central to Kingston (mmm Lobsters), Mt Gambier, Coonawarra (mmm wine), and the Limestone Coast (mmm more wine). I also find it an ironic place for a person of Chinese descent to go given its goldrush era history.

Photoessay 2

My original idea was to do a bit of a joke photo essay to do with woodwork. Start with a tree, use much machinery, and end up with toothpicks. Not sure if the joke got through. The challenge with this shoot was to be both photographer and subject. Juggling a camera remote and high speed power tools not quite OHS. At least I wasn’t planking.

Landscape shoot

A blustery wet day was scheduled for our class’s photoshoot down at the Breakwater in Warrnambool. Wet miserable days are not a natural fit for going outside, but I’d have to say that I had a heap of fun.

I think having the gear around took the concentration off myself, so that instead of worrying that fingers were losing circulation, I was more worried about keeping the seaspray away from my D300s. And instead of worrying about my head getting wet, I was worried about rain getting on my D300s. And instead of worrying about hypothermia, I was worried about using the last of my bodyheat to keep the battery of my D300s warm enough to keep shooting.

Paranoia comes from a lifetime of destryoing cameras by dropping them in the ocean, leaving them on the sandy beachtowel, and other such unrecoverable abuses. The D300s bears my deathgrip.

One thing I especially appreciated was having half a dozen other shooters there with gear so that I didn’t quite feel the photodork. Other than raindrops on the lensfilter, and smears from me trying to clean the raindrops off the lensfilter, I got a few decent shots. I think. I used Shutter priority and slowed the speed down through the meter until the aperture got down to around f22. Tripod and cable release of course.

Photo essay 1

One of our assignments for our level 2 DSLR course was to come up with a phot essay. After much mulling over something completely different, an opportunity came up to photograph an uncle who is involved with The Warbirds at Ardmore airbase http://www.nzwarbirds.org.nz/contact.html. A particular difficulty was the final shot where I wanted to capture one or more small children running around.

Difficult for not having access to small children but also for my going around asking people if they had small children of a certain age that I could borrow for a few hours to photograph!

Hong Kong Airport

I don’t think any airport is a good place to get stuck at for any duration of time. Fortunately for us, the efficiency of the system meant that we had minimal waiting time.

Time to soak in the last of our travel days, and check out any last minute souvenirs. Time to catch our collective breaths before heading back to the ‘reality’ of work.

The fast train took about 20 minutes to get from CBD to airport. No time at all compared with the hour long bus ride we had on arrival.

The air quality had not cleared, but did give an opportunity to snap some surreal sunset shots. The gantry reflections in the windows appear quite post apocalyptic anime