Sunrise at Cow Bay, Far North Queensland

Hello everyone,

Good heavens, it's been a while since I last posted anything here! I promise it won't be as long until my next post. In fact, I suspect I'll be posting rather a lot over the next few weeks, as I've just been on a holiday and have some lovely pics to share...

The pictures below were taken at Cow Bay Beach in far north Queensland, where I just spent a couple of days with my parents and brother, who were over from Europe to come and visit me in Australia. It's a gorgeous little beach, and I was lucky to be able to shoot this gorgeous sunrise there.

Apart from straightening the horizons, removing the borders and adding a watermark, I did not edit these photos in any way. I considered removing the sun flares from the second and third photos, but decided against it as I actually rather like them. I didn't do anything to change the colours, either; the funky colours are due to shooting with the John S camera, which gives photos a lovely green hue.



And just half a minute later, it looked like this...



And then the sun disappeared behind a huge cloud, not to be seen again for several hours...

Cow Bay Beach, Queensland, Australia, 2013
iPhone 4s + Hipstamatic (John S + Pistil)

Linked to Skywatch Friday

Long exposures of the same sunrise taken with my regular camera will follow later...

Light Shining Through Leaves... Again

I thought I'd try my hand at a black-and-white version of the leaves photo I posted the other day. I rather like the result myself...

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 2013
Nikon D300 + Sigma 17-70mm 1:2.8-4.5

Cross-posted to The Weekend in Black and White and Catching the Light

Wide Open Beach

My lace umbrella on Deadman's Beach, Stradbroke Island. It's been nearly a year since I took this photo, and the umbrella still smells of sun, sea and sand...

As peaceful as the photo may look, its taking was anything but. Just seconds after I'd pressed the shutter, a gale blew the umbrella across the beach, very nearly into the surf. I had to run very hard to retrieve it and may or may not have let out a few shrieks of anguish in the process. I'm sure I made quite a spectacle of myself on the beach that day!

Stradbroke Island, Queensland, Australia, 2012
Holga 120 CFN + cross-processed Fuji Provia 100F

Linked to 52 Photos Project and Weekly Top Shot

Experimenting with Another Hipstamatic Lens in Oamaru, New Zealand

A while ago I mentioned that I was having fun trying out all the different Hipstamatic lenses, films and flashes on my iPhone. For those who don't know, Hipstamatic is a photo app that allows you to take square photos with all sorts of funky effects, ranging from mildly vintage to downright demented. It differs from apps such as Instagram, Snapseed and Camera Plus in that you have to pick your effects beforehand; you can't edit your photos once you've taken them (not unless you export them to an editing programme first). Needless to say, this gives you limited control over the finished product, which can be frustrating. With practice, though, you'll learn which combinations work for you, and when to use these combinations to their best effect. And in the meantime you'll have a lot of fun exploring the myriad possibilities!

One of the first Hipstamatic lenses I explored, several months ago now, was the Kaimal Mark II, which I used (in combination with Ina's 1969 film) on a quick stroll through the lovely old town of Oamaru, New Zealand. As I soon discovered, the Kaimal Mark II lens turns your pictures red, unless you use it in combination with some funky colour gel (I've had interesting results using Kaimal Mark II + Float + Cadet Blue Gel). Truth be told, I'm not crazy about the red cast of these photos, nor about the yellowish frames that come with Ina's 1969 film, so I doubt I'll use this particular combination again. That said, I do like these quick pics from Oamaru. As snapshots go, they're OK, I think.



Zebra crossing. I can never resist a combination of geometrical patterns and words.



Hearts carved into a door leading to an artist's studio.



The coolest number plate we came across in New Zealand.



Oamaru, where heritage tourism is big business, is one of few places in the world where you can still ride nineteenth-century penny-farthings. This is not a penny-farthing, obviously, but it has a nice old look to it...



Oamaru, South Island, New Zealand, 2012
iPhone 4s + Hipstamatic (Kaimal Mark II + Ina's 1969)

Linked to Ruby Tuesday

Light Shining Through Leaves

Over the last few weeks, I've been looking with considerable envy at pictures taken by European and North American photographers -- pictures of winter trees, frost-covered leaves, etc. Sadly, we don't get a lot of frost here in subtropical Queensland, least of all in summer. One thing we do get, however, is beautiful light, and that's exactly what caught my eye as I strolled through the Brisbane Botanical Garden late one afternoon in search of pictures. Isn't this glorious light?




Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 2013
Nikon D300 + Sigma 17-70mm 1:2.8-4.5


Linked to Our World Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday and NF Blo-Ma

Swampy Sunset

A few days ago I spent a late afternoon at Victoria Point, another coastal town near Brisbane. I was looking for a photogenic mangrove tree that was supposed to be there, a little off the beach in the salty water of the South Pacific Ocean, but to no avail; no matter how far I waded into the mudflats, I couldn't find the tree. This was all the more frustrating because the sunset was pretty good that night, and I would have loved to photograph the tree against the backdrop of a colourful sky. Alas, it wasn't to be...

So instead of photographing a mangrove, I ended up taking pictures of a boat moored in shallow water. You know, just to have some foreground object to go with my colourful sky...



Though I didn't take any pictures of it, the most amazing thing about the sand flat pictured in these photos was the number of pointy, cone-shaped seashells in it. See those dark little blobs in the sand? Those are cone shells. There were literally thousands of them. If you're ever in need of cone shells, Victoria Point is clearly the place to go... (Just be aware that the creatures residing inside these shells are extremely smelly when they start decomposing. Pick empty shells or you'll regret it. Trust me on this.)



Victoria Point, Queensland, Australia, 2013
Nikon D300 + Sigma 17-70mm 1:2.8-4.5 + Manfrotto tripod

Linked to Skywatch Friday

Experimenting with Retro Camera's Barbl Camera

Hello, blog friends, and Happy New Year to all of you! Here's hoping 2013 will be happy and healthy and full of pleasant surprises, photographic or otherwise.

I was hoping to finish the old year with a bit of a retrospective, but two things conspired to keep me from doing so: (1) I had an important 1 January deadline, and (2) I got sucked into the unholy vortex that is Instagram. Between the two, I didn't get round to doing a lot of the things I'd planned for the last few months of the year, including spending more time here, but that's OK. The main thing is that I submitted my assignment on time and that I'm fairly pleased with the work I did. Hopefully, my client will be satisfied enough to send more assignments my way...

The new year has got off to a somewhat frustrating start for me, photographically speaking, in that I missed out on both of the magnificent sunsets we've had so far, due to being completely in the wrong spot at the time. To add insult to injury, on the two occasions I made the long trek to a photogenic spot for some serious sunset photography, the sunsets were utterly dire. Here's hoping the weekend's photography excursions will be blessed with more colourful skies...





I've done a little experimenting over the last few days. I've bought several phone camera apps lately, and I'm slowly working my way through the functions they offer. Mainly, I've been trying new Hipstamatic lenses and films (more on that in a separate post), but I also bought an app called Retro Camera, which offers six different cameras, each with a distinctive style, colour scheme and border. Some of the cameras produce Polaroid-style photos, while others mimic the effects of pinhole and Holga cameras, replete with funky colours, scratches, vignettes, etc. There's even a camera that adds sprockets to your photos!

So far, the only Retro Camera camera I've tried is the Bärbl, which is meant to mimic the effects of a 1950s East German camera. It strongly desaturates shots. The stronger your silhouette, the less colour your photo will have.

All the pictures in this post were taken with the Bärbl camera. I'm quite pleased with the results. I'd say this is a decent camera to use when your subject has strong lines, but less so if you're photographing less distinct subjects.



The only thing I don't like about Retro Camera, so far, is the output resolution. All the pictures come out at 512 x 512px, at 72ppi. That's OK for snapshots, but you really don't want to be taking any important photos with this app. Stick to Hipstamatic or Camera Plus for that. Or your SLR, obviously.





I look forward to checking out the five other Retro Camera cameras. I suspect I'll be doing a lot of iPhone photography over the next few weeks... and a lot of regular photography, too, for that matter. I have a few sunset and sunrise long-exposure shoots on the coast lined up...

Wellington Point / Brisbane, Australia, 2013
iPhone + Retro Camera + Bärbl camera