Out And About - A Photographic Journal: February 2013

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Rainy Day At Wollongong Harbour

Lesson Learnt: Never underestimate the unpredictability of water and always cover the camera.

My photography teacher Greg Ford, David Mills, Danielle Sheehan and I had our plans thwarted for a sunrise at Sandon Point so we headed off in the rain to see if we could capture some interesting shots at Wollongong Harbour. It was BIG. I farewelled my first DSLR camera, my Canon 60D.

Thinking I could get some great action shots of David and Greg, I took shelter behind what I thought was a safe barricade while they attempted to reach the lighthouse. However, the swell was so large a wave dumped beside me, bounced back up and poured down on both my cameras and left me with water swirling around my legs up to my thighs. My position ( indicated by the arrow) looked safe enough I thought.

I was obviously wrong :-(

It was interesting to watch Greg and David from my so called safe spot. Interesting to compare the two video versions. Can't find any way to make the One True Media (purchased software)video larger while the Slide.ly version (free) is easy to configure but difficult to change slide order . Go figure !!! Can never get exactly what you want

Sandon Point

Lesson reinforced: Try to spend time researching the effect tides have on a location. Check it out on Google earth to ascertain access

Travelled down to Sandon Point with some photo buddies - the aim to capture the sun's early rays beaming onto the old boat sheds.

Unfortunately high tide was approaching and as I couldn't find a space on the sand for my tripod I hurried towards the safety of the steps and amused myself by playing with an inordinately high ISO while I watched the braver trio using the limited time available to lightpaint.

Greg, Dave and Danielle experimenting

View from my safe vantage point

As the water began to rise Dave decided to hop up on the steps as well. This is a pretty crook shot but it's great for reliving the memory.

We weren't content to have our plans thwarted so we headed off for Wollongong Harbour hoping to get some decent shots with the high tide and a good swell . We weren't disappointed. See the results here

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Coledale

Lesson learned: always check the white balance from the shoot before and reset. My white balance had been set for light painting the previous night and most of my shots had an unusual blue hue :-)

I met up with Carolyn, (a fellow member of the Focus Group) who had been camping at Coledale.

Coledale is a small sea-side village approximately 18 kilometres north of Wollongong along the Princes Highway in New South Wales, Australia. It is part of the City of Wollongong and lies between Wombarra and Austinmer. I've not photographed many sunrises - too complicated to explain the reasons - today's exercise was somewhat of a tragedy as I failed to check my camera settings and the white balance was set to tungsten from a previous shoot. Initially I considered rectifying it PP but began to like the blue tones and decided to leave well enough alone. Not to be daunted I have endeavoured to resurrect some memories as best I could.

I've been experimenting with different programs for creating videos. The first is Slide.ly which is a free online creator. One of the advantages is unlimited photos and an option to select a reasonably clean interface. Other options are One True Media which also requires free subscription but has a limit of 30 images on the free version, Roxio Photo Show which supplies a basic show with greater access to sound and styles with premium membership and You Tube which appears to allow unlimited images but makes sound tracks difficult to locate.

Looking down on the camping area at 5.30 a.m