Australia eScape

The following photographs were taken over two trips, one in 1997 using medium format equipment, and in 2003 using large format. These have been cropped in a pseudo-panoramic format to suit the format of a 2006 calendar being produced by a sister company to the one I work for, who are based in Brisbane, Australia, and this wide format is not indicative of the original format used.

To start, down on the southern shores we have the Apostles, a number of rocky towers standing in the ocean, and a subject matter that is often photographed. I really like the soft magic-hour sunset lighting we were lucky to have for this shot.

We visited the Binna Burra Park and Lodge in 2003 and had some great hikes. One day we had intense pea-soup fog for most of the day but it cleared up in the late afternoon in time for the sunset. What was strange about this sunset was it was taken through the smoke from some very large forest fires to the west of us. This caused the strange colours and striations in the clouds.

Also taken in Binna Burra, this set of small waterfalls was quite interesting but since it was taken in highly contrasty forest floor light, it was impossible to do in a single take in colour (it would have been possible in B&W using the zone system and compensating development, but I wanted it in colour). So I shot two different exposures, one for the shadows and one for the highlights, and combined them in Photoshop later. This sort of thing is quite easy to do when shooting digital since pixel-for-pixel aligns dead one, but with scanned film it is not so easy, since one scan can be slightly out by a few pixels over the other when scanning over 5 inches of film -- as I found out.

Bald Rock National Park is south of Giraween National Park (see below). It is a large monolithic dome of granite that sticks up from the floor of the surrounding heavy forest. When climbing, you hike up the dome itself on the bare rock. However, in a few places there are rocky outcrops that have not yet weathered away and the rock face is streaked with mineral deposits creating some beautiful designs. I would like to go back here in late afternoon magic hour sometime in the future (this was taken in harsh midday sun)

Carnarvan Gorge National Park is more into the interior of Australia and is a nice place to hike. If you stay in the park, you can rent a "cabin" that is a tent structure over a sold base. The night we were there there was a quite a thunderstorm moving through -- we did not get any rain worth mentioning but the light show was quite something, and the walls of the tent did not really hinder the sound of the thunder. It sounded like you were right inside the storm. These pools were fairly still and had pretty good reflections.

Giraween National Park is well known for it's kangaroos, which come out to feed in the early morning and late afternoon. I shot this in both B&W and colour. While the colour is nice, the Roos were not cooperating at all at that moment. When I changed to B&W, I got one shot with a number of t Roos suddenly interested in me. This was shot on large format using the 450 mm Nikkor lens and has also turned out well as a Palladium print.

Giraween had recently gone through a large forest fire (they were quite bad in 2003 in Australia). At the time we were visiting, the cicadas were hatching in their 14 year cycle. These adult cicadas were the largest I have seen, being about 7-9 cm long. There were millions of them and their mating calls were deafening. I got a couple of interesting shots of their molting shells against the burnt wood of trees, which I will post at another time. We followed a stream quite far back into the park and came across many interesting rock shapes and pools, with mineral deposits as shown here on many rock faces.

The Great Sandy area up north of Brisbane has some interesting vegetation. We came across numerous examples of tree roots that had been exposed by water action on the side of lakes. This led to some dramatic shots which worked well in B&W. Unfortunately the sky was overcast in a featureless bright neutral colour, so there was no texture at all up there. This would be really nice on a sunny day with puffy cumulous clouds, or with a real stormy dark sky. Maybe next time . . . .

Hellhole Gorge is a side canyon off from Carnarvan Gorge. It has a relatively short path before it ends, but there is interesting red algae deposits in the streams that flow over the rock which contrast nicely with the intense greens of the vegetation.

Well, it is Australia. This cuddly little teddy bear gives a visual impression that is totally unlike real life. The sounds these critters make with their mating calls is unearthly. Hearing this guy call in the distance, I really thought we had disturbed a wild boar who was going to charge us ! It was a relief to find out it was only this guy.

Back in Brisbane this year, I was attending a conference at the Port of Brisbane Conference Center. During lunch break I wandered around looking at the immense quantities of birds in the marshy areas, including these Pelicans. There were probably over 50 of these guys (but not all in photogenic spots) as well as a supporting cast of hundreds other birds.

The Fig trees, including the Strangler Figs, and common in Australia. They send down aerial roots which become supporting structures when they hit dirt. This was a particularly interesting specimen in a dark area in the forest. This was a 1 minute exposure with N-1 development to help control the excessive contrast. This was taken in one of the parks on Mount Tambourine, near Brisbane.

Back in the Great Sandy area, this is another example of the Fig tree, in this case with a very large open root system due to shoreline erosion over the years. I do not think this shot was used in the calendar.

And finally, we were driving along the Murray Highway in the northern park of Victoria State, and came across this area beside the highway which had man y dead trees scattered all over the valley floor. This area is prone to flooding due to irrigation dams and thus all the skeletons. With the right storm clouds, this could be a very spooky spot to spend quite a bit of time shooting.

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