Construction at Powlett River
The construction of the controversial desalination plant near the mouth of the Powlett River has yielded a temporary point of interest for photographers.
A large platform has been placed offshore to assist with the construction of the required underwater pipeline.
Although not the most beautiful structure in the world, it acts as a nice point of interest for an otherwise potentially boring background.
I’m in no way a supporter of this project but I decided to take advantage of the platform while it’s there and took a series of images from the spot where the Powlett River meets the ocean.
The idea behind the images was to use the lines created by running water and rock edges to draw the viewer into the scene towards the platform in the background. The images were taken in bright mid afternoon light using strong ND filtering to enable the exposures to be long enough to blur the water.
Below – Platform One
Below – Platform Two
Below – Platform Three
Below – Mouth of the Powlett – Looking north-west across the mouth to the sand dunes, the waves crashing onto the rocks in the foreground just appear as mist due to the long exposure time.
Below – a couple of experimental panoramic shots of the river and dunes.
Exploring Ricketts Point, Beaumaris, Port Phillip Bay
Ricketts Point is a marine sanctuary located south east of Melbourne in Port Phillip Bay. When viewed from the land it’s an unremarkable looking series of sandstone rock platforms. Apparently under the waterline the platforms support a great diversity of flora and fauna.
When viewed from a land-based photographer’s perspective the area looks pretty ordinary during bright daylight hours.
Towards the evening the area becomes more attractive as it provides an unobstructed view of the setting sun and also provides some foreground interest in the form of waves swirling around rocks at the edge of the platforms.
This provides a good opportunity to catch some nice long exposure images.
Prior to the sun setting, the rocky platforms serve as a meeting place for several species of birds. Amongst them are a very tolerant group of pelicans. They don’t seem to mind people getting relatively close to them here which provides a nice opportunity for bird watchers and photographers.
To the tip of Cape Liptrap
Cape Liptrap is located on Victoria’s south east coastline overlooking Bass Strait.
On the high ground just back from the pointy end of the cape sits the Cape Liptrap lighthouse.
Below – “Warrior of the Dark” available as a print here.
Below – “Night’s Witness” is available as a print here.
If you enjoy real excitement, and don’t mind a bit of exercise, it’s worthwhile to jump the fence at the lighthouse and walk/slide your way out to the pointed cliff.
Peering over the edge of the cliff you’re greeted by an amazing rockscape being pounded by the violent waves of Bass Strait. The scene is captivating but I wouldn’t recommend it if you have a real fear of heights.
Below “Vertigo – Over the Edge” available as a print here.
Below – a friend perched on the edge of the cliff enjoying the scenery and of course taking some shots.
Grantville – the pie and pier photography tour.
My excursions are never entirely about the photography. Often they’re about the escape, ….often they’re about self exploration, …….every now and then they might even result in a nice photographic image. Well, nice to me anyhow. 🙂
On previous visits to Grantville I’ve tended to concentrate on trying to capture an inspiring image or two from the mangroves dotted along the coast here. The mangroves are a fairly easy target for photography purposes. At high tide it’s possible to visually isolate them between the water and the sky which works to simplify the image by excluding potentially distracting background elements. On calm days the water can also act as a fantastic mirror for capturing reflections, particularly when doing long exposures.
This particular visit to Grantville was all about capturing the pier though, so here it is.
In the black and white image above I’ve deliberately over exposed the image to blow out the sky and increase the contrast between the pier and the background. I personally like the contrasty result here, but I know this style of image is not everyone’s cup of tea.
Pictured below – “The First Days of Sun” which is available to purchase as a print here.
This image from the pier was created from 3 exposures using HDR tone mapping techniques to maintain details in both the bright sky and the dark shadows.
Pictured below – “The Promise of Warm Days” which is available to purchase as a print here.
Another 3 exposure HDR shot converted to black and white and processed with a bit of dodging and burning in Photoshop.
Now for some serious business. I’ve discovered that the cafe on the corner of the Bass Hwy and Grantville Glen Alvie Road in Grantville sells excellent homemade meat pies made with flaky puff pastry. The coffee is pretty good there too.
(Disclaimer – I have no connection with this cafe at all, I just enjoyed the pie so much I felt the need to share it with you.)
The Beauty of Polly McQuinn’s Weir, Strathbogie.
The picturesque Polly McQuinn’s Weir is well sign posted and located a few kilometers south-west of Strathbogie, Victoria, Australia.
The weir features a spillway where water streams over a concrete wall and onto large exposed granite boulders.
The water then continues snaking around more boulders before flowing under a road bridge then traversing a gently sloped granite plateau before reaching a deep pool surrounded by native vegetation.
There are many opportunities here for the keen photographer.
Below – A long exposure of water cascading over the spillway wall and onto granite boulders beneath.
Below – Looking back towards the spillway wall, water flows rapidly over and around granite boulders on it’s way downstream.
Below – In the days preceding my visit to the weir the area had received heavy rainfall.
I suspect this caused lot of the brown silt present in the water. This caused an interesting effect in the water with the deeper sections of the flow taking on a brownish tinge and the shallow sections appearing bluish during long exposure shots.
Below – The view from the bottom of the spillway looking downstream.
The silted water runs rapidly under the road bridge.
Below – “Polly’s Overflow” – Looking upstream from the pool, the water traverses a gentle granite plateau then strikes some foreground boulders whipping the water into a frenzy before it finally enters the tranquility of the pool. This image is available to buy as a print at my Zazzle and RedBubble sites.
Below – “In Search of Polly”
Apparently the weir was named after a young woman called Polly McQuinn who drowned here more than 100 years ago. Legend has it that the ghost of Polly can sometimes be heard calling for help from passer by.
Unfortunately I didn’t hear Polly on the day I was here.
West – along the coast
Following is a short series of seascape images taken on a recent trip along the Victorian/South Australian coastline.
Below – The Great Ocean Road – just south of Lorne, Victoria, Australia.
Notice the skid marks on the road at the bend, …this road is a popular tourist route attracting visitors from all over the world.
Some of these visitors unfortunately forget that we drive on the left side of the road in Australia. This causes all sorts of drama.
Below – Along the Edge – A view of the incoming storm from the lookout at Glenaire, Victoria, Australia.
Below – Bay of Martyrs – A long exposure image from down on the beach at the Bay of Martyrs, on the Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia. I was attracted by the unusual shapes that the ocean had managed to create with the foreground rocks here.
Below – Storm at Port Campbell Pier – a long exposure image made during a stormy morning at Port Campbell pier. This pier really has quite a hard life being continually hammered by waves from the open ocean.
Below – Johanna’s Morn – The morning sun starts to warm the sands of Johanna beach, Victoria, Australia.
Below – Her Deceptive Charm – A long exposure image from Cape Northumberland in South Australia.
The waves were really ripping into the rocks here, …….although the image looks deceptively calm due to the long exposure time.
Below – At Ocean’s Edge – On the beach at Cape Northumberland, South Australia.
Abandoned, dilapidated, derelict, decayed and once loved.
Following is a collection of farmhouse images taken on a trip through western Victoria and South Australia.
Initially I intended to take a lot of seascape images on this trip but the rain and sheer cliffs along the Great Ocean Road often conspired against me.
As the journey progressed I found myself becoming more interested in the landscape including the many vacant derelict buildings scattered along the way.
Below – “Shambles” – A deserted farmhouse at Byaduk North, Victoria, Australia.
Below – “Out the Back” Byaduk North, Victoria, Australia.
Below – “The Love Shack” – Found along the road north of Port Fairy, Victoria, Australia.
There is also a colour version of the Love Shack here.
Below – “Spiders n’ Snakes” – an abandoned house along the roadside in Puralka, Victoria, Australia.
Below – “Cottage in the Vineyard” Padthaway Heritage Cottage (Front) near Bordertown, South Australia.
Below – “Backdoor to the Vineyard” Padthaway Heritage Cottage (Rear) overlooking the vineyard, near Bordertown, South Australia.
Down amongst the Mangroves, Westernport Bay.
You certainly have to admire the hardiness of the Mangrove tree.
It thrives in poor quality soil in tidal areas, and twice a day has it’s roots submerged in salty sea water. Under storm conditions the Mangrove is battered by both wind and waves yet it still manages to hold firmly.
The Mangrove tree is also an interesting subject from a photographer’s perspective. At high tide with the roots submerged it’s fairly easy to photographically isolate the subject from it’s surroundings by using a long exposure time to smooth any waves around it’s base and blur any clouds in the sky.
Below – TimeKeeper
Below – The Risen
Below – Approaching the Forest
At low tide the Mangrove tree has it’s roots exposed creating potentially a new subject of interest for the photographer. The long roots are often intertwined with each other giving the impression of writhing serpents (perhaps that’s just my imagination running wild).
Below – The Serpent Tree
Below – Wild n’ Woolly a long exposure with the roots exposed and the leaves thrashing around in the wind.
Below – On Borrowed Time the same tree as above but at high tide.
Trestle Bridge Encounters.
Whilst on a recent photography tour of eastern Victoria I encountered a couple of old wooden trestle railway bridges, …….and who can resist a good bridge!
The Stony Creek trestle bridge (pictured above) is located at Nowa Nowa in Victoria’s south east.
Apparently this is the largest standing bridge of it’s kind in Victoria, measuring 247 meters long and standing 20 meters high. The bridge was made in 1916 and remained in service for over 60 years until it was damaged by bushfire in 1980.
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The two images below were taken at the trestle bridge in Mt Lawson state park, in Victoria’s north east.
The high timber bridge which was built around 1915 spans Boggy Creek and formed part of the now disused Wodonga – Cudgewa railway line.
The view from above –
The view from below –
Incorporating HDR tonemapping techniques with long exposures
The following images were experiments using HDR tone mapping techniques combined with the effects of long exposure times.
Each image was constructed from at least 3 separate exposures using in-camera auto exposure bracketing. In my case, being a Canon shooter, I used 3 exposures of -2,0 and +2 simply for convenience. I believe Nikon shooters have a bit more flexibility in this area.
The images were all taken during daylight hours so it was necessary to use some heavy ND filtering in order to increase the exposure times and achieve a nice misty look to the water. In my case I used an ND400 and an ND8 filter stacked together to achieve this.
With the camera set to aperture priority mode I adjusted the aperture and filter combination (sometimes removing the ND8) to achieve an exposure of 8 seconds. When the shutter button is depressed the camera would then give me 3 exposures at 8 seconds, 2 seconds and 30 seconds (which is close enough to 0,-2 and +2). My particular camera doesn’t let me expose for longer than 30 seconds unless I go to bulb mode and use a remote timer, so out of laziness I tend to limit many of my exposures to 30 seconds. 🙂
The exposures were then combined and tonemapped using HDR software and tweaked in Photoshop to achieve the end result.
Despite all of this sounding a bit technical it’s really quite simple and I encourage you to try it. The results are often very rewarding.
BELOW – Jurassic Afternoon – Sunlight and waves break through a slit in the prehistoric Pinnacles rock formation on Phillip Island.
BELOW – The Mist of St.Pauls – A long exposure at St. Pauls beach, Sorrento, Victoria, Australia.
BELOW – Prehistoria – An image from The Pinnacles, at Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia.
BELOW – Swimming with Dinosaurs – Down amongst the prehistoric Pinnacles rock formations at Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia.
Addicted to the Ocean
A snapshot of a fellow RedBubble photographer catching “last light” at Blairgowrie beach.
A Black and White Journey to Grantville Beach
The following two images were taken at Grantville which is located on the eastern side of Westernport Bay, Victoria, Australia.
Low tide at the Grantville beach exposes a huge expanse of fine silty mud dotted with clusters of mangrove trees. On the day I was there the sky was filled with bright swirling clouds so I incorporated them into the photos as an added point of interest. Originally I envisioned capturing the scenes with a featureless blue sky but nature has a way of changing plans. 🙂
I’m been told by several people that the first photo below contains a face in the clouds, and ever since it’s been pointed out to me I see it every time I view the image.
There’s a word for this, ….and the word is pareidolia.
Out on the rock shelves
The following three images were taken on an excursion to the rock shelves of Montforts beach, in Blairgowrie.
It’s an interesting place to be during the transition from high to low tide, as the water on the expansive rocky plateaus cascades over the sides on it’s return to the ocean.
Whilst here it’s important to be aware of which way the tide is going and also keep an eye out for occasional large rogue waves that sweep across the shelves. Prepare to get wetter than you expected here.
The image below was taken at the neighboring Sorrento beach.
It’s a long exposure taken after sunset giving the oceans surface a deceptively calm and smooth appearance.
Light and Time at my Ocean Beach
A selection of images taken from two excursions to Sorrento beach.
Return to Primal is a long exposure taken after sunset. The true motion of the waves disguised by the slow shutter speed.
High Tide Sphinx is a slow(ish) exposure taken at high tide as the sun was setting behind the Sphinx rock formation at Sorrento beach, Australia.
Life in the Good Pond is a slow(ish) exposure taken at sunset. A polarizing filter was used to take the reflection off the surface of the rock pool allowing the scene below the surface to become visible. The blurring on the water was caused by the wind rippling the surface.
I Peek Around the Corner is another image from Sorrento where a polarizing filter was used to remove the unwanted reflection of the sky from the surface of the water enabling us to see the wonder below. In the distance on the horizon the Sphinx rock formation is visible.
Around the Sorrento Sphinx
These images were taken while visiting the Sphinx rock formation at Sorrento beach.
It was quite a windy day causing a lot of ripples on the surface of the rock pools so I used a long exposure (several seconds) to smooth them out and make the ripples disappear.
Dusk at Sorrento ocean beach – some long exposures
A series of long exposures taken at Sorrento beach, Australia.
A storm rolls over Port Phillip Bay
Following are 3 images taken yesterday at Ricketts Point, Beaumaris, as a storm rolled across the bay.
The apparent power and turbulence of the clouds in the sky is mirrored by the motion and ferocity of the water. It was an invigorating place to be.
The Chant of the Pulpit
A seascape image from Cape Schanck in Victoria, Australia.
The image features the well known landmark Pulpit Rock as incoming waves rush across the surface of the surrounding rocky platforms.
The Chant of the Pulpit.
The Edge
Gum trees growing precariously close to a cliff edge in western Victoria, Australia.
I was attracted to this scene by the trees silhouetted against the bright cloudy sky and of course the dead limbs in the foreground.
Stranded
This image was taken at Beaumaris beach, Victoria, Australia.
Walking along the beach at sunset was a hazardous proposition as sand was littered with the stranded bodies of hundreds of jellyfish. Poor things!
This shot taken with the Lumix LX3.
Tempest over the Ocean – Blairgowrie
This is a reworked version of one of my first images posted to Redbubble. I’ve finally had time to tweak it the way I way I like it.
It was a taken on the beach at Blairgowrie as a storm was rolling in from the ocean. It was an amazing storm to see, …dark swirling clouds, lightning, halos formed by the sun shining through sheets of rain, ….marvelous stuff !
Tempest over the Ocean – Blairgowrie
Tempest over the Ocean is available as a high quality print at my Zazzle and RedBubble websites.
Visiting Silverband Falls, the Grampians.
Image taken at the Silverband Falls, in the Grampians, Victoria, Australia.
Deep in the Woods
Fog blows across an otherwise sunny section of Mt.Difficult Road near Halls Gap, Australia.
This image is available as a quality print here.
Dance of the Silken White
This image was taken from the banks of the Toorongo river, near Noojee, Australia.
It’s a wonderful lush place to visit, it’s only real downside being the local leeches.
This image is available to purchase as a high quality print here.
Spellbound – a Blairgowrie sunset
A sunset at Blairgowrie ocean beach, Australia.
This image is available to purchase as a high quality print here.
The Last Post – a Sorrento sunset
End of day at Sorrento beach, Australia.
This image is available to purchase as a print here.
The Shudder of the Touch.
A glorious sunset taken at Sorrento ocean beach, Australia.
This photo is available as a print here.
West of Mind
A monochrome HDR image taken at Blairgowrie beach, Australia.
The sun struggles through gathering storm clouds.
This image is available to purchase as a print here.
Exploring the Kilcunda trestle rail bridge
Some HDR tonemapped images of the Kilcunda trestle rail bridge, Australia.
There’s a wikipedia page for Kilcunda here.
Space Time in Reflection
An HDR seascape sunset taken at Blairgowrie ocean beach.
This image is available to purchase as a print here.
Photography by Jim Worrall 