New Website!

I have started a new website and although I'm not sure how it will go I thought I'd try anyway. I may be giving this blog a break from uploading in the meantime. Please feel free to visit and have a browse.

The above is my home page at http://beanoutback.redbubble.com/

or you can browse the Redbubble site (a lot of people have some great art on it) from http://www.redbubble.com/people/beanoutback - any comments/ideas etc can be left here and are always appreciated.

or simply:

http://www.redbubble.com/

Joey

This is a low quality jpeg that I have also placed on www.flickr.com/photos/beanoutback I am deciding if Fickr loses some of the colour when uploading. There again maybe it's just my eyes.

Tangello Growth

I've been mucking about with some black and white. I have found things print out very differently - more so than colour sometimes. The added grain on this one is much more subtle when printed out. Still I will try other things and see what happens.

This one below looks better on screen - but hey now I'm not even sure if I like the picture at all!

Long-tailed Finch (Possibly)



I was testing my cheap 70-300mm f4.5 lens. It cost me AU$110 and is a disgusting silver plastic. It does produce some sharpt shots though. I am told this is a Long-tailed Finch.

Reflect

I'm not sure why I like this one. It's quirky and the colours were incredible. I believe there is a fresh water croc if you look very hard!

Watching

A freshie - it very kindly appeared in the sunlit water. Although I did have to gut the fish I caught elsewhere

Tree Reflections

Taken in Kununurra. I called it Tree reflections because...

Swirl

Experimenting with background flash. This ended up being harder than I thought. There again it might have helped if I knew what I was doing!

Mist


I cannot do landscape photography! So this is a 'snapshot' on the way to work one morning.

Web



I still need to crop this so the web isn't in the middle. This was testing out a cheap 70-300mm lens.

Morning Grass

Smashing Pretzel.


An experiment into 'high-speed' shots. This was one shot from over 80. The mess was pretty impressive!
(This jpeg version looks a tad over-sharp since it was converted from a tiff print out version)

Three's a crowd.

Caper butterflies mating on our caper bush. These are three of about a million (give or take one or two)!

Eastern Macs towards Ross River

This is an old photo that was very boring and incorectly exposed, composed etc etc. I've been doing tutorials in photoshop to see if any improvement can be made. The advantage of RAW files is having all that original data that can be 'enhanced/fiddled/tweaked' with. It might be too much really in this picture but if I had a good landcape photo (not my area really) then it wouldn't need tweaking in the first place.

'Peewee' nest in Lemon Gum

I just noticed this peewee nest in our Lemon Gum. This is a female.

(Magpie-lark. Scientific name: Grallina cyanoleuca)

Apparently they can defend their nest against humans quite well. This could be interesting since it's a few metres from our back veranda. For more info go here: http://birdsinbackyards.net/species/Grallina-cyanoleuca

'One more pickup'

Melbourne Botanical Gardens

MCG at Sunrise

Just spent a few days in Melbourne and this was the view one morning from our hotel. Balloons over The Melbourne Cricket Ground. Melbourne went on to have a 43 degree day that day.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!


Testing out studio flash sync options with this mask I had stuffed away. I'm hoping to get some kind of bright white background soon. I've tried sheets etc and they work but I want it to be a bit brighter without having to do too much post processing.
(There's supposed to be some marbly blue in the black but it hasn't really come through).

Lookout

Spotted this lizard (still looking up name) running around on its hind legs until it stopped here.

Dried Flowers
The problem with dried flowers are that they don't have much 'life' in them (if you see what I mean). I have problems getting the little colours there are to show well. I'm also trying to find the right compositions to show curves/structure of the object. I can't help but look at these and think there's something missing. All part of the challenge I suppose.

Some snapshots from walking back from feeding the chooks. Sun had almost gone so I was using flash (with exception to the Lemon Gum).

Lemon Gum Bark



Bark from our Lemon Gum tree. I did some others but the bark can look scarily like human skin. That's mother nature for you.

Tilt-shift model attempt.


My attempt at tilt-shift photography. It seems though that some people see it and others don't. I suppose it is a form of optical illusion.

LEGO Laughs

Bit out of focus this one (more of a test shot really) and it's the non-macro lens. I think there may be a few more Lego shots. Highlights from the plastic can pose a problem. By the way I've named him Cecil. (The Lego man not the dead bug)
This was also taken with the older camera and dust spots are visible on the sensor. The Nikon D70 doesn't have an internal sensor cleaner and I've been a bit lazy to clean it manually.

Pre-loved

Old mug I found lying around. Tried black and white conversion (with some adjustment to the yellow) and also wanted to add a bit of noise otherwise it just looked like a tatty mug. Now it looks like a tatty mug with noise. The more I look at my pictures the more critical I get. I'll close my eyes now.

Old but never forgotten

I was playing around with black and white ideas but the colours on this just made it seem a waste to ignore. (Plus the fact I'm having problems with black and white at the moment!)

More drops

(Yes, I will be trying something else rather than red. These two are the only ones out of 187 shots. I hope pratice/patience and the splashes on my flashgun will one day pay off!)

A couple more drop photos. They are still not there but experimenting is all part of it. Thanks to my Mum for the useful link she noticed.

Bubble blower.

I've been playing around with studio flash lamps. At the moment it's more about how to get things syncing rather than anything quality. It's fun though.

Sweet Rain

One of the many lightning shots from last year.

Twelve

This is going to be printed onto canvas and stretched over a small square (so imagined it cropped square) stretcher. Studio 12 have 12 of these small squares from each of their members. I wasn't sure what to do so I thought this might have to do. Hope it works on canvas though.

Pomegranate leaves

Red-tailed Black Cockatoo

Al and Betty

We went out to the camel farm and this Al making her subject feel relaxed before sketching begins!
(The shots before showed Al a little more worried. Camels have surprisingly large heads when face to face).

water holder

Took this outside. Macro, handheld, passionfruit, and H20. I had various light/dark background but couldn't decide so went for a mix. (Background is part Jasmine plant and part shade from back veranda)

Some artist tools.

I have been trying some studio lamps and strobes. This however wasn't taken using any of them since I'm still trying them out. Instead I played around with my SB800 flash which I ended up hiding behind the tin. Oddly enough it ended up looking like it's lit from above. Light ... huh.

Green Drop.

Remote flash (Hence glare). Thought red might be better so...

Water drop. (The red variety).

Lots and lots of shots again. Set up over a sink with remote flash and hopeful timing. I think I really need a squarish fish tank to make things easier. The shots aren't quite what I'm looking for. (Click on picture for larger version. Makes it clearer but still not quite right. I'll come back to macro water no doubt)

WATERLEAF





Catching water splashes is harder than I thought. This is one of about 20,000 shots I took!

Time to start uploading again. I've deleted over 4000 photos. I still have 5700 to sort. Yes I do ask myself why on earth I didn't maintain (or even start) a good workflow from the beginning. Oh well.

Flora

Textured Shadow
This was taken looking down. The flower was sitting on a white canvas and the sun was shining from the side. It was only after taking the shot that the composition seemed to be better in the portrait mode.

Springtime

I took this early one morning. It's new growth on a Pomegranate bush and using a macro lens, hand held, I managed to get a fluky shot. Usually I set up a tripod etc and this reminded me to sometimes just 'snap' away. Although it's called Springtime it's actually not taken in spring. Alice Springs tends to move from winter to summer in about 12 hours! Plants tend to grow (and die) anytime they feel like it. I'm always amazed that anything can live out here.

Spirals
This was taken early one morning on our back veranda. No I don't know the name of the plant (I really should look into it) but the new growth showed the spirals. The sun just happened to be in the right place. I haven't seen any spirals since although the plant continues to grow. I think they might unfurl quite rapidly.

Scarlet
Inside 'studio' shot. Trying something different with angles.

Silver
This tiny leaf was spotted out by the nearby claypans. My wife noticed it's silvery colour and I tried to show off it's intricate design and colour when caught in the right light.