Pic of the Week_Dusk_Eagle Rock_Great Ocean Road

Canon 5D camera and Canon 24mm f1.4 L series lens

The Great Ocean Road is one of the world’s most beautiful drives. Spectacular ocean views, tranquil rainforests and beautiful waterfalls await the intrepid traveller.  I’ve been fortunate enough to spend quite a lot of time photographing along the GOR, producing an A3 plus size calendar in 2003 and a large range of postcard and greeting cards over the following two years.

The above image features Eagle Rock under a brooding sky at dusk. Made from the observation site at Split Point Lighthouse, in Aireys Inlet, I remember feeling that I’d made a portfolio standard image the moment the camera’s shutter was released. A warm tone black-and-white rendering was all that was needed to evoke the sense of stillness I experienced when tripping the shutter.

Adobe Lightroom 2 and Adobe Photoshop CS4 were employed to produce the rich, velvet-like tones evident in the final image.

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Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Pic of the Week_Vista_West MacDonnell Ranges_Central Australia

Hasselblad 500CWi camera and Hasselblad 150mm Sonnar f4 lens with Kodak Ektacolor Pro 160 Professional film

Central Australia is one of my favorite locations. The region offers the adventurous photographer colorful characters, indigenous culture, the remnants of European pioneering settlement and a sublime, seemingly timeless landscape.

I made the above image along the West MacDonnell Ranges near the end of a fantastic day full of driving, walking and photography. It really doesn’t get much better than that. I was looking directly into the sun so I tilted the camera down to reduce the likelihood of flare. The back light produced a lovely rim-light effect highlighting the trees, the shape of the hills and the stony ground. I employed Adobe Lightroom 2 and Adobe Photoshop CS4 to render the original color file into black-and-white and then applied a warm/cool split tone.

If ever you get the opportunity to visit Central Australia make sure you allow enough time for a leisurely exploration along both the East and West MacDonnell Ranges. Ensure you’re in a position to be photographing at the edges of the day and you’ll likely produce memorable images.

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Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Pic of the Week_Drama_Cape Woolemi_Phillip Island

Hasselblad X-PAN II camera and Hasselblad X-PAN 30mm f5.6 lens with Fuji Velvia 100F fillm

Cape Woolamai offers great fun and dramatic images for the landscape photographer. You have two options for reaching the Cape from the Woolamai Beach car park. From memory its around a 40 minute walk along the beach to the bottom of the cliff or, alternatively, via a sandy track through tussock grasses to the top of the cliff, prior to a step descent down to the beach. Make sure you check the tide times, as you may not be able to follow the beach all the way around the Cape at high tide. During summer tiger snakes are drawn to the top of the cliff by the large amount of mutton birds nesting in the area. This is the nature of landscape photography, especially in a country like Australia.

I usually approach the Cape through the tussock grasses. With high tides you’re limited to photographing from the top of the cliff. But lower tides will allow you to descend to one of several rock-strewn beaches. Amazing opportunities await, particularly if you’re there at the edges of the day. Though, if you’re shoot finishes after sunset make sure you have a good torch or headlamp with you so you can safely navigate your way back to the car park in the dark. The alternative will see you stumbling around in the dark and, likely, falling knee deep through the soft earth into mutton bird burrows on either side of the track. I’II post another image from this location a week from now to give you an idea of one of the photographic opportunities that await you on the beach.

With the image above I was drawn to the graphic nature of the sunlit rock face against the dark, brooding sky. A black-and-white rendering enabled me to portray the sense of power present at the time the camera’s shutter was tripped. Adobe Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4 were employed to process the image.

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Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Pic of the Week_Rock Pool #1_Cape Schanck

Canon 5D Mark II camera and Canon 24-105mm f4 USM lens. Exposure Details: 1/100 second @ f11 ISO 100

I recently conducted a 2-session private class with 2 gals from the Mornington Peninsula around a 1½-hour drive from my place in Clifton Springs. We had a great time covering camera and photography fundamentals, macro and landscape photography.

The final half of our second session brought us to Cape Schanck National Park. We walked down from the cliff tops, near the lighthouse car park, following the edge of the cape to a rocky beach and beyond to a series of fascinating rock pools by the seashore.

What a wonderful time! We were there during the middle of the day and, while the strong, hard light produced some problems, it was great to be out and about by the sea, on a warm, clear sky day.

The bright light produced a fairly flat light that reflected a lot of color and texture off the water and rocks. To reduce the problem l employed a polarising filter. Yet I couldn’t help but think how much more beautiful the location would have been at the end of the day.

After initial processing of the RAW files in Adobe Lightroom 2 I decided that a black-and-white rendering was appropriate. This effect was achieved in Lightroom 2 and that’s where the journey halted for the next week or so.

I revisited the image today and, after a fair bit of playing around, came up with a technique that enabled me to produce a result with which l am very happy. I’m being careful not to claim that l invented the technique in question. I’ve been around long enough to understand that pretty much everything has been done before. But whether one or one thousand other people have stumbled across the same technique isn’t really the point. What’s important is that I now have another technique by which to make great images, even when the original shot was made under light that, while nice and warm, may not be ideal for the making of classic landscape photographs.

Final image enhancement was achieved in Adobe Photoshop CS4.

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Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Pic of the Week_Sunrise_Ormiston Gorge_Central Australia

Leica M6 camera and Leica 21mm f2.8 Elmarit lens with Kodak Ektachrome 100 Extra Color film

Ormiston Gorge, a major stop on the West MacDonnell Ranges, is situated 135 km west of Alice Springs. Offering photographer and walker alike a range of great opportunities the gorge is best visited in the cooler months (May to August) when the 7 km Ormiston Pound walk can be undertaken without too much physical stress.

The above image came about as much through persistence as through technique. I awoke early and walked down to the dry waterhole in the pre-dawn light. The morning was cold and windy and the light flat. It looked like the sunrise was going to be a fizzer. But my experience is that, once you’re out of bed, it’s worth making the most of the situation and either sitting it out and waiting for the light or, alternatively, moving around the location to discover alternative angles or subject matter.

As the sun rose the cold, bleak dawn light gave way to the warm, luminous light hitting the distant cliff tops and reflecting down into the water in the middle of the frame. The magenta blue light from the overhead sky washed over the foreground rocks and provided a great contrast with the more dynamic sunlight. And, while I wouldn’t recommend drinking from the pool in the bottom right corner of the frame, it did provide me with an added visual element. As well as illustrating that the water is stagnant the green slime leads the eye from the foreground through to the reflection in the middle of the frame and, from there, onto the sunlit cliff tops in the background. As green is the opposite or complimentary color to magenta the slime, in the absence of direct sunlight, acts to separate and emphasize the color of the foreground rocks.

I’m very interested in dualities and the exploration of opposites is a constant theme in my photographs. While the color of the rocks was interesting, the lack of dramatic light in the foreground was initially a concern. This photo is not so much about the sunrise but about the variation in light and color throughout the frame. I employed a 21mm wide-angle lens on my beautiful Leica M6 camera and walked in close to place extra emphasis on the foreground rocks. The idea is to explore the relationship between shaded foreground and illuminated background and encourage examination of the similarities and differences within the frame.

The original slide has been in storage for some time. After scanning it was great fun to bring the image back to life with Adobe Camera RAW and Adobe Photoshop CS4.

If ever you have the chance an extended stay in Central Australia is great for both your photography portfolio and your soul. It is an ancient landscape embedded with Aboriginal Dreamtime mythology where ancestor beings both walked through and shaped the landscape. Their presence remains evident in that most inspiring landscape.

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Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Pic of the Week_River_Everest Region_Tibet

Canon New F1 camera and Canon 24mm lens with Agfachrome 100 slide film

My friends Liz, Leif, Lee and I crossed this river, with the aid of a 4 wheel drive and our Chinese driver, on the way to a night spent at Base Camp in the valley directly below Chomolungma (Mount Everest) in Tibet. This was 1988 and our 1,000km trip from Lhasa to the holy mountain and then beyond to the Nepalese border involved passes of around 5,000 meters above sea level. I thought this was a pretty fair achievement for a lad from a small town in Western Victoria in South East Australia. Then I met a young western woman (possibly Swedish, though I can’t remember with any certainty) who was undertaking the trip on horseback.

On our arrival I remember passing an English mountaineering expedition who were not very happy with the fact that we would be camping closer to the mountain than them. I befriended an Italian climber who asked me to join his team for breakfast. He was a really nice guy and made sure the team’s doctor checked me over as I’d had trouble due to the high altitude.

My friends and I were treated with a wonderfully clear night by which to view the north face of Mount Everest. We then spent a very cold night huddled together in our tiny tent, prior to the last leg of our journey down to the Nepalese border.

The original 35mm transparency was scanned prior to being processed in Adobe Camera RAW and Adobe Photoshop CS4.

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Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Pic of the Week_Water Pool_Uluru_Central Australia

Leica M6 camera and Leica 35mm Summicron f2 Aspherical lens with Kodak Ektachrome Elite 100 Extra Color film

Uluru is Australia’s most iconic landscape. Situated in the Uluru / Kata Tjuta National Park it is a superb location for photography and offers the visitor a wonderful introduction to the culture and mythology of the local indigenous people.

The above image makes use of foreground (grasses), mid ground (rock) and background (sky) elements to enhance the sense of 3-dimensional space.

One of the problems with photographing under bright, sunny conditions is that the bright light acts to reflect much of the color and texture off the surface of important focal points (e.g. rock, sand and grasses). By employing a polarizing filter its possible to prevent this from happening and produce images that display quite vivid color reproduction. In much the same way as polarizing sunglasses a polarizing filter can also darken and saturate and already blue sky. It works best when the sun is directly behind the photographer.

After scanning the original 35mm color transparency was processed in Adobe Camera RAW and Adobe Photoshop CS4.

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Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Pic of the Week_Textures_Tidal River_Wilsons Promontory

Canon 1D Mark II camera and Canon 100mm f2.8 lens. Exposure Details: 1/125 second @ f7.1 ISO 100

The above image was made at Tidal River in Wilsons Promontory National Park on the southern tip of Victoria, Australia. It is a beautiful location that offers a range of photographic opportunities that vary with light and tide.

As you can see the colors present in this scene, really only a detail of the much larger Tidal River landscape, is full of color and texture. While wonderful to behold the challenge for the photographer is to make sense of all this information. A painter can choose to delete one or more of the elements on the canvas, while a photographer’s ability to include or exclude trees, rocks, water and grass is greatly reduced.

You can change focal lengths and, thereby, the angle of view encompassed by your composition. Moving closer or further away is another option, as is changing your shooting position (e.g. worms eye or birds eye angle of view) to alter the apparent relationship between elements in the frame and the relationship between foreground, mid ground and background.

A key problem faced by photographers is the need to deal with what is actually in front of the camera and, excluding a range of exotic desktop solutions and make overs, the best solution is often image design.

Canon 1D Mark II camera and Canon 100mm f2.8 lens. Exposure Details: 1/125 second @ f7.1 ISO 100

While color was probably the element that drew me into this scene, I find it gets in the way of what, in this case, are more important design elements. It is the tones, textures, lines and shapes within the frame that are the real subject matter of this photograph. A black-and-white, split toned rendering was required to quiet down and simplify the image and, thereby, emphasize its most important elements.

I hope you agree that, through the conversion to black-and-white the resulting photograph is a quieter, more subtle and, ultimately, more beautiful rendering of the scene. I’d be very interested in your comments.

The original color image was processed in Adobe Lightroom 2, while the black-and-white, split toned version was achieved in Adobe Photoshop CS4.

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Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Ghost Gums_Trephina Gorge_Central Australia

Leica M6 camera and Leica 35mm f2.0 Summicron-M series lens with Kodak Ektachrome Elite 100 Extra Color film

Central Australia is a very special place and one of my favorite locations for landscape photography. I’ve been fortunate to have travelled to The Centre on tow occasions and, at one stage, seriously considered moving them. I still have a house in Alice Springs, though I may be selling it over the next few months.

The above image features ghost gums seemingly clinging to life in an environment consisting mainly of rock, sand and a fast shrinking waterhole. This is the very base of Trephina Gorge, a spectacular location on the East McDonnell Ranges 85km east of Alice Springs on the Ross Highway.

The strong lines of the ghost gums and the contrast in tones between them and the surrounding rocks made this a clear candidate for a black-and-white rendering.

The original color transparency was scanned and then rendered into black-and-white in Adobe Lightroom 2. Adobe Photoshop CS4 was employed to add a subtle warm/cool split tone.

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Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography

Pic of the Week_Perry Sand Dunes_Southwest NSW

Canon 5D Mark II camera and Canon 24-105mm f4 L series USM lens @ 35mm. Exposure Details: 1/13 second @ f10 ISO 100.

I only had about 20 minutes to wander around and photograph at the Perry Sand Dunes near Wentworth in far southwest NSW. This image was shot directly into the sun, so flare was a problem. I crouched down low, to accentuate the size of the dune, gripped the camera with my right hand and used by left to shade the front element of the lens and, thereby, eliminate the sun spots that seemed to be having a merry old time on my lens.

I needed to ensure that I could hold depth of field (DOF) from the foreground right through to the back of the image. That, together with the low angle of view and the repeating light and dark textures within the dune, added a 3-dimensional quality to the image.

It was late afternoon and, while sunset promised soft, warm light I was an hour or so early, with commitments at the end of the day. The tonality, texture, pattern and repetition within the frame suggested a black-and-white treatment. I also wanted to give the impression of warm light in a black-and-white image so I added a warm tone to the photo during image processing.

Processing was conducted in Adobe Lightroom 2 and Adobe Photoshop CS4.

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Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography