My six from January

Greetings all to my first post of 2011! As I mentioned last month, I embarked on a two-week journey with my good friends Chris and Dale, departing on boxing day. In fact I posted my photos from December literally minutes before I left my place! Anyway, I'll try a slightly different format and give a brief account of my road trip, accompanied by the photos which made my '6 images' this month... If you don't care for stories, feel free to just click on the pretty pictures instead!


Location: Fitzroy/Collingwood
(F8, 1/125, ISO 200, 31mm focal length)

Our journey began driving down to Melbourne. We caught Day 3 of the Ashes, partied on St Kilda beach (and at Luna Park), and toured some streets which were just teeming with street-art. Some of which was quite impressive, some were just freaking amazing! If you're in Melbourne and want to take yourself on a self-guided tour, google 'Everfresh street art' - they have a map of the hot spots. Or if you're bored at work and just want to check out what's around, hop on flickr and have a look through 'spinstertoo's photos. Anyway, this was taken around the streets of Fitzroy...

Location: Bells Beach, VIC
(F4.0, 1/400, ISO 400, 70mm focal length)

... So we moved on from Melbourne, and began our tour along the Great Ocean Road. We camped at Cape Otway with wild koalas, had lunch with the twelve apostles (or at least the remaining ones), slept under the wind turbines at Cape Nelson, and then passed on through to South Australia. This photo however was taken at Bells Beach, very early in the journey between Melbourne and Adelaide...

Location: Limestone Coast vineyards (S.A.)
(F3.5, 1/320, ISO 100, 34mm focal length)

... Next stop - wine country! Once we passed into South Australia we drove up past the Blue Lake at Mt Gambier, through the Coonawarra wine district, and then back towards the limestone coast. For more wine. We camped along the Coorong National Park, ate the most delicious lobster in Kingston, and took in picturesque Robe. This photo was taken at one of the vineyards along the limestone coast. Next stop....

Location: Rundle Mall, Adelaide
(F3.2, 1/8, ISO 400, 25mm focal length)

...Adelaide! We made it in one piece, which is more than we can say about the plagues of locusts we drove through. I took a few 'locust graveyard' photos (i.e., my radiator), but they just didn't quite make the cut this month. So we made it to our intended destination long enough to shower, eat, sleep, and take photos. We stayed on Hindley St (opposite the 24hr pancake house... a wise decision), which meant I could take a few urban night shots around Rundle Mall.

Location: Rundle Mall, Adelaide
(F3.5, 1/6, ISO 400, 34mm focal length)

So similar to my dragonfly at Bells Beach, the manequin photo doesn't really speak to the location it was taken in. But I just really like it - it's vague in the sense that the hair seems realistic, as in it could be a real person looking at a poster of a model. But it's not really until you look closer that you realise she's not 'real' (in a non-philosophical sense that is... What is 'real'? Are we really here? What is humanity?.... Arpeggio...). Anyway, the plastic arms kind of give it away ;)




Location: Mirazozo, Sydney Opera House forecourt
(Main image - F5.6, 1/4, ISO 200, 17mm focal length)


Anyway, that kind of sums up my road trip. My final photo was taken at the Mirazozo (Architects of Air) at the Opera House forecourt. I decided I would do something a little 'arty' with it - the digital version of a double exposure (although this was done in postproduction, as opposed to exposing camera film twice). The superimposed photo (the star in the middle, and the smaller stars on either side) were taken with a delayed exposure, and adjusting the zoom at the same time. So I came out with an image which basically looked like a computer generated desktop wallpaper image! So I layered it in photoshop on top of the main image, and reduced its opacity to around 20-25%. Obviously this is how it came out :)


So once again, that brings an end to the month of January. This month I did realise a few things - while I had the opportunity to take photos of some incredible street art, you can't really take a photo of someone else's artwork and claim it to be your own. If it is given context and becomes part of a scene, sure. But I didn't realise until afterwards that many of the photos I took weren't as fantastic as I initially thought; they were just photos of other people's fantastic work! Plus in terms of my own development, I've been continuing to balance aperture for a desired depth of field. On that note, we had a fourth member of our road trip, a mascot if you will: Dashboard Jesus. He had his portrait taken at many different landmarks along the way. I may decide to do a special-edition 6images post - my best six of dashboard jesus... It's an idea, I'll wait and see if it grows to fruition or not.... Other than that, once again I'm looking forward to the month ahead!