There are many things to love about Australia. I have a lot of fo friends there and have traveled there a number of times. The landscapes can be really beautiful. Throughout the centra; part of Australia there are these beautiful gum trees. These are gorgeous shaped trees with white bark. As in this picture, the white bark really contrasts with the bluff walls in Orbiston Gorge.
Nature has patience. And, with all my travels I have seen many times how nature reclaims what is here. Whether it be a Forrest devastated by. fire, an abandoned house or rusty and rotting machines. Mother nature always wins. She has immense patience. In this image, I was walking through a train yeard looking for abstract photo opportunities. I stopped at this one train car and found this. A small but of a plant of some kind growing in the rusty dust form the boxcar door of this train. Nature always finds a way.
Street photography is something I really enjoy. I am not just a landscape photographer, but a photographer of all things I see. Las Vegas is a city that bothers me. I can’t take more than 3 days there and if I am in Vegas it is for business. One of my biggest side benefits is to walk the streets and I mean miles of walking at a slow pace capturing the life around me. I look for people, light and shadow and some of the outrageous things. The Statue Of Liberty at the New Yor Hotel is just one of those. On my walk, the light was really nice and I had to shoot it. I like the angle and light and the way I processed this. I had tried several different looks and settles on this one.
This image was made at Scotty’s Castle in Death Valley National Park a few years ago. Scottys Castle is a kind of strange place as a lot of things are out in the desert. Essentially it is a giant mansion built in the early 20th century out in the middle of nowhere. You can read about Scottys HERE. Please note that a little over a year ago Scottys was almost wiped out by a torrential flood and still remains closed and will not reopen until mid-2020.
This image was made lying on the floor of one of the circular cases. I shot directly upwards and then did some post-processing to add the gritty effect.
I have been to Australia a number of times. It’s very far away and is a very long plane ride. However, once you are there you will be treated to a beautiful country. The people are incredibly friendly and the scenery is very versatile. This location is near the center of the country. This is a gorge which there a number of and they are usually in a canyon with water running through them. I have a few images from this canyon. One of these is a three-shot pano and the other is a single shot.
Another image from one of my favorite cities to shoot architectural abstracts. This one was done with a Sony and a 100-400mm lens. I then corrected perspective in post-processing so all the lines were straight up and down. The golden glow was caused by early morning light which is my favorite shooting time in Chicago.
I am always looking for the picture in the picture. This is a photo of an old beached boat on a beach in Svalbard. What I like to od is shoot the picture of the larger subject (the boat) itself then go in close and start to look for new compositions. Sometimes I use a long lens like the 100-400nn lens. In this shot, I saw the bow of the ship as it’s own abstract photo. I moved back a bit and zoomed in with the telephoto lens to compress the image a bit. Then I shot it. At first, if you see the images you might not know what it is. This forces the viewer to stop for a minute to figure it out. Some people may not even figure it out. I like this subject as it has a lot of things I like, such as rust and peeling paint. Enjoy.
Watching a glacier calve is the most incredible sight and sound. It’s an art to position yourself so you can catch a glacier as it calves. Once you are positioned you need to keep your camera to your eye to make sure you are ready to catch it. My technique is to get a zodiac in place and pick out the front of a glacier that may calve. Then holding the camera to your eye sweep left and right until it happens. If you wait until you hear it is too late. The noise is like an explosion and the sight is something to behold. This glacier was in the arctic circle in Svalbard.
While at the Harpa Opera House in Reykjavik, Iceland my friend Steve Gosling and I spent some time shooting various things. In a previous post, I shared my building abstracts. Today I share some images from a spot I found and I photographed people on or near the escalator in the Opera House. I shot these with the Sony RX100 vii and converted them to BW images. They were RAW files and I made adjustments to them in Capture One. These will never be considered art but more on the level of street photography where I document what I see in what is going on around me. They are different and I do like the one with the person going up the escalator.
I love doing may kinds of photography. I am most happy doing landscape photography, where I can take my time to compose the image and wait for just the right moment of light. I enjoy doing portraits, where I can try different posing and lighting to come out with unique images. Street photography is different altogether and in many cases not understood by many. I love wandering the streets of my hometown as well as the cities I visit. For me, street photography catches the moment, light and life on the street.
I am excited because this coming week I receive the new Fuji X Pro 3 camera which should be ideal for working the streets. I’ll report back after I have some time with this app. These images today were taken in various locations The photo of the couple in front of the sphere was done in Chicago. The man with the violin was made in Copenhagen. This guy is such a good violin player and he strolls the streets in Copenhagen playing at restaurants and parks. He always has a violin case of cash that people donated to him. The image with the man and woman walking was made in Las Vegas. LasVegas, by the way, is a very rich city to shoot street work. I love the shadows, the seriousness of their walk and then the little upside-down plywood cutout behind them.
I hope you like these. Look for more soon.
