A Whale of a Surprise

Coming back from checking out a wedding venue, my fiancee and I took the ferry between Queenscliff and Sorrento.  It was a fine winter’s afternoon around the Heads- a brisk wind that had been casting alternate curtains of rain and shine across the seascape, and the boat was pitchy.  About half way into the crossing, the engines slowed and somebody nearby muttered something about the Captain needing to slow down because we were ahead of schedule.

Then the intercom switched on and informed us that ahead of the ferry coming the other way, there was a whale.

It was a Friday afternoon, so although there was a sudden rush for the top deck, that still only made for a handful of us up there.  The other ferry was a good half-mile away or so, but we scoured the seas nonetheless, and sure enough, there was soon a puff of white spray as the placid behemoth threw out another steamy breath somewhere out in the bay.  We suspected that that would be the last we’d see of it, but we all quietly hoped that it would wander over to check out the thrum of our engines, however unlikely the outcome.

And it did.

A minute or two later, it surfaced with a snort mere metres off the forward bow, to gasps of delight from everybody on the deck.  This was one of those flukey occasions when I did, in fact, happen to have my camera with me, and I was able to grab a couple of snaps before the giant mammal slipped back below the waves.

I’ve never seen a whale before, at any distance, and to see one- as unexpected as this, and in as unlikely a location as Port Philip Bay, was thrilling to say the least.  There is something undeniably awe-striking about these creatures, and having now seen one relatively close at hand, I can assure you it needs to go onto your must-see list.  I, for one, will be looking for any opportunity to get cosy with a whale at some point in the future.

(for reference in the photos, we estimated the whale to be 10-12 metres in length)

Structure- Victoria

An assortment of photographs of random buildings around Victoria.  The great thing about structures and architecture is that there is a wealth of forms and shapes, each of which changes with light and season.  This first shot is of some tower atop Arthur’s Seat, in the Mornington Peninsula.

This second shot is a church in Hawthorn East, taken from Auburn railway station.  I have since been informed by rail authorities that I am not allowed to take photographs from the train platforms without written permission.

Bite me.

I love this long-exposure shot of this tower-of-uncertain-function in Williamstown, on the harbour’s edge.  The purple hues in the sky and the sense of movement in the cloud, coupled with the somewhat eerie shape of the tower itself, combine to give this image a mood I’m very fond of.

Melbourne’s skyline is increasingly reminiscent of many North American cities, with its relatively small area dominated by shiny high-rise office-towers on a uniform grid layout.  Here, then (then-recently-completed) Eureka Tower (at right) towers over nearby buildings in Melbourne’s Soutbank.  Eureka, at 88 stories high, is one of the tallest buildings in the southern hemisphere, and at the time of photographing was the tallest residential structure in the world (although is now placed at #4).

The art-deco styled Palais Theatre was badly damaged by arson about eighteen months ago, but remains a St. Kilda landmark.  I loved the white against the blue sky in this particular shot, and the way the sun brought out the details in the architecture.

This clock tower, also in St. Kilda just a few hundred yards from the Palais, looked good framed against the sky.  I used a neutral density filter (ND400) to block out most of the sunlight and allow for a 45-second exposure, blurring the clouds and the palms.

Here the inspirationless sprawl of suburban functionality leaves us with low strip-mall roofing, neon lights, aerials and satellite dishes beneath a warm dusk skyline.

I took this shot from directly beneath the Bolte Bridge, in Melbourne’s Docklands.  Earlier shots I took lying on my back.  In the absence of a tripod I had to use careful breathing and a steady hand, and was grateful for the ultra-wide 12mm aspect on my lens.

And the final shot in the selection- aptly named “Parting Shot” as it was the last shot I took of Melbourne before heading off on a 6-week overseas assignment- is again of Eureka Tower in the sunlight, and the gold-plated windows of the upper suites while the sun gleams off a lower angle of the superstructure.

A[nother] Day at the Beach

The other week I went down with friends to Sorrento Ocean Beach.  It was mid-June, and in true Victoria fashion, the weather was changeable and shifty, so that when the sun was out it was warm enough to strip down to t-shirt, and when the clouds rolled across its face and the wind blew, you were hugging your jacket.  I took the camera for a walk to see if I could get some landscapes, and I got a handful, but the light was a long way from ideal, so I quickly called it a day.

However the same flat light which makes landscapes a bit dull is ideal for portraiture.  Strong sunlight gives faces angles and contrast, while softer light, especially diffused through a thin cloud layer, is just what you’re looking for; there’s a reason flashguns often have a diffuser on the front.  It gives enough light on the foreground to make subjects stand out, but little enough that features look smooth and natural.

I was with friends J. and A., and A.’s four-year-old daughter, M., who spent most of her time climbing up rocks and waiting to get helped down, exploring caves and holes in the rocky foreshore.  She also succeeded in misjudging one leap and landing two feet into a rockpool (I take considerable blame for this), and managed a pretty impressive tumble down a series of rock platforms (she and I are clearly kindred spirits on some level).  While the tumble did trigger tears for several minutes, the beauty of children and their frustratingly short attention-span is that before too long, the tears and their cause were forgotten, and life went on.  I think we big important grown-ups could learn a lot from our youthful little counterparts…

I had fun shooting with A. and M.  M. is completely comfortable with the camera and didn’t pay too much attention, and they were both really good sports about my photography addiction.  I like natural, spontaneous shots first and foremost, but on a couple of occasions mum and daughter lined themselves up nicely and I had to ask them to hold their positions for a few seconds while I reeled off a couple of shots.  I was shooting with my beloved 85mm f/1.8 , a standoff lens ideal for candid and natural-looking portraits, and when it’s wide open, the bokeh is delicious- crisp, sharp detail on the subject and a beautifully-blurred background.

It still takes me a bit of courage to delve into the world of portrait photography.  It helps having friends like these who let me practice on them, and I hope that over time it’ll become more natural and comfortable for me.  For any other aspiring photographers out there who want to get into portraiture, I can’t stress how important having the right equipment is.  Most compact cameras focus far too slowly and inaccurately to be able to fire off spontaneous spur-of-the-moment portraits at that beautiful moment when everything works right, while shooting with wide-angle lenses that distort features or low-quality zoom lenses that blur the moment the light drops off a smidgen will tend to frustrate and discourage.  I have found both with my 60mm f/2.8 and 85mm 1.8 that having a fast, responsive lens with narrow depth-of-field has made portraits a joy, and almost every portrait I feel proud of has come from these lenses.

Now stop reading, get out there, and start shooting!

Photos:

1. Mum and daughter pose atop a rocky rise beneath a windswept moody sky.

2. M. works on her ‘Supergirl’ pose.

3. A. & M. pause on the rocks in front of the southern ocean.  One of those shots which turns out almost exactly how you wanted it to.

4. M. gets a spin from J. on the foreshore.

5. Scrambling on the rocks.

Thanks J., A. and M. for being such good sports! 

Photo Notes: Sorrento Beach Beach

I went down to Sorrento Back Beach with some friends this past weekend. The weather wasn’t entirely cooperative. The clouds were lovely but kept obscuring the sun, which meant that the foreground never really took off. Photographing landscapes is a balancing act. The landscaper’s dilemma is that by exposing for the ground (which is naturally darker), you blow out the sky. By contrast if you expose for the sky to capture colour and contrast in the clouds, you tend to overdarken the foreground and lose detail and light. A perfect scenario is a sun above or behind the photographer lighting the foreground so that you can lower the overall exposure value of the shot, allowing you to darken the sky at the same time and capture the depth of the skyscape. But that depends on factors beyond your control. Namely, the climate.

No luck today.

So I had to cheat a little on this shot and used a graduated neutral density (GND) filter in post-processing. When I say ‘cheating’ I should really say ‘lazy’. When it comes to post processing I try and keep things fairly realistic and limited. I don’t use HDR or any of its cousins. The GND allows me to put a horizontal line across the image and apply slightly different exposure values above and below the image. I’m okay with doing this because you can in fact get GND filters that fit onto the camera itself, like a polarizer or a UV filter, and I generally consider anything I can do ‘in-camera’ as legit in post (but admit that it’s a tad lazy). However the cost of getting a Cokin or similar filter set to fit the ginormous filter-ring (82mm) of my yawning 16-35mm wide-angle, not to mention the fiddle quotient, really makes a few careful clicks in Lightroom a much more preferable option. I do want to get into the habit of using GND filters at some stage, however, as I find the art of capturing as much of the image as possible at the time I take it immensely satisfying. And the GND function is pretty indispensible for a landscaper like me.

Sorrento Ocean Beach is one of my favourites around, with a lovely arc of sand and lots of interesting rock formations stacked about. There’s also lots of fun to be had scrambling over the rocks and exploring the tidal pools. Admittedly walking around with a Canon 5D and 3 L-class lenses stuffed in various pockets made me a little cagey while crawling over sharp rock outcrops. A slip could get expensive.

The shot was taken on the aforementioned Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L II USM. It’s a behemoth of an ultra-wide-angle lens, an absolute beauty when it comes to landscapes, and I love it to pieces. You could park an Airbus A380 on the field of glass that makes up the front end, but by the same token it lets in so much light that I could almost shoot hand-held in moonlight. For any aspiring landscape photographers out there, it’s a beautiful piece of glass and a gorgeous addition to my lens collection. In this shot I really like how the wide angle of the lens has bent the bay around to give it a half-moon-esque curve to it.

That was a lot of words just to talk about a photo.

Note: Do click the photo to see it bigger than you can here on the page…

Sorrento Back Beach

I went on a little weekend away this past Saturday and Sunday.  Some friends from the little small-group I’m a part of decided to rent a holiday house for two nights down at the end of the Mornington Peninsula.  Like a crooked finger, the Peninsula arcs all the way down the eastern edge of Port Philip Bay, until it’s just a narrow ridge of land a few miles wide.  Because my folks live on the Peninsula I feel that it’s really just an extension of Melbourne, but in perspective the end of the peninsula is a good two-hour drive from downtown Melbourne.  Perhaps because, in true Melbourne fashion, the suburbs barely seem to break on the way down, it feels part of the GMA.  Nonetheless, the atmosphere down near Sorrento is totally different- a relaxed, pretty, beachside ambience that during the summer is festive and joyful, and during the winter is a little cooler, but still somehow uplifting compared to the spreading expanses of the bungalow’d Eastern Suburbs.

On Sunday I joined a couple of friends for a walk along the Sorrento back beach.  This end of the peninsula, there are bay-side beaches, and back beaches.  The former are sandy, gently-sloping strips often many miles long, relatively underpopulated and opening onto the calm, clear waters of the bay.  Yachts are moored at jetties and during the summer, kids splash in the shallows while parents watch patiently from laid-out beach-towels.  The latter, however, are a lot more fun.  Facing onto the southern Ocean, they are steep and rocky, lined with broken cliffs and washed-out stacks, wave-cut platforms and crumbling stumps, all being gradually swallowed by heaving breakers.  On a calm day, the waves break onto the jagged coastline with predictable regularity, foaming where they strike outcrops.  When the weather is up, the back-beaches offer some of the most exciting seascapes in the area.

Sorrento is one of Victoria’s posher seaside resorts and so the back-beach is usually pretty populated.  In fact there was an open-topped Porsche Cayenne in the parking lot that morning.  Alright for some.  But the place still manages to feel rugged and just a little adventurous.  A scramble along the rock-pools offers a certain nostalgia, the simplicity of the seaside offering an almost Victorian experience (the era, not the State).  Sadly for me, the winter light was variable and largely uncooperative, and the sun slipped behind a bank of cloud about a minute after I pulled into the parking-lot, foiling most of my subsequent attempts at capturing the landscape.  I swapped lenses out (gingerly in the brisk sea air) and replaced my 16-35mm with my 85mm f/1.8 portrait lens and shot some candids of my promenading companions instead, chosing to practice my portraiture skills and expose them to the intrusion of a paparazzo.  They were very patient with me, and I got a few snaps I was pleased with which I might share on another post.

Safety Beach Sunset

Driving down the Mornington Peninsula last Friday there was a stunning sunset.  From the eastern side of the bay the sun always goes down over the bay- but it’s not always that exciting.  You need something to put in front of the sunset, and the sun’s rays need something to reflect off.  Like clouds.

I pulled in at Safety Beach just as the light was turning magic and it was clear it was going to be something special.  And special it was- one of the more colourful sunsets I’ve had the chance to photograph recently, and in a beautiful, peaceful setting by the calm waters of the bay as well.  Some local gents in their little boats kept the fore-water looking interesting, while mixed cloud soaked up sunlight like sponges.  More shots down the line.

Putting something in front of a sunset is essential.  It was actually this grand old Norfolk Pine at the edge of the road (last image) that made me pull over.  In the end it didn’t turn out to be the subject I’d hoped it to be, but it none the less provided a point of interest.

I really, really need to get me a telephoto lens.  That way I can take these sunset shots and really fill the viewfinder with these distant little subjects against the colourful light.

Plus I won’t have to get so close to the water, so with any luck next time I won’t end up with wet feet courtesy of a stray wave…

Beach Hut Blues

The Beach Hut is a Melbourne icon.  Having only lived here over the last few years, the precise reason escapes me.  They’re small and kind of odd, really.  Apparently they go for whopping amounts of money, in the order of fifty grand, which, for a few planks of perishing wood on a seafront, strikes me as a tad excessive.  But there you have it.

They’re also a photographic cliche.  And not surprisingly.  As well as a cultural symbol and part of Melbourne’s soul, they’re visually a bit different, and best of all, they’re all sorts of bright vibrant colours lined up along the back of the beach.  Some of them are distinctly quirky, too.

After taking some shots of a rather pretty little sunset over the bay recently, I turned my gorgeous new 16-35mm lens the other way.  The ambient light coupled with the incredible amount of real-estate the front of my lens takes up meant that there was enough filtering through for me to be able to shoot hand-held at high ISO settings.  Even on the 5D I still ended up with some pretty noisy frames, but I liked the effect.

In the near-darkness, the underexposed shacks took on a somewhat different air.  I shot wide and low, adding lots of distortion, and the feel I got from the buildings was much more off-kilter and even a bit sinister.  Because I had the aperture cranked all the way open there was lots of moody vignetting.  There was even something a little ‘Alice in Wonderland’ about a couple of the shots, with the odd colours and skewed lines.  But it was a fun shoot, and I really enjoyed pushing the camera to the limits of what it could do as well- amazing how much light it could pick up with that 82mm circumference…

Aww…  I miss my 5D…