Take Another Look at the Sky

I have to confess I didn’t really start paying much attention to the sky until I started taking photographs.  Now I can’t get enough of it.

As a landscape photographer- and even taking portraits- what the sky is doing is paramount to the end result of your photograph.  Once upon a time I figured blue skies (ideally ramped with a nice polarizing filter) were the bees knees when it came to taking a nice scenery shot.  I’ve since learned that the variety of clouds you can get- especially on a sunny day- is delightful and can add depth, texture and contrast to a photograph, and make the difference between a postcardy-type of holiday snap, and a truly stand-out image you’d like to hang on your wall.  Best of all is when cloud formations line up to mirror part of your landscape or draw the eye to your point of focus.

Sometimes, the sky itself can be a fascinating enough subject.  The array of cloud formations and styles is quite literally endless and changes every few seconds with the wind and the changing light- it is quite simply impossible to take two photos of the sky that are identical, and for that the potential is infinite.

Other times it’s nice to frame a little something against the sky just to add a dash of interest, as I’ve done with a couple of these shots.  It really depends what’s available, and what adds to an image rather than distracting from the cloudforms.

Of course, shooting clouds at sunset is reminiscent of fish and barrels.  As light passing through ever-thickening atmosphere is variously refracted into prismatic shades of the visual electromagnetic spectrum, the painting on the sky is invariably magical, and some of my most satisfying outdoors shots have been taken at dawn or dusk.

This is just a little sampler of some of the sky-focused images I’ve taken over the last couple of years.  Lots more to come, I assure you.

Photo Descriptions:

1. Cumulus clouds build up on a steamy summer’s afternoon outside Pretoria, South Africa.  It stormed later.

2. Dawn cloudscape in the South Australian outback, along the Oodnadatta Track.

3. Is that the Cat in the Hat?  Wispy formation hangs over Melbourne’s Central Business District.

4. Gumtree sky: A variety of cloudforms drift over Victoria’s Yarra Ranges near Warburton.

5. Skytrain: Clouds hang behind a crossing sign marking the abandoned Old Ghan railway line across South Australia’s outback near the Oodnadatta Track.

6. Suburban dystopia: Clouds blur above a power line, one of zillions in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.  Shot with a neutral density filter (ND8) to give several seconds’ worth of exposure in broad daylight, hence the apparent motion in the sky.

7 & 8. Stormy monsoonal clouds soak up setting sunrays over the Indian Ocean off the coast of Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo.

9. Speckles of fluffy cloud spot a rich blue sky behind a Brisbane apartment tower.

10. The twin towers of Melbourne’s Bolte Bridge are backlit against a sunset cloudscape.

11. A stream of condensed exhaust pours from a factory stack in Melbourne’s industrial westlands near Williamstown.

12. Rich hues dance in the fading light of Sri Lanka’s monsoon season.

The Prom

Victoria, as I like to point out on a regular basis, is perhaps the most under-rated portion of Australia.  Travellers coming here know about Sydney with its Opera House, Harbour Bridge and Bondi Beach.  They know about Queenland’s Surfer’s Paradise, Cairns, Townsville and Cape Tribulation.  Images of Uluru in the Northern Territory are stamped on most western kids’ collective memories as the archetypal travel image for Australia, matching the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben as one of the most recognizable landmarks on the planet.  Even Western Australia is getting known for its outback trips, beaches, wineries and general expanses of vast wilderness.  Only Tassie and South Australia seem to drop further down the list of travellers’ itineraries.

I rate Melbourne as easily the most enjoyable place I have lived, overall.  It has a smattering of everything.  City life, with great cafes, restaurants, culture and an Asian-cosmopolitan vibe.  Rolling hills and wineries in the Yarra Valley and now, increasingly, the Mornington Peninsula (check out their Pinot Gris’ and Pinot Noirs) and near Geelong (best Chardonnays coming out of Australia now, in this humble quaffer’s opinion).  Mountains for outdoor enthusiasts (though the skiing is distinctly average) in the Victorian Alps.  Dramatic plunging coastline drives (Great Ocean Road), beaches (bayside and oceanside) for lounging, playing and surfing, deserts, rock-climbing, and big open countryside.  All within a couple of hours of the Central Business District.

Melbourne’s downfall, maybe, is that a) its bounty isn’t that well advertised, and b) you really need a set of wheels to enjoy it.

In other words, it’s just not that backpacker-friendly.  So they all go to Sydney, where they see Bondi, the Opera House, the Harbour bridge, and then go out and get trollied.

As various friends of mine have pointed out, Sydney is like a one-night stand.  Melbourne is like a love-affair.

I’m actually okay with this.  It means that some of our special places stay a little more special, a little less well trod.

One of our local haunts is a household name in Victoria, although folks who haven’t travelled here or who aren’t fans of Ken Duncan’s photography, may not have heard of Wilson’s Promentory. Known as Wilson’s Prom, or simply The Prom, it is a peninsula sticking out of the southern tip of Victoria where a land-bridge joined mainland Australia to Tasmania within the last fifty thousand years (moments ago, geologically speaking; indeed aboriginal Australians, not to mention countless animals, are believed to have crossed back and forth along it before rising sea-levels swallowed it into the Bass Straits).

I went down to the Prom a couple of months back with friends A and M. It’s a national park, and a delightfully peaceful one at that (at least, it is if you go out of season). Miles and miles of wild coastline wrap around dry rocky hills covered in scrubby brush. A devastating bushfire season last year hasn’t substantially diminished the grandeur of the landscape. The sea is clear, the waves plunging. The sand is soft and expansive. There are walks, swims, and plenty of corners to explore.

We camped, as most people do. With a four-year-old in tow, long exploratory treks were out of the question, but we did some enjoyable trundles through the bush and along beaches, and enjoyed the fresh air. By day three, the sun was out and the sky turned a cloudless rich blue colour that ached to be drunk.

I only got the briefest of tastes of The Prom, but am hungry for lots more, and it’s made it up onto my list of places in Victoria that I need to explore in considerably more detail. And I’ll make sure I bring my camera with me then, as well.

The Passage of Seconds

The above two photographs were shot a few minutes apart, from exactly the same vantage (though at marginally different angles) on a little spit of land underneath a road-bridge overlooking Noosa Lakes, along Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.  It was a beautiful sunset, and I wanted to catch the colour of the clouds turning pink as the sun lit them from below.  You only get a few minutes to make the most of that sort of colour, as the angle of the sun changes rapidly, and colour builds to intensity, then falls away quickly, and all you’re left with is grey.

The first image (actually taken second) is a regular shot taken with a polarizer, and shows the clouds, their colour, and their reflection in the rippled water.  The second shot is taken with the same lens but with what was then my new toy (and still one that doesn’t get a whole load of use, which is a shame cos I really like it), and which I showcase from time-to-time- my ND 400 neutral density filter.  By cutting out the light to 1/400th of what it is before the filter goes on but without changing the colour of that light, the ND400 means I can leave the shutter open 400 times as long at the same camera settings without overexposing the shot- thus giving cool effects like moving clouds, smoothed-out water (not that the lake needed much smoothing that evening), and under other circumstances, streaked headlamps or ghosted-out people.

It’s a faff to set up as it involves needing a tripod, a pre-focused and pre-framed image, a shutter-release, the switching round of filters, and, of course, sufficient time to actually expose the frame.  But it gives a unique photographic style and a cool effect that is one hundred percent ‘natural’ (by which I mean, produced in-camera, and not in some post-processing photography software on a computer someplace; we can debate the pros and cons of this some other time…).

I thought I’d share with you the comparison of the two styles, just for fun.

A Nomad’s Footsteps (2 of 3)

A few more images capturing a snapshot of some of the journeys I’ve been privileged enough to take over the last couple of years…

Niger (2005)

Gilded sand lies in soft swathes across the southern Sahara Desert, in the north of this landlocked and critically-impoverished nation.  Stuck in Niger over Christmas during a field posting, I joined friends for a 5-day trip through the wild north of the country, and it proved to be one of the most dramatic and satisfying travel experiences of my life to date.  An absolute highlight by any standard was the time we spent among the dunes of Tizirzak, where wind-blown features among fair sand-dunes were the foreground to the dramatic backdrop of the barren and jagged Aïr Mountains.  One of the most inhospitible landscapes on the planet, it was memorable for its stark, fierce beauty and isolation.  We barely saw another group of travellers in five days of driving.  To this day, I have seen few scenes that compare with the drama and allure of the dunes of the Sahara.

Queensland (2007)

I spent a long weekend at a resort not far from the Sunshine Coast mecca of Noosa.  I’m not much of a beach-vacation type most of the time, and this was no exception- I found myself generally bored and listless.  I did however manage to find a bit of time to photograph the sun going down over the Noosa Lakes, close to where I was staying.  The light was fantastic throughout.  After falling in the estuary, I took this shot of the light after the sun had vanished.  The water has taken on the texture of burnished gold.  I shot with a neutral density filter, which is in effect a piece of darkened but colourless glass, and which in essence allows the shutter to be left open for longer without overexposing the frame.  Here, I left the shutter open for a good half minute or so, with the result that the blemishes in the water have smoothed themselves out, and the golden clouds have blurred themselves in the passage through the sky.  When it works, using ND filters are one of my favourite photographic techniques.

New Zealand (2007)

I’m a Kiwi.  Sometimes I feel a bit of a fraud identifying myself with Aotearoa.  I’ve lived there for less than six years, or somewhat under one fifth of my total existence.  Growing up a Global Nomad, or Third Culture Kid (TCK), I’ve been a little bit free to pick and choose where I want to belong.  Really, I’ve chosen not to belong anywhere, and my defacto home becomes wherever I open my backpack.  However, the one nation I do identify with consistently, and with considerable pride, is New Zealand.  (I’d like to point out that I do in fact hold a Kiwi passport, and spent the early years of my childhood there, so my claim to NZ citizenship isn’t entirely fabricated).  I too this shot of a rocky outcrop in the Hauraki Gulf north of Auckland during an all-too-brief trip home with some friends.  We spent a week or so driving around the northern half of the North Island, and enjoyed pretty good weather for the most part, as well.  New Zealand is another country where I really just want to spend a good block of time with a car, a good pair of walking shoes, and my camera.  One of these days…

Arizona (2005)

A dear childhood friend of mine lives in Arizona with his wife, where they happily enjoy a far more geographically-stable existence than I do with their burgeoning clan of three children.  I went and visited them for a few days over the Independence Day weekend in 2005, where they were staying with relatives near Sedona.  Although we’re in irregular contact, our paths haven’t directly crossed since- although I know that they will before too long.  It’s tough being apart from people you care about, but equally it’s nice having friends scattered globally with whom you can touch base when you travel.  Such is the way of the nomad.

I took this shot at dusk as I arrived in Sedona.  The outcrop is known as the Courthouse, and it stands like a monolith over this picturesque south-western town.  Visually, Sedona is far and away one of the most beautiful settlements I’ve visited.  Nestled among striking ochre sedimentary rock formations, it seems to burn with fire as the sun goes down, while during the day it sits beneath a flawless blue sky.  I took this shot during my early days of investigating digital photography.  The image itself is of no real technical merit, but the subject never ceases to bore me to look at.  Creation at its finest.

Victoria (2007)

Periodically my home, Melbourne remains in my opinion one of the most understated travel destinations in Australia- and by inference, the world.  Although I’ve lived here perhaps four of the last six years, I rate it as easily the most livable place I’ve spent time, echoing the international surveys that generally score Melbourne in top spot alongside Canada’s Vancouver, also a desirable place to spend time.  Sydney tends to get the attention as a tourist destination, with its Harbour Bridge, Opera House, and a handful of azure-watered beaches.  Move away from the waterfront, however, and in my opinion Sydney looses its charm.

Melbourne, by contrast, has a little of everything to suite everybody.  A range of great millieu’s throughout the city provide great cafés, restaurants and even shopping [shudder].  It has a vibrant and built-up Central Business District with all manner of services and conveniences, not to mention a hip and varied nightlife.  Among my favourite features of Melbourne are the quirky little pubs and clubs dotted around its backalleys, so that I rarely seem to end up at the same place twice when I go out.  Within minutes of the city are long stretches of sand that wrap right around the eastern arm of Port Phillip Bay, while to the West lead to the world-renowned surfing spots near Torquay.  Sweeping views of the Bass Straights offer themselves from the Great Ocean Road, while to the north of Melbourne, the gentle country of the Yarra Valley’s wine region open up into great expanses of open plains to the north and west, while the Great Dividing Range provides dramatic country for hiking, climbing, horseback riding, and at a pinch, skiing (although as a sworn affecionado of the Canadian Rockies, I have to say Mt. Buller is a bit of a let-down).

This shot is of one of the more quirky Melbourne attractions, and one for which I have little time myself, except for the grotesque vibrance of the colours.  Luna Park is a time-honored fairground metres from the waterfront at St. Kilda.  This shot is about as close as I ever plan to get to it, but I did like the angle and the ferocious contrast of lines and tones.

Mali (2006)

Tomboctou (Timbuktu) is synonymous with the concept of the nomad.  For travellers, it represents a destination as far-flung as it’s possible to go, the proverbial ends of the earth.  In fact, so proverbial is its connotation that when I mention it in conversation, more than once people have asked me, “is Timbuktu real then?”

Not only real, but once a vibrant hub in the life of the original nomads of the Sahara.  Tuareg caravans gave the city its wealth towards the beginning of the second millenium, when salt dug from pits in the desert was brought here on vast camel trains featuring hundreds of the beasts, and where slabs of salt the size of table-tops would be traded weight-for-weight with gold.  It became a centre for Islamic scholarship, with one of the great ancient libraries once stored here (the city is now home to an audacious project to identify and restore ancient Islamic manuscripts being funded by Libya’s Moammar Ghadaffi), and is considered to be the third holiest city in Islaam, after Mecca and Medina.  Its fame spread throughout the African continent, until the Moors heard of its fame in the fourteenth century and sent an army south from Marrakech.  The invaders seized the northern half of Mali, and it has bourne the scars of the conquest ever since.  The door pictured above is of a style unique to the area, but bears the visual influence of the Moroccan architecture which can be seen throughout Tomboctou on its mosques and classical buildings.

Tomboctou is a hot dusty town in the middle of nowhere.  Perched on the southern edge of the Sahara, abandoned by an arm of the Niger River that has since filled in and left it stranded far from a water course, it is one of Francophone West Africa’s best-known tourist destinations, but it is still well off the beaten track in every sense imaginable.  I visited in the peak of the hot season, and I can safely say that even after a year of living in Niger, I have never been consistently hotter, nor consistently more dehydrated, than during my time there.  However it is a mystical and exciting place, with narrow side-streets filled with blowing sand, and exotic, otherworldly architecture that stimulates the imagination.  A traveller in Africa should ensure that northern Mali is high up on their list of must-see places.