I first climbed Cansip when I five. It's nice to have a break from studying once in while. First time I've managed to get out west in the 2 months that I've been home. Got pretty lucky with weather, no wind for still water and some sun to light up all the colours. Pity today is just the opposite.
Taking advantage of an early finish at university to get a wee break outdoors down at Rogie Falls on my way home. I was hoping for some more oranges and yellows but I guess I'll just have to stop in again in a couple weeks.
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Scottish Landscape Photographer of the Year website
Follow the links below to view the results and the gallery of superb images.
WINNER OF THE FOCUS APRIL 2017 ‘LONG EXPOSURE’ COMPETITION
The last time I went to the popular Mrs Macquarie's Chair in Sydney for sunset was 7 years back. Having lived about 10 minutes drive from here for the last four years and with the prospect of some colour at sunset I finally headed back. And I got lucky with a late flourish of reds and oranges whilst the opera house had began to light up for the night.
Also featured Our favourite #ausphotomag shots of the week
Read more at http://www.australianphotography.com/news/our-favourite-ausphotomag-shots-of-the-week#WlpvPhXmBk7DjZ1F.99
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Here are a couple shots, one before the sun rises casting a nice pink on the clouds over the valley and a second just as the light begins to shine on Mount Solitary and the Jamieson Valley. I'm not sure which of the two I prefer yet.
1. First up is this shot from an opportunistic trip up to the Blue Mountains to chase waterfalls after a few days of heavy rain. Normally I'm not a fan of looking down on a waterfall, but I like the misty visibility in the valley created by all the low cloud.
2. Driving back from the north coast of Sutherland and back home via the scenic route. Since I was driving I was trying to look at this in the mirrors and I knew that I just had to pull over at the first chance I had. To me this is the stereotypical mountain you draw as kid, pointy mountain with snow at top.
3. Night photography is something I rarely get a chance to try living in Sydney, but I often have a go when I'm out in. Taken whilst visiting family in New Zealand. This photo won me a yet to be experienced helicopter ride in Cromwell.
4. North Curl Curl rockpool offers a plethora of different compositions, especially in high seas. This was taken on the headland looking down on the recently battered pool.
5. This is a spot in Sydney that doesn't seem to attract the masses. I found it quite unexpectedly when I had a early day at work and thought I'd have a wee explore along the coast to possibly find a spot that might be good a future sunrise and I came across this.
6. A weekend away down in Narooma, a planned trip to go swimming with the seals was unfortunately cancelled but the coastline presented plenty photographic opportunities and this headland was only a couple minutes from where we were staying.
7. Taken at the end of nice walk to the waterfalls on the path up to Slioch. The weather was quite mixed and this is just before we got back in the car look down towards Loch Maree and Slioch.
8. A really good soaking as the heavens opened up at Plodda Falls. I had to wade across the water to get down here from the viewpoint on the other side. Although there must have been a path here once as you can clearly used to be a path as you can still see the broken old hand rails on the right.
9. Camping at Newnes for a few days and I managed to get up Mystery Mountain overlooking the campground for sunrise.
10. Staying next to Umina Beach made for a quick and easy walk down to the beach for this shot. I like the layers on the headlands all the way to the Northern Beaches.
Shot on Pentax K5 with Tamron 17-50mm at 17mm, ISO 80, f11, 371s with Hoya CPL and Hitech 6 stop IRD filters.
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One from the weekend down in Narooma on the stunning Sapphire Coast in New South Wales, Australia.
Shot on Pentax K5 with Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 at 17mm, ISO 80, f11, 2.5 secs with a Hoya Polariser
]]>I have almost never used presets for processing my images, so when Sleeklens asked me to review their Through the Woods Workflow for Lightroom package, I was initially unsure but thought I'd give it a go to see if really does speed up the post production side of photography. The majority of my photography is landscapes and shot in RAW, so I always have to process my photos. My usual workflow after importing to LR is to adjust the global exposure, colour temperature and curves to bring the image to life and then work on areas of the scene locally mostly using the gradient and radial filters. In saying that I do not usually spend much time on an image and try to keep things as authentic as possible.
First Impressions
Installation although not automatic is relatively straightforward. It just involves unzipping the files and copying them to the relevant Lightroom folders. A pretty thorough guide walks you through each step and I had no trouble following it all for the presets and brushes.
Sleeklens also provide you with some video tutorials that demonstrate how you can their presets and brushes to help you process your images. They again are quite easy to follow. They take you through initially using global presets and then making use of local brushes to add colour and detail. The local adjustments in the videos look good and they make you aware that you can adjust the sliders on the preset brushes to suit your taste.
The Through the Woods collection contains 51 presets and 30 brushes for landscape editing. The presets are presented in different sets, the first set is All in One which is probably the more traditional preset idea of all the adjustments being done in swift click. Then the rest go through the different areas of the Lightroom Develop panel, which are stackable and can be mix and matched;
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Base - adjusts the contrast and colour temp,etc to set an overall feel for the image
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Exposure - adjustments in highlights and shadows
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Colour - reduces a colour cast
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Tone/Tint - saturation
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Polish - adjust extra contrast, clarity, saturation
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Vignette - different strengths of black and white vignettes
The brushes are also arranged by type
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Basics - contrast and clarity
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Colour - adding tints or colour
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Effects - sky and water definition
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Haze - reduces colour hazes
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Light - dodge and burn plus a couple sunset enhancing brushes
The nice thing about the presets is that they can achieve a look quickly and efficiently, but still can be altered, and are non-destructive to the RAW file.
When you open the develop module you can preview what each preset does first in the navigator panel by hovering the cursor the name of the preset. Bare in mind though that clicking on each preset to alter your image does have some side effects. I noticed that going from the Base High Dyanamic Range to Basic Film, didn't reset the tone curves. So be sure to undo rather than just clicking on different presets as I've done below.
From left to right; Basic Film, High Dynamic Range, then back to Basic Film.
As I played with the presets I quickly realised that you can use the brush presets with the graduated filter and radial filter tools and not just the local adjustment brush.
Examples
Here are some before an after edits using some of the presets with roughly what I did to each as I've been using them through the past week.
Global adjustments with Presets
- Base - Dance in the Rain
- Color Correct - Reduce Reds
- Tone/Tint - Warm it Up
- Polish - Add Clarity (which I reduced a little)
- Polish - Punch it Up (which I reduced the vibrance a lot)
Local Adjustments - Haze- cyan on the sky, desaturated the water, added some contrast and clarity, and warmed up some the the foreground.
- Base - Morning Light
- Exposure -Darken Shadows
- Tint/Tone - Cool it Down
- Polish - Add Clarity ( reduced)
- Vignette - Medium Black
Local - brightened shadows on rock, add golden sun
- Base - Extending DR
- Exposure - Darken Shadows , Less Highlights
- Color Correct - Reduce Reds
- Tone/Tint - Cool it Down
Local - Color Green on the trees, Add warmth, add golden sun, add water detail
- All in One - Shine into the Sunset
- Exposure - Less Highlights
- Polish - Add clarity
Local adjustments - brushed green on the boat, brightened up the foreground foliage. Brushed in some subtle sunset haze into the trees.
- Base - Dance in the Rain (adjusted blacks and shadows)
- Colour - Deep Blue Skies (adjusted the positioning of the filter to match my sky and reduced the saturation)
- Tone/Tint - Warm it up
- Polish - Add clarity
- Polish - Sharpen (Adjusted the mask)
Then I fixed the lens corrections, adjusted the colour temp in the lower half of the image using the subtle sunset haze preset with a grad filter. Also increased the exposure slightly and added a bit of dehaze.
Conclusions
The Through the Woods Workflow allows me to initially get to a overall starting point in my processing with the presets, whereupon I can continue to enhance the image with the supplied brushes and my own personal adjustments. Whether or not it was much faster using the global presets to prepare the image I'm not too sure as I would generally have to make slight adjustments usually to tone down the preset to my taste. But they do help you to visualise what can be done very quickly if you are unsure what direction you want to take you photo. On the other hand the brushes were very good for local adjustments and I found them quite useful and will continue to use them in my workflow. In general from start to finish each image took me about 5-10 minutes.
If you haven’t used much image processing software and find opening Lightroom quite daunting with all the panels and adjustment sliders. Furthermore are unsure what each one does then this is definitely something you will find useful. It allows you to have a clear standardised workflow using the presets and will deliver consistent results. There are quite a range of styles in the collection that should appeal to most tastes. For those of you who are more comfortable with Lightroom there is still plenty to offer especially if you after a new set of presets to work with, and you'll find the preset brushes are a really useful tool to use.
If you are interested in purchasing the workflow used in this review here are a couple links
or for any of the other in the Sleeklens range check out
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Here's a link to the story
www.cromwell.org.nz/news--feature-stories
And of course my winning photo, taken at my Uncle's vineyard back in February.
Took advantage of a short day at work to go explore the cliffs north of Bondi.
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Near the shore of Loch Maree, part of the route to the summit of Slioch. We were walking to the waterfalls nearby. Despite all the photogenic mountains surrounding the walk, I was drawn to the lines and shapes in these trees.
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Given that I spent 3 weeks back in Scotland in February I have a few new photos to add to the website . This is of the only morning I braved to get up for a pre sunrise shoot. Located on the Morayshire coast near Portknockie, conviently only 10mins from where we were staying the night in little Portsoy. Bow Fiddle Rock is a place I've been keen to visit so it was nice to capture it on a moody morning.
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A nice casual 5.30am sunrise thats about 2 hours from home, is always a fair commitment but to witness the power of the ocean against these basalt columns at this abandoned quarry is a truly special sight. Ever since I moved to Sydney a visit down to Bombo Quarry, just minutes north of Kiama has always been on my photography wish list, but timing it for a sunrise has always put me off giving its distance from home. Finally I made the effort to get down with promising conditions of a good swell, around high tide and a cloudy/rainy weather forecast. I didn't really expect a colourful sunrise, but I got very lucky!
The coast around Kiama is pretty spectacular for photography, with a host of great locations all within a few minutes of each other. So to make the most of my time, I stopped off at a couple other spots after sunrise at Cathedral Rocks and Minnamurra. Maybe I'll get a chance to visit them in better conditions in the future.
All moody before sunrise
Basking in the warm light of the rising sun
Minnamurra Cliffs
Cathedral Rocks
Here is a quick map of the local area on google maps with parking locations and rough routes for anyone who wants to visit these places.
And tide times and swell can be found here. http://swell.willyweather.com.au/nsw/illawarra/kiama-surf-beach.html
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Maheno
These can be purchased at http://www.rsabi.org.uk/bespoke or http://www.rsabi.org.uk/christmas.
RSABI is a unique Scottish charity dedicated to the relief of hardship and poverty amongst people who have depended for their livelihoods on the land.
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Turimetta Beach
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On the way to Gloucester Tops
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On the road to Gloucester Tops.
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Northern Beaches again, this time somewhere new for me. Got quite wet taking this as the waves broke over the edge.
As usual the day off I get just so happens the day after a good sunrise... but as I try to get out more, I just went. I originally planned to go elsewhere, but last minute in the car I thought I'd hit the coast as there was a fair bit of cloud coverage that I thought might be one of those red mornings. Alas I arrived and it wasn't going to happen. It is my first time at Mona Vale and I knew there was a cool tidal swimming pool there, but not today. It was empty and closed. Next up I wandered around the rock shelf, I didn't really find anything. Then as the sun came up I rushed about and settled with this position. Got fairly wet out there.
These are the shots I got as the Sun came up.
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Once the sun had come up and was shining a lovely golden light through the breaking waves, so I thought I'd get the telephoto out and try and catch some shots of the couple surfers braving the winter waters.
Finished work early today and decided to make the most of it. So quickly decided to go to Bradleys Head just along from the zoo for sunset. It was very windy when I got there, but once the sun slipped away it eased off and made things a little more pleasant. I saw this piece of seaweed to the right of the pier and thought it would make a good foreground along with the light reflecting on the wet sand. I thought I'd push the golden light on the sand more in LR to make a nice contrast with the water.
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So while I was away in NZ one of my images of the Great Wall was featured in Digital SLR Photography Magazine's showcase section. Probably my biggest publication yet! Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to see it in print, only on the iPad.
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Had a late start to work yesterday , so made the effort to go for a sunrise. I didn't bother checking the weather as it often gives me an excuse to snooze my alarm in the morning. So what with not checking the forecast I arrived to a flat cloudless sky... and a very high tide. As this was my first time at Mahon's Pool, I spent most of my time trying to find a suitable composition. I never really got one in the end as possibly where I might have wanted to be was getting smashed by the incoming waves.
I also think I need some variety to my seascapes as here's another rockshelf waterfall. I cropped to a 2:1 format because I had too much of nothing going on at the bottom of the frame.
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Springbrook National Park, Queensland
Natural Bridge
The Natural Bridge,Springbrook NP, Queensland is a naturally formed rock arch over Cave Creek, a tributary of the Nerang River. It was formed from a waterfall which undercut a cave beneath the waterfall and dug a pothole on top, until the two joined and the creek flowed through the cave, leaving an arch across the front.
This was a difficult image to get the exposure right. It is 2 shot pano, with each shot made up of 2 exposures for the highlights of the water and the tree and the shadow of the cave itself. It's a cool little spot, no swimming though because of the glow worms.
The Great Wall of China, Jinshanling
Once again the website has been updated and I have now added my images from China to my online store. So now you can pick up prints for as cheap as $5!!! Ideal for decorating your home or for giving as gifts.
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Taken at 6.14
​Taken at 6.26
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Not a new photo of Sydney, I took it last time I was here when I was tourist. I would expect in due course that I will go back a few more times in the coming months now that I live here. Should hopefully have some more photos up from my jaunt to China soon, although you can view a few images in the gallery.
And finally I got invited to be part of the new Eliza the Gallery site.
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Stormy Duncansby Stacks
Suilven from the summit of Canisp
Loch Clair
View of Assynt from Sgurr an Fhidhleir
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Starting RAW
Firstly I created two outputs from the RAW, one for the land and one for the sky and combined both layers using a mask in Photoshop. This composite was still a rather flat image as there was no real light in the trees which still looked dull.
So my first step was to create a new black and white adjustment layer and set the blending mode of luminosity as circled below. I played with each colour channel in the panel. As you can see I sucks the colour out of the image.
Next I made a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and brought the universal master saturation back up. This makes the blues too strong so I individually brought the blue channel saturation down.
Finally I created a quick curves adjustment layer to darken the sky a little bit and masked out the land.
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I finally got to Essaouira and it was a very nice seaside town.
And last stop was back to Marrakech where I had a day to explore before flying back home.
Although I did get plenty from the blue medina too.
The medina in Fes has over 9000 streets and you'll get very lost according to the many unofficial guides I wandered past. They're right too. The first day I just wandered the maze and continually got lost. Only ever having a vague idea where I was. So on the second day I went on a tour with an official guide which took me to see all the more interesting areas of the city.
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I was only here for about 16 hours, with a camel ride in and out with a night sleeping in a 'Berber camp' under the stars. Although personally I chose to walk after 15 minutes of rocking about on my dromedary so that I could take some photos. Going out to the dunes was something new for me and despite the 2 days of stifling travelling to get here, it was definitely worth it. The dunes were a magnificent site to behold.
Our Guide
The Dunes
Shadows
The 'S' Bend
Ripples
Sunset
Tourists waiting for the sunrise
Mono
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The Streets of Marrakech
Some Architecture
Some People
Mint tea is very important in Moroccan culture and it is especially a drink of hospitality, commonly served whenever there are guests around who might buy a carpet.
Since I was flying out of Marrakech I opted to move on quickly so signed up to go on a tour to the Sahara which mostly involved sitting in a people carrier while numerous photo opportunties flew passed the window. On the occasion we did stop it was usually to an uninteresting tourist trap. Although we did stop at Aït Benhaddou, which is where many movies have been filmed including Gladiator, Lawrence Of Arabia, The Mummy and many, many more. Here are some of the photos taken on the journey out to the desert.
And shortly I'll be adding China into the mix with a 3 week trip there in March.
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Hired a car and went over to Glencoe with the foolish hope that I might catch a sunrise. As I slept in the car with the rain pelting down, I knew that wasn't going to happen, but I didn't let that deter me too much and although at first I couldn't see anything the clouds did allow glimpses of what lay hidden behind them.
Lochan N'Achlaise
Next stop was to the iconic Buachaille Etive Mòr. Some sunshine broke through even though it was still raining heavily at the well trodden view Buachaille Etive Mor with the peak of Stob Dearg remaining shrouded in the cloud the entire time I was there. I'd say I'm a little disappointed that this did not turn out as well I thought it would when I was standing there. Had a few rainbows that came and went that I also missed while trying to dry off my lens.
River Etive II
A couple shots that involved getting my feet wet crossing this stream so I could get a view looking over towards the mountains.
Buachaille Etive Mor
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View over Loch Katrine towards Crianlarich
Also here are a few of the photos from the earlier trip up to Skye that have now been processed.
Trotternish Penisula
The Cuillins
The Old Man of Stoer
Kilt Rock
The Quaraing
Sisters of Kintal on the way home
Asia Photobook 2010 on Albelli
Also got out for some classic Scotland landscapes shots, only processed one so far though. More to come soon hopefully when I get time.
The Black Cuillins from Elgol.
And a shot from a couple weeks ago that I forgot to post on here.
Diggers
Red and green leaved plant outside my front door. I really like the shallow depth of focus at f1.4 on my 50mm
The Usher Hall on Lothian Road, ideally I'll get a twilight shot here, but I'm away to work at that time of day at the moment.
This one was taken at f4 and is nicely in focus, but doesn't appeal to me so much...
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This is actually a late upload from week three, went up to the Cramond walkway but water was still too high so wandered down to the falls on the River Almond. No photos from last week.
I still took a few shots from the top of Victoria street. I tried to capture the curve and the upper and lower levels in one frame so just waited until I got people walking in different directions on each part.
So here for starters a image of the iconic Forth Bridge. Went out in hope of a good sunset but it all clouded so ended up with this from earlier. Quite like the colours of the rock in the foreground, ideally the tide would have been higher around the rocks and going out. Its a start though.
