A Winter's Afternoon

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The low sun tells you how far north Stockton, Cleveland, UK, is: this was early afternoon and the sun is behind the trees of Ropner Park, whose skeletal boughs reflect the early December date and the fact they will be covered with snow very soon. It was a raw day in winter, 2006, filled with dramatic light and colour, the sort of photographic opportunities that are perhaps rarer in Australia. Sharpened and contrast-balanced, and, stark as this image is, extra colour was added. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Big Feller Tree

This massive eucalypt was photographed in September, 2009, at Arbury Park, a special ecological school in the Adelaide Hills. It was early in the morning and the low sun made amazing textures of light and shade on the rugose bark, while the dramatic angle up the trunk made the most of the tree's amazing height. It was a simple composition shot, and was enhanced with sharpening only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

The City By Night

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This is the third of my night shots in Sunderland, UK, taken during a chilly walk on an evening in November, 2007. Here I'm approaching the St Peters bridge, just visible at right, from the south side, and the streetlighting has registered the muted tones of buildings and grass amazingly well. The image was enhanced with gamma correcion to bring up the middle values, then contrast and colour saturation were used to restore visual density. The camera was held solidly against a lamp post to defeat shake, allowing the long exposure to do its magic. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Silk Flowers

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I took this shot in September 2009, when evening light through red and gold bottleglass caught a spray of artificial flowers and generated these deep, rich colours. This is pure opportunistic shooting, in a few minutes the image would have been gone, the idea is to see the shot and take it without hesitation: a took five frames of which this was the best, the horizontal light catching the fine-scale structure of the flowers in visually pleasing ways. Sharpened only; Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

White Horse on the Hills

The famous 'white horses'of the southern vales of England are a cultural icon but there are two kinds: real ones, dating from the Bronze Age and created perhaps as navigational markers in the landscape, and false ones, created in the 19th century as landscape aesthetics. This is the latter type, photographed in December, 2006, in Wiltshire. This was a telephoto shot from the roadside, and the hazy conditions were the result of rain going through all morning. Technically simple, it was a case of recording what was there before the tour moved on. I took many high-telephoto closeups but the haze seriously reduced the image quality. Sharpened and colour-enhanced; Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Busy Airport

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This was a simple enough shot, but compsition was the object, looking for a frame filled with machines and the implicit action of people interacting with them. Flights were arriving and deplaning at Newcastle Aiport, UK, this evening in November, 2007, and while I waited for my own connection to London I amused myself shooting through plate glass, defeating reflections by easing behind a standing display of some sort, and using telephoto to close on the subject matter. As evening drew toward night I held the lens surround hard against the glass to control shake. Here a row of Boeing 737s was marshalled at the arrival terminals, and handlers were busy with their offloading and replenishment. The usual enhancements were done; Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Look Back at Autumn

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In winter's grey days it's nice to look back at the bright, warm days of autumn here in the southern hemisphere. Can it really be only eighteen weeks (April, 2009) since the fall colours were bright at Loftier Gardens? Here I shot up past a picnic area under a tree whose shade created a dark foreground against the brilliant backdrop of the forest, always a visually engaging lighting situation. Normal enhancements; Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Fitting the Frame

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Very large objects can be very difficult to fit into a photographic frame and maintain any sort of pleasing composition. This is the British Museum's Diplodocus skeleton, which at over 80 feet long is a textbook example of how to accommodate such a subject within the confines of a photographic frame. I shot this subject from every angle imaginable, and going upstairs was a way to shrink the apparent scale. Note the slight blur on some museum patrons, a clue to the light levels and thus exposure length. Sharpened and contrast-balanced, with a tweak of extra colour. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Beachhouse at Dusk

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The light levels must have been very much 'in the cracks' between what was possible for daytime photography and the restrictions for a nighttime shoot. I caught this soft study of a house on the Brighton foreshore, southwest of Adelaide, SA, in spring, 2007, between sunset and moonrise, and the chip registered the pastel tones of the cool light wonderfully well. The frame was sharpened and very carefully balanced for colour and contrast, so as not to rob it of its original feel. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Street Art in Stockton

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Public artwork can take almost any form and sometimes it is quite surprising. In Adelaide's Rundell Mall we have a cast bronze pig rummaging in a waste bin! I photographed these energetic dogs in the High Street, Stockton on Tees, Cleveland, UK, having realised by their frozen imobility that they were statues, though painted to look lifelike. In Classical times statues were painted, it is only in recent centuries we have become used to the idea of bare stone, and here bronze is treated to create a strangely lifelike impression, especially when glimpsed from the corner of the eye. The composition was simple, the light soft in the winter shadows of an afternoon in November, 2006, and some foreground was cropped before the image was enhanced the usual way. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Where are the Orcs?

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A forest like this sometimes seems on the brink of spontaneously giving up hordes of ravening subhuman warriors... Maybe it's because we watch too much fantasy these days, but the natural world was home to such aberrations in the mind and imagination of the classic fantasy writers and the image comes no less to mind now. This is Rocky Paddock, at Mount Crawford Forest, east of Adelaide, photographed in May, 2008, and the splay of shadows as the POV looks into the sun quadrant is aesthetically very pleasing. Extraneous foreground was cropped and the image was sharpened and balanced as per usual. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Jurassic Coast

These are the fossil-bearing cliffs of Whitby, Yorkshire, UK, photographed in November, 2006. The whole area is rapidly eroding and dedicated fossil hunters work the shoreline constantly. The shot was taken from the base of the east breakwater, and shows how unstable the strata is. The composition was a simple framing and the low light conditions were registered very well by the chip. Sharpened and balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Almost Air-to-Air

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The marvelous thing about shooting low-flying aircraft is that if you manage to exclude any background details, buildings, trees, you can develop an image which the eye has a hard time telling from a low angle aerial perspective. This is the Aero Delphin, a jet trainer built in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, photographed at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, February, 2007, south of Adelaide. The shot had plenty of telephoto factored in to create the illusion of closer proximity, and extraneous sky background was cropped to enlarge the aircraft in the frame further. The fast shutter speed of the bright conditions stopped the action, and I managed to hold the camera sufficiently steady to have an acceptable rotational angle without messing with it. Enhancements were the usual sharpness, contrast and colour. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Stonehenge

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Stonehenge was a highlight of my Wiltshire roadtrip in December, 2006, and I could only lament how rough the weather was on the day. I would have loved to see it in summer, but the greyness of the day certainly created atmospheric images. This is a generic view chosen to exclude the throngs of visitors, hundreds despite there being a 45-degree slant on the rain at the time. The chip has managed the exposure very well indeed, bringing out the median-values and detail on the subject while burning the stormy sky out to white. The image was sharpened and enhanced in the areas of colour and contrast. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. image by Mike.

Globes in the Sun

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Art decor can range from the irritating to the engaging, and the classically simple purity of these spherical light shrouds, echoing organic bubbles against the natural sky, is a strangely pleasing image. Art imitates nature, steel and glass become an organism, a linear one but no less a reminder of stems and branches, or of the floatation bladders of sea wrack. These lights were photographed on the Festival Plaza, Adelaide, in January, 2008, and were a simple composition exercise. Sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Deceptively Calm

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The shelter of cliffs buffers a town from the weather, and just as the old town of Whitby nestles in the protection of the Esk River estuary, so Sunderland grew up around the mouth of the Were. This is the Sunderland marina, a new residential complex sheltered by the shoulder of the Roker cliffs from much of the force of the North Sea weather, and here the marina seems placid, almost Mediterranean. The frame was taken from St Peters Rd, in November, 2006, and was sharpened and colour- and contrast-balanced. The horizon line was squared up with fine rotation. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

The Adelaide Hilton Hotel

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After an evening band shoot at a city pub, I was heading home via public transport from Victoria Square, Adelaide, and could not resist trying again for a definitive portrait of the Hilton Hotel, in the full beauty of its floodlights. I steadied the camera against the uprights of the bus shelter and picked up a few frames of which this one has the most comfortable composition. The chip does a remarkable job of registering the intense contrast in a night time image, the length of exposure can be seen from the blurring of the pedestrian and car at lower left, and the frame was enhanced with the usual round of tweaks via Irfanview for publication. August, 2009. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Lytham Rd, Blackpool

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The sky was the motivating factor in this image. It was just after sundown on a chilly evening in November, 2006. I was standing on a bridge, looking north toward Blackpool Tower, and was exploring for a while before retreating to my hotel. The short wavelength light in the shadowed street is an interesting, soft registration, while the clouds make for an artistic counterpoint to the angular, built environment. Sharpened and enhanced, with gamma correction bringing up middle values and contrast hardening them off. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Reflected Forest

Sometimes you 'see' a potential shot, and do some manoeuvring to make it happen. This is the glass facade of the new wing of Flinders Medical Centre, south of Adelaide, with the tall eucalypts lining the seasonal stream that runs by the foot of the building reflected clearly. I saw this image from the parking lot on the opposite slope and picked the right spot, zoomed in hard on the effect I was interested in and grabbed several frames. The time of day was crucial, had the light been from a different angle the reflection would not have been as clear: the trees had to be catching direct light but not the facade. April, 2009. Sharpened and contrast-enhanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. mage by Mike.

Available Light, With a Difference

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This is the British Museum's mounted skeleton of the dinosaur Baryonyx walkeri, photographed in December, 2006, and it presented a different lighting situation to most other displays. The floodlights built into the mount provided all the primary illumination, whereas most of the freestanding dinosaurs are in mysterious, soft lighting and are so large that flash shots tend toward the indistinct as the subject flows into the background in ways contrary to the usual performance of flash. This is a non-flash shot and the contrast level is excellent. The frame was sharpened and colour-enhanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Hot Sundown

One would expect this shot to be using a gold filter, but it was taken without any aids at all. It's a high telephoto value on the setting sun, taken off Brighton beach, South Australia, in August, 2007, and it suggests a hot day, a very tropical feeling: it was a cool late afternoon, and after sundown conditions became rapidly chilly. The horizon line is almost exactly horizontal also, which is pretty fair for hand-held shooting. Sharpened only; Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Stone of the Ages

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This shot was taken inside Salisbury Cathedral in December, 2006. This is a place of living history and one is very much aware of the passing centuries, of the millions of pairs of feet which have walked these halls before. I had mixed success with this shoot as the lighting levels were essentially low but the building so huge that flash didn't have a hope of reaching. I took my best shots with the camera held immobile against an upright to let the long exposures do their thing. I have some shots with people visibly moving, illumination was that low. This was an attractive composition in which the late afternoon sun could register along with the artificial lights, outline the 12th century stonework to perfection. Sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Catch the Flash

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Reflex shooting can give unpredictable results, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Here a Robinson R-22 helicopter is framed quite well, at a high telephoto value, as it passes obliquely, at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, February, 2007, south of Adelaide, South Australia. The short exposure time has stopped the blades and the timing of the shutter has also captured the strobing of the beacon on the aircraft's tail boom. The general grain of the image is an artifact of the telephoto setting, and the fact it was taken at only 2mp, a way of getting a large number of frames onto a flashcard in the days before really big cards started to become affordable. Sharpened and colour-enhanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Waterbirds in Grey Light

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These swans were photographed on the lake at Ropner Park, Stockton, Cleveland, UK, in December, 2006. It was a day of changeable weather, alternately grey or sunny, rainy or dry. The birds on the lake, ducks, swans, geese, are expert wranglers for food and flock to any visitors. They make unusual photographic subjects, especially in the quite steely light of the moment. This shot was cropped from a larger frame, sharpened and the colour enhanced slightly. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Alien Organisms

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These huge, bizarre plants were photographed at the lake at Loftier Gardens, in the Adelaide Hills, in April, 2009. They are so strange, rising so imposingly from the waters, that they evoke thoughts of lush alien jungles, when of course they are very much terrestrial. The exotic plants gathered in botanic gardens are often eye-opening in their sheer unfamiliarity. This was a simple frame-and-shoot, looking more or less into the sun quadrant of the sky but the transparency of the vegetation creates almost the illusion of side-and front-lighting. Sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Soft Dusk Light

This is one of my Newcastle Airport shots from November, 2007, taken with the camera held firmly against plate glass and with the benefit of a piece of furniture blocking reflections. The sun was down, leaving the world in indirect, long-frequency light, and so long as the camera was steady the chip translated the conditions remarkably well. I framed the standing aircraft and waited for the taxying aircraft to reach the right point in the composition before releasing the shutter, compensating also for the timelag in that operation. Sharpened and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Autumn Mirror

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This is a delightful study of the lake at Loftier Gardens, east of Adelaide, taken in April, 2009. Viewed from the south side, this was a zoom shot of the northern bank. The image was cropped to draw the attention tightly to the trees and their reflection, and create a palette of pure fall colours. Sharpened, colour- and contrast balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Sun Quadrant

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Shooting into the sun quadrant is always an adventure, as the characteristics of your lens will interact with the lighting angle and any other local conditions to create flash and glare, often intrusive factors but sometimes aesthetically pleasing on their own merits. The prismatic artifacts in the dark area are particularly interesting. This shot was taken at the base of the east breakwater in Whitby, North Yorkshire, UK, in November, 2006, looking toward the west side of the harbour, something of a reflex shot to catch the passers-by in the midst of the glare, and basically see what happened. Sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

The Dry Land

Is this the dry heart of Australia? No, this photo was taken in November, 2006, on a domestic shuttle between Adelaide and Melbourne. The watercourse holds enough moisture for life to survive but away from the river the heat and dust rule. The trick with this kind of shot is to see the interesting ground features, frame and shoot before the plane is past them, but from 20, 000 feet the scenery scrolls by slowly enough for the process to become a comfortable one. Sharpened, and colour- and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Around the Feet of Giants

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This is the East End of London as redeveloped in recent decades, a maze of new residential and business blocks fronting onto the waters of the long-disused commercial docks, a veritable Venice of canals and bridges, the 19th century maritime trade complex recreated as gracious living in the 21st. The Docklands Light Railway is the people-mover which threads it all together, running on a system of bridges and elevated tracks from the region of the Tower of London to Greenwich and points even further afield. This shot was taken through the train window (some reflections of internal lighting appear as the price of framing the material for its own benefit) on a Sunday afternoon in November, 2007. Sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Metal and Complex Light

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Here the POV is under the tail of the DeHavilland Sea Venom at the Fast Jets Fighter Museum, Parafield Airport, north of Adelaide, taken in January, 2007, and the range of tonal values the chip has gathered are striking. The shadow areas have been adequately registered, while the main lighting source is burned out, yet the general colours of the environment have been captured with great truth. The image was sharpened, and the colour and contrast adjusted slightly. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Street Scene in Shadow

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This frame was taken in the morning at the top of the eighteenth-century Henrietta St, Whitby, in November, 2007. The shadow of the east cliff is cast over the mouth of the River Esk and flattens the contrast, and this frame, looking back down the steep street, catches the compression of perspective with a medium telephoto factor. The verticals of the buildings become the theme, and the horizontal of the road surface the element giving meaning to the verticals. The absence of pedestrians creates an almost staged air, and a quite artistic feel. Sharpened and contrast- and colour-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Extreme Distortion

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This is the most extreme example of heat distortion I've yet photographed. My post "Unintentionally Artistic" looked at catching a stem of grass correctly in focus as a consequence of the chip being unable to focus on the heat-distorted aircraft in the background; this is the same aircraft, a T-28 Trojan flown by Wayne Pearce at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, February, 2007, heading in the opposite direction, further away and 100% masked by the heat haze rising from the runway. The photograph was taken at high telephoto, thus the distortion becomes the entire image. Colour-enhanced and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Vanishing Point in Stone

This is a pleasing perspective shot, taken on the south side of the north breakwater on the Roker foreshore of Sunderland in November, 2006. The low lighting angle was about 3.30pm. The conditions were very cold, with a stiff breeze, and I went down a flight of old boat-landing steps to capture this angle on the stonework. This engineering is 19th century, and the deterioration of stone and iron under the impact of the environment creates always-interesting images. Sharpened and colour enhanced, Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Lighting Depth

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This is once again opportunistic photography: at the Gumeracha Medieval Fair in May, 2009, I snapped some close-ups of the armoured horsemen after their display. The jousting area was set up at the base of a steep hill, which created a shadowed background in the late afternoon, while the foreground remained sunlit, and here the backlighting does interesting things with both armour and the foliage closest the POV. This is a complicated lighting situation and taking advantage of it for striking composition makes the lighting the key element of this 'personalised hardware' shot. Sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

19th Century Landscape

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This image is an excellent contrast to my last photo from the Esk Valley Railway. That time the lighting, the cleanliness of the window and the angle on the subject were wagering against the shot, but this time everything was going for it: a clean window, lighting favouring the subject matter, and a lower telephoto factor providing for less inherent grain. This is a classic old farmhouse in the Esk Valley of Yorkshire, between Middlesbrough and Whitby, snapped on a sunny afternoon in November, 2007, from the passing train. But for the visible motion on the foreground tree, you would almost think you were standing on the far side of the valley from the clarity. The frame was sharpened and colour- and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Then and Now

Architecture defines the centuries, and here in the Adelaide CBD the 19th and 20th centuries are very apparent. The city is less than 200 years old, and the neo-classical styles that defined grandeur 150 years ago are now almost quaint, though the size and stylistic inventiveness of modern buildings has often been criticised as lacking the inherent dignity of prior centuries. This is a view of Adelaide's tallest building, taken from Currie St in April, 2009, and was technically an exercise in composition, balancing the vanishing point symmetry of different structures in different alignments to create a pleasing, vertiginous, image. Sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Urban Visitor

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Seagulls penetrate to the heart of London, reminding the viewer that the Thames, so wide and placid and dirty, is in fact a tidal river and that the arm of the sea known as the Thames Estuary is not very far to the east. This bird posed for a telephoto portrait on a (fascinatingly textured) rotted wharf piling on the river frontage near the Tower of London, with the old cruiser HMS Belfast framed as the background, in November, 2007. Sharpened and colour- and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Evening in the Valley

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This photograph was taken in the country near Williamstown, east of Adelaide, in October, 2007. The shadow of the hill behind the POV was starting to move across the valley, and the horizontal, long-frequency light created the amazing field of colour and shade seen here. This was an opportunistic shot, a few minutes and the whole image would have changed, so the idea is to zoom on the area that most grabs the eye and grab the composition while it lasts. Sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Lens Flare by Night

Given that this image was also taken through a window, it turned out very well. After several hours delay for weather, my plane finally backed away from the terminal at London Heathrow bound for Australia, in the third week of November, 2007. I had photographed the aircraft from the terminal, and at last got some shots through the window as she started to move. Here the massive flood lights burn out in lens flare, and reflect from the wing. The shot was cropped down to better focus on the area of interest, then sharpened. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Characterising the Action

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This is a less-precise variation on "personalising the hardware," almost a crowd-scene, though the image tells a story. The sign on the truck sets the scene, the people are the personification of what's happening and the helicopter, stopped in flight overhead, is the "noun" of the narrative in the sense that it is the object, and the "verb" in the sense that flight is the action. This was one of a batch of similar shots taken at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, February, 2007, in which the close proximity of people and aircraft made for many interesting action shots. Trying to shoot aircraft devoid of passers-by is a skill all by itself, but when you combine them deliberately some engaging compositions result. Sharpened, and colour- and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Bridge on the Esk

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This is an intensively reworked shot. The original was taken, with plenty of telephoto dialed up, in November, 2006, through a train window (note the marks), looking under the road bridge just inland of Whitby, alongside the River Esk in North Yorkshire. This perspective, framing the historic buildings on the East Cliff, is hard to obtain from anywhere else but the moving train. The image was squared up using fine rotation, then extraneous top and bottom areas were cropped. The softening effect of the window (due to shooting obliquely through it, rather than square-on) was ameliorated by sharpening around 15%, then the contrast and colour were adjusted. The final result is not up to the standard of shooting without that dirty window in front of the lens, but the unusual composition goes a long way to forgiving the shortcomings. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Dawn Light in the Forest

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This photograph was taken in the hour after dawn at Mt Crawford Forest, north-east of Adelaide, in May, 2008. The mist was still quite heavy though the sun was burning it up, and this frame catches not only the horizontal light outlining the tree but shafts through patches of mist at upper right. Such images are ephemeral, you catch the moment for the moment will never return in precisely the same way. Sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Deceptive Summer

These marching columns are streetlights on St Peter's Rd, Sunderland, UK, photographed in November, 2007. The colour factor is the important point here, besides the composition of the poles and the tower to the left. That blue sky feels Mediterranean, it certainly creates a visual feeling of warmth, which is totally deceptive. Note the distortive effect of the lens on the verticals. November in Sunderland is decidedly chilly, and the wind was like a knife all week. The image was sharpened and colour- and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Big Bridge, Small Boat

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This is the lift bridge over the river at Port Adelaide, photographed in summer, 2008. It's almost visually humorous to see a gigantic bridge opened fully to allow through a tiny sailboat on account of the mast being a fraction too tall to pass under the closed bridge! It also nicely contrasts the weight of the industrial construction of the bridge against the relative delicacy of the boat: one built to work solidly through the generations, the other built for speed in a mobile element. The picture was taken from the Hart's Mill Waterfront area, at medium-high telephoto, and was simply a matter of composition, the bright day providing ideal conditions. Sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

The British Museum (Natural History)

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Grandeur was a symbol of empire, and the neo-classicism of architectural design in the 18th and 19th centuries was a deliberate invocation of the respectability of classical times: London and Paris are scattered with Neo-Roman buildings. This is the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London, brainchild of the always-controversial Richard Owen in the 1850s, an example of the way Britain's economic and political power had the resources to devote to public structures of the magnitude of cathedrals and palaces. With a building so very large it is never easy to capture it appreciably in the confines of a single frame, and this shot, taken from the other side of Cromwell Rd, is about as far back as you can get before the trees interfere with the composition rather than contributing to it. Sharpened and colour- and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Trying For Motion-Streaking

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This is a simple effect with a manual camera. In the old days I would put the camera on the tripod at it's lowest height, focus in, then set the aperture to F16, forcing the shutter speed out to half a second, then the motion of the water would streak into solid bars of soft-edged light, which is of course how the famous Steve Parish creates those amazing water images in his celebrated landscape photography. Digital cameras are another matter, and this was purely experimental: was the light level in the Flinders Medical Centre rainforest garden low enough to force a long exposure without going to aperture priority? Almost! The result, while not quite the arty streaking it might have been, is certainly engaging: the crystal clarity of the wet rock texture, and the individual droplets of water catching the light. December, 2007; sharpened and colour-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Precision Flying

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This is a high telephoto shot, and the lack of image resolution is at least partly due to that. But the shutter speed is very high, stopping the vortex of the smoke trail to show each prop-beat eddy perfectly. This is Chris Sperou, Australia's all-time aerobatic champion, in his trademark Pitts biplane, and Warren Stewart in the Beech B33, flying their super-close manoeuvres at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, in South Australia, February 2007. The shot was cropped close from a larger frame area before sizing for publication. The image was sharpened and contrast-enhanced very slightly. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

River Cruising in London

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The Greenwich Reach lends itself to panoramic imagery wonderfully. This shot was cropped from a standard frame, taken in November, 2007, from the shores of the Thames between the Royal College of Music and the Cutty Sark's drydock. The sleek, futuristic Thames Clippers are a usual sight, the tour boats plying up and down this famous, historic river through the heart of one of the world's greatest cities. Technically, composition was the object here: I framed the city and waited for the boat to cruise into just the right place before releasing the shutter. The picture was enhanced in the usual way, sharpened and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Fish-Eye Reflections

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Christmas trees can be very hard to photograph. For their lights to be seen at their best the ambient illumination should be low, and flash pretty much defies the object of the lights. You can snap away for ages before you get a decent shot, and this macro closeup is delightfully sharp. The red orb is a perfect spherical mirror in which the camera itself can be seen, along with the photographer. Sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.