In the Garden of Calm

This is another frame from Himeji Garden, Adelaide, South Australia, which I captured on October 20^th, 2016, when I took a day in town with my sister in law, on a visit Down Under. Nothing clever from a photographic aspect here other than composition perhaps—just a beautiful place that’s always so nice to see. Minimal enhancement. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

River Frontage

Here’s a deceptively simple image that’s part luck, part skill. A reflex shot—the scene presented itself and I grabbed it—from the window of a train on Tuesday, November 16^th, 2010, on my journey south from Sunderland to London, to head back to Australia. This is maybe 90 minutes after I got the pics of Durham Cathedral through the haze, and several hours before I framed up the neon lighting at Heathrow Airport (see older posts). The train ran through considerable fog, through towns, past great steam-belching power stations, and by the time I was around the latitudes of Birmingham, the weather cleared to sun and blue sky. This is the River Nene, where it flows through Peterborough, and I managed to catch it through a clean patch of window, with the sun angle right for the scene and not to make every speck of dirt on the glass flare. Some adjustments were done—it was squared-up using custom rotation, and the contrast and colour were tweaked just a little. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Geometry in Iron

Repeating shapes always make for interesting visual exercises, and this is mid-Victorian ironwork—Brunel’s masterpiece, Paddington Station, in London. After booking into my hotel on Sunday, October 31^st, 2010, I walked back round to the station to play with imagery, and this one was taken from a footbridge spanning the tracks. In the 1850s (Paddington opened in 1854), British railway engineering was a boom industry, and cast iron was the masterstroke of the age, making possible shapes and sizes of structure previously unknown. Here, thousands of tons of iron create an airy, arched pavilion large enough to accommodate the smoke of steam trains without choking the commuters, and to this day it is one of the busiest railway terminals in London. A simple shot, it took advantage of the topography, creating an almost organic feel. Minor enhancement only—just contrast and colour. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike

 

Rolling Country

The opposite ends of the year are so different in Australia. This country would be grey-yellow in high summer—as it is now, at the end of April as I post this, for the simple reason that while the days are shorter and the temperatures cool, there has been no rain to trigger the greening. Fair’s fair, the last green didn’t vanish until; February this year, but the rains are taking their time... This photo was taken in August, 2020, and is a view of the farms off Robinson Rd. in the Adelaide Hills. The place is so lush and tranquil it could be the English countryside. Colour contrast and sharpness were given small adjustments. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Smooth Gradient

 

One can lose track of photographs when one takes a great many, and after a little recent organisation of files I came across sets from 2019 which had been overlooked. A couple of country drives not long after my birthday that year took us to some spots in the south, and this particular shot was taken in the late afternoon from Crow’s Nest Lookout, which is on the hills above the south coast. At the time (April 16^th, 2019) I was giving another camera a workout—it’s still on standby for when my old S5600 finally gives up the ghost. This is an exercise in how the chip handles high contrast, looking past trees silhouetted in the light of the low sun. The gradient of colour in the sky is quite amazing, and the image has a great deal of “body” to it. The chip handles the conditions very nicely indeed—I must use this camera more! Note the super-wide format selected, and the higher DPI. Minor enhancement only—some gamma adjustment in effort to pull out detail in the foreground. Fuji FinePix HS10. Image by Mike.

The Wide Sky

 

A favourite photo stop is the top of Mt. Alma, South Australia. A hill, of course, as all our “mountains” are, and the road leads over the summit. But that view! In fair weather or foul, the breadth of sky is amazing, and the farms below are spread out like a toy landscape. To the south you can catch the Southern Ocean between folds of the hills, and it’s always quiet up there—birds and the bleat of sheep, wind in the grass... I took this shot on December 13^th, 2019, after an excellent early Christmas lunch at Inman Valley Country Kitchen, and you can see the country is already getting into summer mode—quite a contrast to this summer gone by in which green persisted locally until February! This wide-angle shows the breadth of the Australian landscape rather to perfection. This is a phone pic, and no enhancements were done at all. Leagoo M9. Image by Mike.

950 Years of History

This is Durham Cathedral, one of the oldest in England, whose origins date back to the early years of the Norman conquest. I grabbed this and several other frames through the window of a train on Tuesday, November 16^th, 2010, having departed Sunderland at 10.30 on my way to London for my return flight to Australia. The train passed through Durham’s elevated railway station, thus the views over the city and across to the bluff above the river bend where the Cathedral and castle were built. The morning, though quite clear, was hazy, and the train window adds to the effect. In this frame I managed to not pick up my own reflection, which is always a hazard—I have memories of pressing the camera to the glass to avoid reflections in many instances. I would have loved to spend some time in Durham, exploring this amazing place and its history, but that was set aside for a future trip—which unfortunately hasn’t happened yet. This picture marks the beginning of the second year since I resurrected this blog (April 9^th, 2023).Very minor enhancements were done—there’s not much more to pull out of a frame as soft as this. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

 

City Streets

 

In contrast to the last few images, which have celebrated the natural world, mostly forests, here is the complete opposite—no blade of green to be seen. This is the view from Grenfell Street, Adelaide, South Australia, toward what was built as the REM-Myer Centre, back in the 80s, along the pedestrian-only James Place. I remember when I grabbed this shot, in June, 2020. I had been to the city for shopping and was heading back to my bus stop when I saw the vertical symmetry, the light catching it just so, and had to stop, grab out my phone and record what I saw. Phones are great for those moments when an interesting composition presents itself. The contrast, colour and sharpness were minimally enhanced. Leagoo M9. Image by Mike. Mm

Painted Reflections

 

Reflections in water are one of my favourite things to photograph. They’re ever-changing, completely dependent on the light and wind conditions, and the artistic effects are always pleasing. This is Playford Lake, at Belair National Park, South Australia, which I‘ve shot many, many times over the years. Depending on the time of day, the most amazing studies can be taken from the path that circles the lake. If I remember correctly, this is a long telephoto shot from the west end of the lake, looking back to the western end of the island, and the light angle suggests quite early in the day. This shot was one of many taken when the light was just right on November 15^th, 2023. Minor tweaks to contrast and colour only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Nature’s Symmetry

 As a photographer I’m fascinated by symmetries, whether man-made or natural, and here is a natural one—the long, straight trunks of pine trees creating a vanishing point when viewed directly upward. I took this photo on the 8^th of April, 2017, probably somewhere in the Kuitpo Fortest region, though I couldn’t swear to that as there’s no record, and other parts of the same expedition are down around Mount Compass and environs. No matter, the symmetry’s the thing, and its always interesting to see parallel lines in nature. Some enhancement was done, contrast, colour and sharpness. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Echoes of Long Ago

The ruins of Whitby Abbey are among my earliest memories. I would have first visited in the mid-1960s, and remembered them well when we came to Australia in 1971. I have had the chance to visit again on a couple of my UK trips—now, alas, also many years ago. I took this shot on Saturday November 6^th, 2010, the day after arriving in Whitby from London. This was designated a rest day, so I was not catching a train anywhere else, just wandering around that quaint town by the North Sea. I visited the abbey and did a lengthy photo shoot in the afternoon light. I captured many studies of the stonework, long eroded by the salt wind—the abbey stands on the east headland—and one can lament the destruction of these great Medieval buildings. How amazing it would be to see this place in perfect condition, a relic of most ancient times. This pic was taken in good light, and required only the most minor adjustment—contrast and colour. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

A Wild Land

At first glance a jumble of colours and shapes—this is the view over central Australia looking down from the starboard side of an airliner on its way to Singapore, on the first leg of my flight to the UK, on October 31^st, 2010. There are clouds and their shadows, over a dun-ochre landscape—it could almost be Mars, right?—which, one can see from altitude, seems, incongruously, to have been shaped by flowing water. Incongruous, because it’s bone dry most of the year, and subject to flash floods at wide intervals, which, nevertheless, mould the landscape in ways quite distinct from above. I have vivid memories of this flight as we passed by Uluru, and the Captain announced that they had been given permission to deviate slightly from flightpath so as to pass almost over the Rock. Passengers on my side of the plane saw it as we went by. My photos are not very distinct, there seemed much haze on the day, and the window was far from clean. This image, taken some way south of Uluru, probably in the far north of South Australia, has been enhanced a fair bit, gamma value was reduced a long way to compensate for the haze, contrast and colour were intensified, and the whole was sharpened just a little. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.