Holding it Just Right

Here’s an exercise in placing the camera right against a plate glass window with darkness outside and light behind you. Under these conditions, losing reflections is always the big thing, and here I’m happy to say I excluded them completely. I let the chip handle the dark conditions, and held the camera rock steady against the glass. This is the A380 that is about to bring me back to Australia on April 21^st, 2014—unfortunately the very last time I was on a plane. (It was a fast three-day trip away from teaching, to take in a pop culture convention in London.) I love to watch the activity “air-side” as the technicians and handlers service the big planes, a ballet of vehicles and supplies to turn the plane around for its next flight. This is almost exactly as the chip recorded the image—there was nothing to do baring introduce a dash of extra contrast and a ghost of sharpening. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Vertiginous View 2

Instead of looking down the tower, here’s the view upward. This is the Westpac Tower, Adelaide, South Australia, seen from it’s own footing, photographed on April 7^th, 2022. I needed data recovery work and the company’s office was way up on the 31^st floor, so obviously I grabbed a suit of pictures in the process. I ran a shot from the top a couple of years ago (“City Panorama,” April 13^th 2023), and have always meant to come back for at least ine more. The tower was long Adelaide’s tallest building, back from when it was the State Bank Building. That honour is now held by Frome Central Tower One, aka “The Adelaidean,” which is soon to be overtopped by the new Keystone Tower. I love vanishing point symmetry, and any trip to town these days involves looking up at the ever-increasing height of the Adelaide skyline. Minor adjustments to contrast, colour and sharpness in Irfanview; Leagoo M9. Image by Mike.

 

Horizontal Composition

Seeing what’s there and taking advantage of it is an element of photography that comes quite automatically. Suiting composition to the things one encounters is part of the art, and I found from the outset that using an automatic camera liberated me from the mechanics of photography itself and allowed me to concentrate on composition as never before. This is the river frontage at Goolwa, South Australia, looking west to the Hindmarsh Island bridge, captured on October 21^st, 2019. The weather was obviously very fare, that cloudless sky really contrasting with the spectacular, broody Southern Ocean skies one often finds down there on the coast. The framing was simple and the lines of the bridge, the water horizon and the structures in the foreground made a series of more or less parallel horizontal lines that demanded a wide composition. Emphasising the width of the material is as simple as cropping top and bottom, and I’ve included the second version. It’s your choice which you prefer! Minor adjustments to contrast, colour and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

A Stark Land

Apologies for the month-long absence, I’ve been particularly busy with writing and getting away on a brief visit. Here are a couple of Australian images in quick succession to compensate. This one was taken up by Palmer , way north of Adelaide on November 23^rd, 2020, at the first pull-in. The land was so dry, the sheep seemed to be scratching an existence from almost nothing. The air was hot and oppressive, and the distance was blue with haze. This angle is looking northward, if memory serves, toward agricultural buildings. There were grain silos not far away. I was struck by how very stark South Australia is by that time of year. This year, we’re into uncomfortably hot days a month earlier. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.