Lush at Altitude

Apologies for the dearth of posts in August! My laptop was in the shop for work, and with work being so pressing I completely forgot about the photo blog! Here’s a frame from May 8^th, 2011, taken at Loftier Botanic Gardens on a visit with friends. The park is just behind Mt Lofty in the Adelaide Hills and in fact runs up to the ridge line. These are lush, tropic plants that do well in the moisture available at altitude—there is a defile known as Fern Gully, and you can certainly see why! Nothing clever here, but the composition is pleasing, the light conditions excellent, and the exposure spot on. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

 

Reflections in a Mountain Lake

You need to be where the picture is to get the picture—that’s a truism of all photography. You can visit the same place a dozen times and get a dozen different results, down to the weather conditions, time of day and time of year (thus light angle and intensity) and so forth. This is Loftier Gardens, the botanical gardens behind Mount Lofty summit, above Adelaide, South Australia, and I’ve shot the lake many times over the years. But on this day –January 24^th, 2025—the angle and quality of light were just right. There was little breeze, so the lake was quite calm, thus the potential for mirror-like reflections was there. I shot a series of frames from the hill walk on the east side, near the public shelter, and the quality of the colour was quite amazing. At altitude the gardens remain green despite South Australia’s harsh summers, and are a haven from conditions on the plain. This is a simple snap, no cleverness involved, other than an eye for composition, and while it could be better—less clutter at the foot of the frame perhaps—it’s satisfying as a snap goes. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Look Back at Autumn

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

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.

Alien Organisms

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

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.

Autumn Mirror

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

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.

Ancient Landscape

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

Staying with the dinosaur theme from the last image, here is an ancient landscape: Fern Gully, at the Loftier Botanic Gardens, east of Adelaide. This nook in the hills catches warmth and holds it to enable an island of highland rainforest to survive amongst the native eucalypt forest, creating a very Mesozoic feel to the place. This shot was an exercise in composition, finding just the right angle at which to capture the feeling of the spot, the natural composition of the trees and the path, which somehow never 'felt' the same through the viewfinder as they looked to the eye. The image was sharpened 5% only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

A Painted Forest

The play of light, shade, colour and backlight here create an image with its own validity divorced from the landscape in which it was observed. There is something of the tonal quality of the paintings of the 18th century French master Fragonard in this, in which the light in the trees is the theme and subject, and the aesthetic of the moment is very much a 'leightmotif' as characterised the art of the Rennaissance. This picture was taken as a high telephoto close-up on a group of trees at Loftier Gardens in April, 2009, and the image was sharpened and contrast- and colour-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

The Light From Beyond

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

Images like this always evoke thoughts of dimensional portals, energy disruptions, gateways between "here" and "there" so popular in SF and fantasy. This is the afternoon sun framed amongst trees on the high slopes of the Adelaide hills, just south of Mount Lofty, in the upper parts of Loftier Gardens, April, 2009. Capturing the sun is one thing, but what the chip makes of the rest of the image is the measure of it. Mid-tones, harsh contrast, lens flare, backlighting, strike-through and silhouette, and a sharp registration of detail as a consequence of the forced minimal aperture, make for a fascinating study of the natural world. Sharpness and colour were enhanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Autumn Glory

There's nothing like autumn in a deciduous wood, the colours are wonderful to the eye and the soul. This is a telephoto close-in on a patch of luminosity created by the backlighting of a fall tree, direct sunlight shining through red and gold leaves to silhouette the trunk and boughs. Things like this tend to jump out of a landscape to a photographer's eye, and draw the camera like a magnet. Sharpened and contrast-balanced; Loftier Gardens, April, 2009. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Riot of Colour

This is another of my Loftier Gardens shoot from April 2009, celebrating the absolute artists' pallet of the autumn deciduous woods. What can you say? The crackling reds and yellows against the blue of the sky creates a virtual colour-therapy that is like summer's last gift before the bare boughs of winter. These images were technically simple, the chip did the hard work and left me free to think about composition, to see the shots in the landscape and make them happen in the lens. Sharpness was adjusted, there was no need to mess with colour! Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Holly in Fruit

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

Holly is an archetype of winter and when settlers from Europe came to South Australia they imported many species with which they were familiar. This shot was taken at Loftier Gardens, east of Adelaide, in April, 2009, and though the day was warm and sunny the forest knew winter was coming. Glorious colours were everywhere, and the holly was in fruit. Bright light allowed a fast shutter speed and this frame was taken on the Macro setting at a distance of 15cm or so. Sharpness, contrast and colour were adjusted for publication. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Fern Gully

That's really what this place is called -- a cleft in the hills in the Botanic Gardens just below the summit of Mount Lofty, east of Adelaide. It's a slice of cool rainforest that exists in this somehow sheltered spot, where ferns grow in abundance, both ground-living and massive tree-ferns. It's like walking into the Jurassic, you're waiting for the dinosaurs to go by! The shot was a technical no-brainer: composition was the important part, the chip would do the rest. It did a good job capturing everything from densest shadow to burned-out highlights. The layering of light, colour and depth have almost a sense of classic artwork composition. Sharpness and colour were enhanced slightly. April, 2009; Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Wild Mushrooms

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

Nature has a way of changing from moment to moment, things appear and disappear, and to capture the ephemeral is part of the gift of photography. I was wandering the trails of Loftier Gardens with friends in April, 2009, when we came across a patch of wild mushrooms, these spectacular red and white growths, inches across, and the afternoon sun and leaf litter created wonderfully photogenic conditions. This was a macro-setting shot from a distance of a couple of inches, in natural daylight, and enhancements are a 5% sharpening plus an extra dash of colour. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

The Moon From Down Under

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

A companion to the Moon-among-trees shot I took in Sunderland thirty months ago, here is the Moon framed among fall colours at Loftier Gardens, east of Adelaide, taken in April, 2009. The chip is focusing on the treetops at high telephoto, and focus on infinity for some reason can be a little indefinite. I grabbed several frames both for the composition and to really air out the chip on its ability to capture a single remote detail against a plain background. It's a wonderful thing to have colours like this in your environment, autumn is a beautiful time of year! Sharpness and colour were tweaked for publication. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Sun in the Green Wood

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

There is something very old-world about this image, as if Robin Hood and his band might appear at any moment, or a couple of Hobbits and a walking tree... The light and composition just begged to be recorded, the way the foreground tree is in silhouette against the direct sun beyond. It has the feel of Larinaga's production drawings for King Kong, in 1931, as he designed a primeval jungle in layers of contrast to register clearly on black and white film. This was taken at Loftier Gardens, the beautiful park just over the summit of the hills east of Adelaide, in late April 2009, an afternoon of contrasts as the exotics made patches of vibrant colour all over the park. The exposure latitiude of the chip is excellent, capturing foreground detail while only fractionally burning out the background. Colour saturation and sharpness were slightly enhanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.