Very Bloody Australian, Mate

Ever since Mad Max, a burned-out landscape under a blue sky, with a two-way blacktop highway running through it has been a symbol of Australia. Up the country, roads can be so quiet you can stretch out on the white line to get really low shots without any danger. In 2021 I photographed a number of locations way north of Adelaide, but due to a hard drive crash I lost my 2021 pictures—there were many lamentations, as you would imagine. On April 3^rd, 2023, that particular expedition was recreated—going back to the same spots and recapturing lost frames. For good measure, here are two from that day. It’s a highway juncture about 300kms north of Adelaide, up beyond Burra and Tarlee, where the land is wide and flat and, by April, burned as dry as it’ll ever be. Here some bright spark named the road “Worlds End Highway," which feels like it belongs in a Mad Max movie to start with. Those ridges in the background? The “Hallelujah Hills,” and that fits the picture too, along with the ruins of settler homesteads and the abandoned towns up there. It’s an interesting place to visit, for sure! No photographic cleverness here, it was all about the place. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

A Disconcerting Landscape

Why disconcerting? Well, first, for the sheer starkness of a dry, Australian summer—harvested fields or long-grazed-down paddocks under that merciless sky. But there’s the simple fact a cloud had drawn before the sun, so while the background is sunlit and the sky a fleece-strewn blue, the foreground is in shadow, and that lends a very strange feeling to the image. This pic was taken in the southern hills near Strathalbyn, South Australia, on December 30^th, 2018. I was airing out the camera on a new phone at the time and seeing how it handled various conditions. The cloud shadow intruded upon the moment and it was worth capturing for both its aesthetic oddness, and as a test of the phone’s chip. General tweaks in Irfanview. Leagoo M9. Image by Mike.

The Burning Blue

That’s Australia—a sky so blue you’d almost not believe it could be real, over a land so parched you grieve for life here. This is a coastal hilltop above the road south, turning inland past the HMAS Hobart memorial. The Hobart was a destroyer which served off Vietnam, and was sunk on November 5^th, 2005, to create an artificial reef in Yankalilla Bay, South Australia. A picnic spot looks out to sea above the beach, with information displays about the ship. I took this frame on New Year’s Eve, 2019, a date at which Australia is well into its hot/dry, though nowhere near halfway there, despite having passed midsummer’s day. I remember the contrast of the fleecy clouds against that hypnotic blue capturing my attention. And this frame excludes road, trees, anything man-made, leaving just the sky and the summit, to declutter the composition and place all emphasis on nature. A simple point and shoot, but the subject matter makes it interesting, as if you could fall into that sky and keep on going... Minor tweaks in Irfanview. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

The Australian Vista

'Tis the longest day here in Australia and I wanted to post something taken about this time of year, so here’s a wide view of the Australian landscape as the festive season approaches. This is the top of Mount Alma, South Australia, looking south, on December 13^th, 2019. The day started out quite overcast but cleared out to that hard, brassy sky that so characterises an Australian summer. The hard blue sky over the yellow grass, harsh light and gum trees—no matter where I am in the world, these things will always mean summer Down Under. (At that altitude, there's plenty of green  persisting!) A simple line-up, the composition framed by the trees is the essential aesthetic. Photographic technique is a no-brainer, just point and shoot. Minimal adjustment in IrfanView, some gamma-correction, brightness reduced slightly and a boatload of colour added. Leagoo M9 phone cam shot. Image by Mike.

A Very Australian Highway

 

There's something just so Australian about hot tarmac under a cloudless sky. Ever since director George Miller made an artistic statement out of roads over forty years ago, the temptation has always been to get down on the white line when traffic is sparse and capture images like this. I shot this one on November 23^rd, 2020, on the last leg of a country drive from Palmer to Mount Pleasant. This is in the northern grain lands—there were huge harvesters working not far from our stopping point. This picture evokes the vastness of Australia, and is just as it came from the camera. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

A Not-So Hidden Gem

 

This image evokes thoughts of deep forest, of a gorge in pretty inaccessible bush land, or a national park perhaps; but a main road is actually less than thirty metres away, to the left. This is the Sturt River where it flows through Coromandel Valley, parallel with the main street, and constitutes the Coro Linear Park. There is usually water in this stretch, all year round, and the valley stays remarkably green even at the height of summer. This photograph was taken on January 21^st, 2020, during a walk on the park trail before coffee and going on to Belair National Park. No retouching or fine tuning, this is just as it came off the camera. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

GPO, Adelaide

This is the clock tower of the General Post Office, Adelaide, on Victoria Square, photographed in February, 2008. This building dates from the mid-19th century and when it was new it was one of the taller structures in the city, along with the Town Hall and the cathedral. This was 8.35 on a hot Sunday morning in summer and the brilliant sunshine brings out the richness of colour between the sky, the trees lining King William St and the cleaned stonework of the tower. Sharpened and colour-and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Australian Sky

This is another example of a serendipitous alignment. These wind-torn clouds in a hard, summer sky, framed so neatly against the flagpoles atop Parliament House in Adelaide, are seen from the Festival Plaza in February, 2009. In a few minutes the clouds would have moved and the essence of this image's aesthetic quality would have changed to something else, so photographs like this are truly captured moments in time, whose precise qualities are totally unique. Sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Australia in Drought

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Australia looks gray-brown from above. You think of it as a red continent, and sure enough the deserts look red from cruising altitude, but down in the temperate south, where you'd expect some green, given that you're passing over farms, there can be times of year when green is a colour you rarely ever see. This frame was taken over the Adelaide hills, on approach from Melbourne on the last leg back from England, in November 2007, and you can see from Happy Valley Reservoir how dire the water situation is, even at the beginning of the southern summer. The picture needed considerable enhancement as the aircraft window and the sun angle conspired to bleach the image a long way. This was corrected with heavy colour resaturation and three rounds of contrast, and the details were sharpened 5%. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Summer at Myponga

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A summer's day at Myponga Reservoir ... a very simple shot to capture, difficult to actually do anything with, because what the viewer doesn't realize is that the full frame is something of a disaster! There's a rubbish bin at bottom right and a dilapidated bench at bottom left. There's graffiti just out of the frame to the right, and the tree in the foreground is broken away, just out of the frame at the top! The public loo is just out of frame to the left ... all of which makes this image an exercise in cropping. Shooting at 5MP or more, you'll get a picture which is big enough to get in there and crop out the useful part, and discard the rest. A little enhancement of color and sharpness, and you're done! Photo by Mel, 2007.

Immersed in shades of blue

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The shot is iconic: Australia. Summer. Ocean. Sport. Swimming. What else can you say about it? This was a glorious day ... Christmas morning, in fact, if memory serves me. Calm and hot even at the beach, with the sea like a pond and a perfect, burnished sky. Adelaide's metropolitan beaches are perfect -- shhh! Don't tell anyone, they'll all be here! The colors really looked like this -- I haven't done anything to the image. The Fuji Finepix 6500 relishes these conditions and rarely needs to be taken off automatic ... which gives the photographer a break, too. Photo by Mel, 2007.

Echoes of colonial days

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The architecture is still pretending this is the nineteenth century, and with those colors, that tropical brilliance, this would have to be a scene in "the colonies" -- right? Actually, it's the South Australian Museum building on a hot, bright day in February, but almost every part of this shot could just as easily be some location in India, circa 1890! The shot was easy to get, tricky to enhance: the challenge was to get detail to show through in the darker areas and yet not wash out the brilliant blue of the sky. Photo by Mel, 2008.

Waiting for rain

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The Adelaide heatwave is due to break, even as I write this. After an eon of scorching temperatures -- after scores of people have perished, and the state has been on alert in the fear of a firestorm today -- the sky is at last darkening, the wind is shifting direction, the temperature is falling. It's going to be cool ... but there's no rain in these clouds. And what this state needs more than anything, now, is rain. The title of this image is "waiting for rain," but it could just as easily be called "praying for rain!" In the stone age, cave artists would paint the animal they wished to hunt, to capture its magic. I wonder if it works for the weather? It's worth a try! So -- here's an image shot through the windscreen a couple of winters ago, on a road somewhere in the Adelaide Hills. Oh, for this kind of weather right now, right here! Photo by Jade, 2006.

Tales of the riverbank

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This image was taken in 2007, before the river really began to die in the South Australian drought. At this time it was still viable, full of fish, and a way of life for countless thousands of people who live in the small communities scattered along its length. It's the mighty Murray, which is ... or was ... the life's blood of South Australia. In 2009, the river is crying out to be rescued, and the people of Adelaide are still waiting to see who's going to do the job, and what they're going to do. The image was easy to capture: bright conditions saturated the colors, and the landscape was naturally photogenic. The only work done on it subsequently was cropping to frame exactly the picture I wanted. Photo by Mel, 2007.

Adrift on a blue-green tropical ocean...

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In the previous post, "Mush -- as they say in the movies!," Mel escapes the heat by thinking back on Fairbanks. I'm going to escape it by jumping into a green tropical sea ... calm as a pond, warm enough to feel "ambient" when the air temperature is about 140 degrees F when you're standing in thr sun, and the pavement is not enough to blister your soles. Ahhhhh... This is a crop-down of part of a 6MP image of the ocean, photographed from the clifftop at Noarlunga. I love the patterns on the surface of the water, and the blue-green hue. The picture was serendipitous ... it was just there, and easy to get. The only "trick" is in seeing it. Believe it or not, many people just don't "see" potential pictures which are right before them. Photo by Jade, February 2008.

A drought-scourged panorama

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On a roasting day in summer, you've just jolted down the most horrific road in South Australia. You're not quite sure if your knee or shoulder joints are still attached, and if your kidneys are where they used to be! But the reward for making it down the road to Myponga Beach is glorious peace and quiet and a panoramic view from the ocean to what seems to be sub-desert but is in fact sheep grazing country that's being scourged by drought. Up on the hill is a station house ... and here's where it gets interesting. Refer back to Sand, sea and sun, Aussie style, which was uploaded a few days ago, and look at the top of the shot. There's the same house, seen in the distance, photographed from Silver Sands, near Aldinga ... and in the previous shot you can also see that horrific road down the hillside! That's what you drive in order to get to the location above. Dramatic though this shot is, it was also easy to get. I remember the day being so hot that I left the Fuju 6500 set on full auto and let the gadget do the work! Photo by Mel, 2007.

Sand, sea and sun -- Aussie style

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There's nothing like it: you're the only human soul in twenty miles, with a white beach the size of the county of Hampshire all to yourself. The sky is a blue beyond description, the sea is still as a pond. Put a line in the water to catch dinner, get the tents pitched, kick back and enjoy. It's Silver Sands, near Aldinga, South Australia ... where else? We were down there for a couple of days, and right on cue the weather turned blisteringly hot. No surprise, in Australia in the summer! The toughest part of capturing this picture was keeping the contrast under control. The digital camera wanted to turn the beach white as bleached bone. The only trick is -- learn to handle your camera's manual settings for apperture, shutterspeed and exposure. All good cameras have these functions ... hit the manual! Photo by Mel, 2006.

...and have you seen their buses?!

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Today we're flying the South Australian flag -- literally! The promotion is called "SA Great," and you'll see it everywhere, like this. Plastered down the side of a bus. This was a real "reflex" shot, because I was shooting between traffic. Trucks, other buses, taxi cabs, every kind of vehicle you can imagine, which would take turns to obscure your view, while the bus revved up to leave. The day was sizzling hot -- as witness the brilliance of the light which brought the colors up this way in the image. No digital enhancement has been done. All I did with this shot was crop the bottom to get rid of a trash bin! It looked like this at the time. Photo by Mel, 2007.

Under pavilions of trees

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I'm back at Hahndorf with this image ... and it's summer. You can tell at a glance because the trees are so lush. These are massive old deciduous trees; they turn red and gold in fall, and in winter they're skeletal, even though there's no such thing as snow in Australia ... well, not in this part of Aus, at least! Not even in the dead of winter. The trees make an incredible arch across the road. It's as if you're driving through a pavilion -- not just for a few meters, but for a long distance. This welcomes you as you enter the best-known small German town in the antipodes! The image was captured through the windscreen; the shutter speed was fast (to stop the action -- the car is moving!) and then the panorama was cropped out of it and digitally enhanced. See Gone Bush for tips and tricks on how to get great "through the windscreen" shots. Photo by Jade, 2006.

Hear those paddles clanking

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This photo is almost two years old and the the fact is, the Murray River doesn't look so healthy now. When this photo was captured, there was already a drought in progress but it hadn't started to bite the way it's biting in the summer of 08/09. These paddlewheel riverboats are strictly a tourist attraction now, but a century ago, and more, massive riverboats -- same kind of thing you see on the Mississippi! -- plied the Murray River, carrying cargo as well as passengers. A couple are still in operation as luxury cruising hotels. Got to go there and do that some day soon. This boat is paddling into Murray Bridge, and doesn't have far to go. The town is just out of shot! Conditions were very bright, and this image has been substantially enhanced at the software stage, to add substance and color. Photo by Mel, 2006.