Firstly – SEASONS GREETINGS to all my blog readers !  thanks to all whom have commented and supported my blog this year, it is really much appreciated and I hope you enjoyed it.

Tonight with TC Laurence (cat.5) smashing down on the Pilbara coast providing some excellent internet weather watching data and statistics there is quite a contrast down here in the south of the country as it was a lovely day in southern Vicco. Later on the week we will see some of that moisture drawn down here and potentially some very interesting (and wet) weather ahead for a belt right across the centralish corridor of the continent through to NSW/Sth Qld. A stunning vis. sat pic of the eye about to cross the coast near Wallal/Mandora on the Eighty mile beach in the east Pilbara/Kimberley. Central pressure 925HPa, Estimated wind gusts near centre – 285km/h.    BEASTLY !

‘ MTSAT-1R   TC Laurence Cat.5 – Pilbara/Kimberley 21-12-2009 ’

In the recent blog themes of harvesting from WA and bloggers such as Merv. Here’s a shot of some hay across the road from my place on twilight tonight.

‘ Gippsland hay – Sth Gippsland, Vic. ’

Some of you may have already seen or read these but for myself it was great to stumble across a couple of articles written by  Kenny D last night. He expresses his frustration about the over regulation of things and photography as well !

KD article 1

KD article 2

I dislike conformity and over regulation – Victoria and the eastern seaboard are so over regulated by ‘do gooders’ and with the mentality of ’someone else has to be responsible or held accountable for everything’  that it drives me absolutely nuts !  It’s part of the reason I love to escape to the far flung and less populated parts of the country every year… Over regulated and ridiculous bureaucracy is alive and kicking all over the place now it seems… I go to my local beach and there are so many things that you aren’t allowed to do that they need 2 signs to fit it all on.. there are more things you aren’t allowed to do than you are ! Perhaps it would be easier, cheaper and less obtrusive if they just put up a sign saying what we could do ?  There are now signs every 100m warning you that you could fall off a cliff – geebus,what an astonishing revelation !  And all this costs money and requires resources… I’m going to put up a sign “WARNING – GRAVITY KILLS ! ”  seriously…  Now there’s a T-shirt !  or another  ”Natural Selection is Dead”.

I understand population pressure = more idiots = more regulation etc etc… but sheesh !

I once got interrogated by an NT parks and wildlife employee for my right to photograph a storm cloud that was sitting over Kakadon’t NP and how I didn’t have and required a permit to take a photograph of it…  seriously…

I’m with ya on this one Ken !

November 26 2009 : I knew that there was a good chance of some severe storms in the region this particular day, it was just a matter of trying to get my work done earlier enough to allow me time to get into position for anything developing. Storm o’clock came and this HP beast (High Precipitation) was up and running causing some mayhem through Melbourne and the SE suburbs… I managed to get to this spot on Westernport bay as it was still going pretty strong. Here it is engulfing Koo Wee Rup and Lang Lang… A guage at Lang Lang recorded 31mm – most of which would have fallen within a 15minute timeframe as this bad boy cut loose above. There were also uncomfirmed reports of golfball hail somewhere along this storms journey. The teal colour in this image is true and is generally representative of either large hail or a large quantity of hail within the storm.

‘HP severe storm – Westernport bay, Vic. ’

These terns seem to love the posts on this little jetty. I had seen birds on these numerous times before and thought they looked pretty cool. I had ventured to the spot a few times hoping to get a shot similar to this but the birds never co-operated… Sometimes there would be seagulls hogging this prime real estate, but for some reason they just seemed to ‘flighty’ when I would be about to take the shot !  This particular foggy morning the terns were having their turn at the prime real estate and it all came together and I shot this on 6×17 and this is a 6×6 crop so I’m pretty stoked with it.

‘prime real estate  –  medium format 6×6 velvia. ’

A quick image from the Mornington Peninsula about a month or so ago now.  It was a gorgeous sunny day and I took this from one of the observation points whilst on my way to meet some friends at the Portsea pub for lunch. The bay and Peninsula looked great… but not great enough for me to set up a tripod and shoot it properly if you know what I mean.

I was very impressed that this 11 shot stitch that I took handheld from standing on top of a steel guard railing worked so well, when the images were input into PTGui the greatest control point distance on the auto alignment was less than 10 pixels out !  So maybe that’s part of the reason I’m posting this.. who needs overpriced pan heads when you can shoot 11 image stitches like that !

‘ Arthurs seat  –  Canon 5D2. ’

After fire the grass tree (Xanthoria australis) flowers in a spectacular and prolific manner. This particular one had a flower stem about 3m in height. It was not only this that attracted me to this particular specimen but the smaller ‘dolphin’ shaped flower near the crown. Whilst the light this particular morning might have sucked for landscape photography it provided other opportunities. For more information and images involving native Australian vegetation’s adaptation to living with and depending upon fire check out a post Cain Doherty has recently added to his blog from a visit to the Kinglake NP area post ‘black Saturday’.

‘ Xanthoria australis  –  Canon 5D2. ’

This was a shot from the following night (of my previous post) this time taken from Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula. The storms fired after dark once again though this time they were 97% in-cloud lightning – not quite as spectacular but still pretty nice to watch and photograph. I managed to catch a little crawler popping out of the base over Rye, the cloud structure illuminated and a beautiful night sky above.

‘ flash in the night  –  Port Phillip Bay, Vic. ’

Yeah I know it’s an MGMT track, but it’s a pretty cruisey, happy tune and that’s how I feel about getting this shot. I haven’t had the chance to post much lately partly due to family illness among other things leaving little time or inspiration for this pursuit. With finally some warmer weather about over the w/e and plenty of beautiful moisture in the air we have had a couple of nights with some spectacular lightning about. Fingers crossed for some more again this evening before we return to boring useless weather again for a little while.

A very impressive line of storms had edged it’s way across the south of the state through the very late afternoon and evening, I had my doubts whether it would make it at strength to my place so I decided to come to the party and meet it at the western end of Phillip Island with the hope that if it did persist I could ‘follow’ (but be in front – a bit of confusing term for those that don’t ‘chase’ perhaps) back towards home for more shots. This line of storms was extremely lightning active, but being a line of about 100km’s in length it made it damn hard to point the camera in the right spot at the right time !  I missed so many bolts it is ridiculous and I am definitely getting one of those new 90mb/s sandisk cards shortly as the image writing time is always something that annoys me with DSLR work. It seriously cost me dozens of potential killer shots this particular night ! The bolts were plentiful and one actually started a bushfire on the eastern side of the mornington peninsula ! This created a glow in that part of the sky adding to the atmosphere.

Anyway here is a sweet CG blasting into Westernport bay !

‘ Electric feel  –  Westernport Bay, Vic. ’

Here is a recent shot from a morning hike up 963 stairs and assorted ladders to get to this spot before dawn. Out of the shots I took I think I actually like this one of the nice yellow toned light coming across the scene more than the pre-dawn images. I also shot a vertical around this time from this spot that I also quite like.

‘ Boolimba bluff  –  Qld central highlands ’

Time for a new post on the blog ! This is a shot from up the Murray river – it’s such a beautiful river and with all the wildlife that abounds in the redgum forests that still line it’s banks in many places. So it’s very frustrating and sad to see and read about how it is in such poor health and declining !

I loved camping here and play of the dappled light rising through the forest on to the lush green floor was something I was really captivated by.

‘ river redgum forest  –  Murray river, Vic. ’