Bonython Headland – Lake Eyre…

Another shot of the diminishing waters in Lake Eyre. Far down in the bottom of Belt Bay the water was tinged a magical pink with algal blooms.

‘Bonython Headland – Lake Eyre’

Lake abstract # 1…

I’ve finally got half a moment to catch my breath and post on the good old blog – thanks to all of you that follow, enjoy and even comment here. It’s fantastic to see the feedback.

I just spent a couple of weeks in the remote north of South Australia and here is the first new image from the travels for the blog. It’s a bit of an abstract of Lake Eyre. The lake had water for the forth year running, but not as much as the previous two years and is starting to recede/dry up already! It’s a magic place and on this, my third trip there I probably enjoyed it more than ever.

‘ Lake abstract # 1 – Lake Eyre, South Australia’

Autumn gives way to winter…

The first week of June saw a deluge that lead to widespread flooding across Victoria’s Gippsland region and was quite a phenomenal meteorological event for the breadth of the 24-36hr rainfalls totals (widely 100-270mm across the region). To go with the deluge the system also produced official wind gusts of upto to 145km/h, which brought their own damage across the region. All the major rivers through out Gippsland  reached major flood levels (A region spanning some 400km including all the southern slopes of the Great Divide in the eastern half of the state as well as ranges such as the Strzelecki Ranges).

I shot this image in the valley of Macks Creek in South Gippsland during the middle of the deluge as this area received ~170mm in 24hrs. I felt that seeing these trees still clinging to their last foliage of the autumn season amidst the impeding chaos was an image and a story in itself. The irony of the stock water trough in the left of frame becoming swamped itself is an addition to the scene that I loved including. It was quite a difficult image to compile with driving rain and roaring winds, after much persistence I finally got the result that I had envisaged.

‘ Autumn gives way to winter ‘

Autumn contemplation…

Just a quick image post as I try to catch up on the last couple of months. This looked like a great spot to sit, read and just contemplate life as the seasons change.

‘ Autumn contemplation ‘

Intensity…

I’ve been a bit slow on the blog posts lately, but I’ve also been shooting and working on a number of new images.

This one is from a few weeks ago shot at dawn. This brief, but spectacular display was just prior to us being on the end of 75mm in 10hrs with 100+km/h winds, power outages and flash flooding ( the ground was already well and truly saturated with water table full from 200mm falling in the few weeks prior, combined with large tides). This event was 10days before the larger/more known event that flooded large parts of Gippsland with falls in excess of 200mm in 36hrs and and more winds upto 145km/h.

‘Intensity – Vic’

Autumn grunge…

When I saw this old garage, it really caught my eye. I quickly thought if I could combine a grungie derelict building with autumn trees in an image??  So I did a u-turn to investigate the scene better and waited for some light before making this composition. I liked the character of the run down old building and the blue 44 gallon drums scattered about. The autumn tones and foliage completed the scene for me.

‘Taggerty motors – Autumn grunge’

Autumn in the park…

With winter bearing its teeth I thought that I should at least try to slip in one autumn post before it’s 100% all over for another year.

I thought that this autumn coloured tree (unsure of species as I am more familiar with Australian natives) and picnic table by the river made for a lovely and inviting scene for a picnic lunch. Well in my case an image!

‘Autumn in the park’

Simplicity…

Sometimes less truly is more.

‘ Simplicity ‘

Go!

Whilst the weather has been raining here for the last 2 days and rather cold! So I thought that another recent surf image was in order to brighten things up a little in denial of the inevitable plunge into winter. This guy is charging down the face on the first reef as the kelp licks up in the pit.

‘ Go! ‘

Skeleton forest of the clouds…

I recently spent some time 4WD’ing and camping about in the alps. It was generally -2 to 3C and with the cloud base down to about 1400m the entire time ! So not only did that make it very dull but it also limited opportunities a bit. But having said that it was still an inspiring environment to be in if you took the time and looked around you. This is one of the scenes that I came across on a track graded ‘4×4 very difficult’. The two trees, centre and centre right, really caught my eye and their detail in the full resolution image is pretty cool as they still stand all gnarled and twisted amidst the clouds.

‘Skeleton forest of the clouds’