Southern Coast of Victoria

A few of my images from our recent trip around the Southern Coast of Victoria. We bush walked through Wilson Promontory, spent New Years Eve in a lighthouse and "Crampervaned" down the Great Ocean Road.

I even managed to catch a few waves at Wye River and some Southern Ocean beauties at Port Fairy. The jetty break at Port Campbell was also looking pretty tasty. I was tempted to venture out alone till a local fisherman informed me about a 4.5 metre shark lurking around - not surprisingly my trusty kneeboard stayed dry on that particular day.

Very sad to see the bushfire destruction of what must have been some gorgeous holiday homes perched on the hills overlooking the ocean at Wye River. We arrived at Cumberland River campground on the same day that the road was opened up past Lorne. Amazingly the camp manager asked if we were planing on having a fire and would we like to buy some fire wood - are you kidding!!! - about 15 kms away over 100 homes were destroyed just a few short days ago. Apparently Cumberland River is one of the few campgrounds in Victoria that still allows open fires.

As usual I traveled with my little Fuji X100T and Canon Mkiii loaded with a 24mm TS-E II Tilt Shift lens. Bushwalking with that rig was a bit of a pain with regards to weight but well worth it once we stopped for a couple of days at the lighthouse. I might look at a pancake lens next time - even though I love the tilt shift lens its a heavy and bulky bit of gear taking up valuable space in my backpack.

Melbourne Day Trip

Spent Christmas and New Year in Victoria and I'm now back home, back at work and settling into my new studio. We celebrated Christmas with my "southern" family, bush walked around Wilsons Promontory and traveled down the Great Ocean Road in a Campervan - CRAMPERVAN!!! Will blog some favs soon from that trip but for now here are some images from a quick trip into the Melbourne CBD to see the amazing Andy Warhol - Ai Weiwei exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.



New Canon 5Ds at the Townsville Show

I took possession last week of the new Canon 5Ds from my wonderful local suppliers Garricks Camera House at the Domain in Townsville. This "Nifty Fifty" is one hell of a camera with a new 50 Meg sensor under the hood plus some sweet additional features. I wouldn't normally plan to use it in a low light situation but it did amazingly well in the twilight conditions at the show.

I plan to use this camera for my architecture and commercial work to enable me to deliver the best possible files generated from a DSLR with an eye to fine detail and big enlargements. For some time I've been looking at moving into medium format but as DSLR's continue to forge ahead that day seems to be getting further away. To be honest my style of shooting sits well with the flexibility of shooting with a smaller camera and thankfully Canon's tilt shift lenses are freaking amazing.

Brisbane Quicky

Another quick trip to Brisbane to see Cirque du Soleil and enjoy a bit of city life. Not much time for photography on this trip but I did manage to grab a few at the airport and elsewhere. This first image has all the elements I like to try and get in my architectural images - interesting shapes, strong light, reflections and people moving about. I was just about to head to the departure gate when I noticed the silhouettes of people on the travelator - the man in the foreground was a stroke of good luck. And yep I managed to get my flight...just.