Following on from last month, my October started off with more visits to the local beaches and headlands. Bribie Island is a favourite location - my parents enjoyed it's quiet, laid-back pace for many years, and I've lost count of the number of times I've walked it's beaches with my camera. So an early morning stroll from Woorim around to Skirmish Point didn't hold any surprises, but as usual, delivered a beautiful sunrise....and as is often the case here early in the day, my only companions were a couple of dolphins quietly rounding up their breakfast close to shore.
The image below is compositionally about as simple as it gets and in many ways ignores the often-touted 'rules' of good landscape composition - placing the horizon and the main subject close to the centre of the frame is not the best approach in a lot of cases. But rules are made to be ignored, and I feel the colour, texture and symmetry of this image combine to create an appealing balance and atmosphere.
17mm, f10, 1/25sec, ISO100
Just near Bribie Island at Sandstone Point, an early morning visit to the sandstone cliffs with fellow photographer, Barbara Burkhardt, gave us views over the extensive, exposed tidal flats and seagrass beds that help make northern Moreton Bay such a productive place for marine animals. The narrow rock shelf along the shore drops down onto soft mud covered with grazing whelks and other marine snails, and then on to the seagrass beds.
28mm, f8, 1/10sec, ISO100
17mm, f11, 1/2sec, ISO100
17mm, f16, 1/25sec, ISO100
Point Cartwright
After my September visit to Point Cartwright, I came away with a couple of ideas for new images from the northern end of the point. The Beacon is an unavoidable part of the sunrise landscape from this location, and while it possibly lacks the charm of a more traditionally-shaped lighthouse, it commands a certain presence over the rocky shore. At mid to low tides, water lying on the broad rock platform can provide a mirror surface to reflect the morning colours and shapes of the headland. When I first spotted this composition there was a big mirrored area extending right across the frame, but once I had my tripod in place, wave after wave pushed up onto the platform and washed over the reflection of the Beacon, obscuring it from view. And with a rising tide, this was only going to increase. So in between waves, I managed to capture this little window of reflection.
17mm, f11, 0.4sec, ISO100
Like most of us, I love watching waves break against a rocky shore and sending spray into the air. For the image below, I used a shutter-speed of 1/8th second to capture the sort of water movement and texture that most appeals to my eye.
19mm, f11, 1/8sec, ISO100
...and in this one from just down the coast at Moffat Beach, shutter speed was 0.4 seconds.
Noosa National Park
Another revisit, this time to Granite Bay in Noosa National Park. Last month I discovered this great bed of granite boulders on the beach that really caught my attention and demanded another early morning photography session. I took a couple of snaps of this scene on my first visit, but the harsher light of mid morning didn't do justice to the smooth, grey textures of the boulders. I think the earlier morning light of this visit really enhanced the apparent "softness" of such hard, unyielding subjects.
17mm, f13, 8s, ISO100
17mm, f11, 6sec, ISO100
17mm, f13, 1.6sec, ISO100
17mm, f13, 1/2sec, ISO100
20mm, f13, 0.8sec, ISO100
Glass House Mountains
And just to remind myself that there's more to south-east Queensland than its beaches, I headed up Mount Ngungun in the Glass House Mountains to watch the sun come up over the surrounding coastal plain. The walk up is short and steep, but it's one of the easier peaks in this area to scale without the need for any climbing skills. It's also one of the prettiest with great views down over the town of Glass House Mountains and to the other Glass House peaks.
17mm, f13, 0.6sec, ISO125
20mm, f11, 1/4sec, ISO125
17mm, f11, 1/6sec, ISO200
17mm, f11, 1/8sec, ISO200
17mm, f11, 1/5sec, ISO100
20mm, f14, 1/8sec, ISO100
And finally, the latest effort in my occasional foray into the world of black and white. There are a lot of fans of black and white landscapes out there, but I have to say that on the whole, I don't share their enthusiasm. I often feel a little cheated when I see our colourful, natural world reduced to black and white, even though I can appreciate the reasons that it's such a popular medium. In this case, I decided to try black and white because the colour version of the image just wasn't doing it for me. Dry eucalypt woodland like this can often look a little grey and uninteresting in colour images, especially under a grey sky. I felt that the dark green of the pine plantation on the left, the lighter green of the closer treetops, the grey/green of the central woodland and the grey sky all added up to quite a murky colour palette. But I like the shapes and balance of the image and the b&w treatment seems to add a little atmosphere to the scene.
This panorama was created by stitching together four separate images. It's the view from Jack Ferris Lookout on the Trachyte Circuit, which starts near the base of Mount Tibrogargan. That's Tibrogargan on the right, and Mount Tibberoowuccum is the close peak on the left.....Mount Beerwah is in the far left background, and Mount Ngungun in the middle.
40mm, f11, 4sec, ISO100
