Shot of the Day #68
Summer has come to an end here down-under, but it has been great! Fortunately I have taken a good amount of photographs over the summer holidays, which will keep me occupied with all the sorting and post-processing over the cooler months. During the holidays I was lucky enough to explore Hawai’i, while I was there I surfed the famous Waikiki and took over two thousand images. This photograph below was taken on the sandy shores of Kualoa Regional Park, it is a sacred well preserved part of the island of Oahu, and also the location for many hollywood blockbusters such as Jurassic Park, Pearl Harbor and Godzilla. This place would have to be my most favourite destination on Oahu, it is so untouched and preserved, great for photography! For this particular photo I had to get pretty close the the waves, kneeling down with knees and elbows in the sand trying to get this. After about ten shots my luck had run out and my shorts were soaked, but I think I got it?
Mokoli'i "Chinaman's Hat", Kualoa, Oahu, Hawai'i
Shot of the Day #66
In March I was photographing down at South Bank Promenade, Melbourne on a Saturday night, when the weather was still pleasant enough to have dinner by the Yarra River. As always there were the street performers – Fire Twirlers, and as I found out, also a perfect photo opportunity to experiment with slow shutter speeds! Later in Photoshop I grayscaled the crowd and masked the performer into the spotlight.
Fire Twirler Black and White
Shot of the Day #65
Sorting through the remains of the photographs I took on my Red Centre Trip – I found three photographs unstitched. This photo stitch is of the remarkable Kata Tjuta/Olgas sandstone formations, located not far from the younger rock Uluru/Ayers Rock. Using my polariser I partially picked up some of the detail in the reflections, and then later in Photoshop uncovered the shadows with adjustment layers and layer masking (screenshot below).
Reflections - Kata Tjuta/The Olgas
Shot of the Day #63
The sky in the Outback is always a rich deep blue and the sunsets are just as stunning – The black silhouettes of the harsh outback lands and a painterly mirage of clouds backlit by the falling Sun. There was a slight breeze while I was photographing the sunset and I had in mind that I would want to later lift the vibrant colours of the clouds in Camera Raw with an HDR effect, so instead of the three+ exposures I opted for raw. The screenshot below shows my adjustments in Camera Raw!
Outback Sunset Silhouettes
Shot of the Day #62
Panoramas are an excellent way to really capture the true Central Australia, because it offers the wide angle view that a person would experience there. Kings Canyon is perfectly lit at sunset where the cliff walls reflect warm reds and oranges, and make a fringe around the valley river bed. The panorama consists of ten photographs covering greater than 180°degrees.
Kings Canyon Panorama
