Weekly Photo Challenge: “Wooden”

The theme for this week has been suggested as ‘Wooden’.

I started doing some ideas using coloured pencils for a start (which I won’t show), but changed to just doing set-ups using the shavings of pencils.

Here is the final photo for this week (my submission).

A Close Shave

Here are a couple of alternate versions that I didn’t end up using.

For those that are interested, these shots were set up on a white tile and lit by a single Lume Cube in a light tent.

Weekly Photo Challenge: “Vintage”

During the “great lockdown of 2020” I challenged a friend for a light-hearted photo challenge for each week.  The goal was to get our creative juices and give us something different to do during this difficult time.  It also was meant to make us feel better as we are missing out on our normal travel photography opportunities.

There are just 2 simple rules:  The photo must be new and taken without breaking the current lock-down regulations.

The first weekly challenge was themed “Shades of Grey” and my entry was table-top setup made of screws found in the shed.  The light behind was initially intended to be the moon, but it turned out that it looked more like a sun or a star.

2020 New York is screwed.jpg
“2020: New York is screwed”

The theme for the second week was “Reflection”.

For this one, I deliberated a bit on what to choose and setup.  I initially had thought of doing something with a set of mirrors that I bought a few years back to set up a large kaleidoscope for photography but settled on doing an infinite mirror type setup.

I started playing and found that I could turn the 2 bottles of hand sanitizer into as many as I wanted by adjusting the mirrors.  This is what I came up with.

The Ring of Confidence.jpg
The Ring of Confidence

In this image, only the front 2 bottles are there, and the others are just reflections.  For lighting, I used a LumeCube under each bottle – and that was all.

Just for reference, here is the setup used (sorry about the rough, hastily-taken, photograph)

IMG_0839.jpeg

This weeks photo – “Vintage”

Before Rich Uncle Pennybags
Before Rich Uncle Pennybags

This was a pretty straight-forward photo taken under natural light and then adjusted in a photo editor to my liking.

It is a portion of a box cover from a Monopoly set that I have that was sold in Australia around 1935.  I still have most of the set, but the condition is a bit poor now.  The markings seen in the photograph have been there for many years.

Runners-up

Before I settled onto the above image, I was thinking about using this image of an old Ricoh camera.  I was not too sure about it as it does not shout ‘vintage’, but I did have fun making it and I like it a lot.

40 year old vintage
40 year-old vintage

Modern Vintage

This shot also didn’t make the grade – but that’s OK as it was taken as a bit of a gag.

It is of my old Commodore 64 computer hooked up to a modern television set.  The photo is made to look old but I didn’t have to try as I took it on my first digital camera that I got in 1997.

Modern Vintage
Modern Vintage

Epson PhotoPC 600
Epson PhotoPC 600

This the first camera that I bought as it had reached the almighty standard of taking 1024 x 768 pictures.

The shutter lag on this thing was terrible and it chewed through the batteries at an amazing rate, but it was still an great camera to have and it took lots of shots for me.

I was amused that when taking the above photo the camera had a whopping big 16 megabyte storage card in it.

The final shot for the week was just a detail shot of the keyboard of the Commodore 64 computer. I love to see all of the buttons that we no longer have on modern keyboards including ‘restore’.  This is what we all seem want right now – some sort of way to get us back to ‘normal’ before the virus.

Take Us Back!
Take us back!

 

That’s it for this week.  Let me know which photo you liked most for the themes.

Onkaparinga River Mouth, South Australia

Here is a short video of the mouth of the Onkaparinga River at Port Noarlunga on Adelaide’s south coast.

The river flows through the Adelaide Hills, through the Onkaparinga Gorge and Old Noarlunga town before emptying into the St. Vincent Gulf. The river’s aboriginal name is Ngangkiparri.

The area is well known for fishing, paddle-boarding, kayaking, surfing and swimming. It is around 1 hours drive from the centre of Adelaide.

Adelaide Hills Church

Here is a photo of​ our local area, which shows the St. Paul’s Anglican Church at Montacute, South Australia.

Hills Church HDR copy

This building was originally constructed in 1885 ​but was destroyed by bushfire in 1955 and then rebuilt.

The photo was taken with a DJI Air.

Jackson Hole – Mormon Row

I have been looking forward to getting back to Mormon Row at Jackson Hole WY for near 20 years for a chance to re-take some of my most cherished shots. The last time that I was here, I was taking photographs on slide film.

After convincing Julie to be up at the crack of dawn and getting out to the area, the weather was not the greatest. There were some rain clouds around and earlier in the morning there had been some lightning around the back of the Tetons.

So, I have resigned to the fact that the photos will be processed in order to rescue them.

IMG_1052_3_4_tonemapped copy

Yosemite Park Photos

We went through the famous US park of Yosemite in CA a few days ago. Unfortunately, I have not had any time for the photo processing as yet, but here is a preview.

Yosemite Falls 1

Bodie Photographs

Bodie State Historic Park – California

We spent some time at Bodie in California and it provided some good photographic opportunities. The weather was great and the crowds were low.

Bodie is close to the town of Bridgeport in the Yosemite area. It is easily reached, but the last few kilometres is dirt road in good condition (by Australian standards).

This ghost town was a former large gold mining town that has been abandoned for many years. It was so large at a point in that it had 60 saloons.

Continue reading “Bodie Photographs”

Travel Tripod

As a photographer, I prefer to use a tripod for travel shots – particularly landscapes. For shots taken early in the morning, or late at night, having a solid platform to keep the camera steady for long exposures is a must.

Choosing a tripod can be a quite a personal thing for photographers. Everyone has their favourite style or brand.

I have a number of great tripods of different styles which are solid but mostly are pretty heavy as well as cumbersome.

Continue reading “Travel Tripod”