What a great day!
Yesterday I went out
to Hellyer Gorge to try out my new Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, to get a feel for ultra
wide photography, and to try and duplicate one of the shots I got last time I
was down there to see if I could make it better. I think this is gonna be a
long post, gang, just because of everything that I experienced. So I’m going to
stop writing for a minute so you can go grab a snack and something to drink,
then we’ll get into it.
.........*Tick Tick
Tick Tick*.........
Ready? Sitting
Comfortably? Been to the loo? Good!
Gorgeous weather
with warm sun and cool breezes, a new lens bought specifically for landscape
shooting and a fantastic landscape location just 20 minutes’ drive away. What
am I gonna do other than shoot? I
formatted my cards, I cleaned my lenses, I packed my new Crumpler 7 Million
Dollar Home messenger bag and I hit the road.
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| Crumpler 7 Million Dollar Home |
A pleasant drive
took me to the Hellyer Gorge rest area and put me in the right mood for
landscape photography. The light wasn’t perfect for shooting (it was around 4pm
and daylight savings) but I wasn’t out there to get portfolio shots so I wasn’t
that concerned. I put my tripod bag on across my back, my Crumpler over my
shoulder and set off on the 15 minute ‘River Walk’.
There hasn’t been a
lot of rain on Tassie’s Northwest Coast lately, so the water level of the
Hellyer river was low, meaning some great features of the river bed were
exposed to the photographic eye. I spotted a couple of angles I thought would
be great and went striding out over the rocks to take them in. This is where I
learned my first lesson of the day.
Well, it wasn’t
really a lesson for me, it was more of an objective reminder of something I
knew but chose to ignore; DO NOT BUY CHEAP HIKING BOOTS! I won’t name
manufacturers because my problems didn’t arise from faults with the boots. The
boots I was wearing were fine for the marked paths, giving reasonable grip and
ankle support. But as soon as I hit the rocks of the river bed I started to
pay. The soles were super thin so I could feel every sharp edge, and the uppers
weren’t strong enough to support me on rough terrain so I came home with aching
ankles. My ankles weren’t turned but they weren’t happy with me. But it’s a
testament to my great day that even the ankle pain came with great memories!
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I got out to both of the angles I wanted to
shoot from and, while one was disappointing the other was great. I mean, look
over to the right, there →! You can see the quality
composition I had there – a fantastic subject, and an interesting background (Now I look at it again, I need to go wider). I
think it will make for an interesting
image when I go back, but as you can see I messed something up. Or at least I
hope it was me! Look at the corners. I’m hoping that putting focus on the
foreground subject is what threw everything out of focus. That and not going high
enough on the old f/stop!
As I was leaving the river to have a look at the Old
Myrtle Forest Walk, I met a lovely couple named Liz and Brian (That’s them, the
people in the photo there). We had a nice chat and, partly to be nice and
partly for practice, I shot a couple of portraits for them. If you have read
all my posts you’ll
know just how fantastic I am at portraiture, and here is an example done on the fly. So you tell me – how nice was I actually being to
Liz and Brian?
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| Liz & Brian |
 | |
| Cheeky Little Miss |
On my way across to
the Forest walk I stopped off at the picnic area for a drink of water and a
muesli bar. That’s when I met the most hilariously cheeky bird I have ever
seen! This little girl here, a female Superb Fairy-wren, came bouncing up to me
bold as you like and started eyeballing me. We watched each other for a long
minute before she bounced down off the bench I was sitting on and, still
eyeballing me, she started pecking at the muesli bar crumbs that had fallen on
the toe of my boot! I tried to get a photo of it, but I was shaking too much
from the gales of laughter to get a clean image. Eventually she finished her meal,
gave me one last haughty look and bounced happily away.
After recovering my
breath from that mirthful encounter, I set off in search of the place where I
had found an excellent composition. I knew it was somewhere on the old Myrtle
Forest Walk, so I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to find.
WRONG!
I know this is going
to sound weird, I don’t understand it myself, but not only could I not find the
place I was looking for... I couldn’t even
find the walk! Seriously! I remember there being a fairly clear path the
last time I was there. It wove its way down to the river bank through some
beautiful woodlands. This time, though, I couldn’t even find where the damn
path even began! It was like the forest had closed itself off, hiding the path
from view.
Weird, right?
I did find what looked like a game trail
so I followed that for 5 or 10 minutes until I came across a lovely little spot
deep in the woods. There was something about that tiny glade, a certain je ne sais quoi. Seriously, I really don’t
know what. I cannot find the words to describe it. It was cool and quiet. It
had a stillness about it, yet I could sense the life around me. Gah! It’s so
frustrating that language can’t communicate the big things, don’t you think?
You’ll just have to come for a visit.
Anyway, after absorbing atmosphere in my
little glade, I broke out my new lens, spent some time setting up the shot and
snapped a few images. Then I set up slightly further back (about a foot back)
and got a completely different composition. As I said about the first location,
I think that second location will
yield some fantastic images once I get the hang of shooting an ultra wide.
Having said that, I can’t help but think lens choice might have been my real issue here. I think I might have
wanted to go longer. What do you think? From what you can see here do you think
a slightly longer lens (say 35 or 40mm) would have given me a better
composition? I’d love to hear (read) your thoughts.
I think I’ll wrap it
up here with my final thoughts. I’m going to have to find somewhere closer to
home and go out and really practice with the Sigma 10-20mm. I need to learn how
to use this new lens, and some ultra wide photography techniques. Once I’m comfortable with the
lens, and with shooting ultra wide, I’m going to chuck up a review of the lens
from the perspective of a budget-restricted photographer. You know, someone who
doesn’t think a $300 dollar memory card is ‘cheap’.
Oh! One last thing;
folk have been giving me nice feedback through Facebook and other places where
I post links to my blog, but not on the blog itself. I am really grateful for
your positive support through social media, but I don’t suppose I could
encourage you to leave messages on the blog itself? And maybe click the old ‘Follow’ button?
Or even, maybe, sign up for email notifications? I promise I won’t spam you
(but I can’t speak for ‘Blogger’, so...).
Alright! I’m outta
here! My news post will be a day late this week because I'm off down to the old man's place a hand to give them a hand. So look out for me on Thursday when I'll serve up some news and my 2 bob worth on the Peter Lik story.
I hope you enjoyed
the read!
Don't forget to check out my
portfolio at:
You can also
find me at:
And I am @BobCartPhoto on Twitter
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