Great Ocean Road.

Canon 1Ds 100-400 4.5-5.6 IS USM lens

After 3 days of really enjoyable exploring the landscape around Lorne, a small tourist resort situated on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria's South West, the outback photographer is back in the office tried to a computer trying to get a backlog of images processed. I have to tell you that if you ever have the chance to spend a couple of days near the Victorian coast... take them.

Apart from the incredible drive along the Great Ocean Road, through a variety of very different coastal regions, from sandy surf beaches to rugged cliffs all clearly viewable from the comfort of your car. you have the very pretty Ottway Ranges, with countless waterfalls and picnic areas to keep your sense alive. Further west along the Great Ocean Road and you'll find the world renown Twelve Apostles also well worth a visit.

Todays image is a pre-dawn shot of Split Point Light Station, which is at Aireys Inlet, a little east of Lorne on the Great Ocean Road. If you would like to see more of the Great Ocean Road images click here. Have a great day!

Waterfall Wednesday

Canon 1Ds II, f2.8 16-35mm USM L.

Eight hours of tramping over countless kilometres of bush tracks in search of great locations to create fine art images was the name of the game today. Were we successful? Well to be honest at this stage I have no idea. we found a couple of great spots which I guess we will us some time in the future.
Robyn found one site which see has named the Nymph Rock, which has huge potential for working with beautiful young models to create simply stunning portfolio images. Why call it the Nymph Rock? A good friend of ours who earns his living shooting beautiful women, naked for magazines and calenders, often refers to a natural locations as "great but really needs a beautiful Nymph". Todays spot is a great shot waiting to happen, all we need to do is find the beautiful young nymph. Check out some of our friends "clothed nymphs" here.

While hiking today, I discovered that I need to do a lot more walking. Yesterday I chose a cheap pair of new walking boots because I thought the trail would be simple, easy walking, but it wasn't. After several kilometres of walking over rocky unstable boulders on a nearly dry river bed, I realized that you get what you pay for...

Good walking boots have good grip, are padded for comfort and have great ankle support for when you loose your footing on a loose or slippery rock. Bad boots are often not comfortable but worse than that they are prone to loosing grip just when you need it most. If I choose to put my foot on a certain rock and it moves causing me to loose my balance, thats my fault and I deserve to fall or injure myself. That happens enough already. I don't need boots that let go on a perfectly good foot hold. Note to self never ever use poor quality walking boots when out in the bush. A sprained ankle a couple of hundreds metres from my car isn't a problem, but the same injury 2 days walk from the car is a major problem.

Today, my good walking boots came out, but all to late, the old legs are killing me and suspect the repairs to the trusty old boots may need a bit more wearing in. I think I'm looking forward to all day driving tomorrow.

Days end.

Canon 1D II, 100-400 f4.5-5.6 USM L

After walking through a a beautiful temperate rain forest for most of the day, I couldn't resist the temptation to head back to a beach to finish off a great day. For anyone who knows me it will be no surprise that I chose to shoot some blurred motion images of waves rolling in. Of all the things I shoot, waves are the most difficult, because they are unpredictable and really need great light to give them that fluidity I try to capture.

Tonight mother nature decided to give me only about a minute of interesting light before fading into flat, colourless and decidedly uninteresting twilight. This frame was the first of about a dozen. I can't wait to get back to my studio MacPro and 30" Cinema display to work some of the files created today. Laptops are great for managing images on the road, but there is no way I can finish files on this little road machine.

A couple of shots from this afternoon.

Canon 1Ds II, 16-35mm f2.8 USM lens

If you are a lover of nature and have even reasonable fitness you simple have to hit the trail along the amazing Erskine River near Lorne in Southern Victoria. The outback photography team today hit the trail and were simply blown away with the natural beauty of this amazing river. Although there was only a trickle of water flowing down the boulder strewn river bed, the surrounding environment more than made up for any lack of water.
Tall tree ferns line the river banks, while mosses and lichens cling to rocks and decaying timber all along the way.

Sunrise at Lorne

Canon 1Ds II, f4.5-5.6 100-400mm L USM.

A few minutes of beautiful light this morning at day break, before the dull grey skies took over again. This shot of fishermen at the end of the Lorne Jetty trying their luck as the sun rose behind them, was one of a few that I got. Dozens of locals and tourist were out and about this morning in this well known tourist resort situated on the Great Ocean Road in Southern Victoria.

Anyway we're off to tread the tracks of the local rain forests in track of some useful images now so I look forward to posting some of todays pics later today.

Slow days shooting...

Canon 1Ds II with f2.8 16-35mm USM lens.

This morning while hunting for some fine art images along the foreshore at Marengo a small bay just west of Apollo Bay in south western Victoria, I came across this interesting little rock formation. Just above the high tide line, this rock seems to have been sculptured by strong winds and sand. The lighting gods weren't all that kind this morning with low cloud hanging around for most of the morning and then through the afternoon, showing itself late in the afternoon and then sneaking behind clouds again before sunset. Hopefully tomorrow morning will be better, because I'm getting really desperate to get a few good shots real soon.
We are currently based out of Lorne a small tourist town on the Great Ocean Road, while hoping to shoot some coastal fine art and stock images, we're also looking at the nearby Ottway Ranges for some interesting locations.

Hanging out with Cherie Q

Canon 1Ds II with 4.5-5.6 USM IS lens @100, one Elinchrome strobe through white umberella

During the past week the team at Excitations have had the pleasure of hanging out with Cherie Q, a young and dare we suggest energetic fitness and health model. We were shooting some new images for Cherie's portfolio. It is always fun to shoot with a model who is so full of life and determination.

The shot above was created in a Gymnasium while Cherie waited for the outback photographer to get his act together and throw some light onto the set. Lets see no how that works.
Set ready + model ready + stylist ready + oh surprise photographer isn't ready = one really cool shot of model waiting.

That's it for today, gotta go as I have way to much work to do and far to little time in which to do it. Don't suppose anyone wants to wash the
troopy for me... thought not.

Will be heading to the "Big Smoke" tomorrow and a few shoots there, so take care guys!

A great day for a wedding...

Canon 1D IIn, 16-35mm f2.8 @16mm

Some days are just the best. Today the Excitations crew shot a wedding in and around Mildura. Joanne and Trent, a great couple, had just the best day for their wedding. After a week of very average weather and loads of dust. And I've gotta really emphasize LOADS of dust, it took Robyn a full day to get all the dust and sand out of our studio before we could start working in there again. I digress however, back to todays wedding. After a beautiful service in the majestic Grand Hotel gardens we headed to Lock Island Mildura for some extra photos.

I should point out that the bridal group traveled to our location in a beautiful White Limousine, driven by the one and only Vince Lammatina, a true Party Professional if ever there was one. While the outback photographers were rockin and rollin along in the trusty and I might add dusty, Troopy. A new set of shockers and a set of bushes in the undercarriage next week should fix that though.

Once on location we shot our little hearts out, lots of time, very relaxed and co-operative bridal party and some great light makes for a really excellent days shooting. Can't wait for next weeks shooting list, because I've had a bit of a peek into the diary and there are some really fabulous jobs coming up and I just love photographing weddings during the Autumn.

Weather...

Canon 1Ds II with 100-400 f 4.5-5.6 lens @ 100mm

Weather, happens every day, in fact every minute of every day. For some it is nothing more than an inconvenience for others weather occurrences can be life threatening. As we here in South Eastern Australia enter Autumn, where days are gentle, warm, and generally pleasant, today we have a forecast of strong damaging winds, high fire danger, locally raised dust with a slim possibility of rain. Rain would be nice but it seems to have forgotten how to do that around these parts.

Today the outback photographer awoke to the sounds of strong winds buffeting trees around the yard, the air already filling with dust whipped up from the parched land and the promise of a very ordinary sort of day. On the bright side the only two shoots we have today are both in the studio and the sunrise this morning over the Murray River was simply stunning. The shot above grabbed as strengthening winds chopped up the surface of a normally smooth river, reflecting the sunrise and creating amazing patterns of light.