Walkabout Around the City

Usually I do this post with a catch up and let you know what I’m up to, but to be honest time is running out this weekend. I’m off tomorrow on a small camping trip. I know, hard to believe, but yes I’m camping. Nothing too much just overnight. I will tell you more when I get back.

Today I am just giving you some photos from a walkabout I did around the city last week when I had my work experience student, Alainne. I will leave it here and put some descriptions under the photos.

I hope your Easter has been nice.

Graffiti in AC/DC lane.

AC/DC looking to 101 Collins Street.

Reflections in a window.

Reflections in windows.

Building blending into the cloudy sky.

A detail in Hosier Lane.

Steps going up.

An abandoned chair in Hosier Lane.

Buildings reflected in a puddle.

Forum reflected in Federation Square.

Triangles everywhere in Federation Square.

The Forum tower in front of the 101 Collins Street Tower.

Hosier Lane from Federation Square.

More triangles

Federation Square reflected in Federation Square.

USA Wanderings: New York Public Library

On the day I spent with Stacy, Robert and Robyn we also went to the New York Public Library. It was one building that was most definitely on my list. I have wanted to see it ever since I saw the movie Day After Tomorrow. I know that probably makes me a sad person, but I do love a good disaster movie, and Stacy really understood why I wanted to go there.

Such an imposing building from the outside. It certainly has something that says it is important. Libraries can be so beautiful. The one here is gorgeous as well. Such grandeur.

The interior was just as stunning. I really wanted to take some photos from this spot as they ran up to here in the building to see the water coming in. If you look through the middle window, that is the road or street the water came rushing down.

You can sort of see where we were standing there up on the right. Look at the detail inside this building. It was so amazing.

Of course I look at many of these photos and wish I had changed something, or did something different and now I can’t go back and re-shoot them. It is one of the benefits of making where you live or places close by your subject matter, then you can keep going back until you get the shots as you want them. I will have to start making more trips to some of my favourite Melbourne buildings.

As we left we turned back and you could see the Chrysler Building in distance.

Out the back of the library is a really popular garden, or park, it is called Bryant Park, I believe. It was lovely to just sit there and watch the people.

We decided at this stage that we need to get food so we headed to a pizza place that Robyn knew and look what we walked through.

Yes, Times Square. It was my only visit to it. I know lots of people think you have to go at night, but from what I’ve heard it really wasn’t for me. I don’t like lots of people and crowds. It was good to see it, but this was enough.

It was all part of an extraordinary day and one I know I will remember for a very long time. I am going to leave you with a gallery now. I hope you are having a lovely weekend. We’ve had a thunderstorm and some rain, very nice.

Flatiron in Situ

It has been crazy since I got back, and I am trying to get the magazine ready to be published at the end of this month, or early next.  On top of that, family dramas, not much sleep and working, it is all getting on top of me. I also have quite a few articles I have to write for dPS, and one of them I need to get done straight away.

As I was thinking about that article and what to do I remembered the morning I had gone to the Flatiron building. When I was there I tried to take photos at different angles and to give it a sense of place, or to show it in situ. I used different lenses to help get that. I also wanted to remember the detail so I took some close ups of it. I might never get to go back and I want to remember how it was.

I used the 35mm lens from Nikon, then I put the camera on the Joby Gorillapod with the Tamron 15-30mm lens, and finally used the Tamron 28-300mm for the detail. The 15-30mm gives some weird angles, but I remember a lecturer at uni saying something about the nature of the thing you were working with. The odd leaning is definitely an element of that very wide lens and I’ve decided I should just go with it.

I am going to leave you with a gallery now, I hope it helps you to understand how the flatiron is and what it looks like in its surroundings.

Weekend Wanderings: It’s in the Book

Apparently all the wildflowers that I took photos of the other day up in the Big Desert in the North West Corner of Victoria are in the book. I had a lovely day out with Jocelyn Lindner and she took us up into the Desert to show us where the flowers were. She has written a book on the Flora and Fauna of Victorian and South Australian Mallee. I will include a photo of the book cover in the gallery.

Desert Phebalium

Jocelyn was amazing, she knew the names of all the flowers and would keep pointing them out. We all need a Jocelyn when we go out. I would look at her, she would name the flower and I would think I’m not going to remember that, then she would look at me and say:

‘It’s in the book.’

Desert Baeckea

Nearly all of these flowers are very small, these ones are maybe a centimetre across. Then when you photograph them with the Macro lens and blow them up on the computer you discover a lot of detail, I mean a lot of detail. It is incredible how much is in these images. So Jocelyn what is the name of this flower?

‘It’s in the book.’

Early Nancy, Harbinger of Spring

This was one of my favourite flowers and finds that day. The Early Nancy, apparently announces the arrival of spring. Again another very tiny flower. I’m not surprised I’ve never noticed them before.

I found it in the book.

Mallee Groundsel

Some were harder to find. These were everywhere, and I’m not sure I got the names of all them right and some I couldn’t work out.

It was a great day out and something that I really enjoy doing. I love photographing the flora of Australia and again I got to photograph more of it. I would like to get a lot better at photographing them and naming them. I’ve been doing it a lot with the birds, but I think I would like to do it with the flowers more. It would be nice to know the difference between the weeds and the native flora, so I’m on a mission.

Thanks to Joyce I have a start with her book and I will be going through it over and over. Jocelyn is selling the book for $40 and it is packed with information. If you are interested in purchasing it then please go to the website of Kow Plains. Very interesting website as well.

I have a gallery for you now of the images I saw, and where I’ve been able to I have named the flower. I hope you enjoy the photos. These are the early flowers, and lots more to come as spring approaches.

Desert Phebalium

Twiggy Guinea Flower

Desert Baeckea

Blue Boronia

Blue Boronia

Blue Boronia

Mallee Groundsel

Hard Head Daisy

Mallee Groundsel

Wild Geranium

Green Tea-tree

Early Nancy, Harbinger of Spring

Old Man’s Beard

Ground Heads

Small Leaf Mint Bush

Weekend Wanderings – Zooming in at the Zoo

Anyone who follows me on Google+ or Facebook will know that I went to the Melbourne Zoo this last week.  I had another One on One Photography session with the same person that booked a few of them and we decided this week to go to the Melbourne Zoo.  It was great, she loves animals and the Zoo is a great place to get photos of them.  I didn’t take the macro with me, but I took my very, very cheap Nikon 70-300mm lens.  It is a very cheap lens, you get what you pay for really, so you can tell me what you think.  I used it to zoom in a lot with the animals and the flowers.  I got so many images, that I am afraid, I will have to two posts on the trip, the second one, I don’t know when.

The Meerkats were playing around, and I tried to get lots of images of them, shame they blended into their background so much.

It was a gorgeous day there at the zoo, and it was looking fantastic.  There were flowers out everywhere and with my interest in the macro recently I tried getting some shots with the zoom lens.  I thought they came out okay.  I tried doing lots of zooming. It is very well to go to the zoo and get photos of everything, but I really wanted to try out zooming right in, getting as close as I could with that lens.

The Butterfly house was perfect for that.  They move around a lot, but if you wait, they will sit still for you.  I did crop some of the other photos so that you could see the butterfly better.

When I was photographing the Giraffe I decided to try using the full frame as a cropped sensor, which in effect turned the 300mm into 450mm.  You could do the same thing on the computer, but it was good to try it.  It meant also that I could really compose the image in the frame.  I just had to remember to use the right lines for the composition.  I need to remember that I can do this more.

See that look on the Kangaroos face?  See how worried he/she is?  Well he/she had every right to be, that Emu started attacking them.  Very nasty.  The Emu wasn’t after the food, just wanted to scare them off, bully boy.  I yelled at him/her to stop, and then he started heading my way.  I thought I was going to get it.  Thankfully it stopped before it got too close.  It wasn’t nice.  I did get some good images of it though, which I will put in the gallery.

We didn’t see everything at the Melbourne Zoo and because I was there to teach her how to take photos, that took up a lot of time.  It was a great day though and I really enjoyed myself.  I am going to put more photos in a gallery for you to enjoy now.  I hope your weekend is going well.

Weekend Wanderings – Sights in the City

We went into the city this morning.  My husband wanted to get a game from a shop in there, so we all decided to go out and take the girls out for lunch to celebrate them both getting into University.  I took my camera and thought I wouldn’t plan what to photograph, I would just go with the flow and see what I got.

It was interesting to see the city, I haven’t been in since before Christmas, and all those decorations are gone, being replaced with Australian flags, I assume for Australia Day which is next weekend.  Here is a gallery of the images I got.  I will put explanations under each one.

RMIT – My daughters new university

Swanston Street, looking toward to the War Memorial

Statue in front of State Library of Victoria

Another statue

The helmets for the free bikes

A pole near the QV

Australian flags flying.

Leaves over the ground everywhere, looks like Autumn not summer.

Street signs

Street Are

Australian flags in Bourke Street Mall

Royal Arcade

Details in the Royal Arcade

Details in the Royal Arcade

Details in the Royal Arcade

Flowers on display in the Royal Arcade.

A Macaron tower in Royal Arcade.

The bit connecting two buildings, the Block Arcade.

Australian Flag in Block Arcade.

Australian Flag in Block Arcade.

Collins Street

Detail on a building

Detail on a building

The front of the building

Inside another Arcade

Public toilets in Melbourne Town Hall

Detail of ironwork at Public toilets

Australian flags with Manchester Unity building in the background.

More flags in front of Melbourne Town Hall

Melbourne Town Hall

The front entrance to the Melbourne Town Hall

A light fixture

Nicholas Building from the side.

A tree covered in crochet

Advertising, the tennis, I think

Statue opposite Nicholas building

close up of crochet tree

Piano set up for anyone to play, there were a few of these

Looking up at the crochet

The city square with all the crocheted trees

People having their photo take with the crochet trees

close up of crochet tree

The city square with all the crocheted trees

Two towers, Manchester Unity and the Melbourne Town Hall

With This Ring

Most of you know that a couple of weeks ago I photographed a wedding.  It isn’t something I normally do, but Sasha and Bianca saw my portrait shots and wanted me to take some wedding photos for them.  I wasn’t the main photographer there, and I tried to make sure that I didn’t get in his way, but I also managed to get some wonderful shots myself.  They have approved the photos and now I can show you a selection of the 1300 photos I took that day.

This one is probably my favourite from the whole day, though there were a lot more that came pretty close.  I put this image up on Facebook on Saturday and was amazed at how many people liked it.

I also put this image up on Sunday and again, so many said that they thought it was beautiful.  In truth, it was a beautiful wedding.  A lot of things didn’t go as planned, but we went with it and just did what we had to do.  I managed to get some amazing photos and I do feel really privileged that I was asked to take photos for them.

We tried lots of things, and some worked and some didn’t, but the great thing was that they trusted me and were willing to let me try many things.  The ones that did work were brilliant.  I think having the two photographers worked really well, the other one ended up doing the photos that the groom wanted and I concentrated on the bride and helped her to get what she was after.  Then while he was doing the family photos I went into the reception area and photographed all the little details that I thought she would want, as a reminder of what it looked like on the day.

I think you can tell from this image, that the day was crap, it rained on and off, and this was one of the very last photos I got in the city.  As soon as we got into the cars after this it really rained.    Though, it turned out to be good because if it hadn’t rained we would not have got the first photo I showed you.

They were such a beautiful couple and so wonderful to work with.  She kept saying she was being a bridezilla, but really she wasn’t, it was just really easy to see how much it meant to her for the day to go well.  She was never rude, or angry, in fact I thought she was a fantastic client.  I love it.  They wrote me a wonderful review on Photographers.com.au, what more could you ask for.

I am going to put a lot more into a gallery for you now, and you can browse through them.  I hope you like them as well.  I never thought I wanted to do weddings, but if I could do more like this, I would be very happy.