Let Us In, Please

 

Sun Showers

 
My tree ferns looked totally dead back in February, now they are enjoying the sun showers. Taken with my telephoto lens to allow me to restrict the depth of field, and blur the background.

Woven in Nature

If you are a regular reader of this blog and based in Melbourne please consider coming to Monash Gallery of Art to the opening of my exhibition “Woven in Nature”, at 2:00PM on the 11th July. My work is being displayed on the Ramp Gallery, which is also the access to the MGA cafe. At the opening I will be demonstrating how I do my Photo “Impressions” Mosaics.



My exhibition runs from the 2nd July to 13th September.

The Monash Gallery of Art is recognized as having one of Melbourne’s leading Photo Collections. Other exhibitions running at the same time are “Presentation/Representation” Photography from Germany” (works of ten of Germany’s best contemporary photographers) and “David Hempenstall : Camp Slayer” (comprising 165 polaroid photographs from Camp Slayer inside the Abu Ghurayb Complex)

The stargazers

These long exposure photos where taken at the Monash Gallery of Art after a Talk And workshop about the project Syzygy/Shadows of Heaven (work-in-progress). Which was an interesting idea, where photographic plates are contact printed under other photographic “templates” (other photographic plates, including original startfield photoplates from Mount Stromlo ) used as negatives under just start light. The plates where laid out on tarpaline on Lake Tyrrell in the mallee, on nights that had no moon or no significant planet light, so it was just start light exposing the film. The resulting images are beautifully detailed.

Into the Dusk

 

A flock of black cockatoos, head into the sunset

Fox on the Run

Trying to capture this fox running into deep shadow had the camera deciding to move down to ISO 3200,  nice and sensitive in low light, but this has introduced a lot of “heat” noise. This occurs as coloured speckles, usually most noticeable in flat single tone areas. The noise is primarily caused by the sensor (CCD or CMOS) itself which needs to be charged to record the intensity of light falling on it. When the illumination is low and the exposure long one pixel’s charge can trick the adjacent pixels on the sensor to thinking it has received more light, leading to the little speckles.

So what can be done about it? there are many despeckling filters, often they will be supplied with the software you got with your camera. These generally look for out of place coloured specks and average (blur) them using the tones of adjacent pixels, trouble is this smart blurring often gets a bit over enthusiastic.  Luckily I have found the Noiseware’'s Community Edition program very useful in “filtering” out this noise, but avoiding the over blurred look.

Remember Higher ISO,Low Light and Long Exposures will increase noise in your digital photos.

A very early dusk

I know tomorrow is out shortest day (the winter equinox in the southern hemisphere) but the sky started turning pink very early today. This  photo was take at 3:10Pm. almost 2 hours before the actual sunset! Even the sheep seem to be a bit apprehensive.