Contact

Experimenting again with the extension tubes. Sooooo hard to focus. This is a close up of the contacts on my telephoto lens. It's the lack of these contacts that make the extension tubes so very hard to use. But I guess that's what you get for a few $$ on ebay.

Getting late

Getting late. I'm tired and I want to go to bed. Find a photo to take. Find a photo to take. Find a .... candle. Click. Goodnight.

Blowing the cobwebs out

Sometimes you just need to get to the beach and let the wind blow you around a bit.

Hot

Not taken today, but I liked it. This is a 15 second look at a camp fire. Looks hot in there!

Coming Home

After a wonderful weekend up the creek it was time to head towards home. The Kangaroo River was like glass in places. Just beautiful.

Up the Creek - Part 2

Still up the creek. Actually, I'm canoeing on the upper Shoalhaven River, upstream from Tallowa Dam.

Update: The Shoalhaven Gorge was closed for feral goat control, so we canoed and kayaked on the Kangaroo River. This shot is for Ian. It's my watercolour.

Up the Creek - Part 1

I'm currently up the creek, and unable to post today's photo till I get back. (That's right, no internet access, no mobile coverage, no election coverage!!)

Update: Got away later than expected so had a lovely paddle into the sunset.

This photo is straight from the camera! Exposed for the cloud with fill flash to illuminate the canoe.

Up the Wall

A bit of wall climbing today for some of my students. Pity I only had the phone camera with me.

Orion

After a week of atrocious weather it's great to have a clear night. An amazingly clear night.

30 second exposure @ F/3.5, ISO 400.

Berry: Statue 1

This is Alexander Berry.

From the plaque on this statue, situated in Berry, NSW:

Alexander Berry 1781 - 1873

This memorial honours his achievements as a surgeon, explorer, merchant adventurer and first european settler of the Shoalhaven in 1822. A great Scottish humanitarian, he provided for the David Berry Hospital, and the Chair of English Literature at St. Andrews.

His determination to create mixed farming and associated industries to replace bush and swamp succeeded in laying the foundations of the thriving Shoalhaven District as we know and love it today.

School project time

This term's theme at school is Indonesia. Time to raid the archives for some souvenirs. Not much here, but we managed to uncover this Indonesian fan.

The Old Bridge

The old Nowra bridge over the Shoalhaven River has been serving the locals since it was completed in 1881.

From NSW RTA Heritage Register:
"This Bridge was intended for a double track railway use but schemes for a South Coast Railway to Bega never eventuated. In fact when the government railway was completed in June 1893 it stopped on the north side of the river at Bomaderry, never to cross into Nowra on the existing Bridge, so the Bridge has been used for 2-lane road traffic for over 120 years.
The bridge had a timber deck for 100 years until in 1981 reinforced concrete was laid over steel Armco decking. The pairs of cast iron piers are original and were supplied locally by the Atlas Foundry, Sydney. At 1013 feet (309m) overall it was the largest bridge project in New South Wales prior to the 1889 Hawkesbury River Railway Bridge."

Cursum Perficio

Another wet, grey day trapped indoors. We were discussing our travel plans in Scotland when talk turned to the history of the Hunters. We discovered Hunterston Castle in North Ayrshire, our ancestral home. It's just down the road from Hunterston Nuclear power station!

The photo is a kilt pin with our family crest, against a backdrop of Lauren's 'Hunter tartan' kilt.

Old and New

Playing with trial version of Lo-Fi, an app to make perfectly good photos look like they come from an old, cheap film camera.

The Desk

The desk of a 9 year old is an interesting place. Look in detail and it reveals many stories.

Ummm, der.

Today we issued about 75% of our Year 9 DER laptops. All seemed to go well.

Werri

Off to Werri to find a devious geocache. After searching and searching I gave up and phoned a friend. I'd have never found it.

Just before sunset I wandered down to the beach to catch the wonderful pre-sunset light.

Play me

What to do while while in forced excile, looking after a sick child? Got lots of work done, but a quick game of chess helped the day pass.

In-flight entertainment

After a swim at Culburra we adjourned to a nearby boat ramp to have a picnic lunch and watch the world go by. Boat ramps are such good places to just sit back and 'people watch'. They're also a great places to attempt to photograph some in-flight action.

This seagull was checking out the fishermen below, who were cleaning their morning catch. The strong nor-easter kept him almost motionless while I got the shot. This was taken with a wide angle lens at 55mm, 1/200sec, F/16, ISO400. Fully manual, about 1 stop overexpossed.

Shell

Running out of time to come up with a photo, so I was trying out a few ideas with flash. I only have the on-camera flash, so I was experimenting with settings and relections.

F/16, 1/60sec, ISO400, Flash Exposure Compensation: -1, White backdrop!

More Chemistry

Second photo from my chem class in a week, this time an experiment to decompose water (H20) into hydrogen gas (H2) and oxygen gas (O2) and once again taken on the phone.

Gumnut

More flowers. But I couldn't resist them. Did you spot the two bees?

Cambeview

Does everybody have views like this when they take the dog for a walk around the block?

The Crucible

Chem prac today, investigating the properties of compounds.

More Cows

I should never run out of shots from the back verandah - as long as the sun shines. I managed to get just one shot before the sun disappeared behind the escarpment.

Hellhole

Out geocaching today. Went to a cache called Hellhole. The cache was overlooking a hell hole - the Hellhole Quarry. That little yellow toy in top right of shot was probably about 15m long and 7-8m high. It was a BIG hell hole.

Broad-swords

Of to Milton Show today for a wee bit of scottish highland dancing. No, not me! Lauren.

Strip

Not a new photo, but a new technique. I've been playing with photoshop 'actions' and downloaded this script to make a filmstrip from your photos. A bit more experimenting and I'm sure I'll master it.

Bottlebrush

I wasn't expecting this photo to turn out like this. It was taken during the day! (Well, OK - maybe not in bright sunshine, but it was nowhere near dark when the photo was taken.)

The original actually had brighter reds. I toned them back a bit to make it look a little more realistic.

Happy birthday

A work colleague's birthday, so we had pretty little mud cakes.

What lies within....

While Lach was at tennis comp I went for a wander to check on one of my geocaches. To the uninitiated, this tree is just a tree. To others it hides a secret....