AUTUMN

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WINTER

HEALESVILLE, Country Victoria

(Have been without the internet for the last week or so, today is all about catching up with fellow bloggers and the most recent news).

In the meantime, here’s an image taken Sunday afternoon up at Healesville in country Victoria.  Great light and a perfect Spring Day for Father’s Day DownUnder.

I have to admit I was concentrating more on walking through damp leaves and hidden muddy puddles and not slipping down the steep slope (than holding the camera still and trying to capture the fern-covered hillside).  Most of my images were a wee bit disappointing.

 

SPOTLIT LEAVES – City Square at Night in Melbourne’s CBD

 

 

…………and a photo of the actual city square at night so you get a bit of an idea of how the trees came to have such extremes of light and dark outlining their shapes.  The above photo was made standing under a tree and looking up above my head.

THE BOAT SHED – Ornamental Lake, Royal Botanic Gardens

I haven’t done any Street Photography on the last 3 visits to Melbourne’s CBD and am feeling totally uninspired in my attempts at Black and White Photography at the moment.

There seems to be no ‘light’ in my vision.

With the warmer weather of Spring, I have no real excuse for not getting outdoors and experimenting, but this new blog of mine seems to be lagging in the new image department.  This morning I converted this relatively recent photo to B & W to keep the ball rolling.  But I need to fossick around for some new material.

I know.  Excuses, excuses.

Winter in Black & White

Methinks I’ve neglected my Black & White blog lately.

I’ve been into Melbourne’s city centre twice in the last few weeks, (shopping), and taken the DSLR and NOT MADE ONE SINGLE PHOTO !

Unthinkable.  But there it is.  Me…….. go to the city…….. and not take a photo anywhere!

I’ve been outdoors on the odd sunny day in the Royal Botanic Gardens, but only taken the occasional photo there.

I am in remission from Photography Addiction.

So it’s back to the archives to find a Wintery Day scene down by the far end of the Ornamental Lake in the Royal Botanic Gardens made on 28th June 2011.  Not much light.  Mostly fog and a shaft of sunlight to light up a patch of murky looking water.

Spring will be DownUnder in a few weeks, so hopefully, it’ll be photography weather again.

TREE IN WINTER – Jacka Boulevard, St Kilda

NATURE (in Black & White)

(Black & White conversions from the Archives – Click on the first image to start, as some of them are portrait size and some landscape).

FOGGY WINTER DAY (looking across the river towards the City of Melbourne)

(from the archives 15th July 2011)

CLOUD COVER – St Kilda

I’ve never been particularly satisfied in making images of clouds in Black & White – they always looked so washed out and smudged……until last week, that is.

These fluffy balls looked unreal in the original colour version, so thought they might make an interesting conversion to B & W, especially over the apartment blocks and hotels lining the beachside road in the inner bay side suburb of St Kilda.

(The colour version of my afternoon at St Kilda beach/pier is located on my Nature Blog at http://vickialfordnatureblog.wordpress.com/2014/06/06/st-kilda-pier-boat-marina-beach ).

WEATHERED BY ONSHORE WINDS

Toadstools in Black & White

I’ve been busy with other activities recently and had less time to spend on photography, but I’ve always wanted to try some landscapes and nature photography in Black and White.

Yesterday I had the chance (albeit brief).

On a roadside stop while up at the nearby Dandenong Ranges (the range of hills overlooking the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne), I was lucky enough to make some images of large toadstools on a grassy roadside edge and in the nearby field.  While I made the photos in colour, I tried converting a few to B & W and this is the result.  The lens used in these two was my 50mm f1.4 – at f3.5 and then I tried f1.4 on a toadstool hidden in the grass.

Unfortunately, a barbed wire fence stopped me getting on the other side of the patch and I shot mainly into the light (resulted in some over-exposed areas in some images).

I’ll look forward to trying again sometime.  I must admit, getting up off the ground was extremely difficult with my stiff back and neck, so I don’t think I’ll be getting this low down next time though.  The ground was covered in pine cones and twigs from a nearby tree, so it was a bit prickly and uncomfortable too.  At least now I know what it feels like to lie on a bed of nails!

 

A LONG DAY (INTO LATE AFTERNOON)

I’m way behind in reviewing photos I’ve made recently, but decided these were worthy of my Black & White Blog (as opposed to my other blog Living With Nature).

After all, they ARE  Black & White and that’s what this blog is all about (not necessarily Street Photography).  The fact that I started with street photography doesn’t mean every post will be along those lines.