Ocean Spectrum

2011 has been a very special year for my photography journey since I started landscape photography in 2007: I was first time being exposed to the beautiful New Zealand landscape, by attending Kah Kit Yoong’s 2011 New Zealand Photography Expedition; I visited the wonderful Li River at the fourth time in late 2011; and more interestingly, I have more landscape photograhy works been purchased by people from Australia and overseas.

I often said that doing landscape photography is more like doing scientific research in some sense, and these two have a lot in common. For instance, I think the simplest thing is usually the best yet hardest thing. This is true in both art and science. Simplicity is always an important goal in my photography. But it is also very difficult to achieve this goal. From December 2011, I started my new project which I named Ocean Spectrum. I try to shoot seascapes around Sydney area from a different perspective where purity and simplicity are the key criteria I want to meet.

This Moon Rise was taken in a clear night in South Coogee coast in early January 2012. My original idea was to take a starry sky over this small ocean pool. But when I arrived the place, just realised that it was a full moon time. It was a great experience to witness a golden moon rising from the horizon. Composition for this shot was challenging. I had to set up my tripod into the pool to achieve a lowest viewpoint – so that the pool edge merged with the horizontal line.

Moon Rise

A New Day was taken in an early morning in Maroubra coast. I went out at 3.30am when it was still raining. I just wanted to try my luck – if it kept raining till sunsrise, I would waste this trip, otherwise, the morning light would be possibly interesting. The rain stopped before the first light occurred from horizon. In 20 minutes, the light was just beautiful. This image was blended from two successive shots, one with a fast shutter speed and one with 4 minutes exposure time while a 10 stop ND filter was used.

A New Day

The following picture Alone was made in a saturday afternoon two weeks ago in Maroubra beach. It was a half sunny and half cloudy day. The beach was quite flat and I could not find anything interesting. Around 6pm, the sky started to change and an idea quickly came to my mind. Eventually, this image was a result from three successive shots: one with exposure time 0.6 second to capture the smooth wave line across the beach bed, one with exposure time 1/320 second to capture the man – that was myself, and the last one with 128 seconds long exposure to reflect the dramatic sky. The color version of this image was quite nice, but I found that turning it into black and white was much more powerful.

Alone

This image was taken in central coast of NSW – The Entrance. I have been to the Entrance countless times, because it has beautiful coast lines, beaches, a famous light house, and a big lake Tuggerah Lake. All these indicate that this place has infinite photography opportunities. However, getting a stunning shot in this location is totally another story…

The Entrance

I started my first blog in 2012 with Ocean Spectrum, I wish my photography journey will move further in 2012.

 

 

Enjoying Sydney Winter

Winter is my favorite photography season in Sydney because this season has the longest period of soft light in a day that makes many landscape scenes here so beautiful. From June to August 2011, I have not been to any places outside Sydney for specific photography purpose. Instead, I quite enjoy to explore some old locations in Sydney and take photos of them. I believe people living in Sydney are very lucky – it has so many beautiful beaches and bays on the east and north sides, as well as the famous Blue Mountains on the west side.

Vivid Sydney

2011 is the 3rd year of the annual Vivid Sydney event. On 13 June 2011, the last day of 2011 Vivid Sydney, we family went to Circular Quay. The above photo was taken in the rain which showed the beautiful Sydney Opera House under such amazing lighting.

From June 2011, I started to take photos on this tree in my campus again. My photography journey has come along with this graceful willow tree. Since 2007, each winter after all leaves fall down, this tree reveals its beautiful shape and becomes an ideal photographic subject. This year, I have come to this location more than 30 times, mornings, afternoons and nights. I probably have captured the more different scenes of this tree this year than previous years. The following picture is one of my favorite pictures I took this year. It was taken in a night where the starry sky was most spectacular.

The Touch

Sydney’s seascape is unique and magnificent. Since 2009, Sydney’s east and north coastlines have become my regular photography sites. The following photo was taken in an early morning of a weekend in August. Interestingly, I took this picture in a heavy rain while I had to use a small umbrella to protect my camera and lens. The filter in front of the lens was constantly wet because of the rain. It took me quite a while to make successful two or three shots without rain drops on the filter. The low and dark clouds at that moment were very impressive.

Under the Storm

The following image was made on 5 August (Friday) afternoon in Maroubra. I was expecting a dramatic sky there as the weather broadcast said it would be a possible shower. But the sky was quite clear when I arrived the location. Obviously, the original composition in my mind would not work under such weather condition. By searching new compositions, I found this location was interesting and only became a potential photographic site for such a very low tide duration. I decided to make an image on this scene and wanted to include the starry sky into the frame. Eventually, it was a long time (about 1.5 hours) to stand in this site – after I made shots on the foreground swirls, I had to wait enough long when stars appeared in the clear sky. During this interval, my camera and myself were soaked couple of times by incoming waves. Fortunately, my gitzo tripod was sufficiently stable and I finally took a good shot for the stars with exactly the same composition. That means, this image was a a result from shots at different times.

Ocean Symphony

Blue Mountains is one of the major attractions of Sydney, as I have described in my previous blog. From a photography viewpoint, on the other hand, I believe there are infinite opportunities to make great images about Blue Mountains, even for those iconic spots, such as Echo Point as the following photo shows.
During this winter, I have been searching for some new scenes in Blue Mountains including several waterfalls for photography. Almost every weekend, I packed my camera gears and took several hours walk along various trails in Blue Mountains. However, the following image with a classical composition is my favorite, because it presents certain interesting features about the light and sky at this traditional location.

Echo Point

 

Making the Image “Moonlight”

Since I came back from our New Nealand Photography Expedition (22 April – 10 May 2011), I have been so busy with my university work. But the idea of writing something about this great expedition has not been faded away. I will slowly start to refresh my memory about this photography experience.

Over many of my New Nealand photographs that I have been processed, the image “Moonlight” was one of my favorites. I clearly remembered it was the early morning of the day we were about to leave Mt Cook and it was the second time we came to Tasman River. The location itself had full of interesting subjects: rocks, icebergs, snowing mountains, rivers, etc.. However, to make a harmony and interesting image of them was quite challenging. My first day of photographing this place was not successful. This morning, when we arrived there about 6.40am, the moon was still hung on the sky, while the sunrise was about to start shortly. Comparing to the morning one day earlier, this time I was very impressed with the moon reflection in the flowing water of the river. I decided to include this “moon” into my frame and at the same time to also capture the moon in the sky. To make the moon reflection more visible, I set up my tripod into the water in order to get the closest viewpoint. One big challenge for this shot was the light difference between the foreground and the sky. I used my Singh Ray 3 f-stop reverse GND plus a 2 f-stop GND (soft). With a relative long exposure time, I captured the scene that was very closed to what I saw in the field.

The post processing was a bit tedious. While 2 GND filters had made the foreground rocks quite visible, the two sides of mountain backgrounds were still very dark. In Photoshop CS5, I used TK luminosity technique to isolate the two side mountains under “Super Darks”, and lifted the curve to make them brighter. Then through a layer paint, I kept the surrounding areas not been affected by such luminosity adjustment. The final result is showed below, and I am quite satisfied with it. “Moonlight” was recently published in 1x.com.

The shooting data as follows: Shutter speed: 30 seconds, ISO: 400, Aperture: f/5.6, Filters: Singh Ray 3 f-stop reverse GND, 2 f-stop GND (soft).

Moonlight

 

Qatar – A Small but Vivid Place

In March 2011, as part of my involvement in a joint project with Qatar University, I revisited Doha – the capital city of Qatar. My first visit to Qatar was in 2008. Unlike my first visit, this time I stayed more than a week in Doha which gave me more opportunities to go a bit far to experience Qatar deserts as well as its local culture.

Qatar desert is not far from Doha. During the weekend, accompanied by my Qatar colleague, just driving 45 minutes from Doha city, we reached Qatar desert. I was hoping to make some interesting desert landscape photographs. But the weather condition was not ideal and the desert was not as extraordinary as I originally thought. The following desert pictures were taken before the sun completely went down.

Triangle Shade

Desert Lines

Golden Waves

People living in Doha usually start their daily work at 7.00am and finish at 2.00pm, which I think is a quite effective working timetable. I heard that in recent years, Qatar government has put a lot of efforts to invest its higher education and scientific research. In 2004, Carnegie Mellon University established its Qatar campus, then several other American and French universities also built their Qatar campuses. At the mean time, Qatar government also initiated National Priority Research Fund (NPRF) to support foundation research across almost all scientific research fields. I met a young American guy in Qatar University who was a PhD graduate from Duke University and now worked as an assistant professor in Qatar University. He and family settled down in Doha two years ago. It is quite clear that Doha is an open and international city in middle east.

Souq Waqif, Doha

During my visit in Doha, I was quite surprised to note that from late afternoon till midnight every street near downtown was full of people. One special place I visited several times was called Souq Waqif which was a famous market in Doha. The following pictures were shot in this busy and vivid city market.

Distruction

In Front of the Mosque

On the Street

On the Street (II)

 

Experiencing Western Australia

Western Australia (WA) is an extraordinary place: it is the biggest state in Australia, has more than 5,000 KM long coastal line facing Indian Ocean, and displays a unique landscape in the world. In January 2011, my wife and I traveled to Western Australia and spent several days in the Pinnacle Desert and Perth – the capital city of WA. We witnessed WA’s spectacular landscapes that we rarely see from other places in Australia.

The Pinnacle Desert has its unique landscape features in Australia. It is located in Nambung National Park near Cervantes and about 200 KM away from WA’s capital city Perth. In the desert, thousands of huge limestone pillars rise out of a stark landscape of yellow sand. Some of these pinnacles can reach up to three or four meters high. The shapes of these rocks are varied from jagged to sharp-edged columns pointing to the sky.

The Pinnacle Desert

On our second day in Cervantes – a small town about 25 KM away from Pinnacle Desert, we rushed to Nambung National Park in late afternoon and saw such interesting clouds over thousands of pinnacles (see the above picture). I quickly set up my camera and managed to take a few shots before the could formation changed. In the rest of that afternoon, the sky became featureless. I felt quite lucky to be able to capture that great moment.

Sunset in Pinnacle Desert

Over the two days of our stay in Cervantes, we went to Pinnacle Desert three times, and each time we got different perspective of Pinnacle Desert under different light condition. Our most impressive experience was probably to do a night photography in the desert. We experienced a huge difference between day and night in desert areas. After sunset, the temperature dropped quickly, and it also became very windy. In that full moon night, my wife and I were the only people left in the desert. Although it was a bit scary as my wife said, I was quite glad to eventually capture a picture illustrating Pinnacles under the moonlight.

Under the Moonlight

Traveling along Indian Ocean Drive was quite pleasant. You can enjoy the magnificent scenery of Indian Ocean at several lookout locations along the road. During our trip to WA, we spent one morning in Cervantes Coast and one evening in Cottlesole Beach near Perth, and witnessed the beautiful Indian Ocean sunrise and sunset.

Cervantes Coast

Cottlesloe Beach

Western Australia is also famous with its wide variety of wildflowers. Each year, from June to November, thousands of wildflowers bloom and make rugged landscape alive. Obviously, January is not a good time to see WA wildflowers. Nevertheless, along the Indian Ocean Drive, there were so many wild plants that we had never seen in other places, and also some interesting flowers, like the one below.

WA Wildflowers

 

My Passion for Li River

In my earlier blog “Yangshuo – A Wonderland of China”, I have described the beauty of Li River. Li River is a typical place that presents the true beauty of oriental landscapes. When I first visited Yangshuo in 2006, I was convinced that Li River is a place I should come back constantly.

A while ago I accepted friends’ suggestion to have a personal landscape photography exhibition sometime in 2012, with the theme called “East, West” to exhibit the beautiful landscapes from both East and West. To fulfill this big project, the first thought come to my mind was to go back to Li River to explore new scenes around Li River. At the end of August 2010, I arrived in Xing Ping (兴坪) – a county 30KM away from Yangshuo. I was told that Xing Ping is one of the best locations to view many stunning scenes of Li River.

Luo Si Mountain Sunset

I stayed 4 days in Xing Ping, and lived in a clean and economic hotel called Wang Jiang Lou (望江楼）－ its English meaning is A Hotel Facing the River. With the help of the hotel owner, I was able to find good local guides and access to several nice locations along Li River .

Yuan Bao Mountain

Both Luo Si Mountain (螺丝山) and Yuan Bao Mountain (元宝) are just 10-20 minutes by boat from Xing Ping county, and are ideal places for taking sunset pictures. The image of Yuan Bao Mountain also appears in the 20 Chinese Yuan Note. While these are well known sunset locations for photography, it is essential to fully explore them in order to capture something unique. When I took the above Luo Si Mountain shot, other two photographers were also at the same location. The actual sunset was not so attractive. Soon after sun went down, those two photographers left as they thought nothing was special. I decided to stayed longer with a hope to witness something interesting. Indeed, 60 minutes after the sunset, some warm tone was across the sky for just several minutes. Though not so obvious to our naked eyes, a magnificent scene was precisely captured in my camera via a long exposure.

Huang Bu Reflection

Huang Bu Reflection (黄布倒影）is another well known place in Li River, which is 40-50 minutes by boat from Xing Ping county. The above picture was taken in an overcast morning. The perfect reflection and interesting cloud formation in the sky illustrate some unique features about this classical scene. After viewing this image, a local photographer mentioned to me that this was one of the very special shots he ever saw about Huang Bu Reflection.

Xia Long Finsherman

Xia Long (下龙) was the last destination for my 4-day photography expedition in Xing Ping. It was a challenge to travel to Xia Long in the morning as it was not close to Xing Ping. Together with my local guide, we started at 4.00am, and traveled one and half hours to arrive at Xia Long, while the sky was still so dark at 5.30pam. When I was busy to search for interesting compositions and viewpoints, the guide started to sleep again in his boat. Around 5.45am, things became more visible and some fishermen started to work in the river. Although we did not meet a dramatic sunrise morning, I was still happy to capture these two peaceful images of Xia Long.

Morning Mist in Xia Long

Since 2006, I have been to Li river for three times, but my passion for Li River will go forever. I plan to explore some new locations and scenes along Li River in 2011, and hopefully to capture more interesting images of the beautiful Li River.

 

Getting Close to Blue Mountains

Blue Mountains are located in the Great Western Sydney area. They are one of the most spectacular landscapes in Australia. For many years, Blue Mountains have been a hot attraction for both tourists and locals. Like most well known mountains around the world, Blue Mountains also have countless opportunities for professional and amateur photographers all year around.

Although I have been living in Sydney for over fifteen years, only very recently I started to explore Blue Mountains from a photographer’s perspective. In general, most people know Blue Mountains from the famous Three Sisters. It has become an icon of Blue Mountains, and every photographer who visited Blue Mountains would not miss a chance to take a photo of it.

Having already seen so many shots of the Three Sisters pictures, I tried to do something differently. The following image captured stars over the Three Sisters, which was achieved through two successive shots with 1.5 hours apart.

Stars over the Three Sisters

At different times and seasons, the Three Sisters may show its different face to us:

The Three Sisters

While the Three Sisters is the most well known attraction in Blue Mountains, there are so many other locations worth exploring thoroughly. One such wonderful location is called Govett’s Leap, as illustrated by the following picture. It is the edge on the grand canyon and presents a magnificent panorama view of the entire canyon. However, getting a good shot from this location is rather difficult, at least from my recent several attempts. I think only under some special weather/light condition, one is able to capture a true vision of Govett’s Leap.

Govett's Leap

Another interesting place not far from the Three Sisters is Wentworth Falls Lake. The lake is surrounded by bushes and trees. In winter and autumn, fogs often appear over the lake in early morning or anytime after rains, which gives a peaceful mood.

Mist over Wentworth Falls Lake

In Blue Mountains, we often see a clear sky with full of stars during the night. I took the following Milky Way picture over Blue Mountains, with moon light from the right side shedding on these trees.

The Milky Way over Blue Mountains

Blue Mountains also have a wide range of wild flowers and plants, which provide great photography opportunities for many people. When I take my trail walks in Blue Mountains, I usually carry my 400D camera with a 60mm f/2.8 macro lens, and take some pictures of flowers, woods and rocks on my way of hiking. From my recent trail walks there, I have got a good collection of images on these fine elements.

Wild Flower

Plants on the Rock

 

The Scenery around My Local Area

I finally got some time to write this blog about the beautiful scenery around my local area. While I have focused my recent landscape photography in mountain and coastal areas, I found that some small scenery was particularly interesting to be photographed as well. Very often, people can find such interesting places near by.

Over the years I have been exploring my local area and have found several locations that are quite ideal to be photographed.

Many people may think these locations are just usual and nothing specific. But under special weather and lighting conditions, we may create impressive images from these places. Such as the following photo. It was taken in a misty morning during the winter. Each year, we usually get three or four foggy mornings around my campus. If the fog is heavy enough, then this willow tree and its reflection in this little pond could be illustrated nicely while all background buildings and other things become invisible.

A misty morning

I have photographed this lone tree many times in the last three years. In winter period, different light conditions may present very different effects of this tree.

Between day and night

Once in a year, the moon would rise just above this tree. I had tried to take a photo about this scene in last year, but failed due to a bad weather. Late July 2010, the weather condition was reasonable and I got a chance to take this photo.

Under the moon light

I called the following photo “Double Suns”, which was shot very recently in my campus. Because of a heavy fog, it allowed me to shoot towards the sun.

Double suns

The following photo is my favorite among my recent works. It was shot in a small lake near my campus as well. In an early morning, I went to the lake and waited for the sun getting out of the horizon. I used a telephoto lens to localize the scene I wanted to capture, and used a ND filter to slower down the shutter speed. An additional 1-stop GND (soft) filter was placed to further balance the light so that I could achieve a perfect reflection of the reeds. The pink tone revealed from the picture was due to the sky reflection when the sun was rising.

Reeds reflection

Finally, the last photo was taken in a river bank during the sun set time. The beautiful sky was reflected in the water, and it looked like the rock was floating in the air.

Floating in the air

 

Impression of Niagara Falls

Recently I had a chance to attend a conference in Toronto. I arrived a day earlier and spent one night with a photography friend in Niagara Falls.

We arrived Niagara Falls in the afternoon. Although having seen numerous photos of Niagara Falls before, when I was actually in front of it myself, I was still stunned by its magnificent grand scale. It is always not easy to take shots in a well known location like this one. The biggest challenge is how to make a new perspective of the subject.

The weather was perfect, the setting sun light shed on the waterfalls and formed a big rainbow. I took a couple of shots to show the complete scale of the waterfalls. I also decided to focus on some local details of the falls to get some interesting and original images that I had in my mind. The following two shots show a small detail and an overall view of the falls respectively.

Rainbow over Niagara Falls

Dusk at Niagara Falls

After dinner, we came back to the falls again. The sky was getting darker, I tried to take further shots before the colorful artificial light was on.

Muted Waterfalls

Muted Waterfalls (II)

The next day, we got up early in the chilly morning and arrived at the falls around 5.30am. The light condition was not ideal but also not too bad. The new moon was above the waterfalls, and the sky was starting to change its color quickly. The following two shots quite precisely captured what I saw at the time.

Niagara Falls under Twilight (I)

Niagara Falls under Twilight (II)

The temperature was around 0 Celsius in the early morning. This was unexpected. I did not bring enough warm cloths when taking the morning shots. I was told by the locals that the weather was a bit abnormal theses days, it should not be this cold normally. Just before we left, we found some flying birds under the morning light, where the waterfalls provided a unique background.

Morning Light (I)

Morning Light (II)

It was an impressive experience. The trip was interesting and fruitful. I am quite contented to be able to make a couple of shots which were considered original by other photographers.

No doubt, Niagara Falls is a place worth all landscape photographer to visit and explore its true beauty.

 

Exploring Sydney East Coast

Sydney is a magnificent city with numerous beaches and long stretching coastlines. Having been living in Sydney for 20 years, I have visited most beach areas of this city. However, I haven’t started to explore Sydney’s eastern coast areas from a photographic perspective until recently.

La Perouse

La Perouse is in south east of Sydney. It was named by French sailor Jean-Francois de Galaupde La Perouse who landed Sydney at this location in 1788. He was also the first French to land Australia soil.

La Perouse Coastline

Unlike other coast areas of Sydney, La Perouse stands out with its unique features of rocks, beaches, bay and bushland. With its east facing, it is an ideal location for taking morning shots.

La Perouse

La Perouse Rock Formation

Coggee

Coggee is another famous east coast suburb of Sydney. Coggee was from Australian Aboriginal language meaning “sticking seaweed”. Different from La Perouse, Coggee does not have large area of bushland and tremendous cliff formations. Instead, it is occupied by dense residential buildings. As it is very close to University of New South Wales (UNSW), many university staff and students live in Coggee area.

Moonbow at Coggee Beach

The above photo was taken in an early morning, while a “rainbow” appeared across the dark sky. With a 8 minutes long exposure, this amazing full rainbow was captured. Afterward, I was told this was not a rainbow, it was actually a moonbow instead.

Algae Invasion

The photo on the right was taken during a low tide period at Coggee, while algae aggressively invaded on to the rock under the shallow water. The dramatic cloud above the sky was formed after a light storm just before this shot was taken.

Fisherman

Storm Coming

Photo “The First Light” was taken from an ocean pool called Ivo Rowe Pool, which is one of my favorite photography locations in Coggee. The photo captured the changing light of the rising sun while a star trail was also presented on the left side of the sky.

The First Light