Sunday, August 16, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Stanwell Tops NSW
Looking south towards Wollongong, with a little help from my new Lensbaby Composer
Monday, August 3, 2009
Spot #3 Kurnell -The Day the D90's went for a swim
It was a cold winters morning on the coast of the southern Sydney suburb of Kurnell. Jason, Ray and myself met inside the Botany Bay National park at 5:30am to take photo’s as part of our weekly Sutherland Shire Flickr walk. Justin decided to sleep in after a heavy night on the turps.We had about a 5 minute walk to the cliff edge where we had to climb down about 20 metres to the waters edge, with the assistance of an old piece of weathered rope and a handful of carved foot holes in the sandstone the three of us decended down to the water, backpacks on, tripods in hand and torches illuminating our way. Once down at the bottom, Jason illuminated his Lightanator 3000 (no patent pending) to show me what was around us, we originally intended on doing some light painting but realised the tide was a little to high and the swell was slowly building, so we started getting our gear out.
Today was going to be a day I would never forget, but at the time did not know it. Jason had just taken delivery of two Rainsleeves that he purchased over the internet, having never used them before Jason kindly offered one of them to me to use on my Nikon D90, after 15 minutes of putting the Rainsleeve over my 9 month old D90 and my Tokina F2.8 11-16mm one month old wide angel lens, we were ready to move to our individually selected magic spots to get our photo’s of the sun rising.
I moved to a position just above Jason and to his right, I set my camera and tripod up and started taking a few photo’s. The image below was my first shot for the day and I thought, what a great spot, maybe I should move closer to the water, over onto that rock to the left, the raised square one looks good.
Jason, being the water baby that he is, and wearing his shorts and water shoes, ventured down onto the lower rock platform and set up next to a rock wall to his right, Ray disapeared, as usual, to get that perfect shot of a ‘Rock’. I kept on higher ground, I dont usually get as venturious as either Jason or Ray, but, today I thought I would venture a little closer as I had protection from the elements over my camera gear.
This was going to big a big mistake.
The swell was growing, waves were breaking over the rocks in front of me, Jason was now in water up to his ankles, Ray, was somewere far away with his calculator working out the best position, aperture, ISO and speed for that perfect ‘Rock’ photo.
The waves were getting big, very big, so I set my tripod up, with my Aparture wirless remote trigger, composed my shot, took a few test shots, had the camera set to full manual mode, manual focus, high speed burst mode, great all done, Rainsleeves on, Im set, nothing can hurt me now. I stepped back about 5 metres and started taking a few shots, then, here it came, the wave of the day, and myself and Jason are in the perfect spot to get that one excellent keeper for the day, oh shit! The wave came, it was enourmous, my camera was shooting away, then it he me, my camera and Jason, and he thought he was protected behind that rock, and I thought whats the worst thing that could happen.
It happened, I got hit by this enourmous volume of water, drenched up to the waist, my camera? over it went tripos, D90, Lens remote trigger, the lot, crashing towards the rocks with about 2 metres of water pushing it towards the rocks, I still had my finger on the remote trigger, going through my head was three things at first, keep the shutter going, and D300 or D700, D300 or D700, which will I buy next to replace my water soaked D90. Running towards my gear I saw Jason’s left hand come out of the white wash with his tripod and camera held high out of the water, this is a common pose of Jasons, and his right hand came straight for my gear thinking it was going to go in the drink and never be seen again. I grabbed my gear, it was submerged with the wave rushing over it, I reached down grabbed it and thought that was it, how wrong I was, I turned off the camera and carefully removed the camera from the Rainsleeve, and not a drop of water had gone onto my camera body, the only water on my gear was on the UV filter and of course my tripod.
I learnt a few very special lessons on this day.
* Do not go into locations like this alone
* Always wear protection, on your camera
* Never reject an offer from a mate
And apparently another important fact, as quoted by Justin, at coffee after wards, “You know how you can tell if your camera got wet, lick it, you will be able to taste the salt, salt doesn’t smell” thanks Justin, we all wanted to know that.
So here are all the frames taken during this episode of, ‘My fotographylife’
Monday, July 27, 2009
Go no further
Through the eyes of my Lensbaby composer. A look down the line of a Historic Train Station located south of Sydney.
Taken on a wet cold winters afternoon with Jason and Alison from The Sutherland Shire Flickr group, and my beautiful daughter Monique.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Moon Landing 40th Anniversary
20th July 2009.
40 Years ago today July 20th I was a ten year old attending a Catholic School run by Nuns, Our Lady of the Rosary at Waitara, a suburb on the North Shore of Sydney Australia. I can recall the day man landed on the moon as if it were yesterday.
We sat on a cold wooden floor on the second story of the main school block, the class was full of all my class mates and the schools head mistress was there with us, her name was Sister Mary Cleatus (I think that's how it was spellt), her means of punishment was using a wicker cane on the palm of your hand or the backs of your legs or your butt.
While we all sat in awe watching the Americans on the Moon and just about to do their Moon Walk (No not the Michael Jackson version), I had done something in the class to warrant me being pulled out and made stand up in front of the class to line up for the cane at the end of the Television transmission, thankfully I was not the only child caught doing something the Nazi Nuns didn't approve of.
When the show was over all the children who had not been made stand in front of the class left the room, it was the middle of winter and it was cold, I was first up to receive the wrath of Sister Mary Cleatus, I saw the cane come down on my little 10 year old cold hand and snap, the rotten nun had broken the cane on my hand.
One memory that has been with me since that day that I was the only child to be caned that day as her cane was no more after hitting my little hand.
Every year on the 20th July, 2 days after my birthday, I recall this day and this Nun.
Michael Sutton
Sydney
Australia
This image is © Michael N Sutton and cannot be used or displayed or altered in any way without my personal prior permission on the internet or otherwise.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Impressions of a Tripod
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Bokeh
The Shire Flickr Group at La Perouse - 25 April 2009. Alex, Alison, Ray, Tony, Justin, Jason, and myself met at 5:30am.
Thanks to Stan for opening the doors of his office to us all to come and have breakfast and a look around an amazing marketing business, where this photo was taken.
When I saw these stamps I saw an opportunity to try out the Bokeh range on my new 356mm Nikkor lens. After listening to many Photography based Podcasts I have been inspired by what I consider to be one of the best by Martin Bailey. Have a listen to this episode and learn what Bokeh is and how it is actually pronounced.
Image is © Michael N Sutton and cannot be used or displayed without permission.
Impressions of a Tripod
She sells sea shells
Photo taken at dawn/sunrise on Cronulla North beach looking north towards Wanda and Eloura beaches south of Sydney NSW Australia.
