Foggy Morning

Well, in the tropics occasionally we do get some fog, but not like this. It was a thick blanket of fog across the city and rural area. I was rushing to get going Wednesday Morning but couldn't skip an opportunity to at least take a couple quick shots from home. Taken around 7:45am on the 30th July and the outside temperature is above 20 degrees Celsius. The picture below was taken from our upstairs deck.

This second shot from the driveway just to demonstrate the fog density. I know this is common in colder climates but very rare in Darwin so I thought I would share it with you.

Remember to click on the pictures to see larger version. Cheers.

Noel & Lindy

Well, I have been a bit slow on this one. Congratulations to Noel and Lindy who confirmed their love for each other at the weekend. They already have two kids so they decided to make it all official.

It was a lovely Wedding at the Speaker's Green at Darwin's Parliament House. A great venue, except for the light punching through at about f800 at 1/125th.



Here is a pic of the happy couple taken at the Administrator's Office on the Esplanade. We enjoyed the day and thanks Ashleigh, our new assistant who did a top job of helping out. She received a lovely compliment from the bride as we were leaving and we do like to leave a happy Bride and sometimes even a happy Groom.

Extending the Wedding Shoot

Congratulations to Jesse and Jenny who were married on Saturday the 12th of July. It was a nervous occasion but it didn't show in the photographs. We even changed things up and trusted our strobes to continue shooting after the sun had gone down. Never done location photography in complete darkness with small strobes before but I think it worked out fantastically. We used 4 in total using the Nikon CLS. Have a look for yourself.



I should probably mention too that this shot was taken with a Nikon D3 and the Nikon 24-70mm f2.8. This gear doesn't take bad photos. Just the people using it. But with Daniel working it and with the SB-800 focus assist these shots are sweet. Good job Daniel.

Ryan & Sasha

Congratulations to Ryan & Sasha who were married on Saturday the 5th July 08. The Ceremony took place at Skycity Casino Lawns and the reception was held upstairs.

This photo was taken just as the sun had set. The light at the ceremony was very hard as sun came in between 2 big trees causing dark shadows and bright highlights. Still the photo have turned out quite well.


The final photo is the cake cutting, taken with one large shoot through umbrella lighting the cake and them and then falling off to darken the background somewhat.

The Bushy Life

Today we had a family day today out to see a Bee Keeper and then out to a rock melon farm. It was very interesting to see how it all happens and the huge scale of the property.

Tas was our tour guide pictured below. He keeps his bees out on many of these properties so they can pollinate the fruit. The white boxes you can see in the photo above are the bee hives and the green shed way down the back is where the sorting and packaging is done. Click the images to enlarge.

This pile of Rock Melons doesn't look very appetising, but that's OK because this is the waste area where poor quality rock melons come to die. For the most part they still taste great, they just look ordinary and the everyday consumer doesn't want to eat something that doesn't look right. Didn't stop us though. We knocked a few off. They had only been on the ground 15 minutes when we got there though.


Here is a picture of my daughter Mikayla doing her share of the work and picking some Rock Melons to take home.


It really was a great day out doing something a little out of the ordinary for us. Especially since we had the behind the scenes tour and got to taste some great Rock Melon.

Photoshop

I have been playing in Photoshop, taking it easy and as always trying to learn some new things. I got this photo idea from a book by Scott Kelby called "the adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers" which I have been going through and have found some great tips from a real expert.

This is one photo I have had a play with and found a different way to display it. It was a macro of a rose I took some time ago. I liked it as it was but though it might get this job done too.


I had to crop the original removing most of the greenery and just leave the rose. Some green can still be seen in the top right. I really like this effect but it may not be the perfect image to use because the rose isn't quite perfect, the DOF needs improvement and maybe some harder light would have made it a little more contrasty. Nevertheless, its something I learned from. That's the most important thing.