From Down Under

Well, they had to de-ice the plane before I left Birmingham and its been 36 degrees here. Took me about 30 seconds to acclimatise and I have lost my 'whitest person on Bondi' tag that my bro had initially named me.

Last night was my first go at after dark stuff, mainly because at around 7.30pm my eyes have rolled round in my skull.  I've bought a polarising filter and a Slik tripod since I've been here. I'm pleased with the tripod, much better than the Jessop's one which I'd returned.

Plenty of post production still to do on this one, light rain started to fall and I tried to get under cover and carry on getting some shots.

I mainly want to get some good portraits and I'm using a 50ml f1.8, having a fixed focal length is a challenge but I'm enjoying the small size and DOF.

Trying to put more thought into the end product so that I can produce a photobook as a family record. The boys, Jack nearly 5 and starting school next week, Harry 1st birthday next week, change so much.

Took the chance to visit an Annie Leibovitz exhibition at Circular Quay which was exceptional and well worth further study, and I'm reading all the Oz photo magasines.

Wildlife and families are one and the same thing really and birds fascinate me especially the strange buggers they have here. In the course of altering my ISO I also changed the image size to its smallest setting when I took this one. What a twat!

Its an Australian Dipper (I think) similar to a cormorant. They don't have as much waterproofing as other waterfowl so, without the buoyancy, they can dive deeper but then they need to dry out.

And a bit more wildlife.....