Timeline
All available files listed chronologically, with any available text entries.
EquipmentAll
- May 2026
- March 2026
- February 2026
- January 2026
- December 2025
- November 2025
- October 2025
- August 2025
- July 2025
- June 2025
- May 2025
- February 2025
- January 2025
- December 2024
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- January 2022
- October 2021
- September 2019
- April 2019
- February 2018
- January 2018
- October 2017
- September 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- January 2017
- April 2016
- March 2016
- July 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- July 2013
- March 2013
- December 2012
- January 2012
So I was opening the blue app to mark my notifications as read and by chance I see a post from one of those astro weather groups. Multiple coronal mass ejections. Happening immediately and into the cold night. And that, apparently, is all it takes for me to have booked a rental car minutes later. 😳
Then I started planning where I’d go: my initial destination was Pyramid Rock but then I realised I needed, wanted, foreground interest as I’d need to shoot towards the sea to capture Aurora Australis, altering my heading to the opposite side of the state, Gibson Steps along the west coast.
There’s always a question of cost versus value. For my first Aurora experience, I’m satisfied.
I was completely ill-equipped and underdressed for arctic winds, however, I got some shots.
Being the first time capturing an Aurora, I was fumbling for how to expose, struggling for composition, and freezing cold. I wanted to get down onto the beach but it wasn’t an option.
I continue to look for reasons to use my Nikkor Z 35mm f/1.2 S in place of my default, the Nikkor Z 85mm f/1.2 S. Who would have thought 85mm could be so versatile, even in smaller, tighter spaces.
For the longest time, the longest focal length I had access to was 50mm. A few years ago, my favourite lens was my Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art series (exceptional value to cost). When it was stolen, I chose to replace it with a focal length I hadn't used much yet, 24mm (which contributed to my landscape boom).
Years later, after upgrading to mirrorless and all that, I acquired Nikon's Nikkor Z 85mm f/1.2 S, a truly masterful piece of equipment. I've used it a lot. Since then, I've met back up with the 35mm focal length through Nikon's Nikkor Z 35mm f/1.2 S (I've completed the tri/quad-fecta collection), but I find it difficult to ditch 85mm.
Admittedly, I've moved to shooting a lot more portraiture. As much as I've always loved environmental storytelling, it's hard to ignore the obvious advantages to a longer focal length, such as compression, and most of the time, I can just move further away from the subject, so angle of view isn't so much a problem.
Just some musings on how I'm shooting at this time in my life
Sometimes, my reasons for not wanting to photograph something one way or another include what equipment I have to use.
To most, this might seem like nonsense, because even though I may not have the perfect option for the circumstance, I do have options, and if I choose to, I can find a way to make it work.
I don't talk about this often, but I've thought about it a lot, and I think it's common. I feel a combination of factors form my desire to not settle for less than what I perceive as being "perfect."
I didn't have access to equipment when I was younger, and now that I do, I only ever want to produce my best work with the best equipment available.
Circling back... Whenever I've begun to explain this feeling to friends, I've felt stupid and greedy.
It’s been too long. Winter has begun. Clear skies have arrived. And I’m freezing out here in 2°
I’ve driven hundreds of kilometres over 2 nights and failed a few times. It’s good to get a win (changing weather)
This is a great spot. I’d definitely come back
Unyoked irregularly invite photographers to trade their work for a stay at one of their cabins. I was lucky enough to give it a go.
As it happens, the task proved to be rather challenging, and the weather nearly thwarted my efforts to succeed.
With a long shot list for both stills and video, and a personal requirement for sunset and sunrise light, I was stressed for time. It's easy to lose focus and fall to distractions. One of these distractions was a focus on video, specifically, portrait-orientation video.
I got it done, however Moogerah wouldn't have been my first preference for location. The only challenge greater than shooting this assignment was arranging the stills and video into a set.
I wanted to try out the 100-400mm from Best Of All Lookout but it was engulfed in low cloud cover. I receded to Springbrook National Park Canyon Lookout, and just time, to photograph some light before the sun was lost in the same clouds.
You know when you're up early to shoot stars or sunrise, you're on your way to the location, and you're looking at the sky, but you're still too near the city to be sure if it's just too much light polution or if the sky is actually completely overcast...
Can really make it challenging to stick to the plan and complete the 6 hour trip!
I hate my tripod. I've never been more frustrated or better located to scream into the night. The difficulties experienced while trying to find a composition in the black of night while also safely traversing massive, sometimes slippery, sea-worn boulders, all while a tripod leg (seemingly inexplicably) won’t extend or recede can be testing.
Anyway, I made a sick pic 😎
Just realised what I want to do this year: publish a photo book
Just a note to express my frustration as a photographer for the recurring struggle that is one's style and choices when it comes to processing photos.
Sometimes, I want to try a thicker finish, something more stylised, but I hesitate and stay true to what I know: minimal adjustments for a natural, true-to-life look. It just gets boring, is all...
Celebrating 20,000 KMs with 635IK4
Driving from Melbourne to Mount Buffalo was, and is, the longest drive I've ever undergone. The return trip was exhausting! I knew there was a chance of snow, but I wasn't sure what to expect. I was lowkey worried about black ice, but it was fine, there was none.
I'm unsure how old the snowfall was, but it was certainly frozen over at least once as it had the consistency of ice. No pow pow for Tom Tom. I put both my feet through it on different occasions. I freaked out the first time in fear that I'd lose my foot, but then remembered that I am not in Antartica and it's definitely not cold enough for that.
I ran around a lot trying to find the perfect composition. Each shot uses Nikon's new pixel shift feature to create super high-resolution images. I usually do long-exposures which precludes me from being able to use this feature.
I also piloted a drone at the same time. Exhausting but it's important to make the most of the time there when you drive 4 hours!
Matt is a wonderful man who met with me on a whim. We got to make some beautiful photos, but sadly, our first location suffered from typical Melbourne weather. It was near-impossible to capture some images with the seconds of direct sunlight we had in between the drifting clouds.
I hustled down and up Gibson Steps for this photo. Coming back up destroyed me (I was still recovering from pneumonia), but I wanted to ensure I was at the Apostles lookout in time for sunset. Sunset never happened (clouds). Though, this photo is excellent.
The constant need to make the next photo better than the last is exhausting.
Sunrise at the wonderful Point Cartwright. The tide was too low for my spot to work but we still got the shot somewhere else!
Stopped in on some state forest to take some snaps of the menace on the way home (and to avoid traffic).
On my third and final day, I checked out Dog Rocks Reserve.
I had seen some beautiful images, but I couldn't quite make it work. Maybe the weather wasn't special enough.
I drove 717km and it was for real an adventure. Back to Brisbane where the sun rises over the ocean.
Day 2, I headed up to the Yarra Ranges to check out Black Spur, a very scenic drive.
I left way too early that morning and was almost disappointed when I got back to Brisbane and tried to grade these images. It had been so long since I'd dealt with such intense greens.
I worked it out. The weather wasn't what I had envisioned (golden light with impeccable rays cast through gaps in lush foliage) but it was still beautiful and mystical.
A model cancelled the night before breaking my drought, and so out of frustration, I booked a trip to Melbourne at 3am. If I could have left the same day, I would have.
I started searching the web for places to photograph. There's a lot of SEO farms but there's also some Australian photographers with some WordPress blogs who also SEO farm but the content is, like, actually good. Anyway, I saw The Pinnacles and pursued them.
I've been to Phillip Island before, but I didn't have the time or fortitude to take the 2.8km hike from the Woolamai Surf Beach car park to The Pinnacles.
This time, I still had questionable fortitude, but this was my primary objective. Day 1.
As is natural for me, I am still struggling to determine how good these results are.
Something I've been thinking about a lot is how challenging these photos are to make, and what you don't actually see when you view these photos.
- Leaving bed hours before sunrise
- Physical access challenges
- Rocks are slippery, large, and hard to move over and around
- Avoiding accidents such as breaking bones
- Not intended to be accessed by humans
- Timing
- The weather
- Light changes quickly
- The ocean is unpredictable (by me, at least)
- I'm a skinny lil guy
These conditions can severely impact my potential to make art.
Anyway, I think my favourite is probably _DSC2079.
Been feeling a bit down over my work lately. I've been trying to organise portrait shoots through cold calls (via Instagram) and I've had such a severe lack of success for over a year now... The persistent failure has been bleeding into my general self-esteem for photography, but when I come to this website and view even just my set covers, I recognise I'm wrong.
It's hard enough to maintain my esteem when I'm seeing so much great work from the people I follow on Instagram. I spend time thinking my style both in-camera and through post and how it doesn't necessarily always lend itself to a great sense of harmony throughout a body of work next to alternatives. I'm thinking of Instagram profiles which apply the same heavy-handed style to each photo. I'm not saying I don't like it–it's just not my style–but it does string a bunch of otherwise unrelated photos together in a very satisfying manner.
My style is derived from who I am and what makes me, me. Obviously, this wasn't always the case. I think everyone starts out just trying to make images which "look good." Maybe this is what it means to grow experienced and to be an artist?
Side-lit by a full-ish moon.
I wasn’t sure about the clouds when I was driving up, and when I arrived, I sat and waited, hoping they’d clear. They didn’t but I decided to give it a go anyway. The result? Brilliant. 🌝
Following my victory (and moonset), I finished with something old-school.
For the first time in recollection, I went out to do photography during daylight. It was great to ride around and explore with the ability to see where I was going!
Not unlike every one of my other trips, this was unplanned and somewhat spontaneous. I was a little excited to be able to do some low-key location scouting despite the fact I've visited the Glasshouse Mountains many times in the dead of night.
It was a great opportunity to better familiarise myself with off-roading, to understand the vehicle and increase my confidence.
It was a double score kind of day as I was able to make some great drone footage and use the mirrorless unit to capture some pristine images of the workhorse.
Just another spontaneous sunrise trip (barely the minimum for required driving time to destination). Unfortunately, the clouds shafted me this time.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I went into this being unsure of the quality of the images I could produce... But I got lucky with something good before low cloud caught up with me. I wish I had gone with a lower ISO for such a long exposure.
I did some accidental 4x4ing on my way out home. I wasn't emotionally prepared.
Ford's 2024 Ranger with XLT trim. I'm documenting its state before I make any upgrades 🫡
I’ve been trying to take some photos of this vehicle (do I call it a rig? am I cool enough for that yet?) for a while now but we’re yet to see sunny days this year. I was lucky to get some blue sky! Naturally, the sun finally peaked out once I’d left.
So far, I’ve found that waterfalls may be the most difficult subject to shoot. Between my physical ineptitude, risk of drowning, physical access for composition, movement in the frame, and electronics incompatibility with water, I’ve repeatedly found it difficult to make images I like.
I think part of the reason I struggle with waterfalls, apart from the aforementioned, is that the typical waterfall looks not unlike Buderim Falls, as pictured. They’re just like, really hard to compose. They’re generally not a landscape marvel the likes of Seljalandsfoss or Skógafoss (I have a type and that type is Iceland 😅). They’re busy, messy, asymmetrical, with incomplete entities all over.
I needed to take some photos of some merch I sell for one of my other businesses. I wanted something industrial, with containers, but the location I was thinking off had been repurposed, so I improvised somewhere nearby.
I found a beautiful tree to shade me from the scalding heat. All the bouncing light illuminated me well.
It wasn't my intention to post them, but I was delighted by the results. Besides, this is a photo blog of sorts.
In an act of spontaneity, I returned to the same spot to try and improve on the photo I took. I doubled the duration of the exposure, and while I prefer it, I couldn't escape the tyranny of what appears to be a satellite. Additionally, I was earlier. I arrived well before moonrise leading to a cooler photo lacking the warmth of sunlight reflected by the moon.
When I was 8 years old, I was given a printout to colour in at school and I had some brand-new some Faber-Castell pencils (classic). It was an illustration of some wetlands, a creek bordered by paper bark tea trees and other miscellaneous native species.
It’s stuck with me and has become one of my favourite biomes. I’ve been seeking out opportunities to photograph such landscapes, but access and composition are difficult.
This image was captured alongside a major backroad which I was all too confident would be quiet at 2am. The longest I went without being passed by vehicles was about 5 minutes. Thankfully, due to the length of the exposure, the brief moments of car light are too feint to notice.
Recent weather has been terrible for astro landscapes–I've been on a night shift sleeping pattern for over a week waiting for it to clear.
I had to break my dry streak, so I took a trip to Noosa and hiked around in my birkenstocks (not recommended), retracing steps I took 15 years ago.
I didn't take the trip with expectations of creating any images I was proud to share but I still hit that bonus goal anyway.
I follow a lot of amazing artists and seeing all their beautiful work feeds my intrusive thoughts – why bother when they’ve already made the same kinds of images you want to make and all that... Gotta put my proverbial earplugs in 😤
- The Subaru Forester has died
- The Ford Ranger era has begun
Oddly enough (to me), I haven't driven down Mt Lindesay Hwy before, so I set my destination for its namesake, Mount Lindesay, and got on the road. It was a very pleasant drive with surprisingly convenient roadside parking.
Unfortunately, I missed my moonlight window and my subject (the mountainside) was very well front-lit. It was also pretty windy.
So, I need to return when it's both side-lit and not windy so I can get some great shadows and some foreground grass in my long exposure Starscapes.
When you have an opportunity to dog-sit in another city, Melbourne, Victoria, you take it. Then, you hire a car and drive hundreds of kilometres to The Apostles to find the local weather has chosen violence. So, you return via a popular waterfall, Beauchamp Falls, where you create rather average photographs. You are physically drained, devastated. This is the way.
Pine Creek Bridge crosses the bottom corner of Advancetown Lake, as it narrows into the tail end of the Nerang River.
Many cross it on their way to other places such as Springbrook National Park and New South Wales.
Winter months see thick fog engulf the bridge, climbing it and crossing it. Cars pass at 80 km/h, spinning the water vapour into vortexes.
I'm glad I pulled over.
Best of All Lookout is a convenient (short walk from parked car) and satisfactory view of The Tweed.
Photographically, the sunrise is too far left and is partly obscured by nearby shrubbery.
At long last, I secured and executed upon an opportunity: I effectively photographed Jordan Russel. Jordan is a top bloke and began prep 10 weeks ago. In 15 weeks, he'll step onto ICN's stage to compete in the classic physique category.
It was a perfect and invaluable first experience photographing in a classic physique context. I've learnt a lot from it and being the perfectionist that I am, I'm pretty keen to do more.
Anyway, like many anxious-minded folk, I ran the simulations in my head ahead of the shoot, considering things such as how best to ensure the model is comfortable, that I'm instilling confidence in what we're producing, etc.
It's a lot to take in, in the moment, especially when the weather is perfect. We saw whales. 🐋
A cold night. Not what I'd call a successful run down the coast. Turns out the moon plays a significant role in the images I like to make and they were sleeping.
Normally, I'd have skipped uploading these as they fall cleanly below my standard, but I'm doing this blog thing. I do enjoy the saturated-green cattle-feeding grass.
These trips are always hard because they're solo and to the middle of nowhere. Often, humans do live nearby and I want to avoid them, and not even be in line of sight at 0200 hours, for fear that they'll wake, find me, and murder me (for doing nothing offensive).
I once rode with trip buddies. I miss that. At this point, I've tripped more solo than otherwise, and returning to base with poor results is always discouraging.
I'll just have to try again.
On our way to Penguin Parade, we stopped a few times, most notably at Pyramid Rock.
We enjoyed grand views of sea spray flying up over cliffs, highlighted by the setting sun. We also took photos of one another. It was gorgeous.
A terrific weekend of adventure, and I didn't even mention all of the food we melted over.
My friend, Ben, works in TV and Film and is currently staying in Melbourne for a few weeks. He invited me to capitalise on this and to take a jam-packed weekend journey.
We drove, in a rented Suzuki Vitara, from one side of Victoria to the other; from the city to the Apostles, from the city to Phillip Island. Cellular reception wavered and I wasn't dressed appropriately (I'm from Queensland, I only know how to wear shorts and thongs).
On our way to the Apostles, we made some stops through Beech Forest to check out some California Redwoods. I didn't believe it at the time, but I took too few photos amongst all that wood. Guess I'll need to return! That said, I don't feel that I've missed out much here as we have stellar rainforests in South-east Queensland. We saw some beautiful birds including Rosellas. We resumed our drive coast-ward.
We very much enjoyed the rock formations known as The 12 Apostles and the edible pastry products we acquired from the nearby information centre.
Capturing new places perfectly the first time is uncommon at best. I very much enjoyed the coastline and its biome. It differs to Queensland's for various reasons and features different flora and birds. Battling sea spray and tourists for opportunities to capture ancient rocks was an experience. Memory files written to disk.
Something I'm particularly proud of when I look at my work is how well I prepare and handle my images for different targets. Understanding things like sharpening and resolution, depending upon display medium, can affect the quality of an image severely. The last few months' images have led me to reflect on this repeatedly. I've always handled files well but at this point I'm at the top of my game. I love that I can take skills which I work outside of photography and apply them to great effect. Example: this web site.
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