Sweet, delicious pineapples and the Glasshouse Mountains on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland.

Posted on May 31, 2017 by Andrew McInnes Photography

Fresh locally grown pineapples on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland = DELICIOUS.

This series of photos (the first three) includes a pre-dusk image, then a blue-hour image including light-painting, then a startrail and light-painting image.

Pineapples 2AM-004190
©Andrew McInnes. All Rights Reserved.

Glasshouse Mountains 2AM 4405_16_18_HDR
©Andrew McInnes. All Rights Reserved.

Glasshouse Mountains 2AM 4418-4532_stack
©Andrew McInnes. All Rights Reserved.

Pineapple 2AM-008595
©Andrew McInnes. All Rights Reserved.

Pineapple 2AM-008599
©Andrew McInnes. All Rights Reserved.

Pineapple 2AM-008600
©Andrew McInnes. All Rights Reserved.

Pineapples 2AM-8607-8612_stack
©Andrew McInnes. All Rights Reserved.

Cheers 🙂

FARMS, NOT COAL – Breeza, on the Liverpool Plains of NSW, Australia.

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Andrew McInnes Photography

‘nuf said?

The Liverpool Plains is a prime food and fibre producing area that is under imminent threat from several coal mines – at least one of which, the Shenhua Watermark mine, is foreign-owned (Chinese). These companies seek to rape and scar the land, deplete and contaminate aquifers, then pack up and leave once the destruction is no longer financially viable. Never mind that there are farmers, you know, living breathing hard-working people, with families and dreams, enduring incredible stress as they seek to remain being outstanding stewards of the land they sweat for. How and why our political “representatives” allow this is beyond me – I suppose it goes along with their belief in continued economic growth year on year. Well, let’s inform them that exponential growth is unattainable and to seek it is ignorantly irresponsible (but I guess it is politically astute?).

I am not against mining, per se, however I do have issues with “the commons” being over-extracted for the profits of a few whilst the landholder has little recompense for the invasion, and the people of this nation see very little direct financial benefits. As another roadside sign in the area states: “Wrong mine, wrong place.”

A pre-dawn light painting at Breeza, on the Liverpool Plains, NSW. Breeza 2AM-001230 ©Andrew McInnes.

Silos at dusk. Breeza 2AM-001216 ©Andrew McInnes.

I hope you enjoyed these images.

Cheers 🙂

Springsure, Queensland – including a light-painting episode.

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Andrew McInnes Photography

This is overlooking Virgin Rock and the town of Springsure in the Central Highlands Region of Queensland, Australia – as seen from Minerva Hills National Park. As is my want, I hiked in a few hours too early with all the required equipment and froze my bum off, waiting for dusk’s blue hour and the town lights to be on, in order to light-paint this scene…

This is the “before” image, taken on iPhone 5:

Springsure 2AM-000137 © Andrew McInnes

And this is the subsequent light-painting image.

Springsure 2AM 8300-8301 stack © Andrew McInnes

The remaining images here are different views of Mount Zamia escarpment, incorporating Virgin Rock:

Springsure 2AM 8353-8355 Panorama © Andrew McInnes

This is a light-painting of the entrance to Springsure Golf Club.

Springsure 2AM-008319 © Andrew McInnes

For the following shots it was 1 degree C, and silly me, I was out photographing in thongs (i.e. Flip flops, not the underwear variety), light summer fishing pants, t-shirt and an old hoodie! Brrr.
On the left is Virgin Rock – a feature of the Mount Zamia escarpment.

The following two images are essentially very similar compositions, but were taken 50 minutes apart.
different light = different feel.

Springsure 2AM-008332 © Andrew McInnes

Springsure 2AM-008359 © Andrew McInnes

Hope you enjoyed a brief glimpse of this beautiful area of Queensland.

Cheers.

Murphy’s Haystacks – Streaky Bay, South Australia.

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Andrew McInnes Photography

Near Streaky Bay, South Australia, there is a farmer’s field containing numerous pink granitic rock formations – known as inselbergs (or monadnocks for those of you in the U.S.A.) and are located between Streaky Bay and Port Kenny on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.

Both of these images are light paintings.

For this first image I wanted to create a look of Aboriginal rock art being illuminated by fires in the recesses between the boulders. This is a stacked image.

Murphy's-Haystacks-2AM-6674-6675and6678-6679

For this second image I wanted to create the look/feel of a giant wave breaking over a boulder on a beach (hence the use of the blue gel on a flash) – the light-painting was a duo effort, one with an orange lights, one with a LED light.

Posting #6 of my road trip from Fremantle to Kununurra, Western Australia.

Posted on July 14, 2014 by Andrew McInnes Photography

Into the Kimberley Region…

If you plan on being near Halls Creek I thoroughly recommend taking the time to explore along Duncan Road…

China Wall – a quartz outcrop.

A light painting of China Wall.

The very refreshing, and aptly named, Palm Springs.

A ‘selfie’ in Palm Springs – lovely safe place for a dip.

Mulla mulla wildflowers along Duncan Road, Halls Creek.

One of the water crossings along Duncan Road, Halls Creek.

Sawtooth Gorge is a beautiful and secluded camping/visiting area- well worth the short bumpy dirt road in.

An iconic avian species – the Wedge-tailed Eagle – perched on a termite mound outside Fitzroy Crossing.

An iconic boab tree at dusk on the Great Northern Highway – a common Kimberley vista.

Posting #3 of my road trip from Fremantle to Kununurra, Western Australia.

Posted on July 5, 2014 by Andrew McInnes Photography

This post contains images from my express visit to Coral Bay and Exmouth, Western Australia.

Ah, the tropics 🙂

These next three images are from Coral Bay – a stunning and simple place.

The front of the image is shallow water over a sand substrate; this then abruptly drops off into a deepish lagoon which is protected by Ningaloo Reef (Australia’s “other” reef) in the background. © 2014 Andrew McInnes.

Unfortunately I only spent about 8 hours in Exmouth which is nowhere near sufficient. Nevertheless, here are some scenes of this fascinating area.

A light-painting of the retired (non-functioning) Vlamingh Head Lighthouse – Exmouth. The evening air was thick with moisture from the Indian Ocean as it pounded Ningaloo Reef so I thought I’d make an image to suggest how the light from the lighthouse may have appeared to mariners of yore. During the 30 second exposure I mimicked a beam of light from the lighthouse by aiming my spotlight on the structure for a few seconds, allowing the moisture in the air to appear as a beam.
This image includes the Southern Cross (and pointers), along with a portion of the Milky Way.

Vlamingh-Head-Lighthouse---Exmouth-2AM-002554

Vlamingh-Head-Lighthouse---Exmouth-2AM_no-base-image_lighten_startrails_b

Star trails caress the retired (non-functioning) Vlamingh Head Lighthouse – Exmouth, on a blustery and balmy autumn night. This is a stacked image consisting of 61 images (each image f4 for 30 seconds at ISO 800). © 2014 Andrew McInnes.

More posts from this road trip to follow this.

Posting #1 of my road trip from Fremantle to Kununurra, Western Australia.

Posted on July 2, 2014 by Andrew McInnes Photography

I recently embarked on what turned out to be a quite a drive with the purpose of visiting an old mate from my teenage years whom I have not seen for more than 20 years! My old vehicle (1984 Toyota Hilux diesel) logged 9,193 km (5,712 miles) doing my return trip from Fremantle – Kununurra – Fremantle, Western Australia.

With an esky full of water and assorted sandwich-construction material, plus spare diesel, oil, etc., I essentially drove until it was time to find a bush-camp for the night. I’d awake early and continue northward, repeating as required until I arrived at Kununurra.

Subsequent blog postings will present more images from the trip to the north of this bloody big state.
Theses images document my travels up and back – I hope you will find them appealing.

It isn’t long until these emblematic signs present themselves, with varying fauna presented.

Having previously visited and photographed The Pinnacles (click here to view these) at Nambung National Park, near Cervantes, I chose to revisit and shoot more images from this amazing ‘moonscape’ before moving on and finding a place to camp for the night.

This leaning tree is but one of many around the Greenough area. These River Gum/eucalyptus trees (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) have horizontal trunks due to exposure to strong and near-continuous southerly winds.

Should you find yourself anywhere near Geraldton or Walkaway, I thoroughly recommend a visit to Ellendale Pool, be it for a day trip or a place to camp – as I did for an evening.

Lovely spot to set up a caravan!

The ubiquitous and raucous Little Corella

Hope you enjoyed the early portion of my trip, if vicariously 🙂

More images from the trip to follow soon.

Cheers,

Andrew

A few quick photo shoots in Halifax and surrounds – Nova Scotia, Canada.

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Andrew McInnes Photography

I recently undertook an express visit with my wife to visit friends who were staying in Halifax for a period. I only managed to get out and photograph on a few occasions but was enamored of the area. Magnificent vistas, abundant maritime history, so ripe with scenery and scenes; I would have thoroughly enjoyed more time exploring and photographing. Nevertheless, here is a sampling of images from the very few times I was able to go walkabout. I hope you enjoy!

This is the first image I captured – I love the posture, gait, and apparent enthusiasm of the youngster; the dog’s tail; and the fact that the father had a bright red sweater on (excellent for ‘pop’ of people out in nature).

Halifax 2AM-000802
Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L lens. f4.5 for 1/800 second at ISO 800.
© Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All Rights Reserved.

A chicane of sorts …

Halifax 2AM-000834
Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L lens. f5.6 for 1/2000 second at ISO 800.
© Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Although we witnessed some glorious fall color, it was the same old situation of “you should have seen it last week!” 🙂
the next two images include a birch tree – the bark and patterning thereof fascinated me.

Halifax 2AM-000851
Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L lens. f8 for 1/800 second at ISO 800.
© Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Halifax 2AM-000860
Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L lens. f8 for 1/400 second at ISO 800.
© Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Definitely much color still available around the area, even if the leaves had fallen.

Halifax 2AM-000887
Canon 5D Mark III with Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. f4.5 for 1/1600 second at ISO 800.
© Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Early in our visit our hosts took me out for a brief but wonderful excursion to Herring Cove. Although very overcast and gloomy, the light was lovely for scenes that didn’t include much, if any, sky. After this mini-hike it was time for lunch so we stopped in at “Now We’re Cookin’!” where I had the superb gastronomic pleasure of a dozen perfectly fried and ultra-delicious “Digby Clams.”

Here are a series of images from the Herring Cove Provincial Park Reserve from that visit:

I call this image “The Admiral” – hopefully you can deduce why 🙂 I captured one of our hosts overlooking a temporarily tranquil Atlantic Ocean – it was a fleeting opportunity to get the shot, so I did not have time to adjust the camera settings, hence the very slow shutter speed for a hand held shot. Thankfully I managed to be stable enough for a sharp image.

“The Admiral” – Herring Cove 2AM-000977
Canon 5D Mark III with Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. f22 for 1/13 second at ISO 400.
© Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Early into the gorgeous walk I found this scene and liked the various elements so much – hence this image to capture it 🙂

Herring Cove 2AM-000976
Canon 5D Mark III with Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. f22 for 1/13 second at ISO 400.
© Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Loved these rosehip berries!

Herring Cove 2AM-000982
Canon 5D Mark III with Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. f4 for 1/100 second at ISO 400.
© Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Herring Cove 2AM-001009
Canon 5D Mark III with Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. f22 for 1/15 second at ISO 1000.
© Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Same general scene, different interpretation. My photographic mentor drummed into me to shoot and shoot and shoot a scene from numerous angles/interpretations, with a strict caveat that each composition/interpretation must be appealing to me, not just shooting a bunch and ‘hoping’ one of them will be ‘good’.

Herring Cove 2AM-001011
Canon 5D Mark III with Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. f22 for 1/15 second at ISO 1000.
© Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All Rights Reserved.

A portion of the walking trail.

Herring Cove 2AM-001027
Canon 5D Mark III with Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. f22 for 1/20 second at ISO 1000.
© Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All Rights Reserved.

More of the meandering walking trail and a very typical scene of this splendid coast.

Herring Cove 2AM-001025
Canon 5D Mark III with Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. f22 for 1/30 second at ISO 1000.
© Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All Rights Reserved.

’twas a very blustery gloomy day and the smart one here (that would be me 🙂 ) decides to take a multi-hour exploratory walk around the Halifax waterfront to take in some of the history of this place. When I say it was blustery, it was really blowing! There is a bit of a tale from my home country that goes something like this: “Tie a brick onto a long piece of line and hang it so that it is free to swing. If the brick/string is vertical, there isn’t enough wind to go sailing; If the brick/string are horizontal, then perhaps there is a little too much wind for a sail; Anywhere in between = just right for a sail.” Well, the brick would have been darn near horizontal whilst I wandered around that particular day 😉
This block and blue line appealed to me as they hung and swung, suspended above the dark cold water. Hope you enjoy it too.

“Block and Blue” – Halifax 2AM-000914
Canon 5D Mark III with Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. f8 for 1/160 second at ISO 800.
© Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All Rights Reserved.

I find the marine flora and fauna of cold water habitats fascinating, and Nova Scotia in early winter did not disappoint me.This image, and the mussel image following it, were taken on a bucking and rolling floating dock that was doing its non-level best to ensure that either I fell in the cold cold water, or dropped the camera into said water, or fail to get a sharp image of the subjects that were interesting me. I am very thankful that the 5D Mark III handles high ISO noise so bloody well!

Halifax 2AM-000931
Canon 5D Mark III with Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. f8 for 1/40 second at ISO 3200.
© Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Halifax 2AM-000937
Canon 5D Mark III with Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. f8 for 1/30 second at ISO 5000.
© Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Some scenes need capturing, despite the quality (or lack thereof) of available light; I thought this public art installation the Halifax Waterfront Boardwalk to be such a scene. This public art installation is a collaboration between Chris Hanson and Hendrika Sonnenberg. One of the lampposts (at rear in this image) is peeing in the ocean. The other two are on their way home after drinking too much – the closest has stumbled and fallen, the other is bending over to check if all is okay with the fallen one.

“Drunken Street Lights” – Halifax 2AM-000946
Canon 5D Mark III with Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. f8 for 1/30 second at ISO 5000.
© Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Boardwalk boards (and nails)

Whilst she isn’t particularly old, this yacht is reminiscent of a time apparently long gone, when vessels actually had lovely lines! Plus, what’s not to like about bowsprits, jib-booms, bowlines, and vertically seamed sails with stitched lines along the leech?

A new day, and, well, there were some trees still shedding their colorful leaves, and a stunningly sky, so why not?

Dusk was rapidly descending on a bloody chilly day when I happened upon this lovely little yawl at rest on its mooring in a secluded and tranquil inlet.

Sometimes “hard to figure out at first” is intriguing – to me at least 🙂

A revisit to Herring Cove because the light was “cleaner.”

A little ‘overflow’ creek from Powers Pond to the Atlantic Ocean (via Herring Cove).

To me these next two images typify coastal fishing hamlets.

To my eye, when strolling around town, this image was very appealing. Initial concerns about it being “too busy” rapidly dissipated – likely due to the location of the colored elements, the reflections, and the leading line of the dock. Perhaps I am mistaken?

Speaking of reflections… here are two more from the walking trail at Herring Cove Provincial Park Reserve.

A stunning blue sky, granite, and grass.

My final image from Herring Cove showing one side of the entrance to Herring Cove; the great blue yonder is the fabled ornery Atlantic.

On the coldest day of the winter thus far (it having snowed the first snow of the season the previous night), we ventured on a quick trip down to Peggy’s Cove – a gorgeous sunset, some ice in the rocky depressions of the granite headland, and it was blowing stink, and we were right on the edge of the Atlantic. Not blowing quite strong enough for there to be whitecaps in the toilet, but darn near!
The following images were all captured within roughly one hour, and again, I present 4 images with the lighthouse in it, each sufficiently appealing to me.

There were some strange light behavior happenings last evening during dusk at Peggy’s Cove – one with my lens glare (this image), the other some neat atmospherics (the next image).

The three of us who were there together all were mesmerized by the vertical shaft of light – normally I expect to see crepuscular rays, but this instance had only the vertical element. As it was developing I was scampering around trying to find any element for foreground interest. “Beam me up” or perhaps a “batman-like beam.” 😉

And to wrap up this visit to Halifax, Nova Scotia – Canada, here is a light-painting of the lighthouse at Peggy’s Cove – the primary purpose of the quick evening trip to Peggy’s Cove. I hope you enjoy this light-painting image – is was certainly the most difficult to make: my wife and our host said I looked a bit like a mountain goat running around over the rocks and boulders in the dark whilst painting the scene with my trusty Q-beam II Million power flashlight.

Experimenting with steel-wool in photography – plus a Jeep Wrangler.

Posted on July 2, 2013 by Andrew McInnes Photography

Last weekend I went with a mate to San Luis Pass, Galveston, Texas to experiment with molten steel as an element/feature in photo’s, and ended up combining formed steel in the image too 🙂

We had a blast experimenting with this – thanks to Jeremy Caton for his self-sacrificing work “spinning the fire” (his hands are all torn up from the rotating cable – there will be gloves next time). NOTE: The use of this steel-wool technique requires locations that will not be conducive to ignition and subsequent fire!

As this was the first time either of us had tried this technique I have included the initial “practice” images – practice for Jeremy with the steel-wool, and practice for me as I figured the required metering for this molten steel. The final image is the result of the shoot.

Jeep-Wrangler-and-Steel-wool-2AM-116085-1106087_stacked

Same scene, different interpretation – Garner State Park, TX.

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Andrew McInnes Photography

I recently traveled to the beautiful Garner State Park, Texas to photograph night shots which were to include light-painting.

This blog contains two images; though they were the exact same composition, and both taken after twilight, these are two very different images.

The first image is your “standard” light-painting and was taken after humanly visible light had vanished:

Garner State Park 2AM-115918
A single capture with light-painting.
Canon 7D with Canon 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 lens. f5.6 for 40 seconds at ISO 1600.
Copyright © Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All rights reserved.

The second image also includes light-painting, and the process of capturing this image was started about 10 minutes after the photo above. However, this second image is a “stacked” image – I took 61 photographs, the first of which was the light-painting on the trees and “Old Baldy” then a further 60 images were taken without any light-painting (the last image is a “blank” which helps reduce the digital noise). Total exposure time equates to a little over 40 minutes. Each image had the exact settings of the first photo posted (above) and I compiled them using software that is dedicated to stacking images.

Garner-State-Park-2AM-115920-115980_stackedImage2
61 image stack for a total exposure time of ~40 minutes.
Each frame/picture had the following settings:
Canon 7D with Canon 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 lens. f5.6 for 40 seconds at ISO 1600.
Copyright © Andrew McInnes/2AM Photography. All rights reserved.

I could have (and should have) taken a single, 40 minute long-exposure image as this would also have a slightly different interpretation of the scene. That longer exposure would have had more digital noise but smoother star-trails.

So from the same scene and the same composition we can get multiple interpretations/photographs by using different photographic techniques.

Hope you enjoyed these images 🙂

I have previously posted blogs showing this location (Garner State Park, Texas) in Fall color:

https://2amphotography.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/a-wet-and-colorful-weekend-near-utopia-tx/

https://2amphotography.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/fall-rotation-thanksgiving-2011-garner-state-park-tx/

Andrew McInnes Photography

Imagery © Andrew McInnes

Tag Archives: light painting