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Tasmanian Skies
#1

Well I'm back in Perth after my little trip to Tassie.
I'll try to catch up a bit on the posts I haven't answered while I was away.
But in the meantime I also thought I should share a few pics I took while I was there. Hope you enjoy them Smile

While I was there I went on a little photography trip which took me from Hobart in the south of the state to Queenstown on the west coast, then up to Launceston in the north before heading back to Hobart again. It all sounds very grand but its a small state so all up I think I only travelled 800km in a couple of days.

Here are just a few of the pics I took along the way. I grouped these together because of their interesting skies. All these particular shots were taken within a 24 hour period except the last one which was a couple of days later. The sky (and the weather) change about every 10 minutes in Tasmania.

[Image: IMG_0878.jpg]
1. "Hydro" Pipelines, Central Highlands. These pipelines lead to (or away from?) one of the numerous hydro electric power stations used throughout Tasmania. There are 9 hydro electric schemes running in Tasmania, using 27 power stations and 51 dams. This accounts for around 60% of Australia's renewable energy through hydro electricity.

[Image: IMG_0936.jpg]
2. Hydro Houses, Tarraleah. A number of small "Hydro towns" were created during the building of the dams and power stations last century. A number of these towns (more like villages really) became deserted when the work dried up. In the case of Tarraleah, the whole town was recently bought from the Hydro Electric Commission by a single family who is currently in the process of renovating it to use for accomodation (school camps, etc, I think). A street full of these weatherboard cottages has been painted in colours spanning the rainbow. This photo shows three of the houses near the middle of the street.

[Image: IMG_0946.jpg]
3. Church at Tarraleah. I love the warm weather and cloudless skies of Western Australia, but you just can't beat the beauty of a Tasmanian sky like this.

[Image: IMG_1171.jpg]
4. Lake Burberry, Gormanston. Heading towards Queenstown to spend the night there, we stopped on the Bradshaw Bridge in the fading twilight (and freezing wind and rain) to take this shot.

[Image: IMG_1559.jpg]
5. Church at Zeehan, West Coast. Heading north from Queenstown the next morning we stopped at Zeehan where I continued what became a bit of a theme of this trip, shooting churches. I'm not a religious person, but there's no denying a good church does wonders to compliment a dramatic sky (and vice versa). Smile

[Image: IMG_1898.jpg]
6. St Stephens Church, Sandy Bay, Hobart. You guessed it, another church photo! I'm sorry to say I'm still a heathen Tongue, but I took this shot while I was at this particular church attending a wedding. You might remember the wedding I wasn't going to be the official photographer at? well.. guess what... Rolleyes

Adrian Broughton
My Website: www.BroughtonPhoto.com.au
My Blog: blog.BroughtonPhoto.com.au
You can also visit me on Facebook!
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." - Einstein.
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#2

More very dramatic images. First rate stuff. Excellent!

Sit, stay, ok, hold it! Awww, no drooling! :O
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#3

Again - excellent. Some of these shots seem to be done with very wide angle. What lens are you using?
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#4

As you were Kombisaurus.... outstanding as per usual........ Rolleyes Cool

#5 is just awesome, love the shot

FujiFilm Finepix S5600
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#5

I'm glad you enjoyed your trip, Adrian... Tassie is a very nice and scenic place. I absolutely loved the trip I made about 7 years ago... makes for a very relaxing holiday.

Nice series again, I think my favourite is #5 for the colours. What lens are you using? The little bit of wide angle distortion adds a nice effect..
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#6

hi

i really like thenumber 3..the contrast is nice...and the tones in the grass

uuhmmm church..ligth/dark? good/evil?

thanks for sharing

christian
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#7

Quote:uuhmmm church..ligth/dark? good/evil?
I agree I get the same feeling

As with the rest of your Tassie shots excellent.........thumbs up!!!!

In #2 the colours as they were on the houses?? funny place they have a theme going there??
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#8

Fanks ppls Smile

I'm with you Christian... #3 was my fave!
The wide shots were taken with a Sigma 10-20mm zoom, the first shot with my Canon 135mm and the last shot with my Canon 70-200mm at 200mm.

As for the churches... well, it wasn't so much a dark/light or good/evil thing, but there were a number of reasons I kind of went with them.
On a purely superficial level, the architecture of churches is often beautiful in its own right and can be very useful to highlight a good sky. They tend to be very vertically-oriented buildings and have many vertical lines, spires that point to the sky, and often religious symbols or details high up off the ground that draw the viewers eye toward the heavens quite naturally. The sky is where heaven is traditionally imagined to be and where God traditionally appears from in many religions, so the two things go hand-in-hand.
But for me with this trip, beyond these reasons I was interested churches as a metaphor for our very human need to find an explaination for nature. No matter what our individual beliefs might be, it seems that all humans have a very strong desire to be able to answer questions of how and why the world works. I think without this need, religion and science would simply be irrelevant to us, as nobody would care how we all got here.
I found it particularly interesting to see rural churches in small towns in the wilderness such as Tarraleah and Zeehan. It was almost as if the natural landscape provides a question about its own existence, and the church being built amongst that landscape provides the answer. Or perhaps it is the other way around? Maybe the church represents humans asking the question, which is answered by the existence of the landscape?
I also think the church shots might work nicely when contrasted with shot #1 (which I also wanted to appear church-like). Shot #1 could be considered representative of a very different set of beliefs - that of worshipping Industry and the dollar. In this case the church shots would be representative of spirituality in general, while the shot of the pipeline would be representative of greed and materialism.

Either way... I just thought it was interesting... I realise these photos don't really convey either message, but that's what was running through my mind when I was taking them. I posted them here simply because I liked the skies. Smile

And Russ, those houses were amazing! They really were those colours, and more. There were probably about 15 of them down a street, starting with yellows, then through oranges into red, pink, then into blues and finally greens. Unfortunately it was impossible to take a shot of more than 3 or 4 at a time, but walking down the street felt like walking through the set of Edward Scissorhands or something. It was like some stylised 1950's dream of an idyllic working-class suburban lifestyle. Fantastic.

Adrian Broughton
My Website: www.BroughtonPhoto.com.au
My Blog: blog.BroughtonPhoto.com.au
You can also visit me on Facebook!
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." - Einstein.
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#9

yes! the skies make the pictures very dramatic!
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#10

Lovely stuff mate! I'm so looking forward to that pano!

All my stuff is here: www.doverow.com
(Just click on the TOP RIGHT buttons to take you to my Image Galleries or Music Rooms!)
My band TRASHVILLE, in which I'm lead guitarist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6mU6qaNx08
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#11

Beautiful.
You make all your scenes look even more spectacular then if we'd been there in person.

Canon 350D with Speedlight 580EX flash
EFS 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 II, EF 90-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM, EF 50mm f/1.8

http://www.inspired-images.com.au
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