Ron Shoots

I’m wrapping up a 3 week trip in Australia- part family vacation and part travel shoot. There have been a total of 5 sunny days out of 22, but that’s because its also winter “down under”. The country is beautiful- diverse landscapes, amazingly friendly people and easy for travelers.

Nine and counting down…

One of the top landscapes along the Great Ocean Road in Southern Australia is a collection of free-standing limestone columns known as the “Twelve Apostles”. Wind, rain and waves take their toll so now there’s only 9 remaining, with the latest collapse just last year. (Look for the pile of rocks in the front of the photo below.)

I can see why these columns fall down… on-shore gale force winds and rain squalls buffeted the tourist crowd as we made out way out to the viewing platforms. The sunsets are usually beautiful (at least, according to all the great stock shots I saw!) but today would have to be a stormy seas photo. That’s cool- I actually like all the emotion in the skies and ocean as an alternative.

For this shot, I worked with a 24-105 zoom on the Canon. Fortunately, the Canon 1DsMII is water-resistant so I don’t mind taking it out in nasty weather. To darken and intensify the skies, I used a half-grad neutral density filter. These filters darken one half the frame with a transition to clear on the other half of the frame. I also used the custom color balance setting pushing the color temp to warm up the otherwise really gray/blue scene.