Taken on vacation trips
Originally titled “Spirit of the Desert“, this shot (taken at the Pinnacles Desert at Nambung National Park, Western Australia last year) was renamed “Unwavering Spirit” for a competition which I took part in recently. Unfortunately, the judges did not like the shot enough to award it a prize ;p However, it remains still, a favourite of mine in terms of lighting, composition as well as the interesting contrast of lines and patterns.
Australia ranks as one of my top destinations for photography currently 🙂 I had the pleasure to visit the country twice (once in September, and again in Novemeber last year) and came home with lots nice pictures.
This is one particularly memorable one taken off Busselton Jetty, Western Australia. A little girl playing along the sunny coast cast a striking shadow on the pristine sands. I had the advantage of a high view point when capturing this shot. The tricky bit was the exposure. Due to the high contrast between the reflected light off the water and the girl, I had to underexpose the shot generally so as not to blow the highlights in the water. I am thankful for the RAW capabilities of my camera though: the details in the sand and in the girl were later restored with the help of post-processing of the RAW file coupled with levels adjustments in Photoshop.
Here’s an image taken a year ago from my trip to New South Wales, Australia last year. This sunrise scene was taken at Nobby’s Beach at Newcastle. I have fond memories of waking up really early (between 4-5am on most days) with my dad to catch early morning scenes such as this. The sacrifice in sleep was well worth the nice images I captured!