Life after Southwest USA

After returning from the USA, I didn't pick up my camera for over a month. This was for a couple of reasons.
1) I had 2 intense weeks of incredible shooting in some of the best landscape locations in the world.
2) I wanted to spend time with my family after being away for a couple of weeks
3) I had a lot of images to process
4) I thought that I would be stuck for subjects in Sydney

Well, I'm back into it again, and the last couple of weeks I have taken some photos that I have been really happy with.

Check out these three photos from my shoot at Mona Vale pool last week.



This one is a simple composition, but I decided to really try for a more stylistic look through my photoshop processing.

This second one used some pretty aggressive HDR processing, but I really wanted a creative and stylistic (almost surreal) look to this photo.



This last one is an interesting one... I almost didn't bother to process it at all, but it has gotten some very interesting feedback and comments on Flickr and has probably turned into one of my most popular photos.



I'm loving the crazy perspective of my 12mm lens. I love getting right in amongst the scene and creating crazy conversion lines with the ultra-wide lens. Nice and dramatic.

The trip is nearly over!!!

Well this is my last night in the USA on my photographic trip with Dad.

We just finished up a trip to Monument Valley and Canyon De Chally. To be honest I was a bit dissapointed with both of these locations compared to the wonderful places we went before.

Part of my dissapointment lies in the Navajo guides that we were reliant upon to take us to places in both parks. In Monument Valley they were charging us a fortune for a private photographic tour. Before booking we absolutely confirmed that our guide was experienced at taking landscape photographers around Monument Valley and new how to chase the light etc.

Well, our guide was supposed to be Carol.... she didn't turn up, so we got Larry.

We gave Larry the third degree and he assured us that he was a photographic expert.... then all of a sudden he was busy, so we got Patsy.... I was skeptical but Patsy assured us (as did her boss) that she was skilled at guiding serious photographers.

Guess what!!! They lied to us! I don't think Patsy knew that the sun set in the West much less the ideal locations for various shots. I was so dissapointed. My advice to any other photographers looking to shoot in Monument Valley or Canyon De Chally (where you need guides to take you through)..... Do your own research, and assume that your guides are just drivers.

Tomorrow morning I am going back to upper Antelope Canyon for one more quick shoot before racing for the airport. I feel I have not done this spectacular location justice.

What a fantastic week so far!!!

I'm about half way through my photographic trip and all I can say is "wow". I have seen some incredible locations and captured some wonderful images. Talk about photography overload. So far the trip has been

• Mono Lake
• Bodie Ghost Town
• Bryce National Park
• Escalante National Park
• Antelope Canyon
• Glen Canyon Recreation Area

Here are a couple of my favorite images so far. I loved the abstract shapes of Antelope Canyon.

Tonight I drive back to Page, AZ where I meet back up with Dad. Then we are heading out to Monument Valley and Canyon De Challey.

While I haven't been taking many black and white photos, I did manage to grab two black and white photos that I was pretty happy with. Funnily enough both of them had Dad in them as the focal point.

I am going to have a lot of processing to do when I get back to Sydney, but so far I am pretty happy with the images that I have been getting.

More soon.