The Unstable Image

Fairbairn Dam

AiM — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 20:15:40 +0000

Fairbairn Dam is located 25km from Emerald in North West Queensland. It is the states second largest lake (covering 15000 ha) and supplies a large number of farms, mines and local towns people. The subsequently formed Lake Maraboon is also stocked with Australian Bass, Barramundi, Mary River cod, Saratoga and many others, it also allows recreational boating. I headed out to have a scout around for future photo spots and decided to take a few snaps. The first three are of the spillway, the fourth and fifth show the earthen dam wall.

We met up with some new friends and had a BBQ while the sun set over the dam.

My first attempt at wide field Astro-photography. Click for a better look.

Thanks for looking!

AiM

Merely Feline – Joe

AiM — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 08:39:57 +0000

Going to the zoo gives an opportunity to take photographs of animals that you don’t normally see. I did get a few photos of the various animals on display but a personal preference of mine is to try and get them in the most natural of settings. This can sometimes be hard in a zoo as all the animals are, of course, in their enclosures. One place where I could get some good pretty photos was the Meerkat enclosure. The combination of low walls and all of the animals out and about, going about their daily life gave me the chance to sit down for a while and take some photos. Meerkats are quite fascinating to watch. They are very social animals with several animals playing, grooming and foraging for food while one or two stand on “Sentry” Duties and look out for danger. Further to that, they are extremely cute and lovable.

To try and get as natural looking shots as possible I focused on getting portrait style shots of them. This helped in eliminating unnatural looking walls and other things from the background.

Hope you enjoy.

My name is Joe. I have a wife and two kids. I am a Security Manager in a high rise building in the city.

Christmas bugs

AiM — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 09:59:40 +0000

I thought I would share a small selection of images I took while staying with my parents over the Christmas break. It doesn’t matter how many bugs I take photos of, I’m still floored by how amazing they are, truly strange creatures!

Thanks for looking

AiM

Bird is the word – Joe

AiM — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 20:42:05 +0000

Our trip to the Blue Mountains was really good. It was great to get away and spend some quality time with the family. Sadly though, it wasn’t very good photography wise. The weather wasn’t the best. It was rainy, windy and generally quite overcast. We did have a sulphur-crested cockatoo visit us on the back porch and I managed to get a couple of photos. That was the extent of it bird wise on that trip.

The following week saw us heading to Taronga Park Zoo for a day out. Once again it was quite overcast but we did get some patches of sunshine throughout the day. This gave me a better opportunity to try and get some bird shots. The walk through aviaries were great as this puts you inside with all the birds around you in naturalistic settings. In some cases they were inside cages and trying to get shots through the bars proved a little problematic. I only managed the one shot through the bars which I thought came out OK.

After playing around with the focus and depth of field for a while I managed to photograph this Andean Condor through the bars.

Apart from the Pelican, which was out in the open, the rest of the photos were taken in the walk through aviaries. I stood around for a while to try and photograph them in the most natural poses that I could. I also tried to get them in what appears to be a natural surrounding so in some cases a little cropping was necessary.

Bird photography is definitely something that I want to pursue more and hopefully get a lot better at.

Thanks for looking.

My name is Joe. I have a wife and two kids. I am a Security Manager in a high rise building in the city.

Brief light

AiM — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 12:46:38 +0000

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” - Douglas Adams

I’ve really begun to enjoy being involved with photographic briefs. This one was a bit hit and miss after a series of unfortunate events. The brief was simple enough, ‘light’… So I headed into the city and tried a couple of different things. The last photo was my final submission.

Thanks for looking

AiM

Unstable for 12 months

AiM — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 00:19:52 +0000

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” ― Winston Churchill

Well we made it. Twelve months after launching Unstable Image, we’ve clocked over 10 000 views and counting. Here are a few of the stats;

76 posts
5 Authors
82 subscribers
171 comments
10,343 views
509 likes
All from 99 different countries

Over the last month and a half I’ve been moving towns and this has taken up a rather large chunk of my time. Joe has kept things ticking along posting some great images over that time which I’m very grateful for. Over this weekend I’ve had my first real opportunity to have a look around for photo spots and I can’t wait to start sharing them with you all.

Thanks again for taking the time to read, like and comment. It makes it all the more fun for us. We’re also still keen for people to submit their own work if they feel they have something to share, email us or head to the Facebook page.

What would a blog post on Unstable Image be without a photo? This one I took with a great group of new friends as we watched the sun go down over Fairbairn Dam last weekend.

Thanks again and salud.

AiM

Mixed bag – Joe

AiM — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:57:44 +0000

We have a trip to the Blue Mountains planned in a couple of weeks time. We will be spending 3 days there where I hope to try my hand at some different styles of photography. I will, of course, still be taking some macro shots if the opportunity presents itself so I’m really looking forward to that. In the meantime I thought I would share some photos from recent outings.

My name is Joe. I have a wife and two kids. I am a Security Manager in a high rise building in the city.

See no weevil – Joe

AiM — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 07:59:31 +0000

On one of my outings in the backyard I stumbled upon this little weevil. Some types of weevil can be a real pest but I couldn’t resist this little one’s cute face. I spent about 20 minutes taking photos at various angles and thought I would share some of the better ones.

My name is Joe. I have a wife and two kids. I am a Security Manager in a high rise building in the city.

Snoot’s away – Joe

AiM — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 03:55:58 +0000

Since my last post about ants I decided to build myself a new snoot/diffuser. I had trialed a few different things to try and soften the flash on the old one, but wasn’t too happy with the results. After a bit of thinking I decided that a whole new design was in order. Once again I used cardboard, tin foil and my trusty white t-shirt. The cardboard was measured and cut to correct shape and size. Each piece was then lined with the tin foil before being stuck together with sticky tape. The t-shirt was then cut to size and attached to the front. I used 3 layers this time around for greater diffusion. The whole thing was then covered with black electrical tape (looks better on the camera). My main aim was to enlarge the front of the diffuser for a larger spread of light in the hope that the larger area would also soften the flash some more. It ended up being twice as large as my old one. I have tried it out over the last couple of days and I am very happy with the results so far.

I focused on ants again so that I could compare the shots with my older ones. I found that the flash was not as harsh and the reflection was kept to a minimum. I’m now looking forward to getting out and taking some more shots.

Hope you enjoy

(AiM – Joe’s lens is the Canon 100mm Macro seen here and his old setup can be viewed here)

My name is Joe. I have a wife and two kids. I am a Security Manager in a high rise building in the city.

Boxing Day Macro

AiM — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 01:00:43 +0000

“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering ‘it will be happier’…” ― Alfred Tennyson

Exactly 12 months on, I found myself back in my parents garden on Boxing Day making the most of their wonderful selection of flowers and plants. I found some great critters, lots of beautiful flowers and made the most of the light to get up close and personal with them. I still find it amazing every time I photograph macro the immense level of detail that doesn’t lessen the closer you get. I gave the new tripod a good workout, which performed brilliantly and allowed me to shoot without a flash while using my Tamron 90mm Macro and full set of extension tubes.

The intended subject of this photo was the flying insect and it wasn’t until I showed my dad that he pointed out the Mantis hiding in the flowers!

A tone mapped HDR with my fish eye to finish off.

If you’d like to see last years post, click here. It’s interesting for me to compare the two posts since they’re similar in content and 12 months apart.

Hope you enjoyed, happy snapping.

AiM