Sandy Point Beach
Finding an unspoilt, unoccupied stretch of coastline, where the only footprints are the ones you’ve created has significant impact on the state of one’s soul. It is really only these places, these times where you feel like the batteries can recharge.
An endless beach, stretching out to meet the endless sky, with the latter causing partial reflections in the former to cause an even greater synergy between the two.
أبو الهول (Abū al-Hūl)
أبو الهول (Abū al-Hūl), which translates as “Father of Terror” is more commonly known as “The Great Sphinx of Giza”. It stands on the Giza Plateau near the 3 largest of Egypt’s pyramids near Cairo. Built around 2555BCE, it is both the oldest known monumental sculpture, and the largest monolith statue.
It’s nose is the subject of some myths, one claiming Napolean’s troops used it for target practice, however some accurate drawings of the Sphinx made 50 years earlier clearly show it was already missing. A pharaoh’s beard has also broken off, although common belief was the beard was a later addition to the face anyway.
As much as it looks to be resting on solid ground, there is an amazing complex of rooms and passageways located below. And although ancient Egyptian monuments are mostly colourless, this was not always the case. Inside the tome of Queen Nefertiti the amazing colour that used to adorn Egypt can still be seen, and it is stunning to imagine what Egypt used to look like at the height of its society.
Vision in Blue
This is one of my oldest photos (that had some competition success that is). Taken on a river near Nelson, New Zealand, it was one of two photos that were my first published in a magazine (Photography International).
The effect you can see was all done in-camera. Firstly, the film used was Kodak Ektar 25 ASA – a top-quality print film available in the early 90s, and combined with a 4x Cokin neutral density filter, it allowed a shutter speed of 30 seconds! This gave the water a misty effect as it flowed over the rocks, and the mirror-like finish above the rockfall. The lower water looks rather different because I spent the whole 30 seconds throwing rocks into this area to continually break up the water surface. The rocks being thrown scared a trout out of the lower pond, which jumped up the waterfall at the right during the shot.
The final, and rather obvious difference is the unusual rock colouring. This was achieved by using a polarising filter combined with a Cokin Pola-Blue filter. The Pola-Blue is a polarising filter that looks clear when polarised light of one orientation passes through it, and becomes increasingly blue as the angle of polarised light changes relative to the filter. The secret here is that reflected light is polarised, as is the light reflecting off the wet rocks. Using the standard polariser to dial in a slight shade of blue for the entire scene, the combined assembly was then rotated so the rocks were producing polarised light at 90 degrees to the filter orientation (maximising the amount of blue for the wet areas).
I tried many times to recreate this effect again, but never achieved the same success that I did with this first attempt. In the end I lost the Pola-Blue filter when I was almost washed away trying to photograph the release of water from a dam a few years later. But that is a story for another day.
Colossi of Memnon
The Colossi of Memnon were erected in 1350BCE, and depict the Pharaoh Amenhotep III. In 27BCE they were significantly damaged by an earthquake and from that point the eastern statue “sang” when the wind blew through the cracks. The Romans did a lot of restoration work in Egypt, and the statues were stabilised around 196CE which ended the “singing”.
The temple that the colossi guarded is now gone, but the statues remain, occasionally surrounded by floodwaters from the Nile, or subjected to the searing Egyptian temperatures. Another neglected treasure of the ancient world.
HMNZS TE KAHA
Not long after leaving Point Wilson in Port Phillip Bay, after taking on the first load of NATO Sea Sparrow Missiles, I managed to talk the XO into letting me take some photos of the ship while they conducted man-overboard drills.
So with one of the ship’s RHIBs (rigid hull inflatable boats) and crew, we ran high speed laps around the ship, while they completed a number of evolutions of throwing OSCAR over the side, and picking him up again. (OSCAR is actually a dummy, and is named after the international flag that gets raised by a ship when they have a man overboard situation).
The day was as still as I have ever seen it on the bay – the water was mirror flat (and the only ripples in the photo were caused by the RHIB, and the 3600 tonne ANZAC Class frigate!). With the sun quickly setting, I had a small window to get some of the most spectacular photos I ever took of warships. This was one that was included in my (successful) APSNZ application. It was also used by the Navy in a number of their print advertising campaigns.
The smoke you can see coming from the funnels is from the ship’s diesels, as the ship had just been bought to a quick stop alongside OSCAR, ready for a rescue swimmer to jump in beside him with a sling to pull OSCAR aboard again. Hopeless sailor that OSCAR – he was always falling over the side…
Spitfire
I happened to brush against a Gum Tree one day, and felt a bit of a sting on my arm, and not just caused by the branch I was brushing past.
However, within a minute or so, the rapidly spreading redness, and swollen arms where the stingers had touched meant something else was happening. (I keep Telfast for just these occasions). What I had brushed off, and had rolled down my arm is the Mottled Gum Moth.
Feels like sticking your hand into stinging nettle! In Oz, it is also called a Spitfire, or a Battleship. Brings a new twist to the concept that fashion is pain!
Menzies Building Entrance
The most arid places for photography are not necessarily the places without character, but those that are the most familiar. Scenes you walk past every single day without noticing the play of light, the interaction of forms.
The Menzies building where I work is one such place. It even has a (non-binding) protection order on it, I guess in case someone decided its form had been a blight on the landscape for long enough. In any case, even within the concrete and stone jungle of the entrance I was able to find this photograph as the late afternoon sun streamed in the windows, with the pillars throwing shadows across the floor creating areas of positive and negative space. The chrome rail angled in the opposite direction providing a point of focus, as well as a relief from the strong, heavy lines of the pillars and shadows.
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