My trip to the Grampians

I spent last weekend with my wife and her childhood friends at The Grampians. It was a very enjoyable visit to the national park. It was also an opportunity to practise what I have recently learned about handling the camera for shooting sharper images. I am quite happy with the result, after reviewing the images back home. Here are some of the images I like.

On the way to The Pinnacles, we passed through this place called The Grand Canyon.

The rock formation reminds me of Angkor Wat and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

 Another interesting reminder of the Angkor Wat temple ruins.

This reminds me of a werewolf, shot against the midday sun and converted to monochrome.

Shot this "family portrait" at the aboriginal centre in Hall's Gap.

This is Mt Abrupt, as seen outside the tourist information centre in Dunkeld. Dunkeld is the southern gateway to The Grampians.

Loch, a country town in Victoria

Loch is a quaint little village in country Victoria, about an hour and a half's drive southeast of Melbourne. There is a little cafe there that serves a most delightful meal.The cafe is decorated with antiques new and old, which I find to be very interesting subjects to photograph. At this time of the year, the sidewalks are full of bright and colourful spring flowers. If you ever make a visit to Loch, don't rush through it, but take some time to leisurely enjoy the food, the flowers, and the fresh air.

The Pirianda Gardens

Yesterday my wife and I visited the Pirianda Gardens, which is near Olinda in the Dandenongs Ranges. It sounds far away, but the drive is really only about half an hour from my house. A couple of people from my camera club talked about their visit to the Pirianda Garden and we decided to check it out too, just after we had visited the Rhododendron Garden on a club outing.

 I was delighted with what I found. I always look forward to the autumn season because I love to see the autumn colours. This park has many deciduous trees and many of them are still resplendent. We even found a couple of the giant red toadstools which we saw in the Rhododendron Garden a few years ago. My wife had great time taking pictures with her new iPad.

My holiday in Bali

Many days after returning home from Bali, I was still thinking of the padi fields. I looked through all the photos I had taken, over and over again, while I re-lived the experience in my mind. Maybe this is a good way to tell if a holiday had been a success or not. For me, I had a holiday as a holiday is meant to be: totally relaxed to do what I love to do (take photographs) and be pampered by my wife all the time.

Before I went to Bali, I had expected to be greeted with  crime and corruption, smog in the air, and filth on the roads. Instead, I found a charming retreat in the rural town of Ubud where, poor as the people were, impoverished they were not. The people were friendly toward strangers. The environment was clean and I saw no carelessly strewn rubbish anywhere. The air was clear and the rivers were unpolluted. The people I saw looked happy and contented with their way of life. I saw little material possessions; modern trappings that do not make our lives spiritually any richer by comparison. This was in a unmarked village and not in a showcase resort set up by the government to promote tourism.

I cannot say the same for Kuta, though. While this seaside resort is tourist-friendly, some of the beaches are full of trash washed up by the tides.

As for my photography experience, I was wrong in thinking that I would not be able to do much serious shooting while tagging along with a group of sight-seeking and sightseeing people (all relatives) who just want to have fun. While it is true that I couldn't always go where I wanted to get the anticipated shot, I had a great time practising all the compositions I had learned but not mastered. My greatest satisfaction is in taking time to talk to the locals before asking them for a shot. It relaxes them and I get great eye contact on the camera. And I cannot be charged for shooting an unsuspecting individual.

To see my favourite Bali shots, go to my Facebook site: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=349920775032404&set=a.349920141699134.88810.100000434531921&type=1&theater

Suitcase break-in at airport

My wife flew on the Emirates to Kuala Lumpur last month. Upon arrival, she found that the zipper was broken. From my experience, zippers on Samsonite luggage bags do not break easily.

I had the chance to examine the broken zipper when she came back. It is very clear to me that the bag had been broken into. Apparently, a metal rod is all it takes to break the zipper. This method is less obvious than breaking the lock. My wife initially thought the zipper was accidentally broken. From the bottom close-up image, you can tell that a deliberate force was applied to break the zipper handle from its bottom attachment, as the hole in the zipper handle is now slightly out of shape. (Click on the image for enlarged view)

After a lot of hassling, Emirates agreed to replace the zipper in KL. As a precaution, always examine your bags for damage after retrieving them at the airport. And don't put valuables (camera, etc) in your checked-in luggage, no matter how well-locked your bag is.

(Update: after I told a friend about this, she said her luggage bag was similarly damaged on her last trip. She had all the while assumed it was due to bad zippers and wanted to claim the warranty from Samsonite)

Day trip to South Gippsland

It started with an article in the Arts and Antique quarterly publication that I happened to read. The article talked about the Mayfield Art Gallery in Arawata, which is about an hour's drive from my house. Lured by the promise of a scenic drive, I decided to take a drive there with my family and some friends this Monday. Blessed with a cool and cloudy day, the outing turned out to be far more interesting that I anticipated.

We made three major stops. The first picture was taken at the Caldermeade Farm, on the way to Arawata. The second and third pictures were at Arawata Mayfield Art Gallery, set among the verdant rolling hills. The fourth picture shows the Coal Creek Heritage Village. It just shows that there are lots of beautiful places in Victoria that are out of the beaten path.

Oysters

I just got back from Tasmania. Our friend has a riverside house on the Tamar River. We spent two nights there. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. In this blog I just want to talk about oysters. This property has a long frontage on the estuary. As you can see from the pictures below, when the tide goes down you can see lots of rocks. The oysters cling to the rocks. You can pick them off the riverbed when the tide goes down as the really nice ones are submerged most of the time. The oysters are nice and fat; much nicer than the ones you usually find at the market. I am sure there are few places left in the world where you can pick fresh seafood as you please. Most places will be over-harvested in no time.

I can imagine that in the ancient days when people hunted or fished for food, life must have been much more pleasant then. People nowadays have to pay lots of money for the privilege to hunt. We have to take precious time off to go somewhere for a fishing holiday. Can you imagine how blissful life must have been when people could just pick from the trees, or catch something from the ocean when they wanted to eat? This short holiday in Tasmania gave me a taste of what that life was like. The oysters were simply everywhere; I just had to reach down and pick them up. What a life!