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After our sunrise session atop the cliffs of Malabar (where mad fishermen were once again in action on the wave swept rocks below) we headed back along the coastline towards where we had parked near South Maroubra Surf Lifesaving Club.

On the way Gerry and I checked out another inland graffiti laden bunker as well as trying some quick run and gun macro and floral landscape work (now that we could actually see what was there during the daytime - when we came in it was pitch dark ) - there was a huge abundance of native flowers out all along the coastal scrub.

The inside of this two room concrete bunker had been nicely painted in "floral" designs in preparation for our visit...

Artists Palace


I would have liked to have focus stacked the buds portion of this composition but alas didn't have time

Buds and Bloom


The flowers were out in show everywhere so we had switched to macro lenses for some close up work - however when I came across this scene I actually wanted to do a compressed landscape where only my foreground subject matter was in focus and my entire landscape background would be a soft but recognisable blur - I stuck with the Tamron 90mm macro for the shot anyway - I hope it's worked as I'd envisaged...

... For this one I'd be keen to hear what others think - does this have merit or am I just dreaming?

Floral Scape


I didn't quite get this how I'd wanted (I was swaying around way too much - tired probably ) and couldn't get the plane of focus how I wanted it whilst also having the background I wanted, plus I wanted more depth of field - however I still liked the result...

... Ditto with this one - is it going somewhere or nowhere?

Lemon and Lime

The first is certainly electric and makes the joint look at lot cleaner than it really was! I don't mind it but the window is a bit of downer. I think this would have been a great candidate for your 8 mm.

Remorhaz wrote:... For this one I'd be keen to hear what others think - does this have merit or am I just dreaming?
Floral Scape

I think your on the right track here, however I find the main focus to be too far out of the centre of teh frame. My first thought was, maybe focus on the next bush down teh track. I do like the diagonal composition though.

2 other observations with this shot, 1) it would not work getting cropped from the right and 2) the path is actually pretty crucial, not necessarily from leading line but from a light and colour balance POV, it also (with that bit of grass) reduces the clutter of the vegetation BG.

Remorhaz wrote:... Ditto with this one - is it going somewhere or nowhere?

Lemon and Lime

personally, i would delete it.

biggerry wrote:The first is certainly electric and makes the joint look at lot cleaner than it really was! I don't mind it but the window is a bit of downer. I think this would have been a great candidate for your 8 mm.

Possibly - althout that would have easily got both windows in (and maybe more) - this was actually with the 17-50. I'll take the 8mm on Sat and maybe try before sunset.

I think your on the right track here, however I find the main focus to be too far out of the centre of teh frame. My first thought was, maybe focus on the next bush down teh track. I do like the diagonal composition though. 2 other observations with this shot, 1) it would not work getting cropped from the right and 2) the path is actually pretty crucial, not necessarily from leading line but from a light and colour balance POV, it also (with that bit of grass) reduces the clutter of the vegetation BG.

Thanks for your thoughts on this Gerry and interesting observations

personally, i would delete it.

Harsh but possibly fair (my wife thinks the same BTW). Still theres something about this I like for some reason

Remorhaz wrote:Possibly - althout that would have easily got both windows in (and maybe more) - this was actually with the 17-50. I'll take the 8mm on Sat and maybe try before sunset.

i guess i am referring more to the festy colour/blown highlight, how about just letting that window blow out to white? it could then actually draw the eye quite a bit and in doing so lead thru the image.

biggerry wrote:i guess i am referring more to the festy colour/blown highlight, how about just letting that window blow out to white? it could then actually draw the eye quite a bit and in doing so lead thru the image.

Thanks Gerry - plus a little dodge and burn...

yeah i am coming to like that more now, the window draws your eye straight to that 'eye' - coolness

Strange thing happening with this thread. It is the second time I have looked at the thread but, as with the first view, I can only see the last "Lemon & Lime" picture. Also on this view of the thread I can only see the top third of the picture in Rodney's post with the rest of the image just a grey box. Very strange. Any thoughts as I have not seen this happen on other threads.

CraigVTR wrote:Strange thing happening with this thread. It is the second time I have looked at the thread but, as with the first view, I can only see the last "Lemon & Lime" picture. Also on this view of the thread I can only see the top third of the picture in Rodney's post with the rest of the image just a grey box. Very strange. Any thoughts as I have not seen this happen on other threads.

no issues from my end - try refreshing, in particular use SHIFT 'refresh' to reload the cache

Thanks Gerry
Tried the shift refresh with no luck but I have noticed this is now happening on other sites as well both in FF and IE. I am also having photos assemble on screen in a jigsaw like pattern with parts of the photo moved around. May be a specific issue on my machine which I will investigate later.

I can see them now, seems it was a flash player problem.

I can see what you were getting at with the floral scape shot but to my eye it does not work because the subject matter is at the left of frame and then my eye wanders aimlessly around the rest of the image trying to find another point of focus.

Found another example of floral life - a specimen of the rare Gerrionimo

Ok... big week so a late catch up...

The last shot... interesting but pity some local stepped into the shot and mucked it up (ok late night weak humour).
The Floralscape needed more dof to work but the intent would have given a classic shot.
Buds and bloom... sorry.
Lemon and Lime... sorry.
Artists Palace... second PP is certainly getting there as it provides for a better depth to the composition.

It's late so that's about all I've got right now

Remorhaz wrote:Found another example of floral life - a specimen of the rare Gerrionimo

hey look, how good are those matching colours, blue jacket, blue sky

biggerry wrote:hey look, how good are those matching colours, blue jacket, blue sky

You know I planned it that way

Nice colors on the buds and blooma although the background seems to intrude a little on the main subject.

With regard to the last image, we know that the background model IS intruding on the main subject. Probably going to strangle it with the tripod to make way.....

surenj wrote:Nice colors on the buds and blooma although the background seems to intrude a little on the main subject.

Yeah - I was trying to show the unopened buds up close with the opened flowers as the background but...