Landscapes of Central Australia

Central Australia is justifiably famous for its landscapes. We visited Alice Springs and Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, located near the southern border of the Northern Territory. The area is very dry, not quite desert, but visually engaging with unique geology and complex ecology. Uluru (formerly called Ayers Rock) is likely the most photographed hill in Australia, if not the world. Throngs of tourists gather every evening and morning, as did we, to watch and record the changing light on the red rock. It is unique and spectacular.

Uluru, sunset

Uluru, sunrise

Famous Uluru overshadows an equally photogenic range of hills named Kata Tjuta. With strata less steeply tilted than Uluru (15 degrees versus almost 90 degrees) and composed of a coarse conglomerate instead of Uluru's arkose, Kata Tjuta presents a more rounded profile and more distinct segments. I found it gorgeous.

Kata Tjuta

It's a remarkable park that has such sights in rather close proximity, let alone the many significant cultural and biological features. No surprise that it is a World Heritage area.

Uluru and Kata Tjuta at sunrise

At Alice Springs Desert Park we watched a great bird show and also marveled at the ancient landscape.

Ridge, Alice Springs Desert Park

Birds in Australia

Not being "birders" Susan and I just enjoyed seeing species we'd not seen before. These pictures come from Cleland Wildlife Park near Adelaide, the Alice Springs Desert Park (where trained birds take turns swooping through an open-air theater), a national park near Melbourne, and the Alice Springs Telegraph Station Historical Reserve. Apologies for not being able to identify each of these. If you know them, please add a comment. Thanks!

Magpie

Rainbow Lorikeet

Australian Bustard

Barn Owl

Wedge-tailed Eagle

Emu

Galah

Sydney Opera House

If kangaroos and koala are the most recognizable fauna of Australia, surely the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge are that city's architectural icons. We first came upon the opera house after dark and were wowed. In the daylight it is equally stunning. I had planned to have a single post about art and architecture, but the opera house is too photogenic for that. It deserves its own post, and here it is.

There's so much to love about this building. Its site on a point of land in sparkling Sydney Harbor shows it off beautifully. The design is unlike anything else. I was surprised to learn that the distinctive curved forms are all segments of a sphere, the choice of which (according to the information video) greatly simplified design and construction. And the appearance of those shapes vary endlessly as the point of view changes. It is a masterpiece.

Sydney Opera House, from Sydney Harbor

Sydney Opera House, from Circular Quay

Detail of exterior, from east

Detail of exterior, from west

Interior detail of precast ribs and windows

Fauna of Australia

Susan and I spent March 2016 in Australia and New Zealand. We had never traveled south of the equator. It's about as far away from our home in Maryland as you can get. Given the distance and logistics, we opted for a tour with Overseas Adventure Travel and were very pleased with the tour, the tour leaders, and the wonderful group with which we traveled.

In spite of an ominous email from Nikon, I took my D750, Tamron 24-70mm, and Nikkor 70-200mm. I had a few glitches with the D750 but no show-stoppers. In fact I needed to buy more memory cards and came home with an absurd 3,400 images.

But I have no regrets. Both countries are fascinating, diverse, splendid...how could I not shoot lavishly in such places? And though we'd love to return someday, one never knows. So I shot a helluva lot.

The downside, of course, is that it all must be reviewed and edited. I'm eager to see and share the shots I like but not that keen on spending hours in front of the desktop. I've decided to add images to this blog in topical groups, beginning with some of the animals we saw in Australia. That is a huge topic by itself. There are scads of iconic and unique animals, and the country is about the size of the lower 48 US states. In other words, this is but a tiny sample of what's there.

Koala are among the iconic Australian fauna. We were fortunate not only to see several, but also to witness a territorial dispute between two males. Our guide told us at the start of our walk that we'd probably see a koala, but we'd be lucky to see one, say, scratch its ear. They are normally quite lethargic and solitary. Viewing the dispute was therefore an extremely lucky occurrence...our guide was ecstatic.

Young male Koala

Young and older males disputing territory

Koala are normally solitary

In the same national park were Eastern Grey kangaroo. We stalked them quietly, our guide explaining that they become more relaxed after they have eyed us for a while. We were surprised at how large the males are: over six feet tall when standing and quite muscular in appearance. And we again were lucky that a mob of about 20 came into view.

Mob of 'roos

Eastern Grey Kangaroo

I'll post some bird photos in the the next installment. As always, your comments are most welcome.

OT - camera problems

My father was a great believer in Murphy's Law (whatever can go wrong, will go wrong). I can't count the times I heard him say, in response to some problem, "That's ole Murphy at work!"

We recently returned from a month-long trip to Australia and New Zealand. It was our first foray south of the equator. Needless to say, a lot of preparation was involved. I practiced with both lenses I planned to take, packed and repacked my gear, and agonized over what else to carry or leave behind.

Taking the Nikon D750 was never in doubt. It's my only camera (besides the iPhone 5s), and a big reason for travelling to that part of the world was to capture some of the incredible landscapes. Imagine my surprise and consternation when, two days before we left, Nikon sent me an email saying my D750 might be prone to a shutter problem discovered in July 2015 (here's the technical advisory). Just send it back and we'll fix it and return it in two weeks or so, says Nikon. Murphy at work again.

I hadn't seen any evidence of the shutter problem (shading of a portion of images) and I didn't have time to rent another camera, so I crossed my fingers and set off with the D750. Back home, none of the images I've reviewed so far show any shutter issues, so it seems I dodged that bullet.

But Murphy wasn't done yet. During the trip the D750 locked up three or four times. An "Err" message appeared in the control panel and none of the controls worked. I had to remove the battery for 30 seconds or so, then put it back, to restore operation. And of course Murphy made sure it happened at least once while I was trying to shoot in a hurry and therefore made me miss some shots.

I've had camera problems before but, really, very few. My brand-new Pentax K-5 had obvious optical problems right out of the box; Pentax swapped it for another that I used for years with no problems. My venerable Canon Rebel never had a problem so far as I can remember. It's disappointing, then, to have the rather expensive D750 throw one actual and one potential problem at me in the space of a month. It's now on its way to Nikon. Let's hope they can fix it, and declare a long-lasting truce with Murphy.

[Update: I got the D750 back and all seems OK. The only glitch, which took a few days to discover, is that the time and date had been reset to sometime in 2014. That confused me and my Lightroom catalog until I figured it out. If you've sent a camera in for service, you might want to check that before you do a lot of shooting.]

Weekly Challenge: Landscape Zoomed In

I'm cheating on the weekly challenge already, and it's not even March. Instead of taking each weekly challenge topic in order, as an assignment, I took an image and scanned the topics to find one that fits it.

The Week 14 challenge from Dogwood Photography is "Landscape: Zoomed in--Most landscapes are wide sweeping images. Try an alternative and zoom in instead." Perfect for today's shot.

A spell of nice-ish weather arrived. It was a beautiful morning for a stroll in the park. I was also roused by a video at Luminous Landscape featuring photographer and instructor Katrin Eismann. She said that she tells her students to get out and shoot every day. Eismann does too, because how would it look if she didn't? So in part my shame drove me outdoors.

I took the Nikkor 70-200mm zoom because it tends to stay in the bag while the Tamron 24-70mm zoom gets lots of exercise (and, truth be told, I wish the Nikkor was a bit longer). But we have a trip coming up and I didn't want to feel stale with either lens so I took the 70-200 for a walk.

Our little stream caught my eye, as it often does. The low sun sent ripple images through the clear water onto the stream bed. The zoom's image quality is always good. 

Stream Bed

The image doesn't follow any composition rules. There's no foreground-midfield-background that most landscapes have. The rule of thirds certainly ain't there. But the textures and the movement speak to me. It looks really good as my desktop background, too; it will probably replace this.

The details: Nikon D750 handheld 1/200 sec. f/11, ISO 800 (70mm AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm 1:4G ED)

Weekly Challenge: Landscape, Black and White

This week's challenge from Dogwood Photography is "Landscape: Black and White--Look for a scene with great contrast that will make a great black and white."

Last week's enormous snow storm provided lots of high-contrast material. This morning I took a walk in our local park and tried to think in b&w. I took a lot of shots in the woods, where long shadows were falling on snow and branches stuck up everywhere. There were some nice woodpiles emerging from the snow too. Sucker that I am for textures, I shot plenty of those:

Woodpile

But my favorite is this image of geese on the partially frozen surface of the pond. I fooled around with Lightroom's B&W Presets: they are a quick way to look at variations on your image, and you can start with one and then tweak it further. I ended up using my own settings but they are pretty similar to the LR B&W Look 2 preset.

Geese on Ice

Other observations: I haven't figured out how to keep my hands warm in cold weather. Mittens and gloves don't allow working the camera, so I end up sticking my hands in my pockets and blowing on them. The Nikon D750 seems not to mind the cold at all.