Category Archives: Photos

Albany Humpback Whales

Posted on August 11, 2012 by John Boyd Macdonald| Leave a comment

During our recent travels in Western Australia there was a heap of great and varied photographic opportunities. (I hope to write a post about some more of them soon …) But one of the real highlights for us was during our time in Albany on the south coast of the state, where you look out into the Southern Ocean and there’s no land between the shore and Antarctica.

We took a boat out from the port in Princess Royal Harbour into King George Sound to look for whales, which are now in their seasonal migration from the northwest coast of Australia en route to Antarctic waters for the summer. The weather was a bit ‘iffy’, with some heavy rain, winds and some swell as we set out, but it cleared gradually during the course of our journey out across King George Sound past Michaelmas and Breaksea Islands.

And then we saw the whales. They were jumping (‘breaching’) on all sides of us, probably eight to ten of them. It was hard catch them on the camera, as you couldn’t tell where the next one was going to launch from. I was using the 70-200mm f2.8L lens at ISO 400, f4 and shooting fast (1/3200 second) to freeze them in the air, and counteract the occasional lurching of the boat in the swell. I also braced myself standing between two stainless steel railings on the boat to keep my balance!

John Woodbury owns the catamaran that we were on, and he takes people out pretty much every day to look for whales during the ‘season’. He reckoned that he’d never seen such a sustained spell of them jumping like that, and this was the first time that he’d had to turn back for port with them still putting on a show.

The next day I gave John copies of some of the photos, which he liked enough to pass them on to a bloke at the local paper, the Albany Advertiser. He in turn he contacted me to ask permission to reproduce them in the paper. I agreed to supply them without charge on condition that I got full attribution and the article included a link to my web site. Always get attribution! The newspaper article is up on their web site at this link.

You can see the full set of whale photos, also including some images of Fur Seals, on the Jokar website in this folder.

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Posted in Photos, Wildlife

Tagged Albany, Humpback Whales, whales

Mt Townsend

Posted on August 6, 2012 by John Boyd Macdonald| 1 Comment

I had a great trip recently, snowshoeing from Crackenback (above Thredbo) to Mt Townsend. It was mid-week (no-one else out there), there had been about 20cm of fresh snow the night before (creamy smooth snow with no tracks) and the weather was glorious (sunny cold and some nice dark clouds coming in from the west during the afternoon).

One purpose for the trip was reconnaissance; I have long admired Eugene Von Guerard’s painting Northeast View from the Northern Top of Mount Kosciusko (which is actually a view from the top of Mt Townsend).

It depicts a panoramic view from near the summit of Mt Townsend in the main range of the Snowy Mountains, looking northeast across Lake Albina and the Watsons Crags to Mt Twynam and Mt Jagungal in the distance. Shown in the central foreground are the members of German scientist Georg von Neumayer’s 1862 expedition team (including Hector the dog) which was undertaking a magnetic survey of the colony of Victoria. A storm, which later visited extreme and almost catastrophic conditions upon the party, can be seen approaching from the left background Apart from the pile of boulders in the left foreground, which do not exist in the actual location, the scene is shown with a fair degree of topographical accuracy

Eugene von Guérard, North-east view from the northern top of Mount Kosciusko (1863) - National Gallery of Australia

The painting was also appropriated by Imants Tillers in a 1985 painting (actually done as 165 separate canvas board panels) entitled Mount Analogue.

Imants Tillers, Mount Analogue (1985) – National Gallery of Australia, purchased 1987. Painting, oil, oil stick and synthetic polymer paint. 279.0 h x 571.0 w cm

I’ve got this idea of reproducing this image as a photograph on 19 November this year – which will be exactly 150 years after Von Guerard was there. So part of my aim was to confirm the location of the painting’s vantage point, check lens options (I found the Canon 24-70 2.8L got the aspect about right) – and of course to make some images while I was there!

So here’s my mid-winter version of the scene (with the made-up bits of Von Guerard’s scene added in):

Homage to Eugene Von Guerard and Imants Tillers

The light was quite lovely the day I was there, especially as the clouds came up in the afternoon and chased me back to Crackenback, and I got nice images along the course of my 8 hours of tramping through the snow. I’ve reproduced a few of them below, but you can see the full set on the main Jokar web site at this link. Hope you like them!

Slopes of Muellers Peak

Looking back at Mt Townsend (my tracks in the snow)

Between Seaman's Hut and Rawson Pass

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Posted in General, Photos, Wild landscapes

Tagged Eugene Von Guerard, imants tillers, Kosciuszko, Mt Townsend, Muellers Peak, snow, snow shoes, snowshoeing

Winter Postcards exhibition

Posted on August 3, 2012 by John Boyd Macdonald| Leave a comment

PhotoAccess is currently showing an exhibition of work by no less than 32 photographers. It’s called Winter Postcards, and as the name suggests all of the works must be postcard size (i.e. 6″ x 4″), with each exhibitor able to show up to 10 images.

The brief for the exhibition is very broad, with the only requirements being that the images should relate somehow to the winter theme – even if they are images of travel to warmer climes to escape the chilly Canberra winter – and that each set of images should work as a group.

I submitted 10 images under the title of “Alpine“. They are all snowy landscape images, with signs of human presence in several of them. Most have been taken in the Snowy Mountains region at some point over the past several years, though there are also two from New Zealand, from when I did a mountaineering course there a few years ago.

Alpine 1 - Ramsheads campsite

Alpine 2 - near Kosciuszko, just before the storm arrived

Alpine 3 - Hedley Tarm reflections

Alpine 4 - Approaching Cootapatamba Hut

Alpine 5 - View from Kelman Hut (NZ)

Alpine 6 - snowshower below South Ramshead

Alpine 7 - early morning on Ramshead Range

Alpine 8 - snowshoe tracks below South Ramshead

Alpine 9 - snowgums near Mt Perisher

Alpine 10 - climbing Mt Aylmer (NZ)

The Winter Postcards exhibition is on at PhotoAccess until 12 August. More information at this link.

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Posted in Exhibitions, General, Wild landscapes

Tagged Kosciuszko, photoaccess, Ramshead Range, snow

Pixel Bender oil paint effect for Photoshop

Posted on April 1, 2012 by John Boyd Macdonald| Leave a comment

There’s a number of ‘artistic’ effects filters that come as part of the Photoshop software (under the menu option ‘Filter’ in subfolders ‘Artistic’, ‘Brush strokes’ ‘Sketch’, ‘Stylise’ etc). By and large I try to avoid using them as I mostly don’t like the quite ‘processed’ image results that they produce. I do however make use of the Gaussian blur filter quite often (particularly when working to achieve flattering portrait skin tones) – and I have been known to apply a little of the ‘Poster edges’ effect to add some heavy clarity to edges on architectural shots. And then there’s the ‘Smart sharpen’ which I use almost routinely to crisp up RAW images – but I don’t really think of that as an ‘artistic’ effect.

So, anyway – apart from all the exceptions (!) – I don’t use the filters much. However I’ve recently been having fun playing with the ‘Oil Paint’ filter that comes as part of the Adobe Pixel Bender filter gallery. The Pixel Bender Gallery isn’t installed by default with Photoshop CS5 – you have to instal the add-in which can be done from this link on the Adobe site. Once installed, you’ll find that you have a new folder of effects filters under the ‘Filter’ menu option. There are a number of Pixel Bender effects, including Kaleidoscope, RippleBlocks and TunnelView, but the most useful and most effective one (in my view) is the Oil Paint filter.

Snow daisies on the Ramshead Range

There are five sliders which you can use to adjust the intensity and other parameters of the Oil Paint effect (Stylization, Colorization, Cleanliness, BrushScale and BrushContrast) which give you plenty of control over the effect delivered by the filter.

Thredbo chairlifts

The effect can quite subtle, or can scale up to produce a quite Van-Gogh-like result if you prefer. I find that it can be particularly nice as an effect applied to images containing vegetation, producing silky elegant curves of smooth colour. Chances are that I’ll tire of the effect quite soon (!), but till then it’s a nice one to play with, and no doubt a good one to have the repertoire of effects for use from time to time.

Yarra River bridge from Southbank

The whole issue of using effects filters on your images is an interesting one, with many photographers refusing to use this kind of image manipulation at all. They may consider the use of filters to be lazy or even ‘cheating’ – or they may simply just dislike the processed look of any images that don’t look 100% ‘natural’ (whatever that means!) Some of the debate and argument about the use of High Dynamic Range (HDR) techniques has a similar tone to it.

My own view is that it is in the end more of an aesthetic decision rather than a moral or purist issue. We are changing our images all the time by the decisions that we make, from the moment of choosing camera settings to capture the initial image, through to the range of post-processing techniques that may be subsequently applied. Post-processing effects filters are just one more option we have at our disposal in the toolbox to shape the final appearance of our images. The final judgment is whether it results in a visually compelling image for the intended viewer(s) – not how the image was produced. If those viewers look and think the result is too synthetic, ugly, clichéd or (worst of all!) uninteresting, then the image (or rather, the creator of the image) has failed.

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Posted in Flowers, Photos

Tagged Adobe, Oil Paint, Photoshop filters, Pixel Bender, Ramshead Range, Thredbo

Tasmania HDR

Posted on March 24, 2012 by John Boyd Macdonald| Leave a comment

I still keep making High Dynamic Range (HDR) images. I can’t help it. This popular technique involves making a series (usually three or five) images with identical composition, usually on a tripod to ensure an exact alignment of the images. Each one is taken with the same aperture but with different shutter speeds so that you end up with images that may be 2 stops under-exposed, one stop under, ‘normal’, and one and two stops over. You can use auto-exposure bracketing if your camera supports it – but I have to change the settings manually on my camera to achive that range of exposures.

Russell Falls, Mt Field National Park

The images are then subsequently merged in post-processing software to create an image which incorporates the full range of light levels in the scene, without any areas of under- or over exposure. The result can be quite natural or quite dramatic, depending on your preference. I find that the technique can turn a scene with flat or uninteresting light into something quite compelling. It is also useful when the range of tones from dark to bright in the image exceed the limited range that can be recorded by the sensor of a digital camera.

View from 'K' Col, Mt Field National Park

You can do the merging in Photoshop (CS5 has good HDR functionality), but I continue to use Photomatix which is a specialist tool for HDR imaging, offering a great deal of control over the appearance of the image created.

Launceston Gorge

But the technique can be overdone – and often (perhaps usually!) is. It can difficult to resist punching up the local contrast or saturation levels to a point where the effect is hyper-surreal or oppressively garish. Oversaturated, grungy images, which one critic has referred to ‘Harry Potter photos’ are all over photo-sharing sites on the net, and have given the technique a bad name in some quarters. Used with discretion and moderation however, I think it can be brilliant. And sometimes it’s good fun to create that surreal effect.

View from our campsite, Freycinet

Strahan Harbour

I’ll do some more posts about Tassy later, but in the mean time you can see other photos from Tasmania (only a few which employed HDR!) on my website in this folder. There’s also a folder with a number of other HDR images here. Hope you like them!

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Posted in HDR photography, Human landscapes, Photos, Wild landscapes

Tagged Freycinet, HDR photography, High Dynamic Range, Jokar, Launceston, Mt Field, Strahan, Tasmania

Sekala exhibition

Posted on March 5, 2012 by John Boyd Macdonald| Leave a comment

My exhibition (Sekala: ritual and ceremony in Bali) continues at PhotoAccess here in Canberra (PhotoAccess Huw Davies Gallery in Manuka, at the corner of Manuka Circle and NSW Crescent) until next Sunday 11 March. The experience of putting on my first solo exhibition has been interesting, and actually (and surprisingly) not too stressful. However I must say that I have been greatly helped by the staff of PhotoAccess in curating and mounting the show, and the quality of the prints produced by Stephen Best at Macquarie Editions has also made a huge difference.

The exhibition has been going really well, with a good flow of visitors, and some great reactions from those who have viewed it so far. I’m very pleased! I had become so accustomed to looking at photos on the screen of computers, that I had almost forgotten how much better they can look when well printed, at good size (A3+ and A2 size) and displayed well in a properly lit environment.

The opening was fantastic. Over 70 in attendance – it was really good to have so many friends and family members there to support me. Proud to have Bill Farmer (Ambassador to Indonesia 2005-10) and his wife Elaine formally open the exhibition. They spoke of the unique nature of Balinese culture, and the often distorted and inaccurate picture that Australians have of Indonesia generally. They stressed the central role that Asian nations will take in the world over coming years, and the need for Australia to genuinely engage with Asian people and cultures – while at the same time bemoaning the decline in Australian interest in our northern neighbours and the decline in Asian language training in our educational institutions. And they said some very nice things about the exhibition photos too…!

You can see the full set of images in the exhibition in this folder on the main Jokar web site.

Here’s a few installation shots of the exhibition.

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Posted in Bali, Exhibitions, General, Photos

Sekala: ritual and ceremony in Bali (Exhibition)

Posted on January 8, 2012 by John Boyd Macdonald| Leave a comment

My first solo exhibition (‘Sekala: ritual and ceremony in Bali‘) opens at the PhotoAccess Huw Davies Gallery in Manuka ACT (corner of Manuka Circle and NSW Crescent – next to the Manuka Pool) at 6pm on Thursday 23 February. It will continue until 4pm on Sunday March 11 – check the PhotoAccess web site for details of opening hours. I hope you can make it along for a look!

Here’s a draft of my ‘Artist Statement’ for the exhibition:

Generations of western artists and diverse other visitors have been captivated by the Balinese people, their culture and landscape. There are many ways for the visitor to ‘see’ Bali – as a palm-fringed tourist resort, as an exploited third-world economy with a culture under threat, or as some idealised spiritual oasis in an otherwise materialistic world. The reality of course is much more complex and multi-faceted – our stereotypes may tell us more about ourselves and our own cultures than about the ‘real’ Bali.

The Balinese have a neat concept for this: they speak of ‘Sekala’, which is the surface layer of our experience – that which is visible, the tangible. Beneath lies ‘Niskala’, the hidden world which explains and animates the surface layer, full of gods, spirits, ancestors – the balanced and opposing forces of good and evil. Images in this exhibition may only deal explicitly with Sekala, but will hopefully offer glimpses into the underlying world of Niskala.

The images were selected from the 15,000 that I took during 2009-10 when my wife Karen and I worked on a volunteer assignment with a textile arts foundation based in Ubud, Bali. During that time we travelled a great deal, and were privileged to encounter a range of people, places, performances and ceremonies, many of which were well off the standard tourist trail.

The exhibition of prints (and the associated video slideshow) seeks to reveal some of the ceremonial and ritual practices that I found most compelling. I hope that it goes some way to explaining my fascination with this extraordinary place and its people – a living and vibrant culture surviving in the face of great social, environmental and economic change. In particular I have sought to highlight two things:

the Balinese ‘aesthetic’ – the love of elegance in performance and visual decoration which pervades all products of their material culture; and
the strands of animism and Balinese Hinduism that so often lie just below the surface of daily life and events.

I was inspired in this work by the stream of western artists who have created their own ‘outsider’ visions of Bali over the past century. In particular this would include such painters and writers as Miguel Covarrubias, Rudolf Bonnet and Walter Spies, but also fine contemporary photographers such as Rio Helmi.

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Posted in Bali, Exhibitions, Photos

Repetition of form 2: Tampaksiring temple

Posted on October 13, 2011 by John Boyd Macdonald| Leave a comment

Another post about the repetition of forms (shapes, objects, even colours), and how pleasing it is to the eye when you see such repetition in an image. (The previous post on this subject can be seen at this link).

The original image was taken in the grounds of the main temple at Tampaksiring, north of Ubud in Bali. It’s a major pilgrimage spot by virtue of the holy springs that bubble up from the ground, and people come from all over the island to pray and have ritual baths at the temple. At the time of the photo there was a heavy rain shower in progress, and everyone had retreated to the shelter of the several open pavilions in the temple grounds. (You can make out some falling rain on the right of the photo.) While waiting for the rain the stop, this man and his daughter carried on a quiet and languid conversation.

The photo was actually taken last year, but I have recently reworked it in preparation for A3+ (or possibly A2) size printing. The photo is one that I have chosen to put into my exhibition of Bali ritual/ceremonial photos at PhotoAccess here in Canberra early next year (opening night 24 February – put it into your calendars!)

While working on it I realised that, by cropping the original differently, making it a little wider, I could gain some nice pairs of repeats across the image: two people, two stone gods, and two Ganesh elephant statues. Somehow the photo is made to look more complete, to ‘cohere’ better, by emphasising these repetitions. Although it now includes an additional object, it actually looks simpler overall. Below is the original cropped version for comparison.

I don’t know why we like to find recurring patterns in images – but that’s not going to stop me speculating! Presumably it’s due to the way that the human brain processes visual sensory data, instantly applying pattern recognition to quickly interpret meaning from the raw image input. At some level below conscious thought we derive some small pleasure or reward when we can make out replicated shapes in an image.

You could imagine that it conferred some evolutionary advantage on individuals or populations that first had this perceptual skill, allowing them to better and quicker identify threats and opportunities in the world as they saw and experienced it. Over thousands of generations, through the process of natural selection, more of these ‘gifted’ individuals survived to have the relevant genes replicated, and so over millennia we got better at it as a species. Similar development of pattern recognition has no doubt occurred within non-human species too – especially for use in hunter/prey contexts.

Anyway, enough digression. The other thing I did to simplify the image, at the cost of its documentary authenticity, was to remove (via Photoshop) an obese western tourist in bright t-shirt and shorts who was sitting just to the left of the father in the picture i.e. in the bottom right corner). Believe me, the image was substantially improved by getting rid of him!

You can see more images from that visit to the Tampaksiring temple on the main Jokar web site in this folder.

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Posted in Bali, Photos

Tagged daughter, father, Tampaksiring, temple

Category Archives: Photos

Albany Humpback Whales

Mt Townsend

Winter Postcards exhibition

Pixel Bender oil paint effect for Photoshop

Tasmania HDR

Sekala exhibition

Sekala: ritual and ceremony in Bali (Exhibition)

Repetition of form 2: Tampaksiring temple

Jokar web site

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