Gallery Pick of the Week
Instead of just showing pretty pictures only, here we have space for contributors to discuss their images every week.
This is a great opportunity to get some insight from the original photographer and the content is entirely open. It could be anything from the personal feeling of the photographer about the image to any photographic techniques or location knowledge he/she would like to share with our visitors.
Gallery Pick of the Week > September 2010
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The Outback Transformed, 10/9/10, Barbara Bryan Brooding dark skies and wet roads confronted us as we headed to Gulargambone from Sydney. What a change of conditions after all those years of drought! Our journey into the Outback regions of New South Wales (and part of Queensland) revealed a land transformed. |
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My Way of Conquering the World, 2/9/10, Pele Leung Many people are very curious and this is why we have such a word called "gossip". However, most people only limit themselves to their desire of knowing and there are hardly anyone who would like to take their curiosity further - making a record achievement. |
Barbara Bryan - The Outback Transformed, 10/9/10, Barbara Bryan
Brooding dark skies and wet roads confronted us as we headed to Gulargambone from Sydney. What a change of conditions after all those years of drought! Our journey into the Outback regions of New South Wales (and part of Queensland) revealed a land transformed. You may ask why? For the first time in up to fifteen years, the rains have come and come and come! We were astonished to see the changes compared to our previous journeys out there over those years, when we have seen the deteriorating dry conditions taking their toll on wildlife, plant life, livestock and people.
Outback NSW now has large bodies of water from the Bulloo River Overflow which could rival Lake Eyre in size. This is little known but is very extensive and can be seen by light plane flights operating out of either Cunnamulla or Tibooburra towns.
On our travels across northwest NSW from Tibooburra to the remote outback village of Wanaaring, we witnessed the scene of water extending across the landscape as far as the eye could see. Fortunately for us, we just managed to negotiate the muddy roads through to our destination at tiny Hungerford over the Qld border.
During our month of enjoying outback life including two caretaking jobs on remote stations, we marvelled at the many scenes of water where none has been for so long. Thousands of dry claypans are now full of water as well as all creekbeds, rivers, lakes, lagoons and billabongs. Consequently the birdlife has flourished in these conditions, making up for many lost years of good breeding conditions.
Farmers and graziers are thrilled to see their grasses and vegetation rejuvenated. I noticed that many trees which appeared dead are now regrowing from the ground. Grain crops are flourishing but some are now getting too much water on them which may hinder their maturation.
I attempted to illustrate this environmental change in my photography included with this article. Mother Nature will always have control over humans despite what they may think.
Outback Mulga country
Storm cell south of Walgett
Rainbow after storm, Sturt National Park
Rainbow after storm, Sturt National Park
Outback billabong after rain
Outback billabong after rain
Kilcowera lagoon bush trio
Kilcowera budgerigar trio
Wilcannia bridge ove Darling River
Wet outback road
Outback Lake after rain
Sunrise over outback billabong
Sunset over outback billabong
Trilby sunset over lagoon
Pele Leung - My Way of Conquering the World, 2/9/10, Pele Leung
We start to take photos when the sun comes up. Flinders Ranges, South Australia
Many people are very curious and this is why we have such a word called "gossip". However, most people only limit themselves to their desire of knowing and there are hardly anyone who would like to take their curiosity further - making a record achievement. In other terms, to conquer the impossible missions. To avoid confusion, we are talking mainly about those physical challenges only.
In the recent decades, there were a handful of people who had committed themselves to the similar journeys like what the explorers did in the early days. Some cut the corners using modern transports such as 4WD, motorbikes and bicycles but there were still a few brave challengers who insisted on making their journeys by foot. To most of us, regardless of what transports they employed, their effort were substantial. Just imagine the difficulty of exploring the full length of Amazon River by foot! In fact, this was not a dream and an ex-English soldier had actually completed this mission and this deadly expedition took him more than two years. There were all sorts of challenges in the jungle - large ants, thirsty mosquitos (he was sucked 50,000 times), killer fishes and the attacks by the local tribes!
Do you want to hear more fascinating ideas of exploring our world? A team of father and son had also completed their across-continents driving adventure from Melbourne to London in six months. This was probably an easier trip than the Amazon River expedition but it is still crazy enough to shock most 9-5 office people.
We continue to take photos during the day. Mildura, Victoria
As a photographer, my ideal way to make the impression is to capture the best scenery of our world. Starting from Australia, then extend my scope slowly to the whole world. My first milestone is to achieve 200,000 carefully-crafted shots. To achieve this initial goal in 5 years, I would have to take 110 shots every day and keep this shooting habit for every single day in the 5-year period. After this, the next goal is to achieve 500,000 shots. If I am still here (who knows), my next target is to achieve 1,000,000 shots. If everything is fine, this mission could be done within 25 years. 25-year does not sound too long to me and now I am excited.
Imagine the power of having 1,000,000 beautiful shots in hand! I can conduct many exhibitions with fresh materials every time. However, I can tell you right now, you will not see them all because most of them will be filtered out by my pick-only-1-shot-from-every-10 strategy. A top quality portfolio of 100,000-shot is still a great achievement by any master photographer's standard.
Photography does not stop even at night. Cape Schanck, Victoria
Now you might start to plan your own ideas of cooking-1000-dishes-in-a-year, walking-1-million-steps-in-a-year, sleeping 1-hour-per-day etc. There are plenty of ideas for you to choose from but there is only one strong mind to make these ideas come true. You are the one even if your wife/husband/friends do not think you are. Good luck, we all need it.