Calling on all Shutterbugs!

I have some exciting news to share with you today.

Over the past many months a creative film crew headed by Kate McIntyre and Dave Collins have been planning and filming a new comedy web TV series about photography.

This new web TV series is set to invade the world of photography when Shutterbugs debuts on the 27th September.

At the set of Shutterbugs

The show is set in Melbourne’s creative heart, Fitzroy. Shutterbugs centres on analogue photographer Chloe and her socialite best friend Samantha. Together they get into trouble as they trespass, steal and bend the truth during their various photography exploits. Trying to keep them under control is Isaac, an OCD portrait photographer who secretly harbours a crush on Chloe. Rounding out the crew are unhinged video blogger Bo and malicious time-lapse specialist Trent, who takes joy in tormenting the others.

Chloe on Brunswick Street

The show follows the gang as they undertake crazy and dangerous adventures, all in the name of taking a good photo.

From the analogue to the high-tech, DSLRs to phones, if it takes a photo then it’s part of the world of Shutterbugs.

The Shutterbugs Gang

The internet has become a breeding ground where photography communities can thrive and writer / director Dave Collins is keen to provide something unique to this audience and says:

“The internet is great for letting us upload photos to the world as well as discussing and critiquing the photos we take through blogs and photo sharing sites, but until now there hasn’t been a fictional series catering just for photographers.”

Watching Trent's time-lapse video

Whilst the cast and crew of Shutterbugs are photography fanatics, they’re also wrangling the talent of some photography professionals and obsessives. Each week on the website, a guest photographer will pay homage to the current episode by providing a unique set of photos inspired by that week’s action, and also discuss their photography practice, tips, and insights into their creations for Shutterbugs in a video interview.

“We set out to make a series that understands photographers and mimics the passion that people have for capturing the perfect photo, but the series is also a really good comedy that non-photographers can enjoy as well.” Collins says.

The Shutterbugs web series launches on the 27th September and new episodes will be airing every Tuesday.

The series can be seen at www.shutterbugs.tv and is entirely web-based, so you can tune in from anywhere in the world. So be sure to mark your calendar with a big fat X on the 27th September.

Here is a little promo video:

Enjoy and have fun!

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In March 2010, as part of the Mardi Gras festival in Sydney, Australia, more than 5000 people stripped down for the official shot by the American photographer Spencer Tunick.

Tunick said the aim was to create a human base for the Sydney Opera House, but an article in the Sydney Morning Herald today discusses whether Tunick was successful or not, with suggestions it looks more like a pizza base, or a carpet of crushed prawns or shrimps.

People lining up for the Spencer Tunick shot at Sydney Opera House

Successful or not what’s somewhat more surprising to me is the number of people who find the Sydney Opera House shot more gimmick than art. As of the time and date of this post 44% out 7,207 people voted the shot more gimmick than art according to an online interactive poll published in the Sydney Morning Herald today.

I must admit I’m among the 44%. What about you?

What do you think of Spencer Tunick’s photography?

If you missed the Opera House shot here is a brief video from the morning of the shoot:

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Once in a while you stumble upon stories that seem almost too good to be true. This is one such story. And at the center of it all is the grand master of landscape photography himself, the legendary American photographer Ansel Adams.

It all started in a small garage in Fresno, Southern California in year 2000. Rick Norsigian was attending a garage sale looking for antiques when he noticed two old boxes in the garage. He opened them and pulled out some old glass negatives with black and white landscape photographs.

“As a young man, I worked at Yosemite quite a bit. So, right away I recognized it as Yosemite” Norsigian said.

He decided to buy the glass negatives and started negotiating with the seller, finally negotiating the price down from US$70 to US$45 for the two boxes. The owner told Norsigian he had bought them in the 1940s at a warehouse salvage in Los Angeles.

In Glacier National Park, Montana. Photo by Ansel Adams.

Rick Norsigian kept the two old boxes under his pool table for two years before he realized the photos may be Ansel Adams photographs. This is when he started doing some more research. After four years he had done enough research to realize the plates could be valuable, so he decided to move them from under his pool table and placed them in a bank vault.

This proved to be a very wise decision.

Now the glass negatives have been authenticated and are valued at $US200 million, Norsigian has told a press conference.

Several experts, including a former FBI agent and a U.S. attorney, “came to the conclusion that, based on the evidence which was overwhelming, that no reasonable person would have any doubt that these, in fact, were the long-lost images of Ansel Adams,” Arnold Peter said, the lawyer who led the effort to authenticate that the negatives were made by the man known as the father of American photography.

Michael Nattenberg and Marcel Matley, two independent handwriting experts have stated that handwriting on the envelopes in which the negatives were found belonged to Adams’s wife, Virginia.

George Wright, a meteorological expert, has concluded that one of the pictures found in the Norsigian negatives was taken on the same day and time as one of Adams’s more famous images.

Evening, McDonald Lake, Glacier National Park. Photo by Ansel Adams.

Ansel Adams died in 1984, and was believed to have lost many of his negatives in a 1937 darkroom fire. It is estimate that the blaze destroyed as many as 5,000 negatives, and many of the negatives had never been developed into photographs.

Ansel Adams was one of the foremost nature photographers of his era, known for his images of the American west, especially Yosemite National Park.

Norsigian, who is 64, still works for the Fresno school system, but may retire this year putting a family high on the list of priorities after the valuation of his garage sale buy.

He’s not spoken with the man who sold him the two boxes a decade ago.

“If he’s still around, I’m afraid he may come looking for me” Norsigian said in an interview with CNN.

Books by Ansel Adams

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On the 7 July 2010 I wrote a post titled Attacks on Freedom of Expression which included a video detailing how photographers Carlos Miller and Stretch Ledford were banned for life from the Miami-Dade Metrorail in the U.S.

Now the British Home Secretary, Theresa May, has said that the British government is making street photography rights a priority in its review of anti-terrorism legislation.

This comes after several British photographer groups and advocates – including the I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! campaign – have been lobbying for photographers’ rights since broad and far-reaching anti-terrorism laws have been introduced in many countries post 9/11.

In a recent statement, May said:

“National security is the first duty of government but we are also committed to reversing the substantial erosion of civil liberties. I want a counter-terrorism regime that is proportionate, focused and transparent.”

The review will look at what counter-terrorism powers and measures could be rolled back “in order to restore the balance of civil liberties and counter-terrorism powers.”

Photo by lewishamdreamer

The review will focus on six areas – one of them being “stop and search powers in section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and the use of terrorism legislation in relation to photography,” said the British Home Secretary.

Section 44 was suspended last week. This is the controversial and broad provision that allowed authorities to stop and search anyone, and to seize property that could be used in connection with terrorism.

The I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! organization commented on their website:

“We are delighted at this news of the suspension of Section 44. We are sure photographers across the UK are looking forward to freely photographing in a public place without the being bullied by the police and corporate security guards.”

but continues:

“Unfortunately there are still a swathe of laws that police can and will still use to harass photographers, most notably Section 43, which is similar to Section 44 but requires an officer to suspect that you are a terrorist and Section 76 which makes it illegal to ‘elicit information about a police officer’ which includes photographing them.”

Here in Sydney, Australia world-renowned landscape photographer Ken Duncan is spearheading a Sydney rally to raise awareness about the eroding rights of photographers in Australia.

The details of the Sydney rally are:

Date: 29 August 2010

Time: 10:00am – 12:00 noon

Location: Near Campbells Cove on Sydney Harbour

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Yesterday Makoto Kimura, President of Nikon Corporation, announced that entries for the Nikon Photo Contest International 2010-2011 will be accepted between 1 September to 30 November 2010.

You can submit up to two images to either of the two categories – one with the theme ‘Energy’ and the other an open category.

There is a Nikon D3S digital SLR with two lenses up for grabs for the grand prize winner and with each of the two category winners receiving a Nikon D300S with flashgun and lenses. However there is a total of 53 prizes to be awarded in the contest.

So be sure to mark your calendars to remind yourself about this photo competition and get your entries in from 1 September 2010.

Entries will be judged by an impartial panel of well-known photographers currently active on the world stage.

Winners will be announced by the end of June 2011 on the Nikon Photo Contest International 2010-2011 website.

You can find out more about the contest here.

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Over the week-end the folks at The Impossible Project announced they had encountered yet another challenge to overcome.

The so-called “problem” was somewhat dramatically referred to as the “the attack of the killer crystals.”

In a long and detailed newsletter to its customers the founder of The Impossible Project, Dr. Florian Kaps, addresses the problem of crystallization in the PX 600 Silver Shade film, and to his credit he discusses the latest unfortunate development in quite an open manner.

Alarmed by reports from the community and customers regarding the stability issues, Kaps went on to review his personal collection of Silver Shade pictures and found that one of his favourite images had been affected by the crystallization issue. Obviously this finding stroke a chord with Kaps.

It’s good to see that at least this latest stability issue has not been ‘marketed’ as another beautiful characteristic of the film, asking customers to embrace the unpredictability of the killer crystals as an artistic trait that adorns your pictures.

Instead it has been acknowledged as a “problem we have to face, analyze and fight.”

Anything else would also have been commercial suicide if you ask me.

At 20 Euros for 8 pictures the PX 600 Silver Shade film is expensive and while being promoted as “experimental material that will produce changing results depending on light conditions and temperature” I have always been of the view that there is a natural limit to how experimental and how changing results photographers want to accept at such a price level.

Photo by Andy Wilson

I’m very passionate about photography in general including all kinds of instant film, but I must say I personally reached my pain threshold with The Impossible Pricing and The Impossible Cost of Shipping as I also wrote about in this post.

At 2.5 Euros per picture (plus the high cost of shipping) I’m not prepared to lose too many frames due to stability or sensitivity issues in the development of the film.

Nor am I prepared to accept an attack by killer crystals after I might have been lucky with a stable development of the film – provided I:

• shot in just the right temperature range (17-24°C / 63-75°F); and
• made sure to shield my picture from light immediately; and
• developed the picture upside down for 60 – 90 seconds; and
• let my image dry properly before storing them in a cool place protected from light

If – in an effort to try and avoid the crystallization – I then also have to:

• cut another central vent in the middle of the upper lamination on the backside of the developed picture to help to fight the humidity; or
• peel the image apart by turning my image over to the back, using scissors or a knife to stick the blade under the upper white sealed foil and then opening it along the edge and repeat the action along the sides so that I can remove the positive from the negative while making sure that I peel gently but not too slowly; and
• put silica gel into my storage box to ensure a controlled humidity below 40%.

By then I think my acceptance threshold has been way exceeded.

A very different story, though, if the film wasn’t so incredibly expensive. Then I could understand and better relate to the arguments that The Impossible Project is “an experiment you can be a part of” and “you have the chance to be at the forefront of the development of a brand new instant film.”

But when I’m hit hard with marketing hype that – at least to me – is trying to sell me a product at 20 Euros for 8 pictures which has multiple stability issues and which – in my opinion – is not ready for commercial mass distribution then I back off.

Mounting Frustrations

If you look outside the hard core group of Impossible fans more and more people are getting increasingly frustrated about the product and its stability issues. It seems to me that most people just want a better, more stable product and less marketing hype.

There’s a definite consensus that photographers are feeling users are paying a large premium for testing an unfinished product.

Photo by Andy Wilson

Fact is: most photographers don’t want to “experiment”. Most photographers want reliable and predictable results. Most photographers want a film they can use whether it’s 10°C, 20°C or 30°C.

And fact is: most photographers – myself included – admire the challenge The Impossible Project has taken on and most photographers want them to succeed.

So the question beckons: Is The Impossible Project shrouding a mediocre product in clever marketing? Did they rush an unfinished product onto the market prematurely?

If you ask me the answer to both of the above questions is “yes.”

It’s almost as if the used car salesman put on an Armani suit and tied his tie in a loose trendy style, got rid of the balloons and tacky flags, then had the car with a transmission problem painted and polished, changed the sales sign to feature a cool new font and then increased the price by 50%! All in an effort to sell the car here and now instead of getting a mechanic to take a second look at that transmission problem.

It’s understandable though; the eagerness, the excitement, the pressure and the anticipation. It’s easy to see how it happens. Is it excusable though? Not really.

At the very least a strategy should have been devised whereby the so-called “First Flush” was sold at a much more reasonable price –  an “Experiment Price” – which might have avoided many disappointed customers.

The Twist

And just as the tone changed slightly to one of a more straight forward acknowledgement of a serious problem it seems like TIP just can’t help themselves.

They have deployed yet another clever marketing push: The Pioneer Card.

TIP writes this about the new Pioneer Card:

“If you are one of our essential supporters who purchased our films from the very start, curious enough to dive into the First Flush, strong enough to continue the adventure after the LLP, brave enough to support us also in our fight against the Killer Crystal, you will be rewarded with your personal Pioneer Card. This will qualify you for a lifetime discount on all Impossible products that we will develop in the following decades.”

Read between the lines and it’s pretty obvious what TIP is really trying to say.

Oh, and by the way, the Pioneer Card isn’t quite launched just yet, but “more details will be available within the very next weeks.”

Come on guys! People just want a product that works and less of all the marketing hype. It’s simple.

There is Always Hope

Let’s just hope, though, that TIP will jump over this latest hurdle, hear the cries to turn down the volume of the marketing hype button and manages to create an instant film that is stable, can be used in various temperatures, is reasonably affordable and commercially successful to the mutual benefit of TIP investors and instant film consumers.

Less hype, better instant film…

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Yesterday The Impossible Project held its long-awaited press event in New York which was delayed with one month due to “some unexpected problems with production”.

After 17 months of research and development, The Impossible Project has announced that it succeeded in its task of re-producing a new analog Instant Film for traditional Polaroid cameras. Two new monochrome Instant Films – the PX 100 and PX 600 Silver Shade – were introduced as the first products scheduled to go on sale Thursday the 25 March 2010. The new films will start shipping to customers at the end of March 2010.

The PX 100 are manufactured for use with Polaroid SX-70 cameras and produce a sepia tone, and the PX 600 Silver Shade is designed for use with Polaroid 600 cameras, which produces a truer black and white image. The films will be available for sale online as well as at select retailers in the United States, Europe and Asia, and at The Impossible Project store in Berlin.

The new films introduced by The Impossible Project are built from the bottom up, containing more than 30 new developed components. The film begins its development with a bright blue color – an indication that the film was constructed completely differently from the old Polaroid instant films.

One of the interesting features of the new PX instant film is that it can be manipulated, and it’s also reported that artists can use the new film to create transfers.

Executive Director for Marketing & Business Development, Florian Kaps, noted that the group plans to produce films in different “flavors,” and that rather than an expiration date, the new films will carry a date of production, like wine, because the film changes characteristics as it ages.

What About Colour Instant Film?

Certainly this new PX instant film looks interesting and complex (if perhaps rushed to market a bit too early), but for many of us the real attraction about the old Polaroid instant film is colour.

So what about colour instant film?

Well the good news is that it’s coming, the bad new is that we’ll have to wait a little while longer.

The Impossible Project plans to introduce their first color film packs already this summer (that’s this northern hemisphere summer) and have a goal of producing 1 million instant film packs by the end of the year. Florian Kaps projects they would grow the total production to 3 million next year, and between 10-15 million packs per year in the near future.

As an interesting side note The Impossible Project also has plans (although secondary in nature to the integral film) for a comeback of Peel-Apart film. The Impossible Project purchased the last 8×10 production machine available from Polaroid in 2009 and carefully re-located this unique equipment from Waltham near Boston to the factory in Enschede in the Netherlands.

Impossible Prices and Impossible Shipping Costs

I’m afraid it’s not all good news from The Impossible Project though. The price for the two new PX films remains sky high.

PX 100 and PX 600 will sell for USD 21 each.

One film pack contains 8 photos which works out to be USD 2.63 per shot which is a lot more than I had expected (and no doubt more than what most of us had hoped for). Personally I would have expected a retail price point around the USD 12-14 mark.

But what’s even more disconcerting is the absolutely exhorbitant shipping costs (at least to the ‘rest of the world’) on top of that already hefty film price. The Impossible Project ships their film as follows:

• EU countries: EUR 15 / GBP 14
• non-EU European countries: 20 EUR
• USA: 11 USD (shipped from MA, USA)
• USA: 25 USD (shipped from Europe)
• Japan: 3000 JPY
• Rest of the World: 50 USD

Yes, that’s right, a whopping USD 50 in shipping costs for those of us living Down Under, in Asia or in ’the rest of the world’.

Yikes!

You definitely want to make sure you order more than a couple of packs of film at those shipping prices! But hang on, then again at USD 21 per film pack I guess there is a limit to how many packs you want to order. Hmmmm…(scratching my head here)

If you ask me, the pricing strategy of The Impossible Project got lost somewhere in amongst what has been some excellent marketing efforts. Not so good as the price is essential to the ultimate success of the project. Sure, clever marketing can command a premium, but still, I worry…

Of course I have no insight into the actual production costs (I’m sure they’re not exactly low), but obviously The Impossible Project is the single player in this market, competing only with the remnants of expired film sitting in a few people’s fridges around the world.

They created this market and introduced themselves as the saviours of instant film and millions of Polaroid cameras in danger of becoming obsolete. Don’t get me wrong here. I think it’s both honorable and brave what the team behind The Impossible Project has done. I just really hope they don’t price themselves right out of the very market they have just created. That would be a real shame. After all the cost of a digital picture is zero in comparison to film.

Film costs aside I’m at a complete loss to understand the reasoning behind the way The Impossible Project has decided to distribute their films.

I have bought numerous packs of instant film in the past which have all been shipped via regular air mail or another reasonably priced shipping service without problems. I put them in the fridge as soon as I receive them and the films develop fine without incident.

How sensitive is this new film one might ask?

The Impossible Project explains their high shipping costs on their website as follows:

Due to the very special setup of making a very limited quantity of selected Polaroid products accessible worldwide, many of them very sensitive to storage conditions, Impossible runs a high security warehouse with climate control facilities in Hungary in the heart of Europe. We did our very best to keep your shipping costs within a reasonable range, but decided to only offer traceable premium express services as all our products are highly fragile and should reach you the best and fastest way possible. Thank you for your understanding.

Anyway, we can hope this is just the initial pricing strategy for the launch and what is another clever marketing ploy, the “First Flush”, with its terminology borrowed from the world of high quality tea. Hopefully if and when the production of Impossible film hits 10-15 million units per year, prices will also come down to a more acceptable level.

Right now, I’m afraid, it still very much feels like a luxury to make pictures with the beautiful SX-70 at a cost of USD 2.63 per picture plus shipping costs (and shipping costs alone for the ‘rest of the world’ could work out to as much as $6.25 per picture if you buy just one pack, USD 3.13 if you buy two packs and 2.08 if you buy three packs). It just doesn’t feel like a pricing strategy that will sell millions of film packs, but let’s see…

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If you, like me, own one of the lovely Polaroid SX-70 camera’s (or any Polaroid camera that uses instant film for that matter) you’re very likely to have heard about The Impossible Project.

Well, the incredible The Impossible Folks were due to have presented the status of their work on the 22nd of February 2010 in New York – where Edwin Land presented the very first Analog Instant Picture publicly at the Annual Meeting of the Optical Society of America 63 years and 1 day ago, on 21st of February 1947.

Unfortunately, there’s has been a delay.

The impossible is not easy, and the good folks behind The Impossible Project have encountered some unexpected problems with production and have postponed their eagerly awaited press conference by one month.

Here is a snippet on the delay from The Impossible Project website:

It is not for nothing that Alexander was called the Great, Ivan the Terrible and our Project the Impossible. Bringing back Instant Film and saving analog Instant Photography from extinction is not a breeze – it is rather like constantly scraping past an adventurous abyss and breaking down barriers.

The latter has currently to be done at our factory in Enschede, where an unexpected surprise of impossibility within production occured on the weekend of February 6th. This undesireable fact is now forcing us to reschedule our timetable – the NYC press event on 22nd February has to be postponed. The Project leader’s Florian Kaps and André Bosman give themselves one more month to cope with the Impossible. On March 22nd 2010 they will disclose whether or not their Impossible Project will be possible.

Stay tuned.

Please join me in sending some positive thoughts to Enschede and let’s keep our fingers crossed that we’ll hear some good news on the 22 March 2010.

You can do it Florian and André! Tear those barriers down. Good luck.

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Printing your images on paper is one of the greatest satisfactions there is, although I have to say I need to print more myself. I have been using Epson papers for a long time, but lately I have also experimented with Hahnemuehle’s  Matt FineArt and Bamboo papers as well as Museo Artist cards from Crane & Co.

It appears that Epson has just expanded their offering of what they call Signature Worthy™ papers which is directed at professional photographers and fine artists. You can read the full press release below.

Epson’s Press Release

LONG BEACH, Calif., Jan. 12, 2010 – Epson America is now shipping an expanded offering of Signature Worthy™ papers to professional photographers and fine artists. This expanded collection includes new Epson Hot Press and Cold Press Papers and Epson Exhibition Fiber Paper, all of which are optimized for use with award-winning Epson Stylus Pro printers.

Offering advanced capabilities, these media types are poised to redefine fine art markets in unique ways. Epson Signature Worthy papers enable photographers to achieve images with richer blacks, wider color gamuts and smoother tonal transitions that define the ultimate expression in print making.

“Epson fine art papers were inspired by the hand craftsmanship of artisans who developed the first watercolor papers and were vigorously tested to ensure prints have the highest print quality with consistency from roll to roll and sheet to sheet,” said Jeff Smith, product manager, professional imaging, Epson America. “In combination with Epson professional printers, these Signature Worthy papers give professional photographers and artists exciting new substrates that enable them to realize their creative vision.”

Optimized for use with Epson Stylus Pro Printers and inks, including new Epson UltraChrome® HDR ink technology (found in the Epson Stylus® Pro 7900 and 9900), the new Signature Worthy Hot Press and Cold Press Papers yield richer blacks, smoother tonal transitions and an expanded color gamut to produce the most advanced fine art prints. The Hot Press papers offer a smooth surface and Cold Press papers feature a textured surface. In addition, Hot Press and Cold Press Bright offer a bright white point, while the Hot Press and Cold Press Natural offer a warm white point.

Epson Exhibition Fiber Paper and Signature Worthy Hot Press and Cold Press fine art cut sheet papers are now available through authorized Epson Professional Imaging resellers. For more information on Epson’s complete line of professional media, visit: www.proimaging.epson.com.

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Today I woke up to amazing, eerie light like I have never experienced it before. A jolt when through my entire body as I opened eyes and noticed the most spectacular red and orange glow through the gaps of the blinds.

I jumped out of bed (and I normally don’t jump out of bed) to look out the window. I was in awe. The sky was covered with what I thought was clouds at first and it was completely red and orange. There was an eerie red orange glow everywhere. However, as the headline hints at, of course I later learned this phenomenon was a dust storm. Gale force winds had carried red sand from inland Australia to all over Sydney. Tons of it. My car was covered in red dust.

As I stumbled out of bed (because truth be said stumbled is probably more accurate than jumped) I grabbed my trusty little Canon G9 (now replaced by the brand new Canon G11 which is available at: B&H Photo, Adorama or Amazon.com) and started snapping some quick ’memory’ shots simply to record the light onto a sensor, so I could at least show someone else what I had seen (just as thousands of other Sydneysiders did this morning).

Dust storm as seen out of our kitchen window

This was the first picture I took out of our kitchen window. I don’t know if you can see it in this small image, but I noticed the neighbour a couple of houses over had their TV switched on (you can perhaps just about make out a slightly blue light in the window in the house across). This is when I first thought that perhaps this was more than just a spectacular sunrise, but at this stage I was still in awe and was only just concerned with getting some ‘memory’ shots.

Dust storm looking directly south

This picture was taken from our balcony looking directly south whereas the first picture out the kitchen window is facing directly north. Perhaps this gives you a little bit of the eerie feeling that I had of being completely and utterly enveloped in this red orange light. It was just everywhere.

I noticed several other houses with the typical flickering TV light in the windows and I slowly started thinking “something is up.”

When the light continued to last (I only expected the light to last for about 5-6 minutes as with most brilliant light during sunrises or sunsets) I decided to put on a pair of shorts and get out onto the street.

Local street scene in Manly Value during the dust storm

I took the above photo on one of our local streets here in Manly Vale. The fact that the street is deserted emphasizes the eerie feeling a little bit. The thumbnail picture at the very top of this post (click on it to enlarge it) was taken just a few minutes after the one above.

Power lines and street lamp in the dust storm

At this point I was still concerned about when the light would fade, so I was pointing my camera at virtually anything that included the sky. Here it is a detail image of some power lines and a street lamp.

Trees in the dust storm

Next subject was a couple of trees where the beautiful details in the crowns caught my attention.

Treescape and dust storm

This image is perhaps my personal favourite of the images from this morning as without the light obscuring most of detail in the background this image would not be possible. In fact these trees are backing up to a fairly large industrial complex.

Tree detail in the dust storm

Here is another tree from the same location as the one above. Notice the relatively low contrast in the scene as is often also seen in images with mist or fog.

Dancing in the dust storm

This was the final image I made before I headed back home to get some breakfast and prepare for the workday.

There is a period of 27 minutes between the first image out of the kitchen window (taken around 6:48am) and the final image above (taken around 7:15am). The strong red orange light lasted for another good 10-15 minutes and then slowly started changing to a more light pink. Just amazing! It was only in the early afternoon that the sun finally burned through the layer of dust in the sky and the day turned somewhat more normal again.

An absolutely spectacular morning in Sydney today!

For more information about shooting in windy conditions read my 17 Tips For Photographing in Extreme Weather Conditions article.

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