the birds from the Wilderness...

Here's two birds i made pictures of while we were camping in the Wilderness over Christmas.
("made pictures of" is a term used by John Blakemore, who has taught me much on B&W photography)

The first is Pete - he's a dear Peacock who is always looking for a mate, and ready to display his colours to anything and anybody that could ever possibly be his friend.

The second is of a nectar eating bird (anybody know what it's named?) who i made a picture of while sitting under the awning of our campsite!

go to www.photo.net/photos/ralton to see their ratings and commentary...

a few more B&W photos

Here are two recent B&W photos.

The first is titled "walking down the garden path" and is a self portrait with a medium/slow shutter.

The second is a photo of Mike and Hayley, taken for an art project that Hayley is going to do for school.

crazy creatures in the garden this morning

This morning i took my camera and 100mm lens for a walk around the garden.
It was so fresh and clean and alive after all the spring rain!

First pic is a crazy looking bug. Second is crazy teenager monkey...

rocks and water

Here's another B&W landscape picture - this was taken at Silverstreams in the Drakensberg, about 500m up the stream there's a wonderful waterfall with a rock pool...

B&W Landscape

I am wanting to study B&W Landscape again, so i've hauled out my copy of John Blakemore's book "A black and white photography workshop", dusted it off and started studying it (for the 2nd time). He describes the relationship between subject, light and tonal zones so beautifully.

Anyway, here's the first of what i hope are many B&W Landscape images...

Ndumo

We went to Ndumo for a few days. Here's a few snaps from that trip...

Firstly, our home from home, followed by a scene from the estuary, the Sycamore Fig forests, and the Giraffe that came walking right next to our unfenced camp...

 

 

a misty morning...

this was taken up in the Drakensburg early one (cold) morning...
there are so many awesome places in our country to get away to, to meditate and unwind.

sadly...

Here's 2 photos to make you all nice and sad on a Sunday evening.
(don't worry, they're all wonderfully happy people)!

First up is titled: L O V E L E S S
It's a self portrait of Renee and I creating a photograph for a specific project...

Next is titled: DON'T LEAVE ME HERE       
I was taking photos of an old train while my daughter explored the old locomotive. At one point i turned around and saw this picture...

full moon rising

I couldn't resist pulling over on the way home the other night to take this.
I wish the moon had been a little to the left so that i could have included the Moses Mabhida Stadium. The city of Durban at night is a wonderful sight anyway.

Another backyard bug

I was thinking about my macro photographs and how 99% of them are taken in my back yard!
This is an ant that i found to be rather interesting, it has such a warrior-like appearance.
Click this link to see some of the other bugs found in our back yard :-)    ( Macro photos )

Paradise Valley

We took a walk through Paradise Valley last weekend. Lovely place! And contrasting too - there's a huge concrete bridge structure running through this tropical garden.

This photo was taken at the waterfall, about a 1km easy walk. Tranquil. We tried to find the geocache that's hidden here, but the rock/cliff interfered with the GPS...

Take the time to visit the reserve. There are picnic spots too.

Charge!

This photo was taken at Thembe. Renee and I were sitting quietly watching this guy scratching himself against the tree, when suddenly he didn't like us watching anymore...
I took 2 quick shots, started the car and drove off rather quickly.
Considering we'd been charged by an angry black rhino a few hours before, it was time to go back to camp and have a glass or two of wine!

DPChallenge winner

I have just won an online contest with my image "sunrise".
I achieved this by twisting the lens while the shutter was open.
the link to the contest is: http://www.dpchallenge.com/challenge_results.php?CHALLENGE_ID=1597

John Blakemore...

This image was completely inspired by John Blakemore. The project was to use the zone system (as decribed by him in his book "a black and white photography workshop"),  to produce a low-key image that also had highlights, with no pure black areas (only dark grey).

A few B&W pics

After the rain...

Here's a photo i took this morning after last night's rain. I'm not sure about this one. It has diagonal line attributes and nice intense colours. Thoughts?

One of my favourite shoots