The images in this post are now available for sale on my photocart.

Well I did it.  Last Saturday night I set the alarm for 3am.  I wasn’t sure I would wake up, but figured, if I woke up then I would go, if I fell back asleep then I probably really needed the sleep.  The alarm went off and I was awake, very awake, no way was I going back to sleep.  By 4.30 I was on the road to Lorne, hopefully getting there before the sunrise at 7am.  The road between Melbourne and Geelong is a boring one and I really struggle driving on it at that time of the morning.  It is the second time I have done it now, not sure how many times I would do it.

Well I made it before the sun came up, only just.  I was a bit angry with myself and realised that I needed to have been there about half an hour before hand and captured the light appearing.  Once the sun came up, it almost became impossible to get the images I had come all that way for.  I wanted long slow exposures, well with a bright sun coming up, it wasn’t going to happen.

There were almost no clouds, and I just didn’t get a good sunrise.  I think I knew that was going to happen.  The forecast for that day was to be another hot sunny day, and a beautiful sunrise was not going to happen with that.  The sun was a beautiful red colour when it came up.

I had hoped to get the flat ocean.  I think maybe I need to rethink how to do this.  It isn’t something I have not done much of, but is certainly something I want to do more of.

Another thing I realised, though not until I got home, was that my gear needs some cleaning.  Not exactly sure what bits, but it will all get cleaned.  So many shots were ruined because of spots.

I did use my neutral density filter for all of these shots.  I had the ISO set on 100 to help give me a slower shutter speed.  As the sun got brighter I also put on my polarising filter with the idea that it would stop the glare, and also to help me get a slower shutter as well.

The morning light was a lovely golden colour and I did like the way it was hitting the rocks and the wharf.  There were so many people out fishing.   There were also some other photographers there as well.  We stayed away from one another, though, they were a bit annoying.  They were using a tripod and then just left it on the rocks and went off to take more shots themselves.  It was annoying because it was in the way of what I wanted to take.  I tried to ignore it and just moved on.

This is one of the last shots I took.  I did like the colours, and finding a different way to photograph the rocks so the sun wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

It was an interesting experience going to the Lorne, getting up that early and driving down there.  Was it worth it, not really.  I got some nice shots, but I didn’t get the ones I was hoping to.  Though each time I go, I will learn something new.  Something I learned which was really surprising, was how much my youngest daughter likes to come with me.  She was angry with me when I got home, she was upset that I hadn’t woken her up so she could go with me.  I was really touched about that.  It certainly would have made the trip so much better if I’d had company on the way there.

It was an interesting experience doing this and, as I said earlier, I would like to do more.  I will work it out, eventually, and I will get to go out and take photos of some interesting places in the meantime.

ANZ- Championships – Accreditation

I have been trying to find out about getting accreditation for the ANZ Championships, which is a Netball competition between several teams in Australia and New Zealand.  I thought it would be good to try doing some photos for this blog and to talk about photographing sports.  That was the plan.  I have, so far, sent 4 emails and received no response from any of them.  The least you’d think they could do would be to respond and say, do this or do that, or no you can’t have accreditation.

I tried to get it last year and was told that I left it too late, so I thought I would get in earlier this year.  I thought they wanted to raise their profile, and get some more publicity.  I am not saying that featuring the netball on this blog would do a lot, but it couldn’t hurt.

I am just so disappointed that they don’t email me back.  It is such bad manners.  I get the email telling me that they have received the email and that someone will get back to me.  Hasn’t happened yet.   I suppose there won’t be any netball images this year.