Rob's Mostly Digital Image blog

purple mug_0418a

2008-09-05T11:45:00.001+10:00

purple mug_0418a
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Not sure why, but purple mug_0418a is getting some hits on Flickr. It's a purple plastic mug, folks, with a spoon. I took it with the Nikon and flash, then contrasted it up a bit. Not that great a shot but it's out there doing good work. Like temporarily holding coffee...

The beauty within glass

2008-09-03T16:23:00.001+10:00

glass_s2740c
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

I've always liked photographing glass, especially with a flash on my camera. (The imperfections - bubbles of trapped air and stuff - really show up, and unexpectedly so. Try it on a mirror.)

And now I have Photoshop and the GIMP, life - and glass - is even better.

3 Sisters in the arvo

2008-07-21T17:15:00.001+10:00

Echo Point_0728
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

OTOH this famous tourist attraction looks like this in the afternoon light... have to be careful with the shadows that inevitably fall... but I do like the glow of the sandstone....

3 Sisters, Katoomba

2008-07-21T17:11:00.001+10:00

3 Sisters view_0780
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

A shot that has been taken by a million people before me, but in any case my 9-year old daughter Emma took this one ;-)

Steam, lots of steam

2008-07-21T17:09:00.001+10:00

Steam_0027
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

It helps to have a coal mine next door... not so good for global warming but in small doses, why not?

Steam at the Zig Zag

2008-07-21T17:07:00.001+10:00

Steam_0026a
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

The Zig Zag Railway is a section of preserved track that was the main line west over the Blue Mountains until 1910. It zigs and zags up the slope on viaducts, through tunnels and in cuttings, involving the enging 'running around' to alternately go one way then the other. It was replaced by a 'normal' arrangement of consistently descending track that ran through 10 tunnels but posed no such delay. It is now a narrow-guage tourist venture using Queensland locos and rolling stock.

Not a bad place to capture shots of steaming locos... especially in an Aussie winter!

B747SP PAA at Sydney, 1978

2008-07-03T11:46:00.001+10:00

B747SP-PA-N57PA-RR-CT-1978
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Unintended consequences. I was standing at Sydney Airport back in 1978, analog Pentax in hand, loaded with Ektachrome, and took a shot of this Pan Am 747SP. Big deal? Well, maybe...

Because time marches on and things change, even the innocuous can take on new meaning. For example it's an SP, not your regular Jumbo. And Pan Am itself went bust. And in the background I have captured Sydney's skyline, as it was. In fact Sydney's tallest structure, Sydney Tower is caught here under construction. Now I didn't mean to get it into shot - OK, I probably did think about the background to some degree - but it was nice to get that slice of history in there. Otherwise it would be just another boring old 'plane shot.

Lockheed Electra VH-ABH Wangaratta 1997

2008-07-03T09:13:00.002+10:00

Locheed Electra VH-ABH Wangaratta 1997_w006
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Another low-quality scan but a worthy subject: Electra VH-ABH at Air World, Wangaratta, Victoria circa 1997.

Mushrooms in the woodpile

2008-07-03T09:06:00.001+10:00

Mushrooms_0680a
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Behind my woodpile I found this secret grove of mushrooms. They came and went in a week or so, but before they vanished I got up close and took some pics..

SAA 747 1977_210

2008-06-23T11:31:00.001+10:00

SAA 747 1977_210
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Not a perfect composition, I'd have liked to have seen the wheels in the shot, but dramatic nonetheless... as before, a long lens, hand-held.

SAA 747SP ZS-SPF 1977

2008-06-23T11:28:00.001+10:00

SAA 747SP ZS-SPF 1977_034
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Hmmm. A case of get as close as you can, use a long lens (400mm in this case, hand held), as high a shutter speed as you can get and follow the target... Tri-X 35mm Pentax shot, 1977.

3TTT seatpost failure

2008-06-14T14:23:00.001+10:00

3TTT seatpost failure_0432
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

This is my most popular image on Flickr. Why? It's not the greatest photo I've ever taken, but I guess it's exactly as stated - a seatpost that has failed. And in that sense it tells a tale that's both very personal and very painful; and one that other bike riders may imagine happening to them, if they are not careful!

FWIW it's a lightweight "3TTT"-brand seatpost that fitted into the slightly smaller than 'usual' diameter seat tube of my Look KG76 bike frame. You can see that it has had fluting milled out and painted black. It and the Look frame (with Mavic ensemble) were sold new to me in 1990, so the post was about 17 years old when it finally snapped, although it wasn't used for maybe 5 or those years and was never my only bike. It was a surprise, but not a nice one.

The classic Alfa 4 - again

2008-06-06T22:09:00.001+10:00

GTV_a010c
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Have I overdone the Photoshopping? Maybe, maybe not.

It's an engine

2008-06-05T13:08:00.001+10:00

GTV_a009b
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Oh no it's more than that - it's the classic Alfa Romeo 4 cylinder. OK, it's been Photoshopped (some cutout and contrast adjustment, mainly), but it's still recognisably the ageless Alfa 4.

Tiger Moth and pilot Richmond 1976

2008-05-31T14:56:00.001+10:00

Tiger Moth and pilot Richmond 1976_img969b
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Sometimes a bit of shadow, a touch of backlighting and some glare can add to a photo... it's not so straightforward as the expected "fully and evenly exposed" shot.

RAAF F111 Richmond 76_517

2008-05-29T11:36:00.001+10:00

RAAF F111 Richmond 76_517
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

I'm burrowing through some old pics. This is Tri-X, 35mm, probably a 200mm lens with Pentax K2 or KX. I like the effect of these 3 RAAF F-111s dumping oil into their afterburners (I guess that's what they are doing!) - it was a spectacular air show trick at the time, but I don't they'd do this sort of thing nowadays!

NSWGR 3203 Thirlmere 76_532

2008-05-29T09:46:00.001+10:00

NSWGR 3203 Thirlmere 76_532
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Ye old fashioned steam locomotion captured on ye old fashioned Tri-X monochrome film with a 35mm Pentax camera (probably a KX) in 1976. Looks like I used about 200mm of lens here to get that compression effect, and I shot through grass to make it more interesting. So you get the combined effects of framing and the eye being led to the loco by the tracks.

Oil and texta on canvas...

2008-04-26T12:00:00.001+10:00

art006d
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

And then Photoshopped as well. I like it, anyway.

It's the Zig Zag Railway near Lithgow, NSW, Australia, btw. Before the railway cut through the Blue Mountains like power-crazed engineers are wont to do, they zig-zagged their way up the steep bits instead. A bit slow to traverse in this manner but a lot easier than boring long tunnels and slicing deep cuttings into the rock (which of course they ended up doing later anyway).

abstract s1002a

2008-04-14T14:00:00.001+10:00

abstract s1002a
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Another version, just to show a little of how it was done (with those layers and blurring, and a cut-out mask, then recoloured, then blurred, and repeat...

My abstract phase

2008-04-14T13:58:00.001+10:00

abstract s1002
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

'm clearly going through an abstract phase. This was built up layer upon layer, each layer recoloured and blurred, then another sharper layer added. And then blurred, ad nauseum...

Butterfly visitor

2008-04-14T13:36:00.001+10:00

Butterfly visitor_0475a
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Hard one to catch as they don't stay still when you say "cheese". Cropped but untouched otherwise.

Can't get close enough, really

2008-04-14T13:22:00.001+10:00

chicks_0489
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Composition is a personal thing, within reason. You can compose in a fairly safe way or go crazy with angles or "cut-offs", and like both - or not. Here I have 2 possible main characters, one almost centered, the other way off but looming. Your eye is drawn to one or the other, then back. Later you realise there are other characters at play, out of focus. You also get a sense of depth from the focus on the hat itself.

Well that's my take on it, anyway!

Easter chicken macro shots

2008-04-14T13:18:00.001+10:00

chicks_0490
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Just for the fun of it, some close ups of chicks on an Easter hat my 6 year old daughter made...

From my 'arguably abstract' collection

2008-04-07T17:01:00.001+10:00

abstract s2779h
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

It's nothing, and it's something. Read into it what you will. Photoshopping is the new painting.

It looks like.. but it's bubblewrap

2008-03-29T10:25:00.001+11:00

DAR1063b
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

I wasn't trying to achieve this effect, it just happened. It's cool that it started as just a shot of bubble wrap packaging.