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Photographic look at Tambourine Mountain

This post was originally made on facebook and you can find it here along with all the images:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/photos-by-jaana-liisa-brown/photographic-look-at-tambourine-mountain/517229051735053

Well hello there, if you have not yet gathered by the onslaught of photo posts over the last few hours let me tell you what we got up to this weekend. Family time rates highly on our radar as parents and so we have found that taking the kids camping is an excellent way to bond, relatively technology free, for a couple days. There is no phone service or internet so I just turn my handset off as we drive up the hill and that me done till we leave. It is bliss really.

We frequent Thunderbird Park on Mount Tambourine, its beautiful. Here are a few snaps of Cedar Creek, which runs straight through the camp grounds. Its fabulous, freezing and aesthetically pleasing. The kids love it and so do I, its almost a mini oasis up here in the mountains:

As you can see, I have been experimenting with shutter speed and low ISO, basically trying to capture that silky waterfall look.

I will likely look back on these photos and think how amateur they are, but for now, whilst I can see the faults and know what I need to do to change it next time I am pretty happy with them.

We arrived late Friday afternoon and it was dark by the time we got set up, but well worth it. Here are some snaps from the next two days:

The above photo was taken on a bush walk we did as a family, it weaved its way following a horse trail eventually leading onto the one road into Tambourine National Forest for which we walked. The colours were so vibrant, so many shades of green. I find it to be such a calming experience spending time in native bush land like this.

Anyway, the pictures don’t do it justice but it really is worth a look. Speaking of looking, one of the things I wanted to do while I was there was have a crack at photographing the stars. I had my tripod with me, but I didn't have a shutter release remote (just a steady hand) and so they were never going to be perfect - but it didn't stop me from trying. Here are some of the results from my evening of night photography:

I wanted to attempt light painting, I didn't bother to google how to do that before I left home and without internet, well I had to have a stab in the dark (no pun) and turns out I did ok, but I need a mag light. These trees are painted with a little not terribly strong LED light, and as you can see the ones I painted are exposed and you can see some detail as apposed to the parts of them I didn't paint. I have since googled how to do it properly.

This is a photograph from the campsite looking back at the car-park/foyer area. Close by the white gum you see in the right lower corner is their wedding venue which was packed that night. With the parking lot lights, the foyer/restaurant and the wedding all pumping along, it almost looked like daytime. This image isn't perfect, the stars have trails and its over exposed, but I like the silhouette cast by the trees against the bright background and I love the smoke drifting up from all the camp fires going around me. Its my favourite.

Below is probably the best image of the stars I managed, but it still shows the trails from the rotation of the earth. I was exposing for 30 seconds and I think that is too long. 20 seconds would probably have been better.

But overall it was a really productive trip photography wise, with my lens filters and reflector turning up right before we were due to leave.

After actually getting the photos home and getting a look at them, I am acutely aware that I will be planning a trip to a location with little light pollution in the very near future.

Anywho on that note, this post is dragging on but I thought I should put all the photos together with some information around it so you know where and when the photos were taken!

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