Photo of the day - 20th August

Bordered by a wide stretch of the Murray River, home to majestic River Red Gums and a fantastic variety of birdlife, Kings Billabong Reserve is an ideal place to discover nature and history within minutes of Mildura.

Local Aboriginal people enjoyed the billabong's rich life-supporting wetland food supply. Shell middens (kitchen hearths), burials and scarred trees indicate a lifestyle celebrated on these banks for centuries.

Kings Billabong took its name from Captain James King, who navigated the Murray River and its tributaries in the late 19th century. The Chaffey Brothers, supported by Alfred Deakin who later became Prime Minister, selected Mildura (originally a sheep station) as a suitable location for Australia's first irrigation settlement. The reserve was logged until the 1950s to supply fuel for steam-powered paddleboats and pumps. There was also cattle grazing, cultivation and dried fruit rack sites in the reserve until 1989.

Photo of the day - 19th August

I just came to read the following piece of news:

Largest Wind farm to be built in the southern hemisphere

The largest wind farm in the southern hemisphere is to be built in Victoria's southwest. The 140-turbine, $1 billion Macarthur wind farm, which will produce enough energy to power more than 220,000 homes, is slated for completion by early 2013.
...

Wow, 140-turbine wind farm. This is definitely something unheard of in Australia, something I thought would never be accomplished in Australia given the lack of political will to invest substantially into renewable energy.

I thought the Greens will be shouting against this scheme, participating in rallies, holding placards with the mobs against building the wind farms to protect some native plants specimens or some migratory parrots.

Before everybody started accusing me of being a supporter for the climate change camp, let me put this straight. I believe that the world is warming. Whether the warming is caused by purely human activities or but some natural factors, the verdict is still out there. The science is still rather inconclusive. But I believe we all have a part to take care of our environment the best we can. We know that burning fossil fuel is definitely not the way forward for generating our ever increasing energy needs. We need to look at something more sustainable, cleaner and cheaper! Wind energy should definitely be part of the solution.

It is surely good to see that Victoria is getting some meaningful investments into renewable energy. I sure hope my home state of WA will do the same one day. The size of the wind farms in Esperance and Albany are just pitiful but nevertheless encouraging. I do hope that Verve Energy that runs the Albany Windfarm and Horizon Power that runs the Esperance Wind Farms will put up more wind turbines than their 12 and 15 respectively.

Note:The photo above is in fact taken at the Albany Wind farm last year.

Photo of the day - 16th August

Crossing over the border from Victoria to South Australia, I had to stop at the quarantine roadblock for vehicle inspection. Noticing in the distance field across the road, 5 trees stood in a neat row. I soon parked my car at the roadhouse just beside the quarantine station and crossed the road to snap this.

Photo of the day - 11th August

It has been more than a year since my last blog post. I have been too busy with both family life and my newly established photography business.

God has been gracious to us and we are truly blessed with things that are both good and bad. A healthy, stable and happy family, and time to enjoy family life and pursue a bit of my passion, what more can I ask?

Well, I am trying to recommit blogging more, perhaps putting up more photos and sharing a bit of my thoughts and latest happenings.

Here a photo to share. This was taken on two Saturdays ago. Woke up on a foggy morning to drop my sister in law to the airport, I saw beautiful scenes all along the highway to and back from the airport. I grabbed my camera and headed down to the river near my house to capture this awesome photo. The sun was just rising above the distant hills, piercing through the thick layer of cloud and fog. Alas, I was a touch too late to capture the purplish hue in the sky when I finally parked my car and got my cameras out of my bag, but nevertheless, a beautiful sight of the rising sun over the bridge still to behold.

Thank you God your for your lovingkindness as it indeed never cease, for Thy compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.

Fraser Motorcycles' Ducati Launch Party in Perth

Fraser Motorcycles is one of the biggest motorcycle retail chain in Australia. They carry some of the biggest motorcycle brands like BMW, Ducati, Harley-Davidson, Honda, Yamaha and Buell.

Last week, Frasers held a party at the Llama Bar in Subiaco, Perth for the official launch of the Ducati StreetFighter bikes in Perth.

I was hired as the official event photographer by Frasers. Taking along my trusty second shooter friend, Charlene, I also invited another bike-crazy photographer friend, Geoff, to assist me and join us for the shoot.

Here are some of the photos we took at that party:

The excellent Fraser Motorcycles staff


The bike still under the cover
(Photographer: Geoff)


Ian Blackley from the local radio station Mix 94.5 was the MC for the night




(Photographer: Geoff)




(Photographer: Charlene)




..and obviously the media and the press were there too for the event

Here are some of the static display of the a red Ducati and a white one




(Photographer: Geoff)






(Photographer: Charlene)

For all the Perth Ducati bike lovers, you can visit Fraser's Ducati website here.

Love that bokehToo!

Charlene and I have this friendly competition about shooting the the best bokeh picture. She recently wrote something about our friendly competition in her blog post. We were scouting the Caversham house compound for an upcoming wedding shoot when we spotted this beautiful, well lit vine with gorgeous red leaves. You know, I have this thing about autumn leaves. I am crazy about the bright red, yellow, orange and brown colours in the leaves during autumn. I just love the beauty of this particular season. This is also why I create this nickname "autumnleaf" for myself, and named my photography business Autumnleaf Photography.

Each year, I would attempt to snap a few photos of some autumn leaves. Here are some of the ones that I have done over the years:

2009:


2008:


2007:


Charlene has some really beautiful autumnleaf images with great bokeh. Do visit her blog site to see for yourself.

The Cape Le Grand National Park - An Amazing Experience

I recently took a trip down to the Southern Coast of Western Australia for a week after the Easter break with my family and some friends. We basically stayed around two the town of Albany and Esperance.

The highlight of the trip was the half-day trip to the Cape Le Grand National Park. The National Park is located 50 kilometres south east of Esperance. It is named after Le Grand, an officer of the L'Esperance, one of the ships in a French expedition commanded by Admiral D'Entrecasteaux in 1792.

This national park is pristine and is known for its stunning scenery and idyllic white sandy beaches.

Due to time constraint, we were restricted in the number of areas in the park we could visit. We arrived first at Lucky Bay, then proceeded to Thistle Cove after spending a couple of hours beach walking (and photo taking - on my part) and letting the children in our mist play on the white sandy beach. We had a quick look around the Le Grand Bay before heading back to Esperance.

Though the time we spent in the park was relative short, it definitely left a great impression on me. We witnessed the beautiful vast landscape, the tall Frenchmen peak (one can actually track all the way to the top of the peak) and enjoyed the clean, white sandy beach and clear blue waters on the bays. This is one place I would rate as one of my favourite holiday and sightseeing spots in Western Australia.

In the coming days, I hope to share some of the beauties of the park with you. I also hope that you will also be able to witness its beauty personally as my photos will definitely do it no justice.

Some images of the Thistle Cove

A tribute to Ansel Adams and Earth Day

I didn't realise that April 22nd is both the Earth Day and the 25th years to the day of Ansel Adams death until a Flickr user told me this.


I have always admired the works of Ansel Adams. Adams was one of the greatest landscape photographer in the world. His works have influenced many photographers around the world even till today. He inspired me to wanting to draw a similar experience like his; travelling to the beautiful country side to admire and to capture the beautiful landscapes God has so graciously given to us. Fittingly the passion for the beautiful landscapes also remind us that we human must strive to protect our Earth, our only planet, the home to all of us. It is also to my amazement that Earth Day happens to be on the day of the passing of Adams.

My tribute to Adams is a photo I have taken recently at the Cape Le Grand National Park near the town of Esperance in Western Australia. The photo was taken at a place called the "Thistle Cove" in that national park.

Cape Le Grand is a national park in Western Australia, 631km south-east of Perth and 56km east of Esperance. The park covers an area of 318 km² at Coordinates: 33°56′49″S 122°09′20″E / 33.94694°S 122.15556°E / -33.94694; 122.15556

Established in 1966, the park is managed by the Department of Environment and Conservation.

The largely granite shoreline and white sand beaches is a picturesque feature of the area. The park is a used for fishing, off-roading, tourism, and hiking.

Beaches within the Park include those at Lucky Bay, Rossiter Bay, Hellfire Bay, Le Grande Beach and Thistle Cove.

Information: From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Le_Grand_National_Park)

One can still view or even buy Ansel Adams works through a website run by his family. The web address is: http://www.anseladams.com/

Finally, I wish everybody a Happy Earth Day. Let us all do our little part to save our planet.

Beautiful Butterflies at Changi Airport

Singapore Changi Airport has many unqiue features. One of which being having a Butterfly Garden inside the airport. Claimed to be the world first, it is rather special to be able to unwind or kill some time in this garden. Although the garden is rather small (in fact some may not even call it a garden as it has some potted plants and a small man made waterfall), to be able to see the butterflies up close, or even letting some come to rest on your shoulder or fingers are indeed a unique and wonderful experience. The Butterfly garden is located at the Terminal 3.

I had the opportunity to spend some time at the Changi Airport earlier this year while transitting through Singapore. Here are some of the photos that I took.

Some random thoughts on Christmas 2008

Christmas day has just passed. People around the world would have seen this day in different lights. Christmas often means different things to different people. Some people celebrate Christmas purely a holiday season, some people like to spend their time with their love ones while others celebrate this day as a religious day.

Being different from many other Christians, I do not celebrate Christmas as the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible never stated that Christ was born on Christmas day. Far from it, the Bible indicated that it could not have been on Christmas day. Some historians reckon that Christ was probably born sometime between March, April or May. Without going too deeply into discussion this, I would simply like to point out that the Bible emphasised on Christ's death and resurrection, but never His birth.

But while the world celebrated, it also gave me the opportunity to think about what has become of this world and humanity in general. Christ came to bring us hope and salvation. He also came to teach us about love one another and yet what we see today are wars and rumours of wars. What we constantly witness on news and current affairs are often filled with reports of crimes, misdemeanors and misadventures. Human morality and humanity have sunk to all time low. I think we have truly disappointed our Lord Jesus. His teachings were utterly forgotten and abandoned.

Christmas is a good time to reflect what we have done throughout the year. Perhaps part of Christmas is truly to share some precious moments with our love ones, to right some wrongs, to ask for forgiveness and to set new course of direction in our lives.

Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain, as usual, delivered her message to the people of Britain and the Commonwealth during this Christmas.

One part of her message gelled with my thoughts:

The Queen said of the current financial crisis and what is happening around the globe, "in such times as these we can all learn some lessons from the past. We might begin to see things in a new perspective and certainly we being to ask ourselves we it is that we can find lasting happiness. Over the years those who have have seemed to me to be the most happy, contented and fulfilled have always been the people who have lived the most outgoing and unselfish lives. The kind of people who are generous with their talents or their times."

Strangely enough, the President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also delivered an alternate message to rival Queen Elizabeth II's annual address. It is easy to dismiss his message altogether, but interestingly I have found some small truth (yes, some, but not a lot) in his message, the part where he mentioned what Christ would like us to do - to love one another, to take care rather than to oppress the less fortunate.

This year has been an interesting year. As the financial crisis deepens, the world spirals into more conflicts in the middle east, South Asia between India and Pakistan, the ongoing conflict and violence in Afghanistan, I truly hope and pray that we Christian would step up and live a life that is different from the world. We must show God's love to other. We must go forth and be the light and the salt of this world. Let us pray that we will be found worthy of God's use for His work in 2009 and beyond till Jesus returns.

May you have a blessed New Year and a fruitful 2009.