Posts by Bruce:
Miss Raina Hazel (boudoir)
March 25th, 2023I posted earlier about the fine art nude shoot that I had organised with Miss Raina Hazel for the Saturday morning.
Because of the distances between our two places of residence, I organised a 2 bedroom apartment for us to spend the night in. She brought her boyfriend along, and we decided to do a boudoir shoot on the Friday night. For these images, I used a cool (temperature), constant light source, rather than off-camera flash (as I normally would).
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V8 Supercars – Newcastle
March 25th, 2023A couple of weekends back, I went and shot the V8 Supercars in Newcastle. This is a handful of my images.
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Darwin – Christmas 2022
March 19th, 2023Our son has just joined the Australian Army and has been posted to Darwin. Given that it was his first Christmas away from home, we decided we would go up there for the week.
This is a handful of images from our week together.
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Circumnavigating New South Wales
March 19th, 2023In September 2022, my wife Cath and I embarked upon a roadtrip around New South Wales with a couple of friends from Sydney. They had not seen much of the state before, and were glad to have us along (we’ve done a few trips like this before, plus I’d passed through a lot of this part of the country in June on my way home from Western Australia).
Whilst I would normally write a daily post about the images from each day, I’m posting this 6 months after the fact, so I’m just going to add all the images from the trip in one blog post.
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Roadtrip from WA to NSW
March 19th, 2023I’ve neglected this blog horrendously over the last 4 years. In that time, bad actors have infiltrated it and injected lots of malicious content into the middle of all my old blog posts (mostly ads for pills). I’ve cleaned out as much as I can find.
But I’ve also decided to start posting a little more regularly of shoots that I’ve done.
In August 2021, a week after his 76th birthday, my dad passed away. But he lived in Western Australia, and due to Premier Mark McGowan’s extreme policy on managing COVID infection within the state, the border was closed until the following February. And by then, I was not able to travel to WA until June. So, 10 months transpired from the time of his death, before I could go and bury him.
Dad left his car to me; a 1997 Ford Fairlane Ghia, which I decided to keep, and drive back to New South Wales. Most of the images in this collection are from that roadtrip. 6 days on the road by myself, with nothing but my own thoughts. It was a great week. One I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
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Miss Raina Hazel (fine art nude)
March 19th, 2023I had never shot fine art nude before, and was keen to give it a go. I’ve seen the work of a few other photographers (a couple whom I know personally) in this genre, and wanted to see if I could create images comparable to their work.
Miss Raina Hazel is a model I’ve worked with a couple of times before. She lives a couple of hours north of me, and I knew she promoted herself as “body confident”, so I reached out and asked her if she was interested in doing a shoot along these lines. She immediately jumped at the opportunity.
I chose a spot roughly halfway between our two home addresses and found us a beach that was reasonably difficult to get to, which meant there was not likely to be many people around at daybreak, which was when I wanted to shoot (softer light in the hour around sunrise). And it turned out to be just like that… we got to the beach and there were 2 guys fishing at the north end, and a couple of girls who had come down for a walk. That was it. And me, Raina, and her boyfriend (acting as photographer’s assistant) at the south end of the beach. And to their credit, even people who arrived at the beach later on gave us a wide berth.
We started shooting about 30 mins before the sun cracked the horizon, which gave us some nice soft ambient light. And when the sun did eventually show itself, I had Raina’s boyfriend crack out the reflector which allowed me to balance the higher contrast light.
All in all, I’m stoked with how the images came out, and so is Raina. We aim to be doing some more shooting later in 2023.
Click on a thumbnail below, and use your arrow keys to navigate between images!
The Maldives – days 16-19
September 20th, 2019We flew out of Negombo on Sri Lankan Airlines, a new low in airline comfort. Leg room had been reduced for Maximum Hobbit Capacity ™, meaning that even sitting as upright as you possibly could, anyone over 5’10” would have their knees jammed against the seat in front of them for the entirety of the trip. And God help you should the person in front decide to recline their seat.
Once we arrived in Male (the capital of the Maldives), we were ferried by minibus to the seaport terminal. Apparently, this is the busiest seaport in the world, with small twin-engined, overhead-wing planes ferrying tourists in and out of the various islands on a hectic schedule. I would estimate a plane taking off and leaving every 10-15 mins while we were there.
Our island was located about 144km south of Male, and along the way, we stopped at one other island.
Once we landed at our island, Medhufushi Island Resort, we were checked in to our room, and shown the facilities.
We splashed out on an over-the-water bungalow, and I cannot recommend this expenditure highly enough. Sure, it wasn’t cheap, but I’m so glad we did it. During our 3 days here, we saw sea turtles, black-tipped reef sharks, spotted rays and all manner of fish swimming past our doorstep.
Our first afternoon saw a huge storm roll up from the south, which made for an interesting shot of the water villas.
The following morning, I walked outside just after sunrise to see the early morning light shining off the wooden walls of the villa next to ours. As random as this is for subject matter, it’s one of my favourite shots from the whole trip.
As you walked from the water villas back toward the island, you passed a twin swing, set in about 3 foot of water. I took a shot of Cath, then had her come and stand in the same spot and take a photo of me. I then edited the two shots together.
And before we knew it, our 3 days in paradise were over, and it was time to start the long journey home.
Sri Lanka – day 15
September 19th, 2019Today, we checked out of Sigiriya and drove back to Negombo, ready for our flight to the Maldives tomorrow.
As we were driving, we agreed that a massage would be nice right about now.
So, after a quick google search, we booked into a place which promised a 75 minute, full body massage for the princely sum of about A$25.
We arrived to find an absolutely gorgeous 2 storey resort-like building, with a small pond in its central courtyard.
After our massage (which was fantastic, thanks for asking), Cath went off to have a pedicure, while I tried to capture some images of this gorgeous blue-winged kingfisher which was feeding on insects he spotted in the pond.
I also grabbed a quick portrait of one of the girls who worked there.
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Sri Lanka – day 14
September 18th, 2019Our second day in the Sigiriya area. I had planned on climbing nearby Pidurangala, another monolith. But it turned out to be a day of more rain.
Having done Sigiriya Rock yesterday, and knowing how many of the steps were metal, I figured climbing in the wet was probably not the best idea.
So we decided that we’d drive half an hour south to check out the Royal Cave Temple at Dambulla.
This is a complex of 5 or 6 temples built into small caves on the side of a mountain.
Each temple contains one or many statues of the Buddha.
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Sri Lanka – day 13
September 17th, 2019We had made plans to climb the 250 meter tall Sigiriya Rock (or Lion Rock, as it’s also known) today.
Like World’s End a week before, the conventional wisdom says get there early to avoid both the crowds and the heat/humidity.
We were inside the park just after the gates opened at 6:30, and had agreed that we would not push too hard. After all, there are over 1200 stairs to climb.
The views from the staircase are breathtaking, but pale in comparison with the 360 degree panorama that greets you once you make it to the top.
Once we arrived at the summit, I said to Cath that I was going to wander around the whole of the plateau (probably an acre in area, and which meant climbing up AND down another couple of hundred stairs!). I decided at one point that I wanted to change to my wide angle lens. So I found a little protected corner of the brickwork out of the wind, crouched down, and proceeded to swap lenses. Just as I’d attached my 15 mm (manual focus… grrrr!) lens, I heard a girl screaming or crying. I looked up. There, about 15 metres from where I was crouched, was a girl with her hands to her mouth, and a guy kneeling in front of her.
I instinctively leapt up, ran to where they were, and started grabbing some shots. I figured they would probably love to have some memories of that moment. I said g’day, told them I’d catch up with them later, and we could exchange contact details, and then left them to share their moment of happiness.
About 20 mins later, I caught up with Cath, who was talking to the very same couple. They were from England, and were most thankful for my having taken the initiative to grab some shots for them. I look at the 5 shots I took, and I wouldn’t say they were awesome images. But I’m sure they mean a lot to that couple.
After close to an hour at the summit, we decided it was time to start our decent.
Getting to the bottom was a much quicker journey than the climb up.
In the afternoon, Cath wanted to go somewhere for a swim, and we were told that a nearby hotel had a pool, and that guests from OUR hotel were allowed to use it.
Of course, when we got there, we found out that “allowed to use” actually means “allowed to pay to use”. Oh well. So be it.
We paid for Cath to use the pool (I wasn’t keen on a swim anyway), and we grabbed a couple of drinks.
And within half an hour, the heavens had opened up big time.
So we sat undercover and sipped our cocktails.
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Sri Lanka – day 12
September 16th, 2019Having checked the Photographer’s Ephemeris for a decent spot to set up for some sunrise magic, I got up early and headed out. Sadly, distant cloud sitting right on the horizon conspired against me again. I did grab one wide angle shot of the clouds, but… meh.
An hour or two later, after breakfast, we went back for another swim prior to heading south. I felt the beach warranted a shot from out in the water, looking back.
We started our trip south to Sigiriya. Along the way, I decided to stop at a roadside resort/hotel, only to find when we got inside, that a wedding was underway. Picture this… a 50 year old Aussie, in board shorts and thongs no less, getting invited to grab some shots of the wedding guests, and then to shoot the bride and groom! Wedding-crashers’r’us!
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Sri Lanka – day 11
September 15th, 2019We had our breakfast in the rooftop restaurant at our hotel. It was from here that I shot a picture of another Buddha statue; this one across town, on a hillside and illuminated in the morning sun, with dark clouds way off in the background.
Once we’d checked out, we were on the road north to a place called Nilaveli. Dinesh, again with the good oil on where to go and what to see, had promised us it would be worth the trip. The beach, he said, was as close to an Aussie beach as we were likely to find in Sri Lanka. Fair enough. We haven’t seen any great beaches so far, so why not?
Somewhere along the way, there was ANOTHER Buddha statue, high on a hillside. This one painted all in gold.
Then, we stopped at a roadside fruit stand to pick up some fresh pineapple. As the guy was cutting it up, the photographer in me couldn’t help but notice how good the light was in his little wooden lean-to. So, a quick dash back to the car to grab the camera, a couple of shots of him doing his thing, a natural light portrait, and then we were on our way again.
We got to Nilaveli mid-afternoon, and it was quite hot. We found the beach; it lived up to all the promises, and we had a nice hour or so in the gentle waves. I’d shoot it in the morning.
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Sri Lanka – day 10
September 14th, 2019Today, we were sightseeing around Kandy. This included a visit to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, and looking for somewhere to watch the Perahera Festival parade in the evening. Locals were starting to line the streets from mid-morning, even though that meant sitting/standing for up to 10 hours in the rain, waiting for the parade to start!
The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, is, as the name suggests, a temple which holds the remains of one tooth of the Buddha. As legend has it, the body of the Buddha was divided upon his death, and various parts were scattered across the globe, to be held in perpetuity for his adherents. This temple got a tooth. OK then.
We had been warned (again, by Dinesh, who had proven himself to be full of handy information!) about what was a reasonable price and what was an unreasonable price, for seats along the parade route.
We walked, we inspected, we haggled, we walked some more.
Eventually, we found a seafood restaurant which promised us dinner, and good seats on the (under cover) upstairs balcony, all for a reasonable price (about AUD$60). This was mid-afternoon. We paid our money, and headed off back to our hotel where we would change into dry clothes before coming out for the evening. With the rain being on and off all day, we had decided that we wanted seats that would be sheltered should the rain linger during the parade.
As we headed back to our hotel, we wondered whether we’d done the right thing. We’d just handed over a veritable fortune (for the locals), and got no receipt to verify our booking. I guess we’d soon learn.
In the evening, we headed back to our restaurant, and much to our relief, we were treated as paid-in-advance guests. Dinner was so-so, but our seats rovided a good view of the parade. I shot some images from the balcony, but also wandered down to street level for some more close-up views.
The Perahera Festival is held around July/August each year and celebrates the Sacred Tooth Relic. The parade consists of over 2000 dancers and a lot of lavishly-decorated elephants.
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Sri Lanka – day 09
September 13th, 2019Monday 12th August
We were all up early and on the road by 5:30.
Everything we had read about the walk to World’s End said “Be there EARLY”. World’s End is a lookout on the edge of an 800 metre precipice. And apparently, it has a habit of only clearing briefly in the morning, before clouding over again.
We were the first car at the gate at 5:55. At 6:00, the Ranger came, took our money, issued our tickets, and we were off on the 5 km drive to the car park. Naturally, we were the first ones there also (although, that was not a given, as there is a secondary entrance to the park). We grabbed our respective backpacks, and headed down to the security checkpoint where plastic labels on drink bottles were removed. All bags were also checked for other disposable plastics. Once cleared, we were off on the 8km loop!
About 500 metres down the track, you come to a junction where you can make the decision on whether to do the loop clockwise or anti-clockwise. Clockwise is the preferred choice, as it is only 3 km to World’s End that way. Then, when you leave World’s End, it’s a further 3 km to Baker’s Falls, and then 2 km back to the car park.
As well as the aforementioned potential for the view to be clouded over, there is also the issue of overcrowding at the lookout. So we headed straight for World’s End. When we got there, you couldn’t see anything but cloud. Just as we were starting to think “Well, this sucks”, a small gap in the clouds appeared and we could see a mountaintop off in the distance.
And within 30 seconds, it had completely cleared.
And the view was truly one of THE greatest vistas I have ever seen on this planet. I’ve seen photos of other locations, but for “in the flesh”… this tops my list so far. You can look down into the valley below and see houses which look absolutely tiny. And you can look off into the distance and see Ude Walawe Reservoir, which is easily 40 km away to the south!
Within a couple of minutes, the next couple of hikers joined the 4 of us.
And not long after that, more arrived.
Within 5 mins, there was about 20 people there.
1 shot a couple of multi-image panoramas, and a bracketed set (from which to create an HDR image… with any luck, that HDR image will accompany this post).
And within another 3 minutes, the clouds closed in, the heavens opened up, and we decided it was time to make tracks for Baker’s Falls.
For the entirety of that 3 km walk, it rained. Most of the time lightly, some of the time, quite monsoon-like!
And 90% of that leg was out in the open with no canopy from the trees.
By the time we got to the falls, all 4 of us were drenched.
I really wanted to take my time setting up a good composition of the falls. I had plans of doing a long exposure with a 10 stop ND filter. But it was coming down hard, and we all wanted to get back to somewhere dry.
On top of which , I couldn’t swap lenses in the pouring rain, I didn’t want to muck around with filters which would have got rain spots on them as soon as I took them out of their cases… it was all just working against me.
So, I set up on the tripod, ripped off one quick shot at 1/5th of a second, packed up, threw my now-drenched backup onto my back, and we started off on the final 2 km leg back to the car.
As we neared the car park, we were amazed to see people starting out on the walk in thongs (“flip flops” for the non-Aussie reader)! This is a walk where you are constantly losing grip on wet rocks. I can only imagine how many people ended up with cuts to their feet from sliding around on wet rubber.
When we got back to the car, we all changed into dry clothes, and then it was back into the car and on the road to Nuwara Eliya and Kandy.
We dropped Duncan and Liz at the railway station in Kandy, then headed off to find our hotel.
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Sri Lanka – day 08
September 12th, 2019Sunday 11th August
After breakfast, we started the walk to Little Adam’s Peak, which was only about 1km from our Air B’n’B.
Cath stopped at one minor lookout point, about 2/3 of the way to the main peak, while I continued on.
When I got there, I managed to get a Welsh couple who were there, to take my pic.
In the afternoon, we drove to a small village called Ohiya, which was the village nearest to the entrance to Horton Plains National Park, a spot we were planning on visiting the following morning.
I grabbed the camera and wandered up to what passes as a village… 2 shops and the railway station.
On the way, I bumped into a guy wearing a sparkling white, well-pressed uniform, who informed me after I commented on the suit, that he was the station master. That naturally required a (sadly, rushed) portrait.
Back at our lodgings, a new couple arrived. Duncan and Liz from the Netherlands. I asked if they were planning on doing the walk to World’s End. They affirmed that it was on their itinerary for the following morning as well. I asked if they had arranged transport. They hadn’t. So we offered them a lift, for which they were most grateful.
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Sri Lanka – day 07
September 11th, 2019Saturday 10th August
Dinesh also provided us with some handy tips for the remainder of our travels. One of which was to avoid the elephant orphanage at Kandy, where the elephants are kept longer than necessary, as tourist attractions. He suggested instead that on our way north to Ella, we take a slight detour, to visit Udawalawa Elephant Transit Home. This is a facility, much like the turtle rehab centre we visited near Galle, which actually aims to rehabilitate injured elephants, and transition orphaned elephants, back into the wild.
So, we took the detour.
And along the way, we drove along a fence which was one border of a national park. And there, right beside the road, we found an honest-to-goodness wild elephant.
Admittedly, somewhat domesticated due to the tourists who would stop and give it food in order for it to stick around! We didn’t. But we did grab a few pics.
At the Transit Home, we got to observe the feeding of the elephants, which included a hilarious baby elephant who continually tried to sneak back to the handlers to get some more milk, after he’d been given his alotment.
He wasn’t fooling anybody, though! 🙂
We hit the road back towards Ella, and just short of our destination, stopped to take a shot of Ravana Falls.
We found, and checked into, our Air B’n’B with its awesome balcony views and headed off to view the popular tourist attraction Nine Arches Bridge.
I had already looked up the times of when trains would cross the bridge.
I shot a timelapse of stills as one train went across, and shot video when the next train came past. It’s a very visually-appealing bridge, not least of all, because you can be ON the birdge whilst trains are crossing! Selfie-heaven for the IG-brigade.
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Sri Lanka – day 06
September 10th, 2019Friday 9th August
Today, we were booked in with Dinesh (Mowgli Safaris), a 3rd generation 17 year veteran safari guide in Yala National Park.
We had booked a full day safari, as several Trip Advisor reviews had made mention of the fact that a full day safari gives you a much better chance at seeing the variety of wildlife in the park.
And this proved very much to be the case.
Dinesh explained his history, how his father and grandfather had been safari operators before him, and how he had learned the lifestyle from quite a young age.
He told us that many of the other tour operators are former fisherman, tuk-tuk drivers, cleaners, and whatnot, who all jumped on the bandwagon after the civil war ended in 2009, and tourism exploded.
A lot of those operators were ferrying clients who had only booked half day (or worse, 3 hour) tours, and they would quite often tear off from one animal sighting in search of the next, simply because there wasn’t much time to spare. Particularly when you factored in that there was a 20 minute drive to get from Tissa to the park gate, and the same again on the way out. Deduct that from your 3 hour tour, and you’ve only got 2 hours and change to see what the park has to offer.
His background as an experienced tour guide was evidenced by several different events through the day.
On a couple of occasions, we would be bouncing along in the 4WD, and suddenly, he would slam on the brakes, reverse up 10 metres or so, and then point out a little 20 cm long chameleon sitting on the branch of a tree! And it would be disguised, too! How he could spot them from a moving vehicle was beyond me!
Also, when it comes to leopard sightings, they say that if you see a leopard, you’re really lucky, as they are such elusive creatures.
Under Dinesh’s guidance, we saw 5 sightings in total, of 3 different leopards!
And quite often, Dinesh would find a leopard, and it would be surrounded by tour trucks, and he would drive right on by, turn a corner and park the car.
And there’d be nothing there to see.
And we’d ask “Why are we here?”
And he’d say “Just wait a minute. That leopard will come walking along this path right here”, and he’d point it out.
And sure enough, within a minute, the leopard would come strolling by, and the other tour trucks would all arrive, and we’d be in prime position with the best view.
He also mentioned that the operators running 3 and 5 hour tours will spend all their time trying to find the “big ticket items”…. the leopards, the elephants, and so on.
While he made an effort to point out even the small creatures, which were just as fascinating.
I could not fault him for anything. We had a great day, saw everything we expected to see (except elephants, which as Dinesh explained, had mostly moved quite a way to the north-east due to the shortage of rainfall), and had a fun, knowledgeable guide to show us what Yala National Park had to offer. I could not recommend his services highly enough to anyone considering a tour.
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Sri Lanka – day 05
September 9th, 2019Not a lot of shooting happened today. This was our longest driving day of the trip. About 180 km, which doesn’t sound like much by Australian standards, but that equated to about 5 hours of Tetris-on-wheels, and most of that in the rain.
We arrived at our resort, EKHO Tissa, and took an early night, as tomorrow promises to be a big day.
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Sri Lanka – day 04
September 8th, 2019Wednesday 7th August
Today, we ventured down to the fish market in a nearby village to see the fisherman returning with their catches, and to observe the haggling that goes on between fishermen and (presumably) restaurateurs.
We then took a tour of a tea plantation. This was conducted by a very knowledgeable bloke, who told us all about the planting, nurturing and harvesting of the tea, and then all about the processes required to turn the leaf into a product ready for the cup.
We then visited a sea turtle rehab centre, where injured turtles are nursed back to health. There was a turtle there who had lost a flipper to a boat propeller, and was awaiting a prosthetic flipper which is en-route from Germany! Cool use of technology! There was another who, due to another injury, had air trapped in his shell which prevented him from submerging. It was heart-breaking to watch him trying to dive, but not being able to. Sadly, this bloke will never be released back into the wild, as his inability to dive would mean he would simply cook in his shell under the equatorial sun.
We then found a nice hotel on the beach witch had an infinity pool and a restaurant.
We ordered drinks and lunch, and Cath had a dip in the pool.
In the evening, we found a little restaurant in the old Dutch quarter which had no patrons in it, which we inexplicably decided to try out. Half a dozen pots of food were brought out and put over little candles to keep the food warm. We suspect that the food therein was probably being reheated for the gazillionth time. For all that though, the food was lovely, and no, we didn’t get sick! Bonus!
After dinner, Cath was ready to call it a night, but I was interested in shooting some street photography. I said I’d drop her back to our Air B’n’B, and then return. I did that, but by the time I got back, the streets had quietened down to the point of desertion. So I grabbed a few images and called it a night.
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Sri Lanka – day 03
September 7th, 2019Tuesday 6th August
We left Colombo for the drive south to Galle.
Once there, we wandered around the old Dutch quarter, where amongst other things, I came across an elderly craftsman who makes and sells toy boats.
We also found the snake charmer who dances with a cobra, and will, for a fee, let you have your photograph taken with a python draped around your neck.
In the evening, we drove out to the Japanese Peace Pogoda, which sits high on a hill overlooking the town of Galle, in the hopes of a half-decent sunset. Sadly, cloud on the horizon conspired against me. Ce la vie.
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