Busselton Jetty Colours

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Heath

Merry Christmas and happy new year! Its been a busy month or so, but finally the stars aligned and I have something to share again.

We took a trip down to Busselton for Australia Day and to escape the heat of Perth for a few days. We spent the day relaxing at another fine OBF event at their lovely homestead.

Photos from the sea Once again, I am reminded that getting a good shot is all about persistence and a fair bit of luck. We had dinner down at the Busselton beach, with storm clouds quickly passing over us and blotting out the setting sun. I resigned to leaving the camera alone and playing in the ocean with Archer, however the clouds passed and the golden sun lit up the jetty and highlights in the clouds.

I setup the tripod and waded out into the water to get this one.

– 25s f/10 ISO100

Beach Lines

Posted on November 13, 2011 by Heath

We were on our way back from an afternoon photo shoot in Mandurah, testing out some more daytime long exposures when this scene caught my eye for some reason or another.

I handed Archer over and ran towards the water, found a flat bit of sand and snapped this. At first I was not going to post it up here, I liked what I’d captured but it felt too simplistic for me.

However, upon seeing a photo being sold this week for a sweet $4.3M (Link) I figured I’d better cash in and post it up. Ill start bidding at $100K, any takers?

– 4s f/10 ISO100

Cottesloe Beach

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Heath

Another week, another photo shoot! Thanks to no daylight savings sunset is happening around 6:45pm at this time of year so I was able to have plenty of light to play around with after collecting my wife from work. We headed straight up the coast to Cottesloe Beach for our near-regular Sunday evening photgraphy outing.

I’ve been having fun experimenting with day-time long exposures thanks to the Hoya filter I picked up. This photograph was taken around 6:30pm while there was still quite a bit of light around, the sky was overcast with some nice clouds heading east so we had this nice contrast as the late day sunlight made the beach and Tea House glow as the sun set behind us.

So here is my cliche shot of Cottesloe Beach done _just_ slightly different from the norm.

– 10s f/10 ISO200

Henderson Cliffs

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Heath

Took another run at finding a ‘good’ location at the cliffs, hiked north this time along the coast trying to find a spot to drop down to the water. By the time the sun was setting I had not found such a place, so I framed this one and dropped on my new Hoya ND Filter
to see what would happen.

I think it turned out alright, how about you?

– 20s f/9 ISO200

Fire in the West

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Heath

After discussing some seascape locations with Jamie Paterson I decided to drop down to the coast near Henderson as there were some nice clouds forming. The tide was high so there was no easy spots to drop down to the waters edge but It did make for a nice hike down and back the coast line as the sun set to the west.

I lucked out and the sun put on a show just before signing off and I caught this one after climbing down to the waters edge and balancing on a small rock ledge. I really should have taken a behind the scenes shot to scare the wife 🙂

Ocean Waterfall

Posted on October 23, 2011 by Heath

Over the past two weeks I took some time off work to look after my wife and son, I had hoped that photo trips would be aplenty and I could get a lot of landscapes (or seascapes!) uploaded for you to view. However this was not the case, instead I have spent the past week or so gardening, concreting, fencing and ponding(?). All to a good result of course, I’m pretty proud of the progress we’ve made around the house.

Anyway, I did manage to drag us all up to Burns Beach on Friday to checkout the location for photography and was pleased to find it had lots of sites to see and places to go. The sunset we had was not great, but I made do with what was on offer as its not a place that is easy to get to from my home (Unlike Point Peron).

This shot I struggled with, the sunset overpowers the scene but I don’t feel it is nice enough to make the focal point (What do you think?). I did however love the infinity pool kind of effect the pools in the rock made with the ocean and focused on that.

So here is my shot from Burns Beach, Western Australia:

Sailors Delight

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Heath

The photo that almost got away; I left home to collect Simone with no doubt in my mind that it was not going to be a good sunset evenin, I racked my brain for ideas to take a easterly facing sunset photo as there were dramatic storm clouds forming on the eastern hills outside Perth.

However, by the time I had picked Simone up clouds had moved in from the north and it was off to Cottesloe we went. After a brief stop in at the main beach we moved up to the same spot as last week, the clouds were turning pink/purple and I ran down to the beach… only to find the rocks I was shooting from last time were completely gone. Replaced by a young couple romancing in the sand which I just about ran over 🙂

A quick sprint along the beach, passing joggers and dog walkers. Much surprised to see me running flat out down the beach lugging a big tripod with a camera mounted on it. I stopped at some more rocks in the water, turned around to setup to find three other photogs already there and shooting. Must be a good spot! While they were all up on some rocks in safety, I did my usual thing; Took off my shoes, rolled up my jeans and got wet.

Here is the result:

Tesselated Pavement

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Heath

Going back over photos from Tasmania it makes me realise how much I really want to go back, its such a different environment from Perth, or Western Australia for that matter.

We have some nice coastline here, but finding mountains or rainforests is a much harder ask. I’ve been drawn to water for as long as I remember, probably to do with growing up quite a distance from the sea or rivers of any kind. A trip to the sea was an event which we loved as children, many school holidays were spent on the beaches of our south west coast.

So enough reminiscing, here is one I’ve cooked up for your viewing:

Underground Sea

Posted on September 25, 2011 by Heath

Having shot the Rockingham area quite frequently I decided that I should expand my photo locations in Perth. I strapped Archer into the car and headed up to Cottesloe to check out a few spots that looked good on satellite photos.

First I dropped into South Cottesloe (or is it Mosman Park?) and checked a couple of small beaches that have some interesting rocks. More interesting and quirky was rounding a corner to see some public fornication, thankfully Archer was oblivious and was much more interested in the pair of dogs being walked behind us.

We left to collect Simone from work and headed to the main Cottesloe beach, I was fairly underwhelmed by the location. But in the right conditions there surely would be some nice setups.

Looking around I counted more tourist photographers per sq/mtr than anywhere else I have ever seen in Perth, everyone was lining up along the beach to take a photo directly into the sunset (Using on camera flashes for extra special effect too… )
After Archer had some fun in the sand we heading north a short distance and found a very nice spot where I setup for the sunset and rolled up my jeans preparing to go into the water. Lots of jumping in and out of the water ensued trying to avoid the larger waves and splashes.

Here we go for this post, I have a feeling you should be seeing some more of this location soon:

Snow on the Water

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Heath

Over the weekend I took the family for a drive down to Mandurah to scope out a few beach locations which looked to have some interesting subject matter.

The sky was really overcast and raining in patches, so we rugged up Archer and heading down. We arrived to gale force winds howling along the beach throwing up sand everywhere, Archer and Simone kept to the car from then on while I checked out the hopefuls.

Only one location worked out, and I plan to go back for more as I think this spot could yield many good images in the right conditions. It does however require de-shoe-ing, getting wet and lifting the camera out of the way when the big waves hit! (Yes they are big waves you can see towards the top of the image).

For your viewing pleasure (?) :

Heath Watkins Photography

Moments in time, captured

Tag Archives: long exposure