Another rainy spring day in Canberra, I took these experimental shots quite early in the morning as the water beading on the long grass (which always needs mowing) looked really interesting and was catching the first light of the day. I used a Canon G9 in macro mode mounted on a gorilla-pod with  2 second timer to avoid any shake. The shots are as close in the cameras lens would allow and I think a bit better than my SLR zoom macro could get. The images were tweaked in Adobe Lightroom and a colour filter added to alter the green values.

These images are close-ups of some Australian birds taken with a 20omm zoom macro. I love how this lens reveals the detailed feather patterns and interesting eyes on the animals.

This is a very short animation using 3d depth and camera panning in Apple Motion. I noticed this effect being used in some documentaries and advertising and created this animation as a demo for our students learning motion graphic design. The photo is of a Kookaburra I shot with a zoom lens some time ago, this has be bird has been carefully isolated and prepared with a new background on seperate layers for animation in motion. The layers are separated by z depth with the Kookaburah being closer to the camera in 3D space. Some subtile camera behaviours produce and effect than cannot be achieved via a single static image and is often used to get maximum milage from a photograph.

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These images are from a tutorial about hand rendered typography and how to digitise those graphics and use them in our designs. The first image is a rough draft developing the basic shape of the letterforms, I then map that out with more care on some grid paper, measure areas and develop the strong letterforms. Once complete I stick the artwork to my desk, stick some quality tracing parer over that and trace the design with care to produce a very clean master. This trace is then scanned, adjusted and finally traced using the auto trace feature in Illustrator. This process produces a very clean results providing your tracing work is thorough. Once the lettering is converted to  vectors they can be treated in many different ways.

These 2 images are from two of Hamilton Islands lookout points. They are interactive panoramic images with a 170 degree view of rotation. The first is from “One Tree Hill” and looks out over Whitsunday Island. The second is from The lookout over the Reef View Hotel looking out to Catseye bay – a little grey that day.

This image is a 360 degree interactive panorama – click and drag inside the image to view the scene





This image is 360 degree interactive panorama – click and drag inside the image to view the scene

This is the waterproof enclosure my friend Bob lent me for our Barrier Reef trip. It enables all the functions of the G9 via enlarged buttons on the case and allows for the full travel of the G9′s zoom lens. There is a diffuser for the flash and can handle a depth of 40 meters or 130ft. first experiments snorkelling on the great barrier reef are here

These two large images are flash VR-style interactive panoramas of Catseye Bay Hamilton Island at dawn. I shot these panoramas with my SLR and a Manfrotto VR Head & Tripod that managed to fit in my suitcase. Each panorama is 36 images stitched to together at 10 degree intervals to create a seamless panorama. This image is then used to generate this interactive flash based image. (No love for iphone users).

This image is an interactive panorama – click and drag inside the image to view the scene

This image is an interactive panorama – click and drag inside the image to view the scene

These are some static photographs of dawn from our balcony at the Hotel. The third image is a HDR composite from 3 exposures blended together to increase the dynamic range of the image.

On our way out to Reefworld on the Barrier Reef, about half an hour from the islands into the Coral Sea, I had just put on a zoom lens on my SLR when the Cat started slowing down and the captain announced there were whales ahead of us. It was a very clam day, the boat came to a stop and the whales came over to us. We were in a pretty good spot and the whales came about 5 meters away from us. It was really cool and an unexpected highlight. I took the photos with a 70-200 zoom.

This image is a 360 degree interactive panorama click and drag inside the image to rotate your view

This is a VR-Style Panorama of the Hardy Reef “Reefworld” Pontoon. I shot this panorama hand held and just relied on the stitch assist function on the G9 to get the sequence ready for stitching.
Snorkelling photos here

These photos are from a day trip Suzie and I had on Wednesday to Hardy Reef on the Great Barrier Reef during a holiday to the amazing Whitsunday Islands. The Reef world pontoon is about 50 nautical miles from the last Whitsunday Island (hook) and took about two hours to get the on the Jet Cat. These photos are from the Canon G9 in a dedicated waterproof unit that worked really well, (thanks to my mate Bobby Neil for the loan). it took some getting used to and there is a lot to think about while snorkelling at the same time but it was a good test.