I visited the Australian Museum for the first time in ages. The last time I went there was back in 2004 as part of my Master of Teaching requirement where we learnt about Science Education. This time, I went with a friend and we took a look at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition. It was the main exhibition on show in the atrium space once you pay and get past the admissions desk.
There was quite a lot of photographs in different categories mounted on the walls. There were several in each category with the Winner, Runner Up, Special Commendation and Highly Commended. There was also the Photographer of the Year and the Young Photographer of the Year. We spent about an hour or so going through them and it was quite full too with other people looking on.
Some of them were amazing, brilliant timing and clarity. Others had lots of set up and planning but that didn't diminish the effect produced. Some of the things coming out of it, from observation, is that there were more Canon cameras used than any other but they ranged from the RebelXT series all the way to the 1DS-MarkIII. The range of lenses were also interesting with some standard zoom lenses, to the full IS USM range. For a lot of the wildlife however they were taken at 200, 300 and even 400mm distances obviously for the purpose of not disturbing the scene and also safety factors like Grizzly Bears, Lions and alike. There were some specialty equipments also in use like remote trigger and light sensor triggers, which were used to capture these amazing pictures of Snow Leopards at night as they prowled past the camera setup.
There were also categories for Under 10 years old, 11-14 and 15-17 years old photographers. A lot of them were taken on Safari and amazing trips around the world, where they sat inside hides waiting for opportunities. The gear these children also had was pretty heafty, some considerably better than mine. I think those children are very luck to have the opportunity to go to those places, and also be financed with such good gear LOL. I wish I had that kind of opportunity, but I guess I will in the future I hope.
It was a really interesting exhibition I'll say and some really wonderful pictures. My favourite wildlife one would be a very simple picture of a red fox in mid pounce. There is this high grass in a lovely wheat brown shade, with a pine forest in a long solid row as a backdrop and the fox is poucing in the air about to land on its prey. Very nice timing, fairly sharp for the distance, and a very cute picture. The other one I really liked was a landscape, where a row of trees had somehow missed out being blanketed by the winter cold and held their brilliant flame-red and orange leaves while all of the rest of the forest was this pristine winter white. A very striking image. The other photo of real interesting note was Polar bear, shot in a particular angle at Sunrise, and it produced a fiery orange outline of half the bear while the rest of the body was in shadow. A very nice picture.
Later on in the day I went to Kendo training (and there is more on that in my other blog) and after training I had dinner at MacDonalds (oh no, the horror of it) before eventually going around to a friends place to take her to the airport at some ungodly hour in the morning. Her flight was at 8am, and so she had to be at the airport by 5am, so we left her place that she was staying at at 4am. Then I went home and pretty much crashed outsomewhat for a few hours.
I got up and pottered about a little before doing most of my own packing for my work trip to New Caledonia. So if you don't hear from me in a week, it is because I'm visiting a Nickel Mine in New Caledonia and not hiding.
There was quite a lot of photographs in different categories mounted on the walls. There were several in each category with the Winner, Runner Up, Special Commendation and Highly Commended. There was also the Photographer of the Year and the Young Photographer of the Year. We spent about an hour or so going through them and it was quite full too with other people looking on.
Some of them were amazing, brilliant timing and clarity. Others had lots of set up and planning but that didn't diminish the effect produced. Some of the things coming out of it, from observation, is that there were more Canon cameras used than any other but they ranged from the RebelXT series all the way to the 1DS-MarkIII. The range of lenses were also interesting with some standard zoom lenses, to the full IS USM range. For a lot of the wildlife however they were taken at 200, 300 and even 400mm distances obviously for the purpose of not disturbing the scene and also safety factors like Grizzly Bears, Lions and alike. There were some specialty equipments also in use like remote trigger and light sensor triggers, which were used to capture these amazing pictures of Snow Leopards at night as they prowled past the camera setup.
There were also categories for Under 10 years old, 11-14 and 15-17 years old photographers. A lot of them were taken on Safari and amazing trips around the world, where they sat inside hides waiting for opportunities. The gear these children also had was pretty heafty, some considerably better than mine. I think those children are very luck to have the opportunity to go to those places, and also be financed with such good gear LOL. I wish I had that kind of opportunity, but I guess I will in the future I hope.
It was a really interesting exhibition I'll say and some really wonderful pictures. My favourite wildlife one would be a very simple picture of a red fox in mid pounce. There is this high grass in a lovely wheat brown shade, with a pine forest in a long solid row as a backdrop and the fox is poucing in the air about to land on its prey. Very nice timing, fairly sharp for the distance, and a very cute picture. The other one I really liked was a landscape, where a row of trees had somehow missed out being blanketed by the winter cold and held their brilliant flame-red and orange leaves while all of the rest of the forest was this pristine winter white. A very striking image. The other photo of real interesting note was Polar bear, shot in a particular angle at Sunrise, and it produced a fiery orange outline of half the bear while the rest of the body was in shadow. A very nice picture.
Later on in the day I went to Kendo training (and there is more on that in my other blog) and after training I had dinner at MacDonalds (oh no, the horror of it) before eventually going around to a friends place to take her to the airport at some ungodly hour in the morning. Her flight was at 8am, and so she had to be at the airport by 5am, so we left her place that she was staying at at 4am. Then I went home and pretty much crashed outsomewhat for a few hours.
I got up and pottered about a little before doing most of my own packing for my work trip to New Caledonia. So if you don't hear from me in a week, it is because I'm visiting a Nickel Mine in New Caledonia and not hiding.
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