Chockstone Photography Blog

For me there is no greater pleasure than heading off on a landscape photography trip with plenty of time on our hands. The world seems full of possibilities, as we drive into the night, the road curving into the distance and our headlights leading us away towards a new adventure. Our boy and I talk animatedly of locations, listing the places we’d like to explore, our imaginations describing ever more fantastical lighting and weather conditions. Dark brooding storms, fiery red sunrises, dazzlingly rainbows. The long hours slip by and before we know it we’ve left Victoria behind and ascended into the mountains at the southern end of New South Wales. Finally pulling up to rest beside a high country hut we hunker down, the car, as ever, providing the perfect sleeping quarters.

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So the big news for my photography business is that after several years of deliberation, I’ve gone ahead with purchasing the latest digital medium format camera, the Fujifilm GFX 100s. This amazing camera can deliver superb, gallery worthy image quality suitable for massive prints, 60 inches and beyond, in a more traditional aspect ratio that is quite close to square. This won’t mean I’m stepping away from the panoramic format that has consumed my creative endeavours for the last decade or so. I still love the panoramic view. It mimics how we see the world ourselves and shows off Australia’s wide open spaces so well.

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With no pandemic restrictions on inter-state travel we could have spread our wings a bit these last few months. Whether it was a health thing or a fear of last-minute rule changes requiring expensive quarantining, it just did not happen. In any case, staying local within Victoria yet again, produced some great photographic opportunities.

The headline act of this little ensemble of images, would have to that of Cape Liptrap Lighthouse. I first visited this location two or three years ago and was immediately enamoured with the photographic potential of the tiny lighthouse against the huge, bleak cliffs and remote coastline. In my mind the scene promised to be epic, but every attempt I made was met with frustration, primarily from near constant and ridiculously fierce winds in combination with a lack of suitable clouds.

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As we head towards the end of another year, I thought it would be a good idea to write something about the last couple of photography trips I have undertaken. The images in this series come from spending a few weeks travelling around Victoria, much of it with our boy, now 10, who has also begun producing work of this own. Sometimes we are set up with tripods near touching, but he is also developing his own style. It may be a few years before you see is creations online, but he is taking to it like a duck to water, and I am greatly enjoying our adventures together when money and time permit.

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I’m writing this blog entry in the early days of our “second wave” lock down here in regional Victoria. Necessary restrictions to avoid the further spread of the Covid-19 virus have curtailed even local travel for the next several weeks at least, giving me plenty of time to reflect upon and appreciate the short, pre-lock down trips that provided the images in this series. I was germophobic long before the word “coronavirus” was part of our vocabulary, so you can imagine my caution now. Fortunately landscape photography lends itself well to isolation and out of the way locations. It’s quite easy to not only avoid buildings and surfaces, but people entirely. In any case I don’t want to dwell on the topic we’re all obsessed with currently, but instead write of happier things, back when travel was permitted.

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Where to start? Let us get the obvious out of the way first. These images were captured before Australia went into lockdown and the whole world was devastated by the Covid-19 virus. At the time I was enjoying the travel and adventure this trip afforded, blissfully unaware of the impending doom we were all about to face. I have since caught up on post processing and found the time to write this blog, so I’ll try to, retrospectively, recreate the happy mood I was in.

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Summer in Australia was, as most will undoubtedly be aware, a desperate time with unprecedented bush-fires raging uncontrolled across the country. There were many lives lost, both human and wildlife, and widespread damage to both properties and natural environments. National Parks that have never burnt before, with eons old forests, succumbed to the flames, leaving ashes were once there was beauty incarnate.

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Towards the end of the year the opportunity arose for a photographic journey through Western Australia. Ordinarily travelling right across the other side of the country would be an extravagance, but this was something I’d been dreaming about for decades. With family in Perth offering a base, it all suddenly came together and before I quite knew what was happening the plane was taking off.

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With winter upon us once more I decided to try and manage at least one snow trip and hopefully add to my High Country Mountain Huts collection. First up was Mount Buller. Having scouted the mountain a few times over the years, I decided to brave the conditions and the fees once more and this time to attempt a dawn shoot. By 3am I was in the lower carpark having been directed to a nice slot by a friendly attendant. (Do these guys ever sleep? Now that’s dedication).

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This series of images is the result of two trips. The first was a dip into South Australia. Our boy (aged eight) had become interested in caves, so we hatched a plan to find some that boasted stalactites and stalagmites. Only a few hours drive away we came across Princess Margret Rose Cave right on the Victorian border, but photographically speaking had considerably more luck at Tantanoola Cave in South Australia. He loved the place and didn’t want to leave.

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