Smoked Cheese

365 - Week 32

Week 32, A very wet week, perfect conditions for my favourite water shots

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

365 - Week 14

Week 14 and still going strong

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Monga Forest

a spot for wandering, being

a place of wonder, seeing

a forest wonderland, Monga

between Earth and Sky amongst the trees

moved, lifted, grounded

a gift, living

a home, giving

a place that will remind you

Erika Steller (Monga Inacta 2005)

Just up the road from my father in laws place is the wonderful Monga State forest, the above poem is from a book on the history of the forest, which I think captures the feeling you get when walking through. I find the forest an inspirational place, its full of so much natural beauty, its a wonder why so many people simply drive by on their way to the coast without even a second thought of stopping to experience this wonderful sanctuary.

This afternoon I was looking through my photos from last weekend and realised I had not posted any of the shots from the Monga state forest.  

The first couple of images were all taken at Penance Grove, where a board walk has been constructed to show the amazing forest while preserving the floor.

This is a perfect first shot of the Monga state forest, the entrance to the board walk. Almost like an invitation from the forest to come in and lose yourself among the trees.

For this shot I used an 18mm lens, which had the benefit of distorting the depth and helping create the effect of the path drawing you in.  I used an ISO of 400, a wide aperture (f-stop of 5.6) and underexposed by 2/3 of a stop to bring out the colour.

This shot of a broken tree stump turned out exactly as I wanted, its a little world on the remnants of this tree, a reminder to stop and take in everything that is around, you never know what you may be missing.

I used the 55mm lens for this shot, keeping all the proportions perfectly in balance, and got as close as I could.  To achieve the shallow depth of field I used the widest aperture I could with this lens, an f-stop of 5.6, coupled with how close I was to my subject.  Again I have underexposed by 2/3 of a stop(1/100 shutter speed), seems to make all the difference with getting a depth of colour.

 The final shot for this post is from the Dasurius picnic area, only a few weeks earlier we were swimming in this area and you could walk across these rocks without getting wet.

I tried something a bit different here, I have over exposed by 2/3 of a stop (1/400 of a second) to try and capture some of the movement of the water, this has just reminded me to always have the tripod in the car, this would have allowed me to exposure for a lot longer and achieve the desired effect.