Riding photos #4: Nick Barnier

Finally got the chance to head out riding again yesterday, unfortunately I'm now totally wrecked. It's the middle of summer here and the sun was an absolute killer yesterday. Australia sucks in summer. It may as well be the surface of Mercury. Even with sunscreen I started to burn within 10 minutes of being at the skatepark so I tried to become a shade dweller. Well, that still failed anyway and I'm now sunburned senseless and a bit dehydrated too.

While the riding was pretty limited, we still got the job done. Nick wanted to learn to do truckdrivers yesterday, which is a 360 barspin. It's definitely not a simple trick, there is a lot involved in a short space of time and requires fast thinking and heavy concentration. I can't even barspin to save my own life so needless to say I was stoked when he landed it. First stop of the day was Thornlands skatepark.

360 Barspin, trick of the day.

Decent Barspin.

Next stop after Thornlands skatepark was an undercover street spot to try and get a break from the sun. It's just a spot with some square benches but the metal edging makes them ideal for grinding without causing damage. For some reason, the council never put grind stoppers on these and never complain when we ride them, I think partly due to the fact that people respect the spot and take their rubbish with them and never cause trouble while there. I got a couple of shots from this bench, just trying different angles, and this 180 to fakie from the bench seemed to work best.

Last stop of the day was Cleveland skatepark. The quarter pipes here are quite wide so it's easy to pick a spot to sit and let people ride around you while you shoot photos. Though, it was still freakin' hot so it was just a mellow session of basic stuff. The result is this photo of Nick locked in to real nice footjam. I like taking photos of footjams for some reason.

That pretty much ended our day, the heat and sunburn was just way too much to keep going. Thanks to Nick Barnier for shreddin' like a boss even in the ridiculous heat. Possibly some more riding photos next week, depending on the weather and work.

I swear my house is a wildlife santuary...

So yet again I've come home from work, to find a young Blue-Tongue Lizard just chilling near my kitchen table. I have no idea how the hell it got there, nor why it's out at night. Though, they are probably the most hopeless of all lizards when it comes to effective path finding, because they're always the kind you find stuck in your garage. And I guess, my house must clearly be the greatest hang out ever for native animals, seeing as every afternoon there's a bunch of Rainbow Lorikeets in the tree, and the past couple of nights I've found a bunch of frogs that aren't so common, and now a lizard in my kitchen.

I'm not complaining though. I like lizards. Blue-Tongue Lizards aren't all that common either, but most smaller ones are quite tame and happy to sit on your hand for a while, Bigger ones don't appreciate being picked up but they aren't too bothered by the presence of people. I picked him up and took a quick snap before sending it on it's way, though now I'm wondering what else I'm going to come home to... Gotta love living in Australia, where if an animal doesn't kill you, it'll move in with you...

Little Green Friend

 This one was taken about 5 minutes ago, outside my back door. It's just stopped raining, and I spotted this little green tree frog on my window so I went outside to take a photo (I take photos of tons of random things). When I tried to focus on him though, it got a bit startled and decided that my chest was a good place to just sit for a while. So I handed the camera to my girlfriend to take the shot. I hadn't changed the settings, so the photo is a little grainy due to the higher ISO setting.

Unfortunately, these little frogs are becoming pretty rare. Cane Toads are a pest here and have had a massive impact on their numbers. Though, on hot, humid and wet nights, you might see one hanging around your house. Sorry about the lower quality cropped photo below, but it too awesome to not post that chilled out pose. I hope you like it anyway!

Mild tempered wildlife

Sometimes you get the opportunity to go somewhere that has wildlife that isn't too worried about people. Luckily for me, there's plenty of places like this in Australia. These couple of photos are of a Curlew which was part of family I found. I was able to get within inches of this one, It just laid still as if it were wary of me but unlike Curlews normally do, it didn't worry about me enough to run off.

I had no idea how brightly coloured their eyes were until now, and although they aren't the most colourful or active birds, they still have a pretty interesting personality. the reason why I couldn't get a photo of the other parent or the young Curlew was because they were way too intrigued by what on earth my camera was and why it kept making noises, and they wouldn't stay still (apparently, camera lenses look edible to a Curlew).
Next time I'm out that way though I will try to take a few of the younger one anyway, but I don't like my chances of it not running around like a maniac...

Messing around with HDR

HDR (or high dynamic range) photography is very much untouched territory for me, until now. In the last few days I have been screwing around with my camera and photoshop to make HDR images via trial and error, because I really love the whole surreal look of some HDR photos for some reason.

I have to be honest, I'm not very good at them at all, but I'm slowly improving. So here is the single fruit of my work so far, a HDR photo of a Nerf Recon. Like it, or hate it, because I can't really decide what side of the fence I'm on with this one.

The surprise reptile

Riding home from work I spotted this bearded dragon only around the corner from my house, just chilling near the lake munching unsuspecting bugs, I saw it as a random opportunity so I went home and grabbed my camera with my old macro lens on. I would have rather not used my extremely old macro lens for this since it's useless for decent quality photos, but practice is practice and I wouldn't have been able to get close enough with my kit lens to have a short depth of field. Anyway, I managed these, not very good quality but at least my subject was co-operative!

Riding photos #3: Nick and Chris

A couple of weeks ago before my laptop died, I went on a ride from some Victoria Point locals and took my camera, along with a crappy $30 fisheye filter lens I bought from Ebay. You're probably wondering why I bothered buying a lens that's really kind of useless quality-wise, but the reason is I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend $1000+ on a lens that I might not be able to use due to the fact that I might have to get way too close to the rider and risk having it smashed by a wayward bike. Turns out with the filter-fish I was able to get close enough without putting the camera at risk on most occasions. So, here's the results of the day. riders are Nick Barnier and his brother Chris.

First thing to do of the day, try out the fisheye lens. This is my own bike, custom built frame, wheels and handlebars. This is the frame I designed myself, and built by FBM bicycle co. from 100% supertherm cro-mo steel. After this, I left home and first stop was Thornlands skatepark.

Chris, with a backflip out of a very tight quarter pipe

Chris - no footed can-can

Nick - footjam stall

Nick boosting the hip

Next, was the mission train ride to Brisbane city, then on the Sunshine station to get to Ramp Attak. Ramp Attak is a large indoor skatepark on the north side of the river and is well worth the travel to get there. However, because It was indoors, light was limited and I could not use the fisheye much due to it not letting a lot of light in. This is where I need a couple of flashes, remotely triggered to be able to get decent shots. The built in flash just can't cut it and therefore I had to use a higher ISO setting than I would have liked.

Chris - superman seatgrab barspin

Chris - superman seatgrab

Chris - backflip

It was a great day and got me back in to the grove of being comfortable doing backflips after having a pretty hard crash at a comp a few months ago (yes, I do ride quite a lot when I'm not behind the lens). Flips are one of those things that never get less scary, you just do them more often when you think less about the consequences and more about the rush. GOOD TIMES!!