Tag: flickr

Several (or more) reasons why my photos of the hike aren’t great

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Here we go. It’s excuse time. Or, if you prefer, “valid reason time”.

The photos I took on the hike aren’t as good as I would like them to be. There are several reasons for this.

Me: I’m not a great ‘togger.
The new camera: Yes, it’s fancier than the old one, but I’m still getting used to it.
The light: Blindingly bright, start to finish.
The timing: This wasn’t a photography session, it was a hike. People weren’t there for me to take photos, they were there to walk up the mountain. There was (understandably) no time to stop and compose.
The brief: That said, I did have to try and get some usable photos of the pack walking up the mountain.
The brief (pt 2): I also needed to get some point-and-shoot shots to show Mrs 6000 where we were and where we went.

Those will do for the moment, right?

All said and done, there are a few shots I like (and a few more that I might add later), and that’s without including the ones documenting the climb for the Cub pack.

I really enjoyed the hike, but there will be better days to go out and take photos. And one those days, the photos will naturally also be better.

Pomp

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Yesterday’s trip (which was to Arniston – and more specifically the cave there) went very well. Thank you for asking.

On the way back, we stopped to take this shot of a local windpump.

This might not be the best image you’ll ever see of a local windpump, but I like it for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, this was one of the images I had in mind when I bought my new filters for the camera. It’s nice to have got it (and now I have something to improve upon). And secondly, because of reasons, I had to do quite a lot of editing on this image. It’s certainly not perfect (I can see the join marks), but it’s actually pretty good – especially for me. Maybe sometime, I’ll share the unedited version and you can see the improvements. That’s sometime is not today though, because today is about heading home to Cape Town.

More images from the last couple of days here.

Voyage of the Moons

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Well, this is fairly amazing.

“Software engineer, planetary and climate data wrangler, and science data visualization artist”, Kevin Gill has – as far as I can make out – melded together images from the Cassini spacecraft you may remember it from this post) during its journey past Jupiter and Saturn, and made them into a mini video:

The silence makes this all the more powerful, for me.

First up are Io and Europa passing over Jupiter’s Giant Red Spot (has anyone suggested using an ointment containing either salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide?), followed by Titan moving past Saturn’s rings, seen as a thin line, edge on.

It’s all rather mesmerising. The latter, especially, has a really otherworldly feel to it. I mean, I am aware that these are bother very clearly other worlds, but I’m sure you get what I mean.

Original link here (creative commons says help yourself – thanks, Kevin).
The rest of his photostream looks equally impressive.

Wildlife

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It was an amazing weekend. Wild and windy, but full of spring sunshine, and Cape Agulhas really showed off.

Sure, there was the whale, but that was dead and anyway, we’d already seen snakes and tortoises and the infamous Pengueagle (or Eaguin?) (more on that another time) before we saw her.

And then a walk on the beach this morning yielded Plovers, Kingfishers, a Curlew, some Caspian Terns (Sterna caspia):

…some very dramatic waves, photobombed by a Kelp Gull (Larus dominicanus):

…and the highlight of my weekend, a Cape Clawless Otter (Aonyx capenensis), showing off his catch of (I think) a Carpenter (Argyrozona argyrozona):

We disturbed him as we walked along the beach, but he was as interested in us (and the beagle) as we were in him. He floated a few metres out in the bay with his fish in his mouth before transferring it to his (clawless) paws so he could give us a proper grin.

It was a reminder how lucky we are to have the cottage and how much our kids can learn from visits there. If we’d been in Cape Town this weekend, it would have been all iPads and crap on TV (although less windy, admittedly). Instead it was fresh air (albeit moving rather fast) and some amazing experiences. All in just over 24 hours.

More photos to follow, but I feel like catching up on the footy now.

Of whales

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A quick trip around the corner (not this corner, another corner) from the cottage took us to Rasper Punt.

We were there, not just because it’s a nice walk through the fynbos to the beach, but because on that beach was a dead whale.
Dead whales might not be to everyone’s tastes (in fact, I’d advise you not to even think about eating one), but they are interesting when you’ve never seen a dead whale up close before. Sad, but educational.

And so we went to have a look, take some photos, poke it gingerly and slip all over the whale-oiled rocks.

I am not an expert in whaleology, but I think (think) this might be a Humpback. Probably 8-9 metres long, lying on its back, its body attacked by the seagulls and its skin sliced by some humans. And why not?
It’s not going to need it anymore, is it? See my link on “Stuff you can make from dead whales” (jks, I never wrote that post, but I know it’s a lot). Having stood on the rocks with the oil leaching from our floppy friend, my feet are so lovely and soft from all the grease on the stones.
I’ve never felt so young! Just wait til Tim Noakes hears about this.

It was blowing a literal gale while we were down there, so conditions weren’t great for togging stuff, but I got a few which I’ve put onto Flickr already.