the wish-list

This is in fact part of small bushes grown in front of a Victorian house on Grattan St, Melbourne. The dark background is the side-wall of the house in white, made invisible in the contrast with the bright foreground. I was walking pass; saw the morning-sun-lit courtyard and made a very quick capture impromptu. This picture was dedicated to my birthday in 2009. Today, my memory somehow swells with it again.

prehistoric

This is one part of the cross-promontory walk taken in Wilson's Prom. The 19-km-return hiking starts from Mt Oberon carpark in the West to Sealers Cove on the East coast, involving moderate climbing. As we approached Sealers Cove from the West, the slopes suddenly gave way to a long level path, defined by neatly-laid wooden steps. It wound among tall trees, a couple of little ponds & this spot of intrigue before eventually hitting the coastline.

stay with me

It was purely accidental. Or at least a part of it was. It started with my fascination to take a picture of twin items next to each other, suggesting one of them to be more prominent than the other. My plan to accomplish this was to find two items of the same kind standing side by side, one of them slightly further away from the lens. With an appropriate depth of field, one should be in focus and the other blurry while appearing almost of the same size.

leaflet

I had just got my first prime lens--50mm f/1.8D--and was very keen on seeing what this little cheap glass could do. 50mm on a camera with an APS-C sensor (like D300) translates to about 75mm in a normal format, and thus a moderate tele. As such, not exactly a typical landscape lens. It so happened that my initial test-subjects turned out to be, yes, leaves.

alpine autumn colours

Autumn is time of colours. Once autumn reaches the alpine forests in the highlands of Victoria, the tall glamorous trees receive it fashionably, dressed in exotic red, yellow & orange. When morning sun-rays hit the surface of the leaves, they add colour-tints to the surrounding light, thereby illuminating the various small paths beneath the trees with exquisite shadings.