But one of the things I knew I needed to work on was my landscape photography. The fact is, I was (I still am) not very good at it compared to my portraiture work. But the thing is I can't always get willing models to work with and weddings are hard work. But I figure there will always be a landscape to capture. So last year I set out to improve my knowledge and skills at landscape photography. I took my long suffering family to the Otways National Park in Southern Victoria, and captured some great scenes, of waterfalls, wildlife and a few happy family shots too.
When I posted a few of these on Redbubble, Flickr and of course facebook, I got a lot of encouraging feedback. Sure I am no Steve Parish, and I don't have his toys, but the shots turned out pretty good and I decided I enjoyed landscape photography after all.
So back to being frustrated and needing a hobby. well I put two and two together and came up with four. I like photography, so I figured I just need to get out more and capture some more shots. So my new years resolution was to take up hiking again. I loved it as a young fella, and saw some great sights in my time.
I rationalized it with the following advantages:
1. It will give me opportunity to shoot more
2. It will give me opportunity to see more of this beautiful country, and in particular some of the famous places in this state of Victoria that I had not yet seen.
3. It will help me lose a few of these spare kilograms that I one day woke up to find attached to my middle.
4. It will allow me to drag my kids away from their PlayStation and other computers for a little while and allow me to teach them a little about living in the bush.
5. It will drag me away from my computer and allow me to reteach myself a little about the bush.
The only negatives I could think of were:
1. I need to start getting some of my gear again, as my old gear was long lost. I would also need to get my kids equipped. This will cost a little bit to start with, but will eventually settle down.
So if you see a bloke madly bidding on Ebay for hiking equipment (and of course camera gear), then that'll be me.
But like any resolution, I knew that if I failed to plan, then I planned to fail. So here is the plan and I hope to see it lived out in the pages of this blog over the years.
Step 1 - Plan a pretty decent hike for sometime a bit later in the year.
Step 2 - Lock in a date and start planning things, such as what I need, who will I bring, where will I go.
Step 3 - Plan a few smaller preparatory hikes, including over-nighters, just to get back in the swing, and prepare the legs for the bigger hike. That way, I can figure out what gear I am missing, what works, what doesn't and get some more match fitness in when it comes to shooting the scenes.
So with that plan I have decided on the following:
The big hike will be a four day trek at Wilson Promontory, including the southern most tip of mainland Australia. I have heard this is quite a challenging walk, but if we do it over 4 days, that will mean about 12-15km per day. That will probably be enough, so we can get to the bivouac site each day with plenty of time to care for feet, have a rest then get out during the magic hour to shoot.
I have asked a few friends if they were interested and so far it looks like four of us will be going. Then my two older kids aged 13 and 15 also said they wanted to come. They are young fit, and I can think of nothing more than letting them have some "men" time in the bush with the grown ups.
With that many going, we have yet to secure a date, with Easter and Anzac Day being too busy, it looks like it will be in May. Stay tuned for when we set the date in concrete. May will be cool, without being winter, so it will be nice walking conditions. Of course, I will expect there to be four seasons in one day at Wilsons Prom, so we will need to be well equipped. I have started putting together pack plans and lists so we don't forget anything, and that will be ironed out with some of the practice hikes.
The first practice hike we decided to do was to do some day walks in the Dandenong Ranges National Park. This included the famous 1000 steps of the Kokoda Trail Memorial Walk. I will blog on this experience soon.
The following weekend we did some day walks in and around the Bellarine Peninsula, because it was a lovely summers day, and a walk and swim in the oceans was a great call.
So that brings me to where we are now. As this blog develops you will read about me making plans. You will read about me getting off my backside and getting out into this beautiful country. You will read about the treks, what to avoid, what to do and hopefully they will encourage you to see a bit of the country yourself. You will see some of my photos, and in some cases I will describe what equipment and methods I used to capture the shot.
But for the record, I do not have anything really flash when it comes to equipment. I would love a you beaut Canon 5D with L series lenses, but for now I only have an old Canon entry level 350D. Like me it is getting old and knocked around a bit, but it still works, and cameras don't take photos, people do. One day I will upgrade, but in the meantime part of the challenge is to capture what I can with my little old baby.
My list of gear is:
Canon 350D
Sigma 18-50mm EX DC Macro ( a beautiful standard lens)
Canon EF 50mm f1.8 (The mandatory nifty fifty)
Sigma 70-300mm APO DG (still my favorite lens...great for wildlife)
Canon EFS 18-55mm (crap kit lens...just leave it behind)
Canon Speedlite 430EX (good enough for now)
Various filters including ND2, ND4, ND8, CPL, GND, IR, UV
Various Gadgets including Shutter Release Cables, Tripods etc - if there is a gadget, I must try it!
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