Mushroom shots always make the top ten, this year four of them made the final cut of images, this one in the lawn. 

Bird shots also had four make the final cut for the year, this one a Little Pied Cormorant Posing against a clean background. 

This one caught my eye as I was driving up the hill in the Australian Botanic Gardens Growing in the grass bank beside the road, A dark moody sky a bit of lighting and one of the more moody shots for the year. 

Next up a shoot of a pair of Eastern Rosellas. This shot shows sthat you can get that creamy background with the Canon 800 f11, the blur is a result of the 800mm focal length and the ratio of camera to subject and Subject to Background, the further away the background the creamier the background. Over the years a lot of people have bagged the Canon 800F11 saying you can't get creamy backgrounds or can't shoot in anything but bright full sun. most come from people that haven't used it. I have an 800F11 and the 100-500 F9 and I find I use the 800 80% more compared to the 100-500 at 20% when checking my data from lightroom.  

A small group of Australasian Shoveler duck also showed up in the Gardens for a few days this year and I managed to get a series of shots of these before they departed, the catch with these is so get down as low as you can to get these shots, It certainly helps when they are both on the same focal plain to keep both nice and sharp in the image. 

People always ask why I shoot fungi and don't I get bored of shooting the same thing. This shot made this years top ten partly becasue of the unusualness of the the shot, its actually a Puff ball or earth star but a the end of its lift. So not what you nornally see or expect to see when you see one of these. Like all the fungi shots shot in normal daylight, under exposed and light with three external speedlites, focus stacked and processed to get the effects I like. 

Another Bird shot for this year's top ten a Tawny Frogmought, this one heavely processed to give the painting effect to the shot, some time this woprks better than others, in this case I'm happy with the result and how it turned out. The background colours and tones work well for this one. Happy enough to get it into they years top ten. 

The final Fungi shot for this year’s top ten. This one a little more surreal than the other ones for the year. Always fun playing with images and seeing what you can make of them that best suits the subject. The blue background is created by using a brown gel on the subject, Then in post-processing white balance correction which turns the shadows the opposite colour on the colour wheel. Sometimes it works better than others this one, I'm happy with this one. 

The final two shots for the top ten of the year are both Flora shots, the only ones to make the final cut. Both of these have had an effect I've used now for a few years to create a painting-like effect from the original image. Sometimes I only apply it to the backgrounds but in these cases, the whole image has had it applied to varying degrees. The image starts to look like something you'd see in the old masters' collections in the art Galleries. 

Finishing off the Years top ten with a fitting image Christmas Bells. These come out each year around Christmas time in the Australian Bushland, giving a splash of red and yellow about the bushland. All the Flora shots are lit with two off camera speedlights in small soft boxes.

It's always interesting to see the results of the top ten each year, then compare them to previous years to see just where I've come from and if I'm improving over the last few years and see the direction my Photograhy is talking. Each year the review is hard to get down to the final two, but that final process of getting down to only ten is where you learn the most about your own.

Have fun there and enjoy your photography.

Glenn. 

One thing that came out of the year is I started a major project with the Australian Botanic Gardens, The project will run for several years and probably for as long as I'm willing to participate in it. With this project, I get to work with some of the horticultural stuff in the gardens so a great learning for me on the various plants in the gardens, as a result, I've got a lot more flora shots for the year. So kicking off the year the first shot is a close-up of wattle, using the skills I've developed over the years with my fungi work I've transferred those skills to the flora work, so this one is using off-camera lighting. 

The next shot is a wildlife shot of Red-rump Parrots coming to drink in the morning, this shot has the female coming in to try and get to the log currently occupied by a male, the tail of the female is dragging in the water. This shot is with natural light, so not lit with a Speedlite, it was a bit overcast but a bit of light was coming through in the right spot at the right time. Some days luck does play a part, but also if I'm there often enough then I improve my odds of getting a decent shot with great light. I usually spend one day a week shooting in the gardens so that certainly helps.  

I managed to find some great Fungi to shoot this year and this was one. One of the bigger ones I've shot over the year and great colour on this one. As usual, these are shot in the Australian Botanic Gardens, the gardens are only open from 8:00 am till five and till seven in the three summer months so all are shot in normal daylight. Again happy with how the lighting came out on this one, two off-camera Speedlites used. I like the mood the lighting has created in this shot, Not every shot you manage to get it all the way you want, but this time, I'm happy with the results. 

This shot comes from a few years of walking the gardens at all times of the day and times of the year and knowing where to be and when to catch the light. This one is again all natural light, so around 3:30pm to 4:00pm in the winter months the suns lower and before it goes down over the hill the eastern side of the connections gardens gets this amazing light a few years ago I got some great Flannel Flowers this time a Kingia in flower with the amazing backlight. 

This next shot was a great find one day after recent rains, one of the bigger Mushrooms I'd find in the gardens. The colour of this one made it stand out and with two off-camera speedlites made it pop. The orange against the green foliage with the sharp focus on the mushroom cap texture against the brown soil makes the image have a sort of surreal feel to it. One of my better Mushroom shots todate. 

This is an Australian King Parrot feeding in the Australian Botanic Gardens, Again love the sharpness of this one that the Canon R5 gives. 

This one shows just what can be achieved when in lockdown and shooting in the backyard, Natural light. For this shot, it's all about the position of the camera relative to the subject to the back gound and where and how the light falls. The Subject the spotted dove was flying from the side fence to the ground. So the flight path is fairly predictable. The back of the yard is lined with decent sized bottle brush trees which cast a shadow on the back fence in the early morning, So the background is the back fence in shadow and the bird is flying through the sunlight. So natural light and position creates this shot. 

Pretty much every year I've managed to get a Waratah shot into my top ten and this year is no exception. This one like all but one of my shots are taken in the Australian Botanic Gardens the exception being the shot above in my backyard. This one taken with two off-camera speedlites. 

Loving the sharpness of the R5 with the 100-500mm. The colour between the white / cream bird and the green background is what makes this image for me.  The bird being a Long-billed Corella feeding on wattle seeds in the gardens. 

This ones the last one for the top ten, this ones right up there as one of my favourite mushroom shots so far, sometimes it all comes together the lighting and the post-processing. Most of the Fungi shots are taken with two speedlites, This one as well. The light on the left with a brown gel gives that warm light. Image is focus stacked as are most of them now. The processing gives the softening of the surroundings. 

So that's my top ten for 2021, the last few years I've started to create these single pages of the top ten images. So I've got these records each year as a single page so I can easily compare how far I've come. 

Whereas this is what Instagram likes think are my best images for the year. This is where I find it interesting as not one of the Instagram top nine images made my top ten. Not one of my fungi images made the top nine, whereas I had three in my personal top ten. 

Below are the links to the last few years top ten blog posts for those that are new here. 

The idea originally came from Martin Baily and his regular podcast which you can find the links from his site here,

 https://martinbaileyphotography.com/

Martin has been doing his top ten for my years than I have now, so always interesting to see how other people go about their work and what they come up with.

Stay safe out there everyone, have fun and happy shooting.

Thanks for dropping by my Blog this week.

Glenn.

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2021/1/my-top-ten-images-from-2020

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2022/1/my-top-ten-images-from-2019

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2019/1/my-top-ten-images-of-2018

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2018/1/my-top-ten-shots-of-2017

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2017/1/my-top-ten-shots-of-2016

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2016/1/2015-top-ten-shots---year-in-review

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2015/1/2014-top-ten-shots---year-in-review

The first image in my top ten of 2020 was taken in January before the lockdowns started and COVID got a foot hold in Australia. A Straw-necked Ibis (Threskiornis spinicollis), Take n with the Canon 5D mark 4 and the Sigma 150-600mm Sports lens at 600mm 1/320 sec F8 ISO 800. Like all the shots in this years top ten this shot was taken in the Australian Botanic Gardens, Mount Annan. This was taken in January the Drought was about to brake but not yet so water was getting scarce in the Gardens and only a few of the large lakes had water, the Wattle and Banksia gardens dams had both dried up by then, so water birds were all coming to the main three lakes of the gardens. There was a small flock of about eight Straw-necked Ibis here with a couple Australian White Ibis. 

Straw-necked Ibis (Threskiornis spinicollis)

The second shot in my top ten is of one of the many fungi that I find in the gardens. This one shot with the Canon 60D I still you this old work horse for most of my fungi shots, This one two off camera speed lites used one with a brown gel which I've then white balanced corrected, this gives the blue tint in the shadows, you can go part way to that using slit toning in post processing but I find I get better results with gels and white balance corrections. As with nearly all my fun shots this one is focus stacked, which is why the ageing 60D works just as well on these. I've printed these up to A3 plus size and they stand up to close up inspection, my printer (Canon pro-1000) will print up to A2 but I've yet to print that size yet. 
 

This next one is still my favourite shot of the year taken in March so has stood the test of time for the year, and still is my favourite, even thou it’s a relatively simple shot, I call this one “Simplicity”. The side lighting really brings out the texture again shot with eh Canon 60D and 100mm F2,8L macro lens and focus stacked. Shot in the Australian Botanic Gardens. Two off camera speedlites used again.  All in manual both the exposure and speedlite setting always in manual. As usual taken in the gardens means taking in daylight, a lot of people think these are taken at night but most are taking in daylight if not full sun even.   

OK this one was also shot in March in the gardens, before the weather turns and these guys go into hibernation, this one a Yellow Faced Whipsnake was making its way around the main gardens where most of the people visit the gardens, most of my shots are taken in the natural bushland areas of the gardens but I do venture up into the other areas at times to see what’s about this time I got lucky with this one.  This time shot with the Canon 7dmkII and the Sigma 150-600 Sports lens at 600mm, so my usually birding set up will was, (More on that later). This means I wasn’t as close as it looks to this one. Settings were 1/1250 Sec F8 and ISO 1000. This one only the head and upper length of the snake was out of the leaves, I like the colour of the leaves against the snakes head and body. This is an area of the gardens families are often running around in be interesting if one of the younger members of a family ran across this one, this ones not so bad but there are often Brown snakes there as well, which are right up there in the more fatal snake bite categories.

This one shot in June, a small time of lock down in Sydney so I kept out of the gardens for a few months, then I got out and found these in flower in the gardens the Sturts Desert Pea, this time shot with the Canon 5Dmk4 and the 24-105mm f4 lens. 1/250 sec F11 ISO 320 two off camera speed lites and focus stacked, The amount of detail in this shot is incredible you can see each hair on the stems and flower buds, the depth of colours and the contrast between the red flowers and the green buds with the red soil in the background. This area of the garden has the red soil of the outback.  Between these, Waratahs and the Kangaroo paw all iconic Australian Flowers I can decide which is my favourite. I had a few Waratah flowers that only just missed out on this years top ten, but they made it into last years top ten and my favour shot of last years work. These are a ground cover plant, I've seen them in the wild over in Western Australia just over 30 years ago now, I didn't see them a couple of years ago when I was last over WA. 

This shot was taken in November and these were out a little early, these are called Christmas bells and usually come out mid December in time for Christmas. This one shot with the Canon 5Dmk4 and the Canon 24/105mm F4 at 70mm 1/2000 Sec F9 ISO 100 and one off camera speedlite. Happy with how the processing turned out on this one another one that has that painting like an old world masters feel to it. The last two years Waratahs shot has the same feel to them. 

This year Canon bought out a new toy and I was waiting to see what the new 1DX was going to be, when it came out I was really disappointed and it just didn't appeal to me for what it was and I'd already seen a few leaked specs of the R5 which to me seemed an amazing body if the rumours were true. When it finally came out all the rumours were true. I had mine on the third day of release, so was one of the first to get one in the country a big thank you to Macarthur Camera house my local camera store. Getting the early one meant I also got the free extra battery and the sext limited edition strap, which is much wider and more comfortable than the standard straps they come with. I also got the new 800mm f11 lens, this lens coped a fair bit of criticism when it came out mainly by people who had never shot with it or people that aren’t use to shooting with long glass, I was a little sceptical about the lens, but thought it was so light and compact when closed down I thought it would make a great travel long lens and the price was so good for a lens that’s that long. Having used the lens now for near on six months now, I must say I’m really impressed, the sharpness of the lens is great it’s so light, the Aperture is fixed f11 not a minimum but fixed f11 so you can have any aperture you like as long as its f11. That hasn’t been a problem on the R5 as the ISO can be used much higher, without an issue when I first mentioned it I got comments such as its great if you want to shoot in full sun but you’d never use it in any situation under cover of the canopy or an over cast day. Well all that has been since disproven. I’m really impressed with the image quality I get out of this lens every weekend. I’ve shot it in really low light, been able to hand hold an 800 mm lens at 1/50 sec with the inbuilt stabilisation in the body and lens. The body has allowed me to shoot at 10,000 ISO with little noise. I know a lot of people won’t like it and won’t give it a fair go, but that’s OK, I’m happy with it and I’m not into trying to sell them. I will at some stage get the 100-500 as it has the better weather sealing and the only issue I’ve really came across with eh 800f11 is the minimum focus distance is 6m so at times I’ve had to back up to get a shot in focus which is a nice change, I’ve got some great hand held shots of the moon with it and the only time I have put it on a tripod is when I shot Saturn, and Jupiter. Its amazing to realise you can actually see the rings of Saturn with a  camera and lens without the aid of a telescope.  

So this and all the remaining shots for the years top ten were all shot with the Canon R5 thou I still take out the other bodies will all but the 7DmkII which I haven’t picked up since. This ones with R5 and 800mm F11 1/400 sec ISO 2500. Hand held. When I used the 7dmkII and the sigma 150-600 sports it was always on a tripod and Gimbal head now days I’ve been shooting hand help and enjoying the extra freedom it’s given me. Especially the last month or so due to a slight incident with my foot which resulted in a few fractures in my right foot and as a result a moon boot is my new best friend for the last 8 weeks and last weekends check up and review of the latest X-rays were not looking promising for a fast recovery so another 4 weeks in the moon boot, so caring a lightweight body and lens and no tripod has certainly been appreciated. 

Another shot with the R5 this time using the 100mm f2,8 EF lens with the RF adaptor, as there's no glass in the adaptor and its just a spacer there's no loss of image quality, a question I get asked a lot about. This shot using my typical two light set up, this time the camera was on a tripod so I could hand hold the two lights either side of the Banksia flower head, this one was taken in daylight on a slight overcast day. 1/100 sec f9 ISO 200. Again that old world masters feel to it with the lighting and processing. 

The flowering gums flowers again lite with a speedlite  and using the R5 and 100mm F2,8 Macro. 1/40 sec f11 ISO 400 hand held as by now I was in my moon boot and not to keen on carrying to much gear all over the gardens especially all the stairs to get to these. 

The final shot that made my top ten was this shot of a willy Wagtail feeding its young in the nest. normally I wouldn't go near a nest for a shot but this one managed to build its nest fought beside the main board walk and beside a wooden seat where a lot of people stop for their lunch most not even aware that dirtily behind them if they turned around what this activity going on, with the 800mm lens I was actually a lot further back than the people continually walking past. Still its important to make sure you are not interfering with the birds normal behaviour when shooting birds or any wildlife for that matter. shooting in the botanic gardens there is a lot of paths and boardwalks which are fairly heavily used and occasionally you find something like this right beside the path. This shot with the R5 and 800mm f11 1/800 sec ISO 3200 this one was in one of those areas under the forest canopy where people said you’d never be able to use that lens it will be to dark, the back ground in this case wasn’t completely creamy like you can get with a F4 lens but then for the cost of a 600mm F4 I can buy 10 of these F11 lenses. Still it’s not to bad and I’ve certainly got shots where the back ground is pure cream. So I’m very happy with my new set up and loving the R5 with everything I’ve shot with it so far, Birding, Fungi, flowers, some event work. The only thing I would like it to have and maybe a fix in an upcoming firmware is for the focus bracketing to enable the use of speedlites, the Nikon mirror less bodies allow focus bracketing with speedlites the R5 and R6 does not, it has focus bracketing but not with speedlites due to issues with recycle time of the speedlite, Nikon has overcome this so I’m sure Canon can and hope to have it fixed in a firmware upgrade one day, other than that I have had no issues and loving the combination. 

This year for something different I also put together a collage of my top ten shot for the year which fit on an A4 page, having seen how this turned out I plan on going back over the last six years top tens and doing the same so I can easily see my progression over the years, I’ll add in the year to the page as well, These will then go into a display book and any time I question my journey thought photography I’ll be able to flick thought the pages and see where I was at a few years back.

Lastly the last image is my instagram top nine based on Instagram likes, interesting that none of the images in the two collections match up. Between instagram like and my personal choice of my work. There were a couple there than made my top twenty but when seen large they didn’t quite make the cut for one reason or other. I note that the Waratahs feature a good amount in the Instagram feed likes. Both my top ten and the Instgram top nine shots were all taken in my local Botanic gardens. I do occasionally shot elsewhere but its only ten minutes from home, 190 different Bird species and 414 hectares of land to explore.  It consists of natural bushlands, waterways, plus actual gardens and water features, so plenty for everyone to cover there Photography wants. There are 12km of roadways in the gardens so I don’t have to walk the whole garden thou it’s been known to happen. For the last few years I’ve ran the photography workshops for the gardens usually one a month but that came to a halt in February last year, hopefully in the coming months I’ll be able to start these back up again, Plus a few other projects coming up with the gardens which I’ll speak more of in a future blog post as things develop.

So that wraps up my 2020 top ten shots for the year and a little of the back story and settings behind the shots.  Feel free to follow me on instagram where I post a shot each weekday, less so on Facebook, but I'll try and be a bit more active there, as again I'll try and get these blog post s a bit more regular the original aim was for one a week, so I’ll see how I go this year, I’ll do a post showing the Canon 800mm f11 lens and just what I can get out of it. For those that are interested, plus the normal weekly walk thought of the shots for the week.

Below is the links to the last few years top ten blog posts for those that are new here. 

The idea original came from Martin Baily and his regular pod cast which you can find the links form his site here,

 https://martinbaileyphotography.com/

Martin has been doing his top ten for my years than I have now, so always interesting to see how other people go about there work and what they come up with.

Stay safe out there everyone, have fun and happy shooting.

Thanks for dropping by my Blog this week.

Glenn.

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2021/1/my-top-ten-images-from-2020

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2019/1/my-top-ten-images-of-2018

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2018/1/my-top-ten-shots-of-2017

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2017/1/my-top-ten-shots-of-2016

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2016/1/2015-top-ten-shots---year-in-review

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2015/1/2014-top-ten-shots---year-in-review

This year The Australian Botanic gardens, continued to run photography workshops so I had 7 workshops to run, plus I had a one on one workshop for someone. I also had three event photography shoots for the Botanic Gardens and Centennial Parklands, one shot from these events made my top ten. I also managed to do some event photography shoots for myself which is always good practice, while doing these I managed to shoot the same local group here 'Like Angles Trio'  https://www.instagram.com/wearelikeangels/ I've actually had shots of these from various events over the years but this year I managed to get their details made contact and shared the images I had with them. They just released their first single with all the money raised going towards drought relief and the devastating fires we are having here in Australia this summer. I was also Photography of the day on the photofocus website for a day in December. https://photofocus.com/inspiration/photographer-of-the-day-glenn-smith/
One of my shots was also critiqued on the Behind the shot podcast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMuiDhwBroo just after the 1-hour mark. 

The local council again ran their Nature photography competition this year and this year they didn't have any workshops running in conjunction with it, so I was free to enter this year and managed to win the Floral section. 

I was also asked to give a talk at the Illawarra Bird observers group down in Wollongong earlier in the year. Plus, I was asked to give a talk and a short workshop for Camera houses photography expo at Darling Harbour earlier in the year. Birding NSW asked by to assist with the judging of their annual photography competition, and the Australian Botanic Gardens are running a monthly photography competition which I'm also one of the judges for. So, every month I have to judge the images for this, so a bit of competition judging this year I think helped in cutting down my images for the year to the final ten. 

So, all up a pretty busy year photography wise, considering photography is my hobby and I still have a full-time job as well. 

I've already got three speaking events lined up for 2020, workshops running the second Sundays of most months with the Gardens and possible the photography Expo again at Darling Harbour, so another full year coming up, in between all that I need to get out and shoot some shots. Hoping to head back out to central Australia sometime toward the middle of the year.

Back to the top ten shots from last year this is and idea I got from Martin Bailey's photography podcasts https://martinbaileyphotography.com/podcasts/

Each year Martin goes through the process of selecting his top ten shots for the year, which is pretty much the way I do the same, It's never an easy process when you get down to the last twenty, but worth getting to the last ten, as you get to review your images critically, this is where you learn from your images just what makes a good image and a great image. If you go back and compare to the previous years you see if you have improved and if your photography is changing direction. Looking at my top ten this year six of my images have a fantasy feel in the post processing.  Three shots were Mushroom shots. Four shots were bird shots, which is interesting as my Instagram top nine as selected by number of likes was all bird shots for this year. Two shots were flower shots and one shot was from one of the event photo shoots I did through the year. On with the shots.

This shot was taken in normal daylight, Two off camera speedlites one with a brown gel. The image is made from several images’ focus stacked together to give the depth of field, a bit of post processing magic on the background gives the fantasy feel, the mushroom is based back in.  

This shot was taken at the Centennial Park Easter event where I was the official event photographer. As you'd have noted if you'd seen any of my work most of my shots are usually nature and wildlife not people so event photography is a little out of my comfort zone but it’s good to take on new challenges and helps to take your photography a little further then you would otherwise do. The lighting was natural for this shot, with the sun just cresting a rise and backlighting the Easter bunny, happy with how this shot turned out, as was the customer so that's always a good thing to have happy customers.

This shot as all, but the Easter bunny shot were taken in the one location the Australian Botanic Gardens, Mount Annan, South West of Sydney. https://www.australianbotanicgarden.com.au The gardens are a little larger than most 416 Hectares in area, 12 km of roads, natural bushland, along with manicured gardens. The gardens have 189 known bird species visiting the gardens thought out the year, I've been shooting the different types now for several years and still 35 spices to find and shoot. This one's an Eastern Spinebill. 

Not too many Mushrooms about this year due to the continuing drought and now the extreme high temperatures and fires. The fire hazard warning has twice been raised to catastrophic here this last month which means the gardens were actually closed, the ground is so dry most of the grass has died, you walk on it and it turns to dust, so with the soil moisture content being so low very little in the way of fungi about. These ones were very woody and dry. Again, taking with two off-camera speedlites, Brown gel and white balanced back to turn the shadows that blue tint which works well with the brown mushrooms here. Again, focus stacked and post-processed on the background to give the fantasy feel about this shot. 

Another Fungi shot made my list, same process as above. These were on the same small log.

This shots my favourite for the year, I print all my shots on my Canon Pro 1000, and this one prints into an amazing image, When you hold the print in your hand you almost try and put you're had through the image. the image appears to be 3D with the two smaller flowers to the top left appearing to be deep in the paper. I've printed these with a full clear coat of the Chroma Optimizer not sure if that's helped or it's just the processing that I used. This is definitely the highlight of my year when this first came off the printer. Looking at it on the screen doesn't show the depth I can see in a print. I have several prints of this laying around now and as I walk past a table or cupboard with the image laying on top I always get stopped by the image and look into the image. 

Another bird shot from within the Australian Botanic Gardens, This one taken a bit early in the year a lot of these water lilies are now dry and shrivel up on the banks as the lakes and dams dry up. This shot has a definite Monet feel about it with the processing I've used. Seems this year processing as certainly made an impact on my top ten. 

The Sturts Desert Pea is once of my Favourite Australian Native flowers, these grow in the arid regions of Australia, I've seen them in the wid over in Outback western Australia but these were again taken in the Australian Botanic Gardens, this was taken in full sun. underexposed and lite with a single Speedlite. Post-processing again gives this shot the magical almost electric feel to this shot. 

One of the more common birds in the Sydney suburban area is the Noisy Miner. This shot works for me due to the colour of the Kangaroo Paws yellow matches the bird's beak and eye-ring. 

The final shot of the top ten was only taken Christmas eve so maybe one that shouldn't have made the cut as I've still got the memory of the moment and the shot clear in my mind, but I still like the shot, I used this and a series of two other for my Christmas post calling them the Christmas Carollers as they look like there were singing, in truth they were singing but singing out for a feed from the parent birds as they took turns shuttling in with feed for them for an hour, these were shot with a 150-600mm lens at 600mm so I was a fair bit away from the bird so an not to disturb them, the feeding keep going for an hour and I left while it was still going on so I was not effecting the birds natural behaviour, Also as these are in the Botanic Gardens with many visitors a day a lot of the wildlife are well used to people in the area. 

So looking back at these images six of the ten are processed to give a mystical feel to the images. So seems to be a direction I've been heading this year without meaning to. 

It's interesting to see how Instagram saw my top nine completed to my version of my top ten for 2019, one thing to note in Instagram I did some reposts of some of my old shots, So some of the best nine images were not taken in 2019 whereas my top ten were only selected from images taken this year, Only one of my top nine had the post-processing effects. The other thing to note the Instagram top nine were only bird shots. I'm happy with my top ten for this year. I can see where I've improved on previous years, thou not so much of a step-change this year. 

If you're interested in seeing some of my previous top ten shots the links are below. 

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2019/1/my-top-ten-images-of-2018

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2018/1/my-top-ten-shots-of-2017

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2017/1/my-top-ten-shots-of-2016

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2016/1/2015-top-ten-shots---year-in-review

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2015/1/2014-top-ten-shots---year-in-review

I recommend anyone that's series about improving their photography to go through this process each year, just working out which ones are better than other images of yours gets you thinking what works for you and what doesn't. It starts out easy but getting down to the final ten is always hard, with the experience this year of some photography judging, I think it made it a little easier to get to the final result, but the last twenty were not easy.  Give it a go and see how you go, then look back in the next year to see how you have improved, you'll be surprised how you've developed over that time.

Thanks for dropping by my blog, hopefully, a lot more regularly this year.

Have fun.

Glenn.    

The gardens are really starting to green up now after the recent rains and ongoing showers every few days, huge difference between now and a couple of weeks back where everything was brown or dead and the grass crunched under your feet and often turned to dust. 

First up a Little Black Cormorant (Phalacrocorax Sulcirostris) was cruising the lake. These have amazing green eyes.

Next while walking around the lake I came across this Scared Kingfisher (Todiramphus sanctus).

While shooting the Kingfisher I could hear from the other side of the lake the call of the Restless Flycatcher (Myiagra inquieta), Often called the scissor grinder, due to the noise they make. These often go into hover mode while looking for insects to feed on. This one wasn't so close so pretty heavily cropped in on these shots. 

 The usual Australiasian Grebes (Tachybaptus novaehollandiae) were on the lake cruising around as well. 

An Australian Magpie (Craticus tibicen) posing for me at the plant bank Normally you image these to be black and white, but under the overcast sky, the light was right to start to show off some of the colours this bird has. 

The second shot here has some added post-processing, this starts to take some of the distraction from the background. 
A Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) sticking its head out of a hollow checking out the world. 

Something a little different a Yellow-faced whip snake (Demansia psammophis) This one was in the gardens at the car park on the way to the visitor's centre, so everyone was walking past this one. 

This one captured a Noisy Miner (Manorina melanocephala) purched on top of a banksia in flower. The banksia is full of nectar so food for the Miner who are honeyeaters. 

With all the rain about there were plenty of Fungi about in the gardens this weekend. The next series of shots are a series of Fungi shots, the finished shot a setup shot showing my set up and in some cases a shot straight out of an iPhone so you can see the actual lighting conditions and what a fully auto shot will gove rather than controlling the exposure and lighting. 

As you can see lighting makes a whole world of difference to a shot. You'll see that most times the lighting is almost 90 degrees to the lens axis, this brings out the textures and shots of the details in the gills, if I had the lights straight on you'd lose the textures. Think of shots you see of the moon, Full moons usually have no crater details where has new moons, or half-moons have all the crater details showing up near the shadow line because the Full moon is direct light whereas where the shadows start has the sunlight at near ninety degrees similar to what I'm doing here. So by having cross light, I'm bringing out the texture. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week. Have fun there. 

Glenn




 

This first shot was pretty much what I was greeted with as I got out of the car and walked to the first lake. A young Dusky Moorhen (Gallinula tenebrosa). 

The next two shots are of a Black-fronted Dotterel (Elseyornis melanops)  

Like most bird shots it’s better waiting for the bird to come to you so sitting and waiting patiently usually gives good results as is the case here, the bird came closer if I had moved closer the bird would have moved away or flew, so waiting is usually the way to go. A better shot comes up later. 

This next image is of a Sacred Kingfisher (Todiramphus sanctus) not happy with this shot, not as sharp as I’d like, getting a few images like this of late, so got to work out why. The image was taken with the 5dmk4, but is very heavily cropped in. You can see al the waterdrops glistening in the background. 

Here's the other shot of the Black-fronted Dotterel. In this shot, you can see the raindrops hitting the lakes surface and all the water droplets on the back of the bird. It’s just a matter of waiting for the bird to come to you. Happy with this one.

Another bird in the rain shot, not an exciting shot, but shows the weather conditions and the birds still in the rain. An Australasian Grebe (Tachybaptus novaehollandiae)

This one's again nothing special but showing the rain.

The Eurasian Coots (Fulica atra) were also out in the rain. These next two shots show the rain falling and collecting on the back of the Coot.

With the rain still falling but easing off I went up to the connections gardens and most of the birdlife was taking cover or sitting in the rain, so tried a few shots of flowers and plants in the rain. Surprisingly there were Waratahs out in full flower. These normal flower October to November and by this time of year well past flowing, so unusual to see them in flower this time of year. The flower heads collect the water drops. 

Likewise with the rain still falling these gum nuts are covered in raindrops. For that matter so was I. 

The last shot in the gardens for the day was this spider web with all the rain caught in the web. This shot was hand help using the Sigma 150-600mm at 600mm. I was getting too wet to set up the camera on the tripod and was heading to the car, not the best way to get a decent shot, but after all day out in the rain, I'd had enough for the day.  

The last shot for this week was taken as soon as I got home and sitting out on the railing undercover keeping out of the rain was this pair of somewhat soggy Rainbow Lorikeets (Trichoglossus haematodus).

So that wraps up this week's shots out of the Australian Botanic Gardens plus a bonus shot from home. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week. Back next week with more. 

Glenn.

First stop was to check if the Night-jar was still in residence looks like the Red-rump Parrots (Psepotus haematonotus) have regained their home again. 

On the banks of the lake in the morning before everyone arrives and the temperature gets too hot the Eurasian Coot (Fulica atra)  are all clustered on the edge of the lake. In the early morning, there's usually no wind or little wind so you get a better chance of a reflection.  It helps to get down low with water birds.

This pair were staying on the island but keeping a close eye on the goings-on. 

Just by walking a few steps and changing my angle you get a totally different light for the shot even thou the birds haven't moved. So always pays to walk around a little and explore the light. 

The morning was still early when I walked through the woodland picnic area, a small group of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos (Cacatua galerita) had taken over the picnic tables but soon went to the trees. 

These next two shots again show the bird in the exact same spot on the branch but a matter of getting a little lower to clean up the background. 
In this shot, the Bird is in a clean background, always check the background and see if you can clean it up just by moving, makes it a lot more pleasing a shot. in this case, I just had to go about 300mm lower to get the clear patch in the trees behind the bird. 

Up opposite the plant bank is a small dam and it often has water birds about this time a White-faced Heron (Egretta novaehollandiae) up in the tree, again a bit of walking around to try and get a clean shot, I couldn't clean up the background in this case, but did manage to get a clean uninterrupted shot of the bird without anything in the foreground in front of the bird. Not a great shot still but at least its a clean shot in front. 

Back on the lake, an Australasian Grebe (Tachybaptus novahollandiae) was slowly cruising the lake. 

A pair of Chestnut Teal (anas castanea) were also on the lake today, the bright red eye against the dark green head certainly shows up brightly.

Last stop on the edge of the lake before I left was to shoot a few shots of the Black-fronted Dotterels (Elseyornis melanops) these are usually pretty skittish so take a while to be able to get close to them, it usually works better if you wait and they slowly come to you, If you start to chase a bird then it will keep moving away and eventually get too far away from you so better to stay still and wait for them to come to you.  

Due to the high temperatures today there was no mushrooms out, but when I go home I did find these growing in a pot plant on the back decking so bought them inside into the cool and took a few shots of these, lit with two off-camera lights and focus stacked and post-processed in lightroom and photoshop. 

So that wraps up this week's shots out of the Australian Botanic Gardens plus a bonus shot from home. 

With the new year starting now the first of my workshops in the gardens is now open for books via the garden's website, link here.

There are still a few places left for this Sunday 9th Feb. 2020 even in the rain.

https://www.australianbotanicgarden.com.au/Whats-On/Learn-from-the-Experts-Beginners-Photography
 

This one is aimed at beginners so someone that's just got a new camera or wants to learn about the effects of aperture, and depth of field, shutter speed how to freeze or blur motion etc then this would be a good start, March there will be an intermediate workshop, this year I'll also be running a mushroom photography workshop in Autumn and of cause, the usual bird photography workshops will be running, so keep an eye out for upcoming workshops I've also added a workshop tab on this site now so you can follow along there for upcoming event as well.

Thanks for dropping by my blog hope to have it back to a regular blog post again this year. 

Glenn

While I was waiting for the Star of the week to put in its appearance there were still a few fungi about so I managed a few setups before the star arrived. This one with the usual set up Canon 60D on the ground making use of the articulated screen, two off-camera lights. 

The highlight of the week was the return of the Australian Owlet-Nightjar, (Aegotheles crisratus) These are basically little fluff balls with eyes well this one is. It's occupying a luxury hollow that has two entrances and one with a balcony. the first shot shows it enjoying the view from the balcony over the gardens in the woodland area. 

This next shot shows it at the lower hollow the two are connected, but it usually flies down to the lower hollow from the Balcony and crawls its way up tot eh top through the hollow from the bottom. 
 

Like most hollows, they are rarely free and the Night-jar appears to have take up residence in a hollow previously occupied by a pair of Red-rumped Parrots. The Parrots want their home back. So there's a bit of a battle going on for possession of the hollow. So this next series shows just one of the mini battles, the female red-rump was above the hollow with its tail hanging over the hollow. The Night-jar latched on with its beak, much to the Red-rumps dismay. The red-rump temporarily relocated and the night-jar stood guard with its mouth ready for the next assault. 
 

After the excitement as I left the area, I spotted another fungi to shoot, this time I used a small softbox on one of the speedlites. 

Tried an extra step in the processing of this one with a bit of black and white processing to see how they look, Still think I prefer the colour. But not too unhappy with it. 

This week it was the Fairy Martins (Petrochelidon ariel) young turn to be feed. So this series shows a sequence as the parent flys in feeding the young while staying airborne. 

The Welcome swallows (hirundo neoxena) are always about this ones still a young un As its face is more brown than the usual orange. 

Of late there's been a pair of Royal Spoonbills (Platalea regia) have been about in the gardens, this time they were in separate lakes.

The usual Australian Reed-warblers (Acrocephatalus australis) are still about in the reed beds this one found a moth to snack on. 

The young Little Black Cormorants (Phalacrocorax sulcirostris) are pretty much full size now. 

Up until the last few weeks, I've shot most of my birding images with the 7DmkII, but the last few weeks I've been using the 5Dmk4 for the birding shots. The main advantage to the 7dmkII was the frame rate of able to shot 10 frames per second and the crop factor makes a 600mm lens seem to be a 960mm lens, whereas the 5dmk4 has the better image quilty and higher megapixel sensor. So this week I took the next two shots with the two different bodies so see if when both are cropped to the same about which one holds up best. Both shots are taken with the same settings, Lens was mounted on the tripod. I've cropped both images in lightroom so the same image size the 5D image needed more cropping to get the same size image.  The first image is from the Canon 5Dmk4.

Dusky Woodswally (Artamus cyanopterus)

Whereas this image is from the 7DmkII. There's not much between the two images

Back in the main carpark, a Rainbow Lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus) was feasting on a flowering guntree. 

The Little Eastern Yellow Robins (Eopsaltria australis)are in the gardens year-round, but always pose for a shot. 

Back in the Main carpark and a Noisy Miner (Manorina melanocephala) was also in posing mode in amongst a Grevillea. These are native honey honeyeaters.  

As I was driving out there was this small group of Wallaroos, On hot days like this one they lick they forearms where there are veins running which as the airflow hits the wet areas acts as evaporative air conditioning allowing them to cool down, ones using this technique in this shot. 

Last shot of the day is of a little Black-fronted Dotterel (Elseyornis melanops) there are several pairs of these on the shores of the lakes in the gardens look for them on the mud flats they are tiny so easily missed. 

So that wraps up this week's shots out of the Australian Botanic Gardens. 

With the new year starting now the first of my workshops in the gardens is now open for books via the garden's website, link here.

There are still a few places left for this Sunday 9th Feb. 2020. 

https://www.australianbotanicgarden.com.au/Whats-On/Learn-from-the-Experts-Beginners-Photography
 

This one is aimed at beginners so someone that's just got a new camera or wants to learn about the effects of aperture, and depth of field, shutter speed how to freeze or blur motion etc then this would be a good start, March there will be an intermediate workshop, this year I'll also be running a mushroom photography workshop in Autumn and of cause, the usual bird photography workshops will be running, so keep an eye out for upcoming workshops I've also added a workshop tab on this site now so you can follow along there for upcoming event as well.

Thanks for dropping by my blog hope to have it back to a regular blog post again this year. 

Glenn

This week I'm still using the 5Dmk4 with the Sigma lens for the bird shots, the fungi shots are the Canon 60D with the 100mm f2.8 L Macro.

This first shot is of a Galah (Eolophus roseicapilla) sitting in a tree high up beside where I stopped the car. The shots fully zoomed-in then heavily cropped, to heave as the image has started to break down, Just shows you can never have a long enough lens.  This coming weekend I want to try the same setup and swape over the 5dmk4 and the 7dMkII on a couple of shots and compare the difference to see the high megapixels Vs the perceived extra reach and see which one give the better quality image for the same setup. 

Next up I came across the Red-capped Robin (Petroica goodenovii) in the usual location near the bird hide its halfway through its moult to get its colour. This shot was also heavily cropped the image is just about to start to break down this is about as far as I can go with the cropping.  I'll see how he's colour is this weekend, each week he's getting more so won't be long now before he's fully coloured up.
 

While shooting the Robin I noticed some Fungi growing after the rain so headed back tot he car to get my mushroom kit. (Camera backpack with the 60D and speedlites) Right beside the car, I found these all growing. My first Fungi shot for a while now so a little rusty for this shot there was a bit of wind as well and these are little delicate ones so they were moving about so not the ideal subject for focus stacking. Not really happy with this shot. So need to get back into practice with these looks like. 

Ok this ones a little better, Still not quite there in this one. A brown gel used on the right side then white balanced back to give the blue light on the left, no blue lighting used for this effect. 

This is the actual set up for the above shot. Also gives a sense of scale to the shot. 

Set up shot

This one's a bit better, lightings much better focus is good, composition needs a little more work, but getting there. 

Was a good day for Mushroom shots with the rain we got through the week This one's more like it. Happy with this one and the one above, just took a little bit to get back into it. Lighting on this one suits the shot just soft enough and not overdoing the back ground lighting. 

Plus the setup shot for this one showing the actual lighting conditions for this shot.

Behind the scenes shotMushroom set up shot

There was some bird life about as usual, I spent a fair amount of the day shooting the mushrooms but did manage a few bird shots. This next series is of the Royal Spoonbills (Platalea regia)

This shot was again to heavily cropped so is breaking down, so something to be careful of the bird a Dollarbird  (Eurystomus orientalis) was high up in the tree and flew off after about half an hour without coming any closer. 

A few of the other birds about a Superb Fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus). 

Eastern Yellow Robin (Eopsaltria australis)

The Cutie of the day a very young Dusky Moorhen (Gallinula tenebrosa)

Two Welcome Swallows (Hirundo neoxena) these almost look like they were painted, but no processing like that on this shot. 

The last few mushroom shots for the day and their set up shots. 

The Setup shots here really shot the scale of this tiny one. 

This last shot is quite sad. After all the rain we had 47mm on Thursday 9mm Friday and 4mm while I was out Saturday this was the net effect, on of the dams in the gardens, not even a puddle at the bottom of the dam, just dry cracked mud. So as nice as the rain was, and the Mushrooms certain liked it we need a lot more. 

So that wraps up this week's shots out of the Australian Botanic Gardens. 

With the new year starting now the first of my workshops in the gardens is now open for books via the garden's website, link here

https://www.australianbotanicgarden.com.au/Whats-On/Learn-from-the-Experts-Beginners-Photography
 

This one is aimed at beginners so someone that's just got a new camera or wants to learn about the effects of aperture, and depth of field, shutter speed how to freeze or blur motion etc then this would be a good start, March there will be an intermediate workshop, this year I'll also be running a mushroom photography workshop in Autumn and of cause, the usual bird photography workshops will be running, so keep an eye out for upcoming workshops I've also added a workshop tab on this site now so you can follow along there for upcoming event as well.

Thanks for dropping by my blog hope to have it back to a regular blog post again this year. 

Glenn

 The day wasn’t as smoky as it has been the last few days, the temperature was also cooler than the high thirties it’s been the few days before. So I thought I’d head out and see what I could see. With Canon Getting ready to announce their new flagship Camera body the Canon 1Dx MK III (since announced) I thought I’d swap camera bodies to see how I go with a full-frame body of the Canon 5dmk4 and the Sigma 150-600mm Sports lens, compared to what I normally shot for birding shots. The Canon 7dmkII. The frame rate is a lot slower so that meant I had to get the timing better than I’d normally have to do with the 7dmkII and its 10 frames a second burst rate. I was in the gardens from 8:20 am till just after 5:30 pm so a full day of shooting. All good fun. 

On with some of the shots from the day. 

The first shot here one of the Flowering Gum trees in the gardens I was only carrying my birding set up at this time so taken with a 150-600mm lens, I'd normally shoot a shot like this with my 100mm Macro or the 24-105mm, the 600mm certainly gives the creamy background to this shot due to the ratio of subject to camera and background to subject.

At the same place, I was shooting the flower above I notices this old stump, this was all shot with natural light, but I can see the potential for this with lighting so I'll revisit this one in the future with lights and maybe the odd gel, and see what I can do with this one. The texture in this little one with a bit of side lighting should come out interesting, Stay tunes in the coming weeks and we'll see if it works or not.  

This ones a Rufous Whistler (Pachycephala rufiventris) I couldn't get in front of it and it didn't want to turn around so not a great shot on this one, the background is way to busy and not a clean shot of the front. I'll often take a few steps one way or another to try and clean up the background, but this one didn't stay long enough.

Rufous Whistler

The next two shots are of a pair of Red-rumped Parrots as they came down to drink at the lake. The first shot I caught the water still running out of the beak, the second the male on the log was coming down to drink and was making an interesting reflection, could have been better if the water was smoother. 

Red-rumped ParrotFemale Red-rumped parrot coming down to drink. Red-rumped ParrotMale Red-rumped Parrot coming down for a drink.

The last few weeks a pair of Black swans (Cygnus atratus) have made there home in the lake so I've a few shots of these over the last few weeks, still trying to get a better reflection shot of these. So I'll have to keep trying for this shot.

Black SwanBlack Swan cruising the lake.

Next up still at the lake a small family of Welcome Swallows (Hirundo neoxena) are always around the lake this was a portrait of one of them that was happy to pose for me, again no the best of backgrounds so need to keep trying for this shot as well. 

Welcome SwallowWelcome Swallow sitting on a branch.

While I was shooting the swallows, a Wallaroo and Joey came along around the edge of the lake so I had a few shots of these, the Joey then decided it had had enough and to my surprise jumped into the pouch, it looked way too big to fit in there. This shot was taken as it had just jumped in and stuck its head out so one ear was caught on the pouch. After about three minutes of staring at me and not enough time for me to get the camera on the tripod they jumped off, so this was a handheld shot. The next shot shows they didn't go far.

Wallaroo and JoeyWallaroo and Joey in the early morning.

Next up one of the more common birds in the Area a Noisy Miner (Manorina melanocephala) these are not afraid of people so you can get quite close to these, or they close to you. So plenty of detail in this shot.

Noisy MinerNoisy Miner sitting on a branch

While walking along the woodland walk in the gardens, one of the areas of natural bushland there are plenty of examples of Hollows in older trees being put to good use. These two shots show a pair of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos (Cacatua galerita). The first one in the hollow the second on standing guard in a nearby tree watching over. The second shot has a decent clean background, though a few patches that are too bright. so almost there. 

Sulphur-crested CockatooSulphur-crested Cockatoo in Hollow Sulphur-crested CockatooSulphur-crested Cockatoo guarding its nest site

A shot of one the current flower beds, not overly happy with this shot, the ideas OK but not well pulled off in this shot so one to revisit and try again. MAy need a bit of focus stacking to get a decent depth of field on this shot maybe a bit lower as well to try and get some texture into the shot showing the undulations of the flower heads. So another shot that I need to work on. 

A walk around the connections gardens soon had me with this little Eastern Yellow Robin (Eopsaltria australis) These are always great posers, and sit in trees or the sides of trees studying the ground before diving down for a quick meal. So these you can pretty much pick your spot with good backgrounds then wait (And wait) for the bird to land on the right balance. But the results are like this so worth the weight, I waited for about 3/4 of an hour just to get this shot. 

Eastern Yellow RobinEastern Yellow Robin on a branch.

A little Pied Cormorant (Microcarbo melanoleuos) in low flight over the lake, these usually do a few laps getting higher or lower depending on taking off or landing.

Little Pied CormorantLittle Pied Cormorant in flight over a lake in the Australian Botanic Gardens.

Next up and another hour spent sitting on the mudflats to get these shots of the Straw-necked Ibus (Threskiornis spinicollis) A family was taking up residence in the lake and its surrounds. 

Straw-necked IbisStraw-necked Ibis in the Australian Botanic Gardens, mount Annan Straw-necked IbisStraw-necked Ibis in the Australian Botanic Gardens, Mount Annan. Straw-necked IbisStraw-necked Ibis in the Australian Botanic Gardens, Mount Annan. Straw-necked IbisStraw-necked Ibis in the Australian Botanic Gardens, Mount Annan

A pair of Black-winged Stilts (Himantopus himantopus)  have made their home in the small dam up against Narellan rd and Saturday, with little wind about in that corner of the gardens on Saturday started to get some reflections happening there. Thou not still enough for mirror reflections. 

Black-winged StiltBlack-winged Stilt in the Australian Botanic Gardens, Mount Annan

I did manage to catch this one in flight as they changed sides of the lake.

Black-winged StiltBlack-winged Stilt in flight over the Australian Botanic Gardens, Mount Annan

So that wraps up this week's shots out of the Australian Botanic Gardens. I was happy with the results of the day so all good, happy with the image quality of the 5Dmk4 with the sigma 150-600, caught a few birds in flight so the focusing and frame rate wasn't too much of an issue compared with the 7D. The close-ups were certainly better quality with the higher megapixel count on the 5d.

With the new year starting now the first of my workshops in the gardens is now open for books via the garden's website, link here

https://www.australianbotanicgarden.com.au/Whats-On/Learn-from-the-Experts-Beginners-Photography
 

This one is aimed at beginners so someone that's just got a new camera or wants to learn about the effects of aperture, and depth of field, shutter speed how to freeze or blur motion etc then this would be a good start, March there will be an intermediate workshop, this year I'll also be running a mushroom photography workshop in Autumn and of cause, the usual bird photography workshops will be running, so keep an eye out for upcoming workshops I've also added a workshop tab on this site now so you can follow along there for upcoming event as well.

Thanks for dropping by my blog hope to have it back to a regular blog post again this year. 

Glenn

I can fully agree with that the final 20 images is really hard to get down to a final ten, but certainly well worth will, I've done this now for several years and each year I learn from this exercise as it shows you how to critic your own images. When someone else critics your images at times you don't always agree with them but when you critic your images to this level you certainly see your own faults.

So looking at the year I actually took fewer images this year than last, and didn't do much travel this year so most of the shots were close to home, in fact, two are in my home this year. This year also saw me participate in Canons Light Awards live photography events more on that later. 

So let's get on with the review of the review. 

First up is an image very early in the year, and the first of two mushroom shots in the top ten. These like most of my mushroom shots were taken in normal daylight, underexposed and lite with two off camera speedlites. Really happy with how this one turned out and taken early in the year set a high benchmark for the rest of the year. Most people are surprised when they see these especially when they see me taking a shot, and they realise that these are not taken at night. 

Next shot the second Mushroom shot in my top ten was taken down in the Robertson rainforest. a small nature reserve just off the main road of Robertson, this one was shot during an outing of the local Bird facebook group Macarthur birds https://www.facebook.com/groups/1581964245377794/

an active and very friendly group of Bird enthusiasts with quite a few interested in photography. This was an example as described above where a few of the group actually saw me take the shot and were amazed at the final image. I've even got a few shots taken of me taking this image by the group. This image became my favorite Mushroom image of the year.

Throughout the year I found myself at a few Canon events. Canon released the M50 Mirrorless camera earlier in the year, and the local Camera shop Macarthur Camera house. https://www.facebook.com/macarthurcamerahouse/

invited me and a few other local Photographers to the release of the camera with Canon, So I got to shot the camera for a few hours at an Island in Sydney Harbour, before the camera was officially released. The event was held on Cockatoo Island an island in the middle of Sydney Harbour which happened to be where I had my first job as an apprentice in the 1980's when it was a working dockyard. The Dockyard was closed down not long afterwards, but open long enough for me to complete my Apprenticeship. We got to play with the Canon M50 for a few hours then hand them back, I had also bought my own cameras along so this shot was taken with my 5dMk4 taken of one of the tunnels that cut thought the island. The Island was a Naval dockyard for many years and also has some of the early convict structures of Sydney’s early settlement. This is one of my few shots I’ve played with Black and white, I tent to use colour more times than not but seem to be drawn to black and white when shooting older buildings. Happy with how this one processed.

This next shot was taken again close to home in the local Botanical Gardens, The Australian Botanical Gardens at Mount Annan, https://www.australianbotanicgarden.com.au about ten minute’s drive from my home. The last few years I’ve been trying to capture an image of every known bird in the gardens, the gardens have a bird list of 185 known birds to visit the gardens so far I’m up to 144, so still, a few to capture yet.  The gardens also approached me a couple of years ago asking if I was willing to run some photography workshops for them, not having every ran a photography workshop before at the time I thought about it but a few months prior I actually attended a workshop by one of Australia’s living icons of Photography Steve Parish, https://www.steveparish-natureconnect.com.au during the workshop at the end he told me my next step in my photography journey was to run a workshop or two rather than attend them, so taking his advice I agreed to the gardens offer, since then I’ve run workshops for the last few years for them now, covering from Beginners workshops to Bird photography workshops and even some Children workshops when I encourage children to be into photography, they usually don’t need too much encouragement. The gardens are a great place for photography. This shot is of a White-necked Heron in one of the many lakes within the gardens. 

During the year Sydney has a festival of lights each year called Vivid where a lot of Sydney’s famous landmarks are light up with various lights and light painting along with no shortage of sculptures. and art installations, A great opportunity for photography however also very popular so its Sydney at it’s busiest, so if you don’t like crowd and I really mean high-density crowds it’s not the place for you, but certainly worth a visit if you have never been before. https://www.vividsydney.com. The local Camera shop again the Macarthur Camera house in conjunction with Canon Australia ran a photo walk during vivid with everyone on the walk encouraged to submit their best image with the winner winning a ticket the NSW Canon light awards event. I submitted an image which didn’t make the top ten cut this year, but was in the top 20, https://www.instagram.com/p/Bjj8jXjHyhP/The camera shop judged this the winning shot for the night so I got the ticket to the light awards, which I probably wouldn’t have gone to otherwise. The light awards are a Canon even over two days the first half of the first day is a master class where you select a particular field of photography and are given a master class along with about 100 other photographers, in this case, I could have picked Landscape, Lighting Travel photography or Portraiture, I decided since I was pretty much self-taught in lighting, other than podcasts, to give that a go. We were then given a brief to shot an image using conditional lighting of an everyday object where each light source had to have a reason to be there as part of the storytelling. We had 24 hours to get the shot process it and get back to the venue for the judging. There were about 400 photographers at the Sydney even. When we returned we were again split up into our separate groups and the images were all displayed on a full-size cinema screen (The event was held in a cinema complex) and critiqued once by one, it was worth it for that process alone, seeing how the Canon Master analysed each image its strengths and weaknesses. It turned out my image was selected the best in the lighting category, the other three groups were then bought into our Cinema and again all the images were shown this time all the images form all the groups The four Canon masters then had to argue in front of us why their image from their group was the best image of the four groups images. Nerve racking time. They quickly narrowed it down to two images and slowly went towards the landscape image, fortunately for my the Master of the lighting class was of strong mind and argued a final argument for my image and the other judges came back to my image. Which meant I won the NSW Canon light awards, a Big Wow moment for me. For that, I got $1000 voucher for the local Camera shop which went towards inks for my Pro1000 printer. I also won a trip to a mystery location yet to be announced for the years Grand final light awards with three other photography’s from three other states. The image below was the final image I submitted for the NSW entry, Nine sperate lights were used in this shot one a Speedlite the rest torches, Two iPhones, pretty much every light source I could find in the house. Big thanks to https://linnetfoto.com/ for the Masterclass and pressing for my image.

This next shot was taken in the gardens and is a Restless Flycatcher, this one was just hovering on the lookout for insects, I had a series of these but this one he just looked back at me making the image. He wasn't at all afraid and I managed to get within a few meters of him. Using a 600mm lens at that range certainly helps to blow out the background. Looking at the leading edge of the near wing this image to me almost appears 3D at times. A few of this year's images seem to have a 3D feel to them including some that didn't make the cut. Shot in the Australian Botanic Gardens, These are in the outer southwest of Sydney and there are many people who don't know of these yet they are the largest Botanic Gardens in the southern hemisphere. 

Next up and possibly my favorite from the year, though really hard to call that, Is this set of Waratahs. The Waratah is the State Floral emblem of the State of New South Wales. These were again taken in the Australian Botanic Gardens, Mount Annan, Taken in normal daylight but again using an off-camera speed lite, this time only one, but enough light to give shape and depth to the image, really happy with how this one turned out. Again I've done some additional processing on the leaves in this image which I feel really made the image, compared to the original unedited image. The trick is to not overdo it.  
 

Only three more images left and next up is a Nankeen Kestrel, again shot in the Australian Botanic Gardens. The gardens have an amazing collection of bird life as mentioned above and there's always something to see and capture. the Kestrels hunt on the grasslands in the gardens in a couple of areas and in this case the wind was blowing a bit so this one was just sort of in stationary glide mode. I was able to predict where it was going to be and walked up the hill, Careful of my footing to avoid any Brown snakes, not something you want to be standing on, and just waited for the right moment again the 7d MkII and the Sigma 150 to 600mm Lens, did a great job of this shot, with the bird being correctly exposed the sky blew out but for images like this it doesn't worry me that the sky has blown out, the details the feathers.

As mentioned earlier By winning the State Canon Light awards I won a mystery trip with Canon for the grand final. A date was confirmed and I was told to be at Sydney domestic Airport early in the morning, which meant an early start for the day as an hour train ride to the station, where I was meet by Canon Ambassador Jenn Copper who gave me an envelope which revealed the location of the 24 hour challenge. So began a full on exciting weekend of photography starting with a few hour plane flight to tropical Cairns, one of the few parts of Australia I hadn’t been to. We arrived and picked up a hire car and drove to the local Hotel which was to be the base for the event we were given our brief and then 24 hours to have four shots taken, processed, printed and mounted. No pressure of cause, oh the final catch, we weren’t to take our own toys but everything was to be provided, We were given the new Canon EOS R with three lenses for the 24 hours so a new camera to get use to as well, everyone was on the same level there no one had used one so something to add to the mix. We were buddied up with a Canon Ambassador for the 24 hours to make sure we didn’t do anything dangerous i.e. get too close to a cliff etc to get a shot. Make sure we didn’t get fatigued driving to far etc. It was a great weekend here’s a short Video Canon prepared afterwards showing what the event was like with four of use out and about. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq37T5cBDz-/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=1t23bytnu88u8&fbclid=IwAR1_-qOseZ_HVkTT0OEKFAK0iu-llP-V6DXo1U545DhRqwibdBFe2FEOvHI

What the video didn’t show was the temperate of 41 deg. Centigrade and humidity of 70% Great weather to be out rushing about. None of us were use to those temperatures and humidity combined. The 41 Deg wasn’t a problem coming from Sydney we’ve just had several days of 44 Deg here. But the 70% humidity was something else, something I hadn’t experiences since I was last at Darwin 30 years ago. The event was fantastic, I didn’t win this time but received great feedback from my images, I had four very strong images I thought but they were a bit weak on meeting the brief, but I was happy with what I had and within the 24 hours was the best I could come up with so I was happy with what I submitted. The image below was my best from the 24 hours. One of the things that was missing from the supplied toys was a speedlite, but I made use of a headlamp to light this shot, I lit three of my four shots and all up I was happy with what I submitted. 

The final image is a simple image and maybe because its still so fresh in my mind I may have snuck in to the top ten, may have been the emotional attachmentthe image as well, as I was created Just in time for Christmas and became a framed print for my Nice who has received word that she has a full time teaching position for this year her first full year with her own class. So what better than an apple for the teacher. For this shot I set the apple on an ipad, which has a dark reflective surface, gave the apple a quick spray or water first then set up a pair of speedlites and took a series of shots and focus stacked the image, same as I would a mushroom shot. Surprising how many apples I had to go through to get one free of dents and blemishes, I’m sure the people in the fruit shop were thinking I was being overly fussy selecting an apple just to eat, as I rejected quite a few before I selected this one, I actually picked a few just in case but each was carefully selected examining to make sure there was no dents or distortions on the surfaces, scratches or other marks. 

So thats the end of my top ten images for 2018, Still think I'm heading in the right direction with improvements over the previous years.

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2018/1/my-top-ten-shots-of-2017

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2017/1/my-top-ten-shots-of-2016

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2016/1/2015-top-ten-shots---year-in-review

https://glennsmithphotography.zenfolio.com/blog/2015/1/2014-top-ten-shots---year-in-review

Another year where I can see improvement and proves you don't always hve to travel far from home for your shots, hopefully this year I'll find a landscape or two shot in the mix, this year was definately short of landscapes there were a could in the top 50 images but were cut out as the list got narrowed down. 

Each year as I do this exercise I certainly find value in it and can see how it adds in my self improvement as when I take shots I think back to the reviews adn what images were rejected and why, and hopefully I self correct more often before hitting that shutter button. 

We'll see what this year brings, I've already got a few images for the year so far so who knows where this year will take me. Always fun to see. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog, hopefully this year it will be a bit more regular again. 

Glenn.

We start this week at Kalbarri Three-quarters of the way up the coast from Perth to Shark Bay. Kalbarri is one of those places that has so much to see and could easily spend a few weeks there before travelling on. As you'll see from some of these shots to follow. 

This first shot shows Steve taking a shot over Murchison River just around the corner from Natures window.

Whereas these one's are of Natures window looking up the gorge.  

Steve taking his turn at the window. 

A few shots taken around the window, the sort of place you could easily spend a few days here alone. So much to see so many textures, colours and contrasts. 

When we drove back into the caravan park we were staying at, I noticed these Tawny Frogmouths in a tree in the middle of the caravan park everyone walking around about them looking like no one was noticing them and they certainly weren't paying any attention to anyone. Having their midday nap.  

This one's taken at Ross Graham lookout where there are a few walks, one down to the Murchison River. This shot shows a Whistling Kite coming to land on a rocky outcrop take from the rim of the gorge so a rare shot from above of a kite. 

Whereas the next shot is taken from the bottom of the Gorge with the still water and reflections, even in a remote area like this there are people about so had to wait about half an hour for the shot to get the people out of the shot. But with the early morning sun lighting the cliff face and the still water made for great reflections. 

Sunrise at Natures window again.  

   The gorge drinking in the first of the morning light starting to light up the cliff faces. 

Back along the coast of Kalbarri, the Surfers were in action. 

Then waiting for sunset along the coastal cliffs. 

Sunrise at Z-bend pretty much the only wildflowers we came across, looking at the season they are having there now this year looks like we were a year out, they are having a bumper year there for wildflowers there this year. 

Coming back into Kalbarri we stopped off at Murchison house station. The station has an old shearing shed which walking into it is like stepping back in time,  plus a small garden which attracts the local bird life, here's a few shots from around the station. 

A few shots from within the shearing shed. Really is like steping back in time walking into this shed. 

The bonus was the Carnaby's Black-Cockatoo around the station a small flock of these were there. These are listed as endangered so good to see a group of there about, we all so spotted these on Endangered Species day so what are the odds of that.  

Early morning at Kalbarri the Pelicans come in for a free feed each morning in the park oposite the Pelican cafe. 

Back to the cliff tops at the ocean around Kalbarri.

 Finally, we drove north to Shark Bay, this one's Monkey Mia where the wild Dolphins come in each day for a free feed its been over 25 years since I was last there, the infrastructure has grown up around the beach but the sceen is the same.

I'll leave this one here and be back soon with the next instalment of our WA trip last year.

Thanks for dropping by my blog.

Glenn.

For the next few posts I'll cover a photography trip I did late last year with Steve Parish  Over the last few years I'd been on a few of Steve's Photography tours and when he mentioned that he was going to do a few weeks in WA and asked if I was interested how could you say no to that.  the Idea was to time it right for the wildflower season over there, well that was the plan, In the following few posts you'll see what we managed to get. 

First up we drove north of Perth to the Pinnacles, Nambung National Park Where limestone pillars emerge from the sand dunes, some over 2 metres high, others considerably smaller. The whole landscape is dotted with this pinnacles. We managed a sunset and sunrise shoot here, But think you could easily spend more time here as so many angles to shoot from. 

Afternoon Sunset shot over the Pinnacles. 

For this shot tried my hand at a bit of light painting as we waited for Sunrise.

Scatted throughout the Pinnacles are a few outcrops of small scrub, this is home to various bird life and the occasional Wallaby as well. 

This first one a White-cheeked Honeyeater (Phylidonyris Niger)

The long shadows of the early morning light.

There were also a few Galahs about this one on his only little Pinnacle as it warms itself in the first of the morning sun, mornings were a bit cool over there, so this one was still in warming up mode. 

This one has the bottom Galah dragging its beak back and forth in an arc across the Pinnacle, the best we could make out was it was sharpening its beak, we could be completely mistaken but it spent a good 15 minutes dragging it back and forth.  

This one shows one of the Galahs showing of its rock jumping skills. 

Two Nankeen Kestrels (Falco Cenchroides) A parent and young. 

This pair had just finished their Breakfast of local wildflowers and the evidence is still on their noses with the yellow pollen still stuck to their face. 

From Nambung National Park we drove north to Geraldton These shots are taken at the Memorial to HMAS Sydney II. Which was lost in the Indian Ocean after a skirmish with German raider HSK Kormoran.

This last two for the week were taken at Northampton on our way north.

So that's it for the first part of our Western Australian photo adventure, back soon with part two. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog.

Glenn.

Each Year Martin goes through his top then shot for the year and explains the pain of discarding so many great shots to narrow it down to just ten. Each year I feel his pain as it really is so difficult to throw out the last ten from your final twenty. So here’s my final ten, though my second ten could have so easily been a complete set of ten in their own right. I also did a top nine from Instagram this year and I’m any to see one of my top ten here was also what was picked for my top nine form Instagram likes. Though my top nine from Instagram were all bird shots and that’s entirely based on likes, a program automatically generates your top nine based on likes. Where as my top ten here is based on my selections of my years work.

So on with the top ten.

First up first of Three Fungi shots for the year, Again using two off camera speed lights one with a brown gel to give the warm soft light, these are focus stacked to give the great detail. Love all the fine details in the gills on these.

Next up is a shot from Strahan Tasmania an early morning shot before the wind had a chance to ripple the water giving a near perfect mirror reflection. The different coloured wooden row boats just adds to this shot.

The next show was also taken in Tasmania and is at Cradle Mountain, most shots in the area or around Dove lake and the Cradle, which I also got a few but this shot is of this little wooden cabin which was an old Bath house for the guests that stayed in the area.  Considering it snows in the area any time of the year, the Warm bath would come in handy.

The next shot also from my Tasmanian trip is of a small troupe of Fungi growing on top of an old log in the forest. Again light with two off camera speedlites and focus stacked.

This next one the first of three Bird shots in my top ten is of a Silvereye (Zosterops Lateralis) this ones taking in my local Botanic Gardens, the Australian Botanic Gardens, Mount Annan, which is only a few minutes from my place and can be seen from my window, the Gardens have over 184 different Bird Species known within the gardens and has 12 km of roads within the gardens. I usually spend a few hours each weekend in the gardens there looking for the different Birds and Fungi to shoot. This year I ran a series of photography Workshops with the gardens and more are planned for this year.  This shot the Silvereye I’ve had printed large in A2 size print then matted and framed it, White mate and black frame its hanging in my Mother’s house on a Green wall the same colour as the background so looks great colour wise on the wall.

This next one is of a pair of Welcome Swallows (Hirundo neoxena) as they chased each other over one the lakes in the Botanic Gardens. Towards the end of the day if I’m still in the gardens I’ll go to the lakes and practice my panning shots on the swallows, if I can get the fast moving swallows I’ll be able to get most birds, so these make great practice for me, this time the sun was setting so the golden light on the water and two birds in the one shot so happy with this one, and the water colours make it just that more interesting.

Later on in the year I made a trip to Western Australia for three weeks photography so a good year for photography travel for me. This shots of an old shearing wool shed still in use. Walking into this shed is like walking back in time so I gave it the works post processing wise and really happy with the results here, Its had a bit of everything Lightroom, photoshop and silver effects as well, so been though a lot of processing far more than I normal do, but this case it worked out well. The shearing wool shed was at Murchison house station Kalbarri Western Australia and well worth the stop just for the shearing shed, I took quite a few shots in the shed that day.

This next one also taken at Kalbarri Western Australia, taken from the cliff tops at sun set. Slow exposure to get the motion in the waves while getting a moment when the fishermen on the rocks stayed still long enough to capture them. The sun still has the golden light lighting up the cliff faces, so everything came together for this shot.

This next one is again of a Fungi in the Australian Botanic Gardens and is of a Stink horn not one of the most prettiest of fungi usually but with the low shot, and the lighting this one came out well, so goes to show you don’t always need the prettiest of subjects to make a great shot.  Two off camera speedlites and focus stacked. All the Fungi shots are taken with an old Canon 60D so also showing you don’t always need the latest gear. Having said that all the landscape shots are with the Canon 5Dmk4 and the bird shots are the 7DmkII with Sigma 150 to 600 sports, not the lightest of lenses but really happy with the results I get out of that as this next shot show.

The last shot from this years top ten is of a rainbow Bee-eater (Merops Ornatus) this one wasn’t taken in the local Botanic Gardens but the nearby Nepean River at Camden about 15 minutes drive so not far. This shot has captured the bird as it does its stretching exercises prior to its next flight.

So all up another good years worth of shots. Early December I bought myself a Canon Pro-1000 Printer so I’m now starting to print my own work rather than send out for prints so this years project will be learning to get the most out of the printer, with the aim of at least one print a day, so far since I’ve had it I’m managed that so going well, this will push my photography to the next level as images that are acceptable on the screen soon show up any small faults in the print so working to get better results pus learn the new world of printing, I’ve booked myself in to a framing course in February as well so I can learn all the tricks there as well. So another interesting year coming up. Plus a Series of photography workshops being run in conjunction with the Australian Botanic Gardens, so busy times ahead. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week, for my top ten shots of 2017.

Glenn.

Looking back at where the last blog post was viewed 16 countries this time around, with Australia coming in at number one, then Russia followed by the United States, After that Tieing for fourth place was the United Kingdom and Canada, Sixth Place was Spain and France and then all on equal Eighth place was Belguim Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Taiwan, and Vietnam. So 16 countries last time around, we'll see how we go this time. 

This first shot is taken at Low Head at the entrance of the Tamar River showing the pilot station, this is Australia's longest continually operating pilot station.  

This ones overlooking the beach at Badgers head the western side of the Tamar River. Showing the long waveforms as they make their way to the beach stretched out below. 

One of the locals at Narawntapu national park taking time out for a quick scratch. 

Next up the historic town of Richmond and its famous Bridge.

From there we headed southwest and travelling along the Tyenna River we stopped at Westerway just opposite the primary school there, there's a Cafe called the Possum Shed in the river there are Wild Platypus that come out and swim in the river.

Still heading west some of the scenery along the Gorden river road. 

The Amazingly Talaented Madeleine Jones you can see her work at her web site http://www.imagjen.com

Red Knoll Lockout at Lake Pedder.

The next day we drove back to Hobart, More of the scenery on the drive back to Hobart along the Gorden river road. 

Downtown Hobart again Constitution dock.

Sandy Bay Hobart

While at Sandy Bay a small flock of Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoos flew over.

Looking back towards Battery Point. 

From there we drove up to the top of Mount Wellington   

The amazing colours and textures of the snow gums near the top of Mount Wellington. 

Then the views from the top  of Mount Wellington.

Back down the bottom again and the view from the other side of the Derwent river looking back at the casino.  

And the Tasman bridge again.

A few more shots around Hobart and the Derwent River.

Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary in Hobart. This Sanctuary has a couple of decent Devil Runs to the have plenty of room to roam about in. 

We spent a couple of days at Mount Feild National Park with our Accommodation just outside of the park so easy to get in for some night shots and late afternoon shots when the crowds had moved on. Once the People move out the Little Paddy Melons come out and take over. 

Being just outside the park gave me a chance for some light painting of Russell falls. 

This fungi growing on the end of a log looks like a map of Tasmania with a bit of imagination.

Horseshoe  falls    

Just love all the moss covered trees, logs, and rocks under the canopy, I could spend weeks here. 

So that's it for this long overdue blog post and wraps up the Tasmanian trip. since this trip I've done a trip over in WA and plenty of weekend shoots as well so plenty to come in the new year plus my usual end of year top ten shots, which I've started to review now. So stay following for that post in the coming days. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog, back again in a couple of days with my next post. 

Glenn

First up a quick look at where the Last blog post was viewed, Nine countries this time around with Russia making a big jump in the last 24 hours with 78 views in one day, Australia came in next with the USA behind that the UK and Italy ties next with Belgium, Brazil, Ireland and Iran tying for the final place. So again a good coverage around the world, not sure what happens with Russia there with so many views in a short period of time every month or so, All the figures are coming from Google Analytics.

Anyway on with this weeks blog post. This first shot was taken directly out of the Balcony of the hotel we were staying at so open the door stepped out and took this early morning shot of the bush around the hotel, nice stand of gum trees with the early morning light. This shot is a panorama made up of four shots stitched together to make a long shot, so this one will print up large.  

This one's just one of the single shots used. 

We went up to Dove Lake for the morning and walked around part of the lake we didn't have time for a full circuit of the lake. 

This shot shows the first glimpse of the boat house on dove lake, one of the most photographed buildings around Cradle Mountain. Like most days of the year, the cradle is covered in cloud in this shot. 

Then we made it down to the boat house where I took a series of shots from slightly different angles

As the day wore on the cloud cover started to break up and for a few shots, we got clean shots of the Cradle. Here are a few of the cleaner shots.

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week, I'll be back next week with more from the Tasmanian tour.

Glenn

First a look at where last times blog post was viewed. First up this week is Australia with the most views, then followed by the United States of America and Spain, after that on an equal number of views are Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, Hungary, Italy, Jordan, Lesotho, Mexico and the Philippines. So, twelve countries this time around. Thanks.

This week’s blog in Tasmania was all around Cradle Mountain and Dove Lake. The weather wasn’t the kindest to us this day and light rain on and off plus a bit of wind at times to break up the water surface, so not the best of conditions but still need to make the best of it so out we went to shoot. 

This first shot the cradle partly cloud covered, this is pretty much how it is for most of the year, there are even signs warning you that this is the case in the carpark where this shot was taken from. So not every day you get to see the full cradle. 

Another shot was taken from a little further round Dove lake. 

Back in the car park in the rain this little Magpie was doing its best with little sucess to get out of the rain. 

Around the lake is some accommodation and some old huts complete with shingled rooves and log structures. 

Pandani growing​​​​ around Cradle Mountain. 

The overland track as it comes down from Cradle Mountain doesn’t look like the best weather to be on the track this day, light rain and little cool out there. You can see the shine on the board walk from the rain. Looks bleak out there. 

Like a lot of the forests around Tasmania the ground is covered in moss making for a green carpet of the area. 

Another of the little huts in the forest, thsi ones a little Goldilocks like.

The next is a series of shots in the forest around Cradle Mountain showing of the moss covered forest floor. 

Even managed to find a mushroom growing amongst it, thoguht I'd have found a lot more but still found the odd one or two. 

Final shot for this week is another of the shot of the moss covered forest. These shots really show just how green it is in the Tasmanian forests.  

That's it for this weeks blog post of Tasmania day 7. I'll b eback next time with the next days shots. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog. 

Glenn.

Frist a quick look at where my blog was viewed last week, only five countries this time, coming in at the top place this week was Australia, followed by the USA, then the United Kingdom, the Philipines, and South Africa. 

Back to Tasmania, the morning started in Strahan again with the hotel overlooking the harbour, this is the view from the balcony of the dining area. The clouds looking ominous there in the sky.  

From the hotel we drove back around the other side of the bay, this poor boat looks to have seen better days. 

The houses in the little fishing village were all quite colourful wonder if they paint their boats to match the house colour?

A young Pacific gull (Larus pacificus) waiting for its breakfast

We went back to the boats from the night before without the rain this time and still conditions, the water was like a mirror.  

Then back around to the village again, the old houses there complete with white picket fences are a throwback to a forgotten time. 

The harbour though filled with tourist cruise boats is still a working harbour and the daily commute doesn't need to worry about traffic jams each morning. 

After our time in Strahan, we drove up the coast to Granville Harbour where the waves were pounding the red rocks along the coast. 

This image shows the force of the water with seaweed being thrown into the sky from the force of the waves breaking it off the rocks. 

We traveled north along the coast to the and a little inland till we reached the Pieman River. We boarded the Arcadia II for a cruise up the river the idea was to have still conditions to get mirror reflections on the bush in the river. Not today, however, the wind wasn't to co-operate. Still a nice cruise and nice looking boat. 

These steps look a little Elfish to me bit like lord of the rings kind of scene, as the stairs lead up into the bushland.

Last up for this week a shot of the anchor winch on the deck of the boat. Gives an idea that the boats not straight out of the shipyard, been around for a while looking at this winch. 

Well, that's it for this week's shots around Tasmania. Back next week with more again. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week, hope to have you back next week for the net day in the tour. 

Glenn.

This week I'll continue the shots from Tasmanian Photography tour earlier in the year.

Since the last blog was released it was viewed in ten different countries, with the highest view rate being Australia this time round and the USA coming in at number two. Coming in at a tie fro the third spot was four Countries the UK, Turkey, Taiwan and South Africa, the final spot was taken up by Ireland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Sweeden. Again a good collection of views from around the world. Thanks for all those that view my blog. 

This time it's Day 5 of my trip and the trip from east coast to west coast via mount Field national park. 

This first shot is along the road at a stand of trees, for once the GPS co-ordinates didn't come into the image from the camera, possibly took the shot to quick for the GPS to establish itself. One I'll have to watch out for in future. But it's between Hobard and Mount Field National Park right beside the road. 

This next series is taken in Mount Field National Park, most famous for Russell falls. Everything is so green in this park any fallen trees are moss covered quickly, as is the ground.  The photos don't do this place justice, its one of those areas you can spend days in just soaking up the atmosphere.  

The main track leading to the falls. 

This next shot is of Russell Falls them self. A wall of waterfall. 

The forest floor is littered with fallen trees, logs and branches all covered in the green moss. 

Stairs leading up to the next falls, not for today, but you'll see where these lead to in a few more days time. 

At the top of the park is Lake Dobson where these next series of shots are taken as we walked around the lake.  

From Mount Feild we drove across the Island to Strahan, stopping along the way for the odd shot. This one the sun was lighting this small stand of trees.

The landscape changes from flat to rugged with each bend in the road. Never staying constant for too long.

We reached Strahan in a wet afternoon with light cold rain falling, but still managed a few shots. This one was taken from the other side of the inlet to the village. 

Back on the village side, the rain had stopped. 

Enough to allow for a bit of a sunset to show though as the light lite up the boat harbour.

Once the sun set and night set in I went out again for some night photography around the village. 

Including an attempt at the milky way, a few clouds about and a bit of light pollution so not the best conditions but I did manage to catch a passing satellite in the lower right corner of the shot. 

So that's it for this week's shots on the Tasmanian tour day five, coming up day six. Thanks fro dropping by my blog this week. Back again soon. 

Glenn.

Before I start on Tasmania a quick look at where the last blog was viewed. 13 Countries this time round with the USA coming in at number one for a number of views followed by Australia, then South Africa, with the Netherlands coming next followed by Sweden, Finland, Germany, France, Indonesia, Mexico the United Kingdom, and India all tying for the final spot. There were two other viewings but the Google Analytics could not determine the location. So again viewed from all around the world.  

This week's post is a look at day four of my recent photography tour of Tasmania.

First up we headed out to the Tessellated pavement a coastal rock formation that is self-explanatory looking at the formations. 

Flying high overhead was a Little Eagle (Hieraaetus morphnoides) this one was being chased off by a gull, not the best of shots and quite heavily cropped in, but enough to identify the bird and you can see the first shot as it turns its head looking for the gull. 

From there we drove to the Australian Tasmanian Devil Unzoo, A Tasmanian Devil, wildlife sanctuary and animal rescue park. First up two devils arguing over the scraps.    The Tasmanian Devils have been under threat from a facial tumor the last few years and have been disappearing from the wild. The Unzoo has a captive breeding program and is one of the many wildlife parks in Tasmania trying to save the devils.

From there we walked around the park including a walk-in enclosure where you can get up close to the small group of Kangaroos, Wallabies, and Pademelons. This next shot shows a kangaroo on the run just as its feet leave the ground so the main claws are all that's contacting the ground.   

Whereas this one is a little Pademelon hiding up on a small mound catching the suns rays.

Next up and one of the reasons I'm not a fan of these kinds of places is a Quall in a cage, the cage has been sized for the animals and all the animals appeared to be well looked after but you can still see the cage in this shot.

The Unzoo also had a free flight bird show and the next series of shots comes from the show. 

After the trip to the Australian Tasmanian Devil Unzoo the next stop off was a power boat ride out along the Tasman Peninsula. Off the coast and along the coast we came across an abundance of wildlife and some spectacular scenery.  First up was this penguin out on patrol, looking for its feed.  

Then along the rocky islands off the coast, we came across some Black-faced Cormorants (Phalacrocorax fuscescens)

This shots of a young Cormorant still not with its adult plumage. 

A little further along the coast we came across a feeding frenzy on the ocean surface, where a group of Seals were coming up thought a school of fish, and the same time the various sea birds came down for their fill. The Bird life here included three kinds of Albatross, Buller, Shy and Campbell, Cormorants, Shearwaters and gulls. The Albatrosses are so large they run along the surface of the ocean to take off. 

In this shot you can see one of the Albatrosses has a catch in its mouth, the trick is to hold on to it and swallow it before some one else grabs it. 

The Coastline has many rock formations, caves and pillars. These next few shots show some of what we saw traveling along the coast. 

On the final run back to where we left off a pod of dolphins also traveled along the side of us. 

Hope you liked day 4 of my Tasmanian trip. Day five will be next.

Thank for dropping by my blog this week. 

Glenn

First up a review of where my blog was viewed since the last one. This time 22 different countries have visited my site, with the top ranking this time Being Australia, followed by the USA then Russia and German, next up with a tie for fifth place was Brazil, the United Kingdom and Sweden coming in at eight place another tie with Canada, Spain, Japan. Next up was the remaining 12 countries all on the same score; Austria, Chile, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, India, Philippines, Pakistan, Palestine, Slovenia, Thailand and Taiwan. So again a good coverage around the world.

Back to Tasmania starting up with an early morning shoot at Friendly Beaches at the northern end of Freycinet Nation Park.  

After the Early Morning shoot, we headed on to Coles bay, a nice sheltered bay on the sheltered side of the Freycinet peninsula.  Nice beach and bush setting all around it with a sheltered bay for boat moorings. 

On the Beach as a pair of Sooty Oystercatchers (Haematopus fuliginosus)  This top shot showing the Bird in flight against the turquoise blue bay. 

This next shot shows it coming into land leapfrogging the other bird already on the beach. 

After a while at the beach, we moved on to the historic town of Richmond famous for its old buildings and Bridge. The bridge was build in 1825 by convict labor and is the oldest large arched stone bridge in the country. 

After lunch at Richmond next stop Hobart, Top of Mount Wellington, Bit cool this afternoon including a few flakes of snow falling. Not the best of views this day with the cloud, rain, and snow about.

Near the top of Mount Wellington, the Tasmanian snow gum grows, this shot shows the snow gums growing in the cloud towards the top of the mountain just below the treeline, a little further along the trees stop and the make way for the rocky landscape that marks the top of Mount Wellington.

This shot shows the cloud over the lichen-covered rock formations at the top of mount Wellington. 

From the top of mount Wellington, you can see the Tasman bridge this shot was taken in between the cloud breaks. 

A view of Hobart and the cloud cover looking down the mountain. 

Hobart city was our stop for the night and I took the opportunity to do some night photography around Hobart. Right where I was staying happened to be one of the cranes my company manufactured so had to take the opportunity to get a night shot of that. 

After that, I walked down to the constitution dock and on the walk took the various buildings that looked nicely lite up. Showing of some of the historic buildings of hobart and some not so historic. 

Down at the dock, the water was mirror smooth and made great reflections. So the next series of shots were taken around the dock.  

So that's it for the end of day three of the Tasmanian photography tour, next blog will be day four. In the coming week.

Thanks for dropping by my blog.

Glenn

First up the roundup of where the last blog post was view. 

Again, a clear winner this week and this week the winner is Australia, followed by the USA then China with South Korea coming next, the following Countries all had one view each, Bulgaria, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, UK, Italy, Mozambique, Netherlands, Thailand, Turkey and the Ukraine. So again, a good collection of countries around the globe viewed this week’s post good to see. Feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of the post if you like, mentioning what country you’re from.

The last week I was a little tied up in preparing present for a photography talk to the Revesby Garden club based at the Revesby workers club. My first time giving a talk in public on photography. The talk was about the basics of photography Subject, Light and composition and how to improve your basic photography based on those three things. I also showed of a series of shots during the talk to reinforce my points. By all accounts it was received well and everyone was happy with the talk from the feedback I received both at the venue and later on via phone conformation. So a good weekend.

Now back to day 2 of my Tasmanian trip. 

Day two saw us leave Launceston and head east to the Bay of Fires conservation area via St Columbus Falls with the odd stop along the way. 

These first two shots are just a pull in on the side of the road in on of the many forests, this one was a pine plantation, so not Tasmanian natural forest.

The trees are all covered in moss giving the green tinge to the trunks whole the ground is covered in the dead pine needles making a striking contrast to the shot.  

Where as this shot is looking straight up, showing just how straight the trunks of these are. 

After the stop off we headed on to St Columbus Falls. It was a little bit of a walk to see the falls and again fungi was about on the fallen branches, this time bracket Fungi. 

The walk was along a path between the tree ferns. Again everything was covered in green. 

The falls were out in the open and in full sun so far from ideal light to do this kind of shot. This was about the best I managed here and not overly happy with this one, but it shows not every shots a winner and the extreme lighting certainly didn't help. Thou I've seen a few shots from some of the others on the trip and they had but angles of the shot, but the lighting certainly didn't help any of us in this location.

Walking back from the falls I stopped and took a few shots of this fungi growing on a log, not the best shot. 

From there we drove to the coast the Bay of fires and to Binalong bay. Nice clear water white sandy beach some cloud in the sky to make it more interesting. All up a nice place for a bright day. 

Towards the end of the beach, there was a flock of Terns diving for fish. This one with fish in beak is a Crested Tern (Thalasseus bergil) from what I can work out.

This next shot was a little off on focus so I had a play with Topaz to see what I could come up with, happy with this one. Some thing a little different, but think it came out OK. 

A Gull decided he also wanted a feed and rather than get wet though it would try and steal from the Tern. The Tern out manoeuvred the Gull and flew off with the catch.

Another shot just as the Tern was about to hit the surface of the sea. 

Along the Beach a Silver Gull (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae) was on patrol, probably hoping for the spoils dropped by the overhead Terns.

From there we drove down the coast towards Bicheno. Stopping for fuel along the way, where I spotted this flowering gum on the other side of the road, So I managed to get this shot. There was a fair bit of wind about to the branches were moving quite fast so not to many of these turned out due to motion blur.

  At Bicheno we managed to get a couple of coastal shots, this is just one of them, you can see the heavy clouds above threatening to rain on us at any time. 

After Bicheno we drove down to Freycinet National Park to catch the Hazards at sunset before driving into Hobart for the night. 

When we got there it was threatening rain and occasionally did and was blowing a gale so again interesting conditions for these shots. Still a great area and one to come back to one day to try again. Some of these shots came out OK. But again something I need to work on. I tried various shutter speeds and angles the slower shutter speeds didn;t work as well most times with the strong wind even with a decent tripod and holding it down at times there was still camera movement. These are the better of the shots I managed. 

With the sun coming in behind the small waves and the wind whipping them up I tried to get a few waves with the sun lighting them from behind. Again not that successful but almost there. Some better than others but still not a great shot. 

So that's it for Day two of the Tasmanian trip. I'll be back with day three next time so stay tuned. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week. Back with more from Tasmania next time. 

Glenn.  

On with this week’s blog. I've just returned for two weeks of Photography in Tasmania, the first week was part of an organised tour with Steve Parish (https://www.steveparish-natureconnect.com.au) in conjunction with Spirit Safaris (http://www.spiritsafaris.com). The second week was a couple of us from the tour and Steve spending an extra week photographing together. So a good solid two weeks of photography. Tasmania certainly is a great place to photograph and one I think I'll be returning to quite often to shoot, I doubt you could ever capture it all, so much to see and such spectacular sights to see. 

The tour was to start in the afternoon allowing everyone time to fly in to Launceston, but as it happens every one flew in the day before so we all meet up and had a meal together that night and agreed to meet up in the morning and start an unofficial photo walk around Launceston. 

The first series of shots are taken from a walk around the town and out to the Launceston gorge.

These first three shot are a series of old terrace house that are now businesses in the city centre. This was the first real try of my newish Canon 5DMk4

A Detailed shot of the wrought iron work around the balconies and the concrete form work.

From the city streets we started to walk along the river up towards the Gorge, through the trees I say the old sailing boat, I tried to frame the boat with the reeds in the bottom and the tree at the top, didn't really work out and not that happy with this shot.

The old bridge over the river to the gorge with the old building in the background makes for a better shot. 

As the sun came out it lit up the silios on the other side of the river and this shows it always pays to look behind you as well as in front, you never know what shot is behind you. As this shot shows. 

Walking back along the streets the old buildings of Launceston have some fine details on the buildings and the light posts are certainly of a unique style compared to the modern ones of today. 

After lunch we meet the Spirit Safari team and our mini bus and started the official part of the tour with a trip out to Liffey Falls. This was our first tastes of Tasmania's forests and the lush greens the go with them. 

The whole area around the falls was covered with tall tree ferns and lush green mosses. This shot shows Steve Parish lining up a shot. 

With all the Mosture around from the falls and the dark enviroment I felt sure to find mushrooms on the trip and I wasn't dissapointed.

This shot was taken with the mushroom growing on a log and the camera mounted on a tripod upside down (The image had to be flipped once processed. ) lit with two speedlites one on the ground the other hand held in this case. 

This shots of me taking the shot above, Taken by Lynn. 

This first shot is of the falls them self. Again showing just how green the bush is around the falls. 

This shot shows the way the water has been carving its way thought the rocks for many years now winding its way thought the weaker areas of the rock, with the tree ferns taking hold where they can. 

Again like so much of the Tasmanian forests I visited in the two weeks everything was so green and lush. 

More of the giant tree ferns that were growing in the area.

On the way back for the falls again I found some Mushrooms to shoot, these were all hand held shots, so not the normal set up all with natural light no flash used on these ones, but the lighting was just nice so still came out OK.  

This last one was some Coral Fungi growing on the ground, I've not came across this sort before the gardens have one area that have some fine white ones but nothing like these chunky ones.  

I'll leave this post here for now and pick up next time with day two of the trip around Tasmania. 

Hope you enjoyed the start of this two week trip. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week. 

Glenn

Well the blogs been sadly lacking these last few weeks, I've been on the road for a few weeks in Tasmania the southernmost state of Australia, the Island at the bottom of the east coast for those not that familiar with Australia. A photographer’s paradise. Plenty of stunning scenery and wild life, though surprisingly this time around not so many birds. In the coming weeks once I've gone thought all my images I'll put up a series of blog posts on this trip. But Since I'm still working my way thought the images, this week’s blog will be on last Saturdays walk in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan. 

Before I left for Tasmania we were having a heat wave up this way, with high 40 deg C temperatures (116 Deg F) on a few days, but when I came back seems I bought the cooler weather with me, plus the wetter weather. Several days of good rain over the last week. The gardens were well watered after that all the small streams were flowing and of cause an abundance of mushrooms this week, after some many weeks not much, this week everywhere I looked I found them. 

First up is a shot of an old fallen tree and the patterns caved out by the various insets that have been working the timber when it was still covered in bark. This, I used as my entry for this week’s Google plus Australian and New Zealand weekly photo prompts entry. This week’s theme is textures. Been missing in action from that, these last few weeks as well. (no Wi-Fi in most of the locations I was staying in.) This one was taken on the opposite side of the road for the stolen generation walk.

From there I crossed the road and headed off towards the stolen generation memorial area. Good to see the gardens nice and wet, the little streams were flowing around the area, of late they had dried up, normally on a good day they are still but with water in pools, but of late nothing but dry creek beds. I found a few birds in the area, this first one's of a Willie Wagtail (Rhipidura leucophrys) earring out a bit of feather maintenance. 

In the same area is usually found the Eastern Yellow Robin (Eospsaltria australis) and this week was no exception. 

With all the rain over the last week the gardens were alive with Mushrooms. So I spent a far time getting a good collection of shots this week to make up for the lack of them the last few weeks. These first few were around the plant bank. Which is now open not eh Weekends thought Autumn from 10:00am till 2:00 pm with a scientist on duty each day of the weekend over the time. including Fungi - Dr Brett Summerell on the 25th March, which is also the day I'm running a Bird Photography workshop in the gardens, for bookings contact the Australian Botanical Gardens. So I'll be there to see whats on show there after the workshop finishes up. 

These shots are the usual set up of two off camera lights and the images focus stacked from several images to give the details.

Last Saturday the gardens had a Seaweed display in the plant bank so heres a shot I managed to get same set up I use for the Mushrooms two lights and focus stacked, which gives the depth of field and sharpness highlighting all the details. So something different this week. 

There was no shortage of mushrooms about this week, So I made the most of them this week. 

This next shot shows a behind the scenes shot, this shows the actual lighting conditions the shot was taken in and the positions of the lights. Again the 60D with the Articulated Screen is in use, which shows you don't need the latest camera to get these results.   This one is now Three generations behind the current model available. 

All the While a White Faced Heron (Egretta novaehollandiae) watched on. 

Again more mushroom shots this next one the mushrooms were so tiny only about 4 to 6mm in diameter so fine and small not to mention bright red. The colour was what I noticed first, funny that. 

With all the Rain of late the ground was soft and squelch underfoot the Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis moluccan) were having a picnic on the lawn besides the main lakes. 

In the lake was a solitary Royal Spoonbill Platalea regia) today there's usually a small group of these but today I only spotted the one. 

So that wraps up this weeks shots in the Australian Botanical Garden, in the coming weeks I'll start the blogs for the shots from Tasmania from the last few weeks. So stay tuned for those coming up. still processing the images from the trip. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week, back next week with more. 

Glenn. 

This week’s blog will be a review of the shots taken last weekend in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan.

First a quick review of where last week’s blog was viewed, this week we had a tie for first place with Australian and the United Kingdom on equal numbers then the USA and then a tie with Canada, India and Japan. So again, coverage of the globe for last week’s blog. Thanks.

Again, another hot week here in South west Sydney So not too much about this week I was also a bit later than usual so right in the heat of the day, so not so much activity to shoot this week. I thought since there wasn't so much in the way of wildlife about I'd try a few tree shots, getting a bit of practice in for the next few weeks (More on that later).

This first shot is of the woodland area where I spend a bit of time shooting the woodland birds. This is typical Cumberland plan woodland, not too much of that left and this has all regrown in the last few years, before the gardens took over the site this use to be a cleared dairy farm, so gives an idea of the power of the bush to regenerate. There's a sign at the start of this path showing a shot of the area cleared compared to the view there now. 

This next shot bit of an experiment Think this ones still work in progress shot an intention camera shack at slow shutter speed, but i think I need a bit of lens corrections to take out the reverse barrelling effect, I tried several shutter speed surprisingly it needed a faster speed than I thought, this was one of the faster ones I tried, but another stop or so might have been better, this one was at 1/40th of a second. One to try again later, or maybe not. 

This next shot is of the Stolen Generation memorial, this one with the afternoon light hitting it to give the shadows and detail from the side lighting. This is the area for Superb wrens, Variegated Fairy-wrens, Scrub Wrens, Grey fantails, eastern Yellow Robins, Fan-tail cuckoos, Bell Miners, Scarlet Honeyeaters, Misteltoebirds and Grey Shrike-Thrushs plus a few others. so plenty to be found around here if you just sit and wait. Not so much this weekend in the heat though. 

Another shot of the woodland showing the number of tall thin trees starting to fill the space. 

Next up a more detailed shot of one of the gum trees and the colours and textures as the bark starts to shed. 

Followed by the same shot but this time after a bit of processing in Topaz.

And again the same shot but a little wider this time. 

This shot is showing a branch with the bark ready to fall its already shredded and ready to come off in stings of bark. So like a loose netting over the branch now.  

It was while taking these shots that a small group of Weebills (Smicrornis brevirostris) appeared high up in the canopy, these were really too high to get a good shot and this shots pretty heavily cropped in which is why the image quality isn't the best, but I was starting to think this might be the only wild life I find this week.  

But the Bell Miners (Manorina melanophrys) never let you down they are always around this area. These are usually not long in one area so you need to be a  bit quick to get one of these in a decent shot. 

From there I tried the main lakes and found a small group of Australian Wood Ducks (Chenonetta jubata) making their way from the water onto the grass for the afternoon feed. this one was in mid-march when I captured this before the second foot hit the ground. 

Last up a pair of Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca) Standing on the path drying off after bathing in the lake. 

Not a great week for shots this weekend, wasn't the best time to head out with the heat and all, but it was then or not go out at all sometimes you never know what you'll find out there so worth a try. Though the results this week not the best. 

Over the next few weeks I'll be traveling and photographing in Tasmania for a few weeks so depending on availability of internet access if I can get a blog post out of not in the next week or so, if not there will be plenty of shots to share later, I'm sure if last year’s Central Australian trip was anything to go by. So, keep an eye out of the next blog post hopefully in the coming week with the first half of my Tasmanian trip. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week, back next week with luck with more, something different.

Glenn.

First up a wrap up of the blog post visits from last week, with a tie for the most views last week coming from Australia and the United States of America. Then France, Israel and Italy all on equal number of views. This week only 5 countries viewing the blog this week.

So on with the review of this week’s shots, again mostly taken in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan.  

First up a hand held shot of a Scotch Thistle (Onopordum acanthium) Thi sone was taken as a series of images hand help and focus stacked from 12 different images. Though these are closed as weed they still make for an interesting subject up close. 

Next up I revised the undercroft of the Plant bank to see what else I could do with that, I've seen some of the images some people have made from here so still working at getting the best out of this space. The Garden is a moss garden with the roof of the undercroft lined with mirrors. 

Walking thought the undercroft and up pas the plant bank to the small stand of gum trees on the left, is where I find a tree that has been shown the last few weeks here with many hollows, this week one hollow say quite a bit of activity while I was there this week. Started off with a pair of Red-rumped parrots (Psephotus haematonotus) in possession of the hollow. 

This next shot shows them on the look out with both turned skywards to see whats coming. 

Only to be displaced by a pair of Rainbow Lorikeets (Trichoglossus haematodus) 

The red-rumps didn't take to kindly to that and had a go at re-taking possession as shown in the next few shots with a few feathers flying. 

The dispute was settled when a Galah (Eolophus roseicapilla) flew down and took over the Hollow, it was up above watch the hole time and probably didn't like all the commotion going on down below. 

From there I walked along the path in the direction of the stolen generation memorial and stopped by the gum tree along the road to check out the hollows there to find a pair of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos (Cacatua galleria) sitting on top of one of the hollows. 

With summer in full swing here now and plenty of hot days the gum trees are starting to shed their bark now so in the coming week there will be plenty of stringing gum trees about with all assorts of interesting shapes, textures and patterns to shoot. 

Walking along the woodland path there are plenty of small birdlife if you stop and wait, this shots of a little Brown Thornbill (Acanthiza pusilla) This ones been banded by the Bird banding group in the gardens, as you can see the ring on its leg. These are all wild birds in the gardens but they are ringed and studied within the gardens. 

Nest up one of the many Rabbits within the gardens, these like most areas are pests and even if they look cute are not great for the gardens. 

This week there was plenty of bird life about and this next shots of a Grey Butcherbird (Cracticus torquatus) This one doesn't look like it brushed its feathers for the shot today. 

On a log in the small dam opposite the plant bank was this White-faced Heron (Egretta novaehollandiae) Not so happy with this shot the focus is slightly off on the eye of the bird where as the back of the bird is OK so looks like I needed a slightly more closed down aperture on this shot.

After that I drove up to the main gardens the connections gardens and tried out a panorama of the gardens.

Plus a few shots around the water garden.

The water  garden usually has a few Eastern Water Dragons (Intellagama lesueurii) in residences today one was happy to pose. 

This next shot taken at the full 600mm showing all the detail of the head. 

While walking in the connections gardens, I heard a High pitched bird call and soon found the bird attached to the voice, this ones a male Mistletoe Bird (Dicaeum hirundinaceum) Not the cleanest of shots, this one wasn't in the mood for posing today. Maybe next time. 

I started to make my way back to the car for the day when I saw this pair of Little Pied Cormorants (Microcarbo melanoleucos).

While across the lake another White-faced Heron was coming in to land. 

The next day I returned and found the Red rumps at a different hollow in the same tree as earlier on. 

Also in the woodland was a pair of Pacific Baza (Aviceda subcristata) These were both pretty high up in the tops of the trees. They were in different trees and everyone and then would call to each other. 

Walking again through the woodland area I found this Grey fantail (Rhipidura albiscapa) showing off. 

While a Red-browed Finch (Neochmia temporalis) watched on to see what all the fuss was about. 

Walking a little further I came across this young not fully coloured up Eastern Rosella (Platycercus eximius) take some shade in the canopy.

So a good collection of birds about this weekend, no wonder this small Lace monitor (Varanus varius) was doing the rounds to see what it could find. 

I didn't manger to find any mushrooms about tin the gardens this week, but there was this little group of bright yellow Mushrooms (Leucocoprinus birnbaumii) growing in one of my pots of Kangaroo paws SO I took a few shots of these of this weeks mushroom shot. 

So thats it for this weeks rap up of shots for the week a bonus week with an extra day of shots so a few more shots than normal here this week. Next week will be back to normal. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week. 

Glenn.

Coming in at Number one this week is Norway with the most visits, followed by the USA then Australia. Next up on equal footing is the United Kingdom and Italy, the rest are all with one view each been Spain, Malaysia, Philippines, Pakistan, Slovenia, Ukraine and South Africa. So, 12 different countries this week. 

Back to the weekly Blog, this week’s blog will be a walk-through of the shots taken last weekend in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan. 

I started off around the Plank Bank in the Gardens and right opposite the plant bank is a small dam. This shot, complete with reflection is of a young Dusky Moorhen (Gallinuka tenebrsa) on the branch leaning into the dam.

Bird shot wise this week wasn't so good wiht most deciding this week to hid behind a leave, stick or grass so a lot of the shot this week were like the one below with a leaf in the wasps well as the other greenery. This ones of a Bell Miner (Manorina melanophrys) But this shot like so many this week not a clean shot. 

This ones of an Australian Raven (Corvus coronoides) This one was breaking off the bark of the bank looking for the insects that had followed out under the bark. You can see the spray of dust int eh shot to the left as it works at the bark looking for a quick feed. 

The Superb Fairy-wrens were about as usual around the stolen generation memorial. This time I got a clean shot but a little two far away, It really wasn't a goo bird shot weekend this week.  

From there I walked along the water supply canal and then to the other side of it once it goes underground. There is an open woodland area on the other side of the canal and walking around the large gum tree shown below I could hear a noise of someone gnawing away at the wood. So walking around the tree, and being careful not to get under the limbs of this one, as the next shot shows quite a few of the large branches have already given way on this one.

I found this Galah (Eolophus roseicapilla) working on enlarging the hollow, Its partner was on the next branch up watching on to make sure it was all going to plan. 

From there I started to head back to the car, but thought I might try my hand at a shot of the plank back. This shot is actually two shots merged together in HDR (High Dynamic range) format as the variation in brightness for the open concrete in the sun to the shadows was to much for the camera so its two shots one exposed for ht concrete in the sun the other for the shadows under the building. This was hand held for the two shots, then merged together in light room wither HDR tool, as a quick job it came out OK,  have to come back and give this another go later on with the tripod next time. but as a quick go it came out OK. 

From there I Drove up to the Wollemi walk area, which is now partially closed off for some works. This is one of the areas in the gardens were these is nearly always mushrooms to be found and this week I was in luck, only the two and one of these was no longer in the ground, but this was the shot of the week for me. Happy with how this one turned out. Lit with two off camera speedlites, one wiht a brown gel to give the warm light to the shot. focus stacked for 12images this time to give the sharpness to the mushrooms. 

This last shot for the day is of a young Eastern Spinebill (Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris) working its way through the Kangaroo paws. Again this one was pretty good at making shot it was always partially covered by the Kangaroo paws and after about half an hour this was the best I managed. 

So not a great week for bird shots this week, but happy with the mushroom shot for the week. We'll see how we go next week. 

So thats it for this weeks blog. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week. 

Glenn.

But first a look at where the Blog was looked at last week.  A tie for first place this week the Australia and the USA, them the UK, then came Japan and Canada, and then India, Serbia, France and German. So nine countries this week.

Bit warm out this way last weekend with 40 Deg temperatures. So not too much happening this week. But I still managed to get a few shots I'm happy with. 

With the Temperatures so high out there this weekend a lot of the birds were just sitting panting trying to keep as cool as they could so the first three shots are birds doing just that. You can see they have their wings lifted off their bodies to try and keep cool as well. 

First up a Superb Fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus). 

Next up a Willie Wagtail (Rhipidura leucophrys) this one was down low and almost on the ground trying to keep put of the heat. 

Next a Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae) again trying to keep itself cool. 

This next series of shots took a while to get as the bird was in to minds on leaving the safety of the high tree or not. It eventually left and flew off further into the gardens. But it took a good 20 minutes or so of waiting before I got this series of shots. An Australian White Ibis (Threkiornis moluccan) as it left its branch. 

I then went back to the car and drove off to the next part of the gardens. But not before noticing what the temperature gauge in the car said the outside temperature was. Though as I started to drive off it dropped down to about 40 so think the 45 was a little high, but still quite warm out there. As evident from the behaviour of the birds in the gardens this week.

I drove down to the Banksia gardens to see if I could spot the Frogmouths again, but no luck this week, but it was a little cooler there. So I drove back to the connections gardens, as I was walking up towards the visitors centre there I spotted this Square-tailed Kite (Lophoictinia isura) Circling overhead it wasn’t long before an Australian Raven was trying to chase it off, I got a few shots of this but none were of a decent quality so a couple of missed shots there, But this one stayed circling for about half an hour, so here’s a few shots of various over passes, this one was fling nice and low over the gardens and nice and slow as well so some decent shots of this one. Checking up my bird listing for the gardens this one’s a new bird for me in the gardens, and also a new bird for their listing as well as its not on the official listing from the gardens of the know bird species to have visited the gardens.

So that's it for this weeks walk in the heat in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan. HOpe you enjoyed this weeks shots, I'll be back next week with more. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog. 

Glenn

Before we get into the shots for the week, a look at where my blog was been viewed over the last two weeks shows Australia is on top this time, with the USA second, then the United Kingdom and Brazil, with a five way tie for fifth place with Canada, Germany, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand with another four countries with one viewer each being Colombia, Cambodia, the Philippines and Poland, So a goods catering of countries the last few weeks. Thanks of reading. 

Not so many shots this week to go thought, compared to the last few weeks. 

First up a Superb Fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) there was a small group of these in their normal location around the stolen generation memorial area in the woodland. If you wait long enough they start to come back to the area. So just a matter of waiting and not moving around and they come back looking for the insects there hunting.

The wrens were a bit skittish and I soon found out why. Again I meet one of the people from my first work shop in the gardens and they pointed out that they had seen a lace monitor (Varanus varius) in the nearby gum tree. This one was going up and down the various branches looking to see what it could find. 

This next shot I've had a play with Topaz again in the background so you can see the textured effect of what looks like a canvas that the image is printed on. 

Walking around the gardens I heard a few Common Myna's Call out and there was a large lace monitor being hurried on by them. They have a nest in the nearby tree so don’t appreciate one of these on the prowl.

This week with a few slightly cooler days and a good day of rain before the weekend I found a few more mushrooms this week, these ones were growing on a stick and not in the ground so made an interesting subject for the week. So the next series of shots are of the same three mushrooms. with different angles and lighting positions. 

These next two shots are taken with my phone showing the actual lighting conditions and setups I used to get the above shots. As you can see from the actual lighting conditions you can really create a different feel to the above shots with the speedlites. 

So thats it for this weeks shots, finally found a few mushrooms to shoot again the last few weeks, not sure I'll be so lucking the coming weekend with several days over the 40 deg C.  mark this way. not the best conditions for mushrooms, but we'll see whats about. 

Thanks for dropping by my Blog, I'll be back next week with more. 

Glenn. 

First up I started a walk from the plant bank along the board walk, in the small ponds at the start of the woodland area is some bulrushes and I noticed some movement in there. So looking closely I found this red-bellied black snake (Pseudechis porphyriacus) in the water swimming around after a while it came out and into the grass around the pond.

A few Superb Fairy-wrens (Malurus cyaneus) were about in the area but not to much else of not for the day around the stole Generation memorial area

A few Superb Fairy-wrens (Malurus cyaneus) were about in the area but not too much else of not for the day around the stole Generation memorial area. I did meet a couple on their last day in Australia from Scotland (Philip and Sheila) who said they had seen some Tawny Frogmouths in the Banksia Garden, Not having got a shot of one of these yet in the gardens I decided that was my next stop. So after not finding anything else here I drove down to the Banksia Garden area. I got a good description of where to look so went straight there. First think I found was  a few Australian King Parrots (Alisterus Scapularis) abut so I managed to get this shot of a female from a distance.

Then exactly where I was told the Frogmouths were I found them, three of them. You can certainly see how they camouflage themselves to look like tree branches. I managed the first show with the eyes open, but the rest are partially closed.  Still happy with these shots.  

On the last day of my holidays I went back into the gardens to see what I could find after a few cooler days and some light rain I was hoping for some mushrooms this time round. Been a while now since I had found any in the gardens. First up another new bird to cross of my list a Rufous Whistler (Pachycephala rufiventris) high up in the canopy, I’d spotted it last time but didn’t get a good shot, this week a little better but still not the best quality, I’ll have to keep an eye out for these in the coming visits to see if I can get a better shot. Hopefully they will come a little lower to the ground.

This shot captured it in full song.

This next shots taken in the dam opposite the plant bank and is of a young Dusty Moorhen on the hunt for reeds at the bottom of the dam.

While walking along beside the cannel there I spotted this young Fan-tailed Cuckoo (Cacomantis flabelliformis), I didn't see what the host bird to this one was after waiting a while, would have made for a good shot if its still being looked after. Another thing to look out for next trip. 

The woodland areas and most of the gardens are full of these next ones the Willie Wagtails (Rhipdura leucophrys) Theres not to many places in the Gardens you don't find these filtering about. collection insects as they go. 

A small family of Variegated Fairy-wrens (Malurus lamberti) are often found around the area where the stolen generation memorial is located in the woodlands. 

This ones not the cleanest shot but shows the broad shoulder patches across the the back as it flys up to the next branch, been better getting a cleaner shot with out the sticks in the way, maybe next time round.  

In amongst the Variegated wrens are a few Superb Fairy-wrens (Malurus cyaneus) Missing the brown patch of the Variegated wrens, thou still quite colourful and just as timid.

After all the hot weather of late a few cooler days and some rain as well seemed to have bought out a few mushrooms, well two anyway. So I made the most of these two doing three setups with different lighting and angles to get these three shots of these ones. 

So thats it for this weeks blog a round up of the shots for the last two weeks with only two days of shooting, but still some good shots this time round, good to get back into the mushroom shots again after so long with out. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week, I'll be back next week with the usual blog post. Till then take care. Back again next week. 

Glenn. 

This year I went on my first photography workshop / photo tour with Steve Parish in Central Australia, it was a great experience and some amazing landscapes out there. The only Landscape shot in my top ten came from this tour, there was so many images for the tour I would have liked to include but only ten images so only one for that trip may my top ten for the year. Again, this year Mushrooms and Bird shots made up the bulk of my shots this year and mainly in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan. Which is only a few minutes’ drive from my place. In fact, only the Central Australian Landscape shot was the only one not taken in the Gardens.

This year along with Google plus which is still doing great with my mushroom collection now having 83000 plus followers, Where I post a mushroom shot each week. I've also started to post in Instagram now, something I kept clear of for some time, but it’s now starting to gain some traction. The Gardens have found my work on Instagram and have asked me to run a workshop in November which we've now done, my first workshop that I've run. Seemed to go OK from what I can tell and everyone said they learnt something from it. So, happy with that there should be more this year, So all up a good year for me Photography wise. 

So on with the top ten shot, this first shot was the shot from the Steve Parish workshop photography tour in Central Australia. This shot is taken for a Helicopter, my first time up in one, the doors were removed to enable a cleaner shot and certainly happy with what I got out for that. I've had printed two of the shots from this flight at 1 metre long. This one is my current favourite, the other one has the most amazing geological shape but I like this image better.

Again a lot of the shots this year was of mushrooms in the Australian Botanical gardens and this shows the spores falling, little golden dots under the cap you can see them on the left side more easily then you can pick them up on the right once you know what your looking for. I used two off camera speedlites and the second light was behind to give back light which lit up the spores.  

The next shot was a lucky shot, well planned but lucky, I was shooting a mushroom on the ground but had set the bird camera (Canon 7DmkII with Sigma 150-600 Sports Len) to focus on this dead tree stump hoping something may come along as it’s a favourite perch for a lot of birdlife, so as I was taking a focus stack of a mushroom this Golden Whistler (Pachycephala pectoralis) landed on the stump which was only about 4 metres away, so I slowly got up to take this shot, I managed about six shots this being the better of the six. Happy with all the detail in this shot. Really liking the 7dMkII and Sigma 150 to 600 Sports lens combination.

Again this year I got into Focus stacking of the mushroom shots with two off camera speedlites. Still using the Canon 60D for these shots, as the articulating screen is great for lining up the shots with the camera on the ground, saves me getting so low. I like the light and shade in this image as well as all the detail. 

This image of the Yellow Thornbill (Acanthiza nana) as it sat and watched me frame up the shot is again one of my favourites with the leaves framing up the shot and the little piece of moss growing on the branch lower down offsetting the bird. The sun behind the bird adding the rim lighting on the right and eliminating the greenery behind, normally you want the brightest part of the image to be the main subject but in this case I think it works well with the bird being a little darker than the background. 

This year has been quite dry towards the end of the year so not much in the way of mushrooms about but as I spend most of my time in the botanical gardens hard not to take plant shots as well. This ones of a Red Waratah the New South Wales State flower. This one was taken in full daylight but again using the speedlite to light the flower and underexpose the image to loose the background. These flowers are always eye catching and to see them in the bush late October these bright red flower heads is really something. 

This next shot was again something special with a pair of young Welcome swallows (Hirundo neoxena) being feed by the parent. The Parent bird made regular trips over the lake collecting insects then fly back without landing to feed the young. The one on the left looks to be saying “Hey, what about me” as it watches the other bird being fed this time around, it was feed not long after. 

This next image of an Eastern Yellow Robin (Eopsaltria australis) again taken in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan, shows the catch it just made, these little ones are usually sitting on a branch or side of the tree studying the ground looking for something to feed on, this time a poor lizard was the victim, it flew away with its catch to feed its young. The gardens are alive with these pretty much year round. 

This next image or a pair of Long-Billed Corsellas (Cacatua tenuirostris) was picked up by the ABC News facebook page as its image of the day and ran as the ABCs banner image for the day on the new facebook page. The ABC got the image from Instagram after I tagged them. This one if you look around the edges you can see the results of the post processing I did to create the effect of a painting, from the comments on the ABCs facebook page it led to some confusion from some not noting if it was a painting of a photo, one thinking it was a photo of a painting. This was something I picked up from the workshop earlier in the year. The Image was taken again in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan. 

The last image in this year’s top ten shots was taken just after my first workshop in the Gardens. The gardens asked if I would be interested in running a bird photography workshop with them in the gardens, after seeing my shots posted on Instagram, so we gave it a go, after the workshop I went back in to the gardens, with a few from the class. Walking around in the gardens we came across this Lace Monitor (Varanus varius) as it went about its business looking for bird nests in hollows.  You can see the large claws these have to climb trees with, this one was looking around exploring then after the photoshoot casually climbed back down and went in search else where. 

So that rounded out this year’s top ten shots, this year I took 32466 images but these soon add up when you start to use focus stacking where one mushroom shot is made up of 20 odd shots stacked together then three or four different lighting set ups and you’re at 100 images from the one mushroom. Similarly, birds in flight shots soon add up. First step in getting to the top ten was a short list of 98 images this year, then cutting it down to ten, the first few were pretty easy to remove but after that by the time you get down to the last 25 shots each shot you remove you feel guilty for taking that shot out, shots that missed out were my first ever milky way shot taken in Central Australia another aerial shot, several mushroom shots and birds in flight shots, all of which have been covered in the various blog posts throughout the year if you’re interested. But happy with this year’s quality of shots and I’ve already booked on for another photo tour in a month or so’s time again with Steve Parish in Tasmania this time in Mid Feb. Looking forward to that.

A couple of reference links.

Martin Baileys website where you'll find links to his podcasts

https://www.martinbaileyphotography.com

Steve Parish's website where you'll find links to what Steve is up to and his work. 

https://www.steveparish-natureconnect.com.au

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week, I’ll be back next week with the regular walk through shots from the last week or so.  Have a great new year everyone.

Glenn

First up this week, not the best shot but the best one so far of the Dollarbird (Eurystomus orientalis) These birds are migratory and are only in the country from few months of the year. At the moment, I've spotted them in the woodland area and also in the connections gardens so seem to have made the gardens home for now. Look high in the tree tops for thee you will hear them before you see them most times, a very distinctive call. Still need to work on getting a better one of these, though they seem to be staying high up in the Canopy so not so easy so looks like it’s a waiting game for these. This one was taken in the woodland area. 

Next up I walked along the stolen generation walk and came across a small group of Variegated Fairy-wrens (Malurus lamberti) This one was happy to pose for a little bit. Very unlike these. They usually see you and are off. 

From there I headed up to the connections gardens hoping to find mushrooms there after n luck in the woodland area. But again, no luck. This first shot here’s of a common blackbird (Turdus merula) There’s a few of these about in the gardens but seem to be more in my garden.

So with no luck on the mushroom front and a few weeks now of carrying the speedlites about I thought I’d better put them to use before I forget how to use them So this first shots of Xanthorrhoea macronema, it’s like a mini grass tree. With one flash used in a small soft box of to the right, taken in full daylight, under exposed them re-light with the speedlite on low power to give the effect.  

This next version of the same shots after playing around a little in post processing to see what effect I could give it, this one I've toned down so only a little difference in appearance this time. 

While taking these a crested pigeon (Ocyphaps lophotes) was watching on. In this shot you can see the lighting conditions the last shot was taken in. It gives you an idea what you can do with the camera just playing with exposure and lighting. 

Next while I had the speedlites out and the 60D camera set for the Tripod I gave a Flannel Flower ((Actinotus helianthi) a go with the speedlites. Again same lighting conditions as the shot above. But concentrated the light on the one flower in this case. 

From there I took a walk down around the lake to see if anything interesting was going on there, only a few Little Pied Cormorants (Microcarbo melanoleucos) sitting around with this one having yawn. 

In the lake was another one, this one on a fishing expedition, thought looks like its catch was a bit small and should have been through back, it nearly was as it was dropped and had to have a quick dart to re-catch it. But made short work of that.  

The last shot for the week Was this rainbow Lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus) sitting amongst this bunch of flowering blossoms (Corymbia ficifolia) (I remembered this week to get the plant names) The colours of these flowers is so orange. The shot is ok but still not there so in this case I thought I’d try a little extra on it to see what I could do with it, after several attempts I like the last one best.  

The first is the original.

This next one added a painted effect while leaving the bird alone. Still not happy with it. 

So gave it another go picked a different style and this time added in a canvas texture to the shot making it look more like a canvas painting with again the bird bought back to the photo image untouched. Think its the best of the three here, feel free to add which one you prefer in the comments section at the bottom here on this post. 

Well thats it for this weeks blog post, and nearly the end of the year again. Next week I'll do my best of for the year picking my ten best shots as I've done the last few years. Not an easy task working out only ten images from the year, so we'll see what I come up with this year and how it compares to last year. 

Last week’s viewers of my blog were again world-wide with Russia again taking out the top spot for number of views well above anyone else with the USA next down by a factor of ten nearly then Australia, followed by France, Croatia then Italy. The number of views this week was down a little compared to last week, but still a health number of readers each week. 

Wishing every one a happy Christmas and a great new year out there no mater where you are. All the best of the new year. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog, this week, I'll be back next week wiht my best of shots from 2016. 

Glenn. 

For those that read this blog regularly you might be interested to know the last week there were readers from Russia, the United States, Australia, Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom. With Russia topping the number of views this week. 

So as usual this weeks blog will be a look at the shots I managed to take last weekend in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan.

This week I ran my first photography workshop in the gardens, a Bird Photography workshop with nine participants, so a nice number for a first workshop. A great group of people with varying levels of skills. The weather was good for the day not to hot, and no wind, bright light so good for the faster shutter speeds so a good morning for Bird photography, all we needed was the birds to show up.

The Workshop started with going over some settings for Bird shots and how to get the best focus using a few methods, there was also a morning tea provided by the Melaleuca House.

The last few weeks I’ve been going over the walk each week working out where the birds are and out first stop was at the tree shown in the last few blog posts, however this week not so active, after the last few weeks a bit of a disappointment for me, we did manage to find a few Striated Pardalotes, but the Galahs and Corellas were not showing their faces in the hollows this day. So we moved off along the walk into the woodland. AS we started down the path a blue tonged Lizard was making its way along the path towards us, well it was till it say a group of photographers with long lenses and decided it wasn't somewhere it wanted to be. 

There we got lucky and managed to get a few shots of a Channel-billed Cuckoo. (Scythrops novaehollandiae) This one was into the woodlands a bit so not the cleanest of shots but still something different, so the morning improved from the first disappointment.

We continued along the path to the next large Gum tree with a hollow and this one for the last few months has had a Corella in residence in the hollow, again not this time. So the two places I pretty much was assured there would be some stationary birds to shoot to practice on turned out a blank.

From there we crossed the road and stopped at the small dam there for a group photo and spotted a little pied Cormorant in the trees on the other side of the bank of the dam.

After a few shots there we moved down towards the stolen generation memorial area, where there is always plenty of bird life about as its one of the usual water locations in the gardens.

This is where last week I found the Scarlet Honeyeater, and again there was a few about so quite a few got some shots of these here.

From there we started to make our way back to the plant bank with a few stops along the way.

At one stop a Kookaburra was in the trees after it had caught a mouse so a few got shots with the Kookaburra with the mouse in its beak.

From there we stopped briefly at the dam opposite the plant bank to see if there was anything interesting there, a couple of young Dusky Moorhens about, that was about it on the day. Then we made our way back to the room for a wrap up of the morning, so for a first up workshop a few disappointments from my side, regarding the birds co-operating but still some good opportunities and everyone said that they gained something from the morning so It seemed to go well. We’ll see where it goes from here.

After the Photography workshop I went back out into the gardens to get some shots for myself, I ran into a few of the workshop participants so we did some more shots. 

First up I managed to capture this white faced Heron (Egretta novaehollandiae) in flight as it took of from the Dam opposite the plant bank. (Now they come out after the workshop.)

Then I saw this Lace Monitor Lizard as I was walking long the side of the dam, Well actually a Willie Wagtail pointed it out to me they don't like these about, most birds set of their alarm calls when these are about and I've seen them be moved on by Cockatoos who don't like the thought of these raiding there nests for eggs. 

Its here I ran in to the first of the participants after the workshop, so they both got a few shots of the monitor up the tree as well.  

While we were shooting the Lace Monitor a Purple swamp hen (Porphyrio porphyrio) was sitting in a tree, usually see these in the edges of the waterways in the gardens not so often up the tree. So something a little different. 

We moved back along the path and the Scarlet Honeyeaters (Myzomela sanguinolenta) were about so I managed a few better shots than last weeks shot, still not happy with these yet so still need to get a good one of these. 

From there I moved back along the path and found this Yellow faced Honeyeater (Lichenostomus chrysops).

I did go back to the hollow beside the road and just to rub it in the Long-billed Corella was back at its post guarding its hollow. I was happy to run into one of the other participants there as well so at least one found out that I was telling the truth there. 

Last up for he week this shot of a Red-browed Finch (Neochmia teporalis) Just watching the world go by.

So that wraps up this weeks shots from the Australian Botanical Gardens and a run down on my first photography workshop. With luck there will be more in the coming year. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week, feel free to leave comments in the comment section of the blog post, good to see its getting a global reach. 

I'll be back next week with more. 

Glenn

Next Saturday morning  (10th Dec) will be my first photography workshop held in the gardens and I did a trial walk through this weekend of the walk we'll be taking in the gardens. So the first set of shots are shots taken form the walk we will be doing then later on I went a little further and got a few extra shots for the week. 

This first set of shots is taken just near the plant bank, a small group of gum trees with several hollows has a lot of interest. This first shot shows a Rainbow Lorikeet (Trichoglossis Haematodus) at a hollow a few minutes before a Red-rumped parrot came out of it. 

This shot shows a pair of Rainbow Lorikeets investigating a different hollow in the same tree, this one is the home to a pair of Galahs and their young.

This shots of one of the Galahs (Eolophus roseicapilla) standing watch. 

Opposite these trees is the woodland area of the gardens with Cumberland plain woodland. This shot of an Australian Raven (Corvus coronoides) was taken from the trees looking in tot her woodland through the trees, The bird was a fair way off so this one’s pretty heavily cropped so starting to lose the quality in this image. 

The young Galah stuck its head just out of the hollow to see whats going on around and what all the fuss was about, so with luck this weekend it will be a lot more active and showing it self off to the world. 

Not to miss out this Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) also came in to get its portrait taken, these aren't always the best with the white bird against a light background so getting the exposure right is critical for these ones. 

The parent Galahs were content to just sit around and doing a spot of feather maintenance. as seen in this shot.

This ones of a White-plumed Honeyeater, currently building its nest not that far of the main walking track, You can see all the spiderweb its been collecting to build its nest with under its beak and across its chest. 

Next up is a series of shots of a Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae) The first two shots are taken and the background is a bit distracting with all the branches behind, but then it moved on to a second branch where I got a cleaner shot with less distraction in the background.

Laughing Kookaburra

Next up A Scarlet Honeyeater (Myzomela sanguinolenta), I've caught a glimpse of this one in the past but never managed a shot, not the best shot, but clearly the scarlet Honeyeater, these ones are high up in the canopy and don't stay still for long, but there were a few about so hopefully we'll be in luck next weekend. 

This ones of a Dusky Moorhen (Gallinula tenebrosa) young in the dam opposite the plant bank. 

After the test walk checking out the timing of the walk I went up to the main lakes near the visitors centre The usual lake inhabitants were there. This ones of the common Australian Wood Duck (Chenonetta jubata). 

Next up an Australasian Grebe (Tachybaptus novaehollandiae) in its reed nest in the lake. 

One of the young Little Pied Cormorants (Microcarbo melanoleucos) has made its way out in the lake this week so this ones on one of its first venture so hasn't had time to get its feathers dirty yet. 

This ones of a Hardhead (Aythya australis) (White eyed duck) taking a bath in the middle of the lake.

By then I thought that was it for the day so was heading to the car. In the Carpark I ran across these Musk Lorikeets first time I've got a shot of these in the gardens, so two new birds this week now down to 66 birds to go in the gardens now. 

So that's it for this weeks shots, a little late getting this one out due to preparing the presentation and training notes for the Bird photography work shop, The works shops now over now, next blog post I'll tell you how it went. 

So that's it for this weeks blog. Thanks for dropping by my blog.

Glenn. 

First up around the plant bank I came across this Galah (Eolophus roseicapilla) There was a pair of these in this gum tree this one on guard over its hollow the other was a little higher up in the tree. This is the same hollow I've been at the last few weeks.

In the same stand of gum trees, was this Olive-backed Oriole (Oriolus sagittatus) These ones have a very unique call and so you often hear these first and then go looking for them to photograph. These are quite colourful and about the size of a Noisy Miner.

An Australian Raven (Corvus Coronoides) was being pestered by its young looking for a free feed not sure it seamed to get what it was after, form what I can see looked like it was passed a small rock to play with. AS seen in the third shot in this series. 

This ones almost guaranteed of being seen each week he Long-Billed Corella (Cacatua Tenuirostris) in its hollow. This ones seen a few years looking at its beak, looks a little worse for wear over the years. 

As always around the Stolen Generation Memorial is a colony of Bell Miners, (Manorina melanophrys) This one was high up in the tree as is most times so not the best angle for a shot of one of these. But if any one ever wanted to know what a bell bird looks like, this is one. 

Walking along the Stolen Generation path but in the clearing opposite the plant bank on the board walk I spotted this Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae) looking for lunch as it sits in its tree surveying the ground. 

From there I drove up to the connections gardens and found another new bird for me, I know these have been in the gardens before but I've never spotted one, this week I not only spotted one but did manage to get a coupe of shots of the Dollarbird (Eurystomus orintalis), not the best quality as it was from some distance away and as I moved closer it didn't stick around for a second session. I was short of them this weekend so didn't get to spend time tracking this one down this week, but one to look out for in future visits. So another one ticked off the list only 66 to go now to cover all the birds listed and having a presence  in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan.

The last tow shots for this week where taken under the canopy in the connections gardens of a Rainbow Lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus) .  These made the number one spot in the Bird life Australia Bird count again this year so two ears in a row now that these ones are leading the rush. 

Next up in a nearby tree is this noisy miner just sitting and waiting probably a lot safer where it is.

So thats it for this weeks short walk in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan, thanks for dropping by my blog, I'll be back next week with more. 

Glenn.

First up something different a bee hive in a hollow of a gum tree. The bees are always active around this one and looks to be traces of honey below the hollow on the trunk.  This ones in the first group of trees in the gardens just as you drive in, before the main ring road around the gardens. 

In the same area I noticed the amazing textures on this branch in a nearby tree, I'll have to revise this one a few times to see what I can work with this one, different light and different focal lengths, but the patterns are amazing on this one. 

Again this shots from the same location a small water holes at the base of all these trees so plenty of Bird life around these ones, this ones a female Red-Rumped Parrot (Psephotus haematonotus) at another hollow. Again all these are before you hit the main ring road in the gardens. 

Next up around the back of the waterhole on the flats was this Royal Spoonbill (Platalea regia) This ones been around the east few weeks so a few shots of this one now of late. The trick here is to get the exposure right without blowing out the white feathers.

From there I moved on a little further thou not to far this ones on the first large lake as you drive into the gardens, in the reeds while trying to catch a shot of the Australian Reed-Warbler I say the reeds move thinking it was the reed-warbler I found it was instead a Litoria fallax (Eastern Dwarf Tree Frog). I don;t have to many shots of front for the gardens so even wiht the reeds in the way this one turned out OK. 

Across the lake on a small island a pair of Little Black Cormorants (Phalacrocorax sulcirostris) were sitting around drying off. The black contrasts nicely with the greenery in the Background in this shot. 

From there I drove up to the connections gardens to see if there are any Mushrooms about this week after not finding any the last few weeks, this week was not to be any better so no luck finding mushrooms to shoot, So had to look for something else and came across this acacia seed pod, which made for an interesting subject. 

After no mushrooms and time getting away I headed down two the two main lakes to see what was about and came across this Male Red-Rumped parrot, pretty plain to see how this one got its name. 

This one was most co-operative so I managed both front and back shots of it. 

Flying up the lake was this Little Pied Cormorant (Microcarbo melanoleucos) on its way to its nest. Even zoomed in as largest as I can this one is still heavily cropped so the image is stating to loose the detail in this image. 

These next two are of the young in their next arguing over a bit of bark The Second shot has them on the lookout for the return win the next meal.

Last up for this week a little Black cormorant again cursing the lake this time. These ones sit low in the water all the better for diving.

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week, I'll be back next week with more.

Glenn.

This first series of shots are of three different Bird types all nesting in the same gum tree, Guess this is apartment living bird style. 

This tree is out the back of the plant bank so will be one of the stop offs on my upcoming Bird photography workshop held in the gardens.  https://www.australianbotanicgarden.com.au/What-s-On/Bird-Photography-Workshop

First up a pair of Long-billed Corellas (Cacatua tenuirostris) The first two shots are taken about 90 degrees apart so same place just a different angle sometimes taking a few steps either way makes all the difference to a shot. The first shot is more a profile shot of the birds. 

This next one is more front on showing more of the bird, this one shows more of the details of hollow these ones have claimed. 

This next one is the same shot as above but given a bit of extra processing in Topaz Impressions II giving that painting like feeling to the image. I masked out the birds so they are more the actual photograph and the tree and background are the painting effect

This same tree had a Striated Pardalote (Pardalotus striatus) also investigating a smaller hollow, this one was on the underside of a branch, so the bird was all but upside down when it came to the hollow. These ones are pretty heavily cropped in so starting to show the effects of being too heavily cropped in.  

A pair of Galahs (Eolophus roseicapilla) have also taken up resedance in the same tree so a real community set up in this one now, this is the same hollow from a few weeks that the Galah was using the gum leaves to clean it out. (If you missed the post check out the one from 17/9/2016 which shots the Galah doing its dusting)

I managed to capture this White faced Heron (Egretta novaehollandiae) as it struck for a small fish. These are quite common in the gardens in the various water holes around the gardens. 

Next up I found a new bird I hadn't captured in the gardens before an Australasian Figbird (Sphecotheres vieilloti). This one, there was a complete family so I managed to get a shot of both Male and female plus the young as well. I didn't manage to get a really clean shot of these as they weren't co-operating posing wise but I'll check them out again next week and see if I can do better now I know where these ones are hiding.