This week I went back to the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan, I started out stopping at the very first lake as a lone spoonbill was patrolling the bank, by the time I stopped the car and walked back the spoonbill had gone no sign of it, but still the lake was full of other wild life so I got this Hoary‑headed Grebe.

There was the usual swallows darting along the edge of the lake so I had a few practice shots at panning, most didn’t; turn out at all and a lot of frames empty entirely so clearly more practice needed here.

From there I headed up to the Wolomi pine Walk where there are usually a few mushrooms to spot,  no Mushrooms but there was an Echidna in the undergrown, I saw him but he eventually went under a small low timber bridge and I didn’t get another chance of a shot of him I waited there about 15 minutes but he was happy to wait me out, this time he won so no shots of the Echidnas this week.

Form there I when around the gardens and went back to the connections gardens, last week the white Waratah was just starting to come out in bloom and this week it was fully out in flower.

I set up my camera on the tripod and hand held the speedlite in a small soft box and went about capturing a few shots. The White Waratah are native to the southern highlands of NSW the common red ones also grew wild down this part of NSW, but the white ones are unusual.

As I was packing up form the Waratah I noticed a few flannel flowers glowing in the afternoon sunlight.

I was looking for mushrooms to shoot for Shootmushroom Saturday, but was not having any luck finding any even after a few days rain here in Sydney this week. I had given up and was heading back to the car when the very last garden bed had this unusual mushroom, love the colours of this one reminds me of an Antique piece of furniture, so all up a few decent shots today so happy with the results of the afternoon.

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G'day welcome back to my blog. This afternoon I went back into the botanical gardens, with my camera to see what was about today. I started off at the Wollemi pine walk, some where that I know had mushrooms the other week, I walked into the area and found that there was only a few mushrooms left and what was there has seen better days, but I set up and went about taking a few shots. 

The Mushrooms were growing on the side of a small drainage ditch which was a little muddy so the Camera was sat on a rock and the speedlites had to suffer a little, I had the soft box to light the scene and the other speedlite to light the underside of the mushroom as shown below.

The final show is as you see below here. After a few sprays of water to dampen things down.

As I was finishing up across the other side of the path was a small depression in the mud with a little water left so made for a drinking hole for the local bird life and a small flock of red brown finches came down for a drink while I was there, so a quick change out of the lens and on with the 70 to 200 with 1.4x extender and I managed to get this shot, not the best but still it gives the idea of what was happening. There was one silver eye there to join the party.

From there I walked out and drive back to the main garden to see what was around there today, the usual mushroom was empty so good thing I went to the other one first other wise I'd have no mushroom shot for shoot mushroom Saturday on google plus. While walking around thre gardens I found a small flock of silvereyes at the top of the connections gardens and got a few good shots there, below is one of the better Silvereye shots I got. 

I was very happy with this shot once processed back home.

On the way back to the car and home I found one of the more unusual wattles that the gardens have, a Acacia glaucoptera, a clay wattle and comes from western Australia, the little Wattle flowers usually in sprays of flowers at the ends of the branches are in this case little yellow balls along the stem at the base of the leaves. 

These were all shot with the camera mounted on a tripod one speedlite on the ground shooting up and a small soft box in my hand while I triggered the camera with my remote trigger.

That was the end of the day. So another great days shots at the gardens in Mount Annan.

Thanks for dropping my. 

G’day welcome to my blog.

Last weekend MY wife and I went into the City to take part in the 500px Second Annual Global Photowalk – Sydney, this was my second ever photowalk, the last one was also in the city for the Vivid light show and went quite well though only a small group showed up for it, this one had a lot more people even with light rain, there were 49 different photographers there for the walk so a great effort from the Sydney photography community, the walk started off at Sydney’s Luna park under the north bridge pylon.  From there we walked along the foreshore of the harbour with the idea of shooting the opera house under the bridge at sunset, sounded good.

One on the many little sculptures along the walk

With that many people the crowd spread out a fair way along and even though we were in the same place the variety of photos posted to the google plus walk event were really amazing. As I was half way along the foreshore we noticed a group of the walk gathering together, a fair way along, they then headed up the stairs to where we were going. But by the time we got there and we weren’t that far behind the group seemed to disappear the photographers around me continued on as planned but most of the group went elsewhere, not sure where. The small group arrived at the area and took our shots till dark. Got a few nice shots and the walk was fun, I’ll be doing another one of these. Hopefully next time I’ll stay with the main herd :-).

Two of the flowers I shot along the walk.

The shot I got from the final point of the walk.

My last shot form the night on the way back to the train station for the trip home.

Thanks for dropping by.

Glenn.