Tuesday, December 22, 2015

22 December - Paynesville

After a four day heatwave today promised to be a milder day and I decided to ride the cruiser to Paynesville on the Gippsland Lakes and home of our close friends John and Sandra. Despite a fairly strong wind, the ride was enjoyable and it was great to catch up over lunch. On the way back I called in to St Mary's church in Bairnsdale, not for any devotional purpose but to get some exposure bracketed photos to try out new HDR software called Aurora HD by Macphun. I chose this building because it promised high dynamic range of light but also because the church is famous for its frescoes, painted in 1931-4 by Italian artist Francesco Floreani who was out of work and commissioned by the parish priest. The church now receives up to 80,000 visitors per year which is a lot in a regional town some 300km from Melbourne.


The technique here is to combine three photos (over, under and correctly exposed) which are then merged and tone mapped to capture the full dynamic range. The compressed version here in blogger doesn't do it justice of course but the original can be viewed by clicking here.

The return ride from Bairnsdale was very pleasant with temperatures around 20ºC.  My route often takes me past an old abandoned farm house and last year I photographed it.
I've noticed lately that it is starting to fall apart rather rapidly and I have been hoping to catch up with the owner to gain permission to take some night photos. The idea is to photograph it at dusk with lighting inside the actual building. As luck would have it I caught up with the elderly farmer Steve, showed him this photo and asked his permission to take the night shots. He was delighted with my interest and very impressed that I actually spoke to him first. Anyway he told me to do whatever I wanted - so that's a project immediately after Christmas. I found out the house was abandoned in 1957! I will catch up with Steve again to give him prints of my work and to chat some more about the history of this area. 

Total Distance 280 km

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4 comments:

  1. TrobairitzDecember 23, 2015 at 9:05 AM

    How very cool you caught up with Steve. I am looking forward to seeing the photos.

    Advances in camera technology continues to amaze me. I worked in a photo developing shop back in 1990/1991 and remember my old Minolta 35mm camera with the interchangeable lenses and filters.

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    1. Theo van der MeulenDecember 23, 2015 at 9:33 AM

      One of the biggest days in my life was when I could finally afford to buy a Minolta SRT 101 which at the time was THE camera to have. Took a lot of great family and other photos with that.

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  2. UnknownDecember 24, 2015 at 1:29 AM

    I've seen the results of such exposure combination a few times--it's always impressive. Well done.

    I, too, am looking forward to future pics of farmer Steve's old house. To me, few subjects are more photogenic than tumbledown structures and rusty equipment.

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  3. Theo van der MeulenDecember 24, 2015 at 3:13 AM

    Watch this space Ry, as soon as I get Christmas out of the way and I can find someone to help me (it's a two person job) I'll do the photo. Steve told me he plans to demolish the house early next year so I want to get on with it.

    ReplyDelete

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