Postcards from tomorrow.

Better late than never I always say! So last weekend was the annual epic mission southwards to catch the autumn colours and have a general scout for the following year. This year we ventured further southwards than previously and spent the first night in Armidale and the second night in Glen Innes. Kane and Matt drove down early Friday morning, and managed to catch some amazing sights. Mel and myself ventured down on Friday afternoon after yours truly had finished work.

The Saturday morning started off quite well. Matt had been in contact with a couple that live down that way and had managed to wrangle up a shooting location on some private property just outside of Armidale. That was an absolutely amazing place for a dawn shoot.

It had all the classical elements, you'd expect, fences, lone trees, windmills, creeks and a fair sized lake. And to top it all off, there was just the perfect amount of fog rolling across the land to make shooting condition perfect.

Deal with the hand you've been dealt.
Canon 5DmkII + Canon 17-40mm f/4.0L USM + Cokin P.121s

The above shot was taken just before the sun rose. I have other pics of this morning, with different compositions, etc. Believe me, this is just a teaser. Not long after the sun rose, there was nothing for it but to take advantage of the early light and the sweet still calm of the chill morning air. And with that, it was a quick scoot round the other side of the lake, throw on the NDx400 and shoot the clouds. The water was solid, like sheet of shiny glass; the perfect thing for sweet, sweet reflections.

Postcards from tomorrow.
Canon 5DmkII + 17-40mm f/4.0L USM + HOYA NDx400 + Cokin P.121s

After we'd finished there we retired back to the hotel room to catch a few Z's, pack up our gear, dump photos off the memory cards and charge the camera batteries. Not long after check out we found ourselves travelling further south, once again under the direction of Matt's contacts. Our destination this time was something a little more well known; Gostwyck Church. This is an amazing little church perched haphazardly onto the middle of what can only be described as an over-sized traffic island.

I've no images to show of that church just yet, but rest assured, that there are some amongst the 1300+ images captured that weekend, and you may just get to see them. What fascinated me about the church and it's surrounds was this massive tunnel of trees that lead off into some private property. I borrowed Mel's IR filter, and went to town on this.

Time will pass us by.
Canon 5DmkII + Canon 17-40mm f/4.0L USM + 850Nm IR Filter

While that image was being taken (it took several minutes) i grabbed the 50D and tried my hand at a technique I'd come up with a few weeks earlier. In short the technique is this: Long lens, small aperture, make a panorama. The resultant effect is an image that has an impossibly small Depth-Of-Field for a single image. Which really adds an extra amount of 'pop' to it.

Excuse me, can you help? I'm having trouble predicting the future.
Canon 50D + Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

Trust me when I say that you really need to view this image large to get the full effect. After Gostwyck Church we started our journey north towards Glen Innes. That part of the trip I'll save for another time.

On another note, but still about the trip, I had purposely set out to test and take video footage with the 5DmkII. The end goal was to put it together into a short film that kind of 'chronicled' our mission. I encourage you to watch it large and in HD.

Autumn Mission 2010 from Joshua Robertson on Vimeo.

Until next time.
J.P