Best of 2025

 It's that time when 'the best of 2025' lists are posted in the media. 

For me 2025 was an unusual year as far as photography was concerned. I took quite a few photos but predominantly in three big bursts -on our trip to South Australia/Kangaroo Island in April, on our trip to Portugal and Spain in June and finally on my Leica Akademie photo tour in Morocco in October. 

Apart from a few photos of our two cats, Smudge and Holly, I took few other photos. 

However culling the 2025 photos down to just ten was not so easy particularly as my Moroccan photos contain quite a few I consider as amongst my best efforts. 

One surprise is that all the photos in my selection were taken with just one camera, my new Leica Q3 43. My superb Leica SL2, a beautiful camera, with its collection of very expensive lenses did not manage even one shot in the final ten. The reason for this is very straightforward-it is just too heavy to be used as a travel camera whereas the Q3 43 is my definition of an ideal travel camera.

I've made a new year's resolution to use the SL2 more in 2026. Let's see how that resolution holds up.

Here's my 2025 top ten selection. The first 5 were all taken in Morocco.

 

The photo below was taken on a wet, miserable winter's afternoon on the seafront in Terrigal. 

 

 

The next two were taken on the Portugal/Spain trip.The woman with the hat in a tourist crowd in Salamanca, Spain, is a personal favourite. It also looks good in monochrome.

The man is fishing on the Douro very early on a Sunday morning. The light was beautiful. He was still there an hour later but the light was too harsh by then and I was glad that I had been awake early to capture the scene when I did.

 

 

The cat photo above is particularly sad. I consider it one of my best, if not the best, cat photo I have ever taken and I've taken more than a few. It is of Myles, my daughter's beautiful cat. Three weeks after this lovely portrait was taken poor Myles died from cancer.

The last photo is of a Kangaroo Island sheep farmer taken during shearing. I should have come back with many more photos from that trip but the heatwave conditions sapped both my energy and my enthusiasm. When the camera is too hot to hold it's time to head to the nearest bar!

 

 

Seasons Greetings

 Seasons Greetings to all Rolling Road readers across the world. Have a happy holiday wherever you are.

Photo-high summer at Avoca Beach, Central Coast, New South Wales, Australia. 

 

 

Goodbye Mini, hallo Mini.

 The last few days have been a time of mixed emotions. I've said goodbye to my beautiful Mini Cooper S. I took delivery of it on the 20th December 2020 so last Friday I had owned it for 5 years less one day. It has been a fantastic car. Not a single problem and its handling and performance certainly lived up to its esteemed name. It had only done 50,300 kms when I said goodbye and it was in beautiful condition. It had done a few long trips. The first was a 3,000km road trip into western NSW and Queensland. Then twice to Noosa, once to Canberra and the wonderful trip down to the southern most tip of Tasmania at the end of 2021.

Every time I drove it I smiled but it was time to change. It was just too small for me now with my back problems. I have found getting in and out of it increasingly difficult and I have barely been able to walk after a long drive. For months Rosie has been telling me that it was making my back worse and finally I relented when I realised that she was right.

To replace it I have chosen another Mini but this one is a Mini in name only. It's significantly bigger than the Cooper S and it's an EV. It's a Mini Aceman JCW which is made in China and sold by BMW.  The Aceman was developed and is produced by Spotlight Automotive, a joint venture between  BMW Group  and Great Wall Motor, at a manufacturing plant in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu. 

I took delivery of it on Friday and I am delighted with it. It is actually faster than the Cooper S and it is more comfortable and the electronic driver aids are superb. However the Cooper S lives on as I had the ELF 09F registration number transferred to the new car.

 

 

 

Terrigal Early Morning 18th December

It was another beautiful morning in Terrigal today. For once I remembered to pick up my camera when I left for my early morning walk. Here are the photos I came home with. It's always about the light.

 

The whiskers make it

 In the days since the last post I have been franticaly working on the house ready for the real estate photos on Friday and for it to go on the market early in the new year. I have spent much of the time applying polish and polishing the parquet flooring. It has not helped my bad back but it has come up really well. As the saying goes 'no pain no gain'.

So photography has very much taken a back seat although a photo op came up this morning when Smudge, one of our two tuxedo cats, was looking in the window of the office and I captured her through the glass with the Q3 43 which fortunately I had with me on my desk.

I really like the Leica Q3 43. I have been a big fan of the Leica Q cameras since I acquired a Q back in 2016. Since then I've owned a Q2 for 4 years and now the Q3 43. All of them have been excellent but  the Q3 43 definitely tops them all.

I converted the Smudge file into monochrome using the simple Lightroom B&W setting. I probably should have used one of the Leica Photos monochrome presets but in this case I just had time to grab the camera as a few seconds later Smudge had gone. It is ever thus with cats.

 

Local colour

 It's been a week since I last posted on the blog and the reason for this is simple-age is catching up with us so we're selling our townhouse and moving locally to an apartment and the past week has been frantic setting up the arrangements for the sale and the purchase. And to make matters worse it is the wrong time of the year to be trying to get tradespeople booked.

Photography has very much taken a back seat and to make matters worse although it was raining hard this morning-rain we desperately need-I saw eight great photo ops on my early morning walk. Of course I did not have a camera with me although I could have taken the Q3 43 as it is weatherproof. Memo to self -take camera on walk.

 I've been back to my Moroccan photos to hopefully find some gems I missed earlier and I've found a few. Here's the first-local colour in the Tangier Medina. And what a contrast between the dress of the mother and that of her daughter.

 

 

 

On a beautiful morning

 I was up very early this morning. I did not beat the kookaburras but I was not far behind. I also did no beat what seemed like half the population of Terrigal who were also up and walking.

A very hot day was forecast and so it has turned out, 

I took my Q3 43 with me to keep my eye in and hoping to get some silhoutte shots in monochrome. I set the jpeg setting to monochrome using one of the  Leica Photos presets however after reviewing the photos I realised that days like today in Australia are just not suited to being rendered in monochrome. So here's today's Terrigal Diary in glorious Leica colour.

 

Sizzling summer is here

Here, downunder, we are well into summer. The switch from what is rather unconvincingly called spring into summer was rather abrupt. A few weeks ago we still had our sweaters at the ready and then last Saturday it went over 40ºC here at Terrigal in mid afternoon. Since then it has been absolutely beautiful-warm/hot but not too hot although another heatwave is forecast for the weekend.

I took the photo below with my phone on Tuesday afternoon and it shows the beach at Terrigal Haven at 4.00pm. It was taken from the outdoor bar/deck area of the Terrigal Pavillion, a very recent addition to the local hospitality scene. 

Many years ago the building was the Terrigal Yacht Club, then it became the Haven, a fine dining restaurant and cafe, until a new proprietor took it over and gave it an A$10m total rebuild and it is now a superb venue. A great place to sit and take in the vista with a cold beer or two as we did.

 

IRYS

I've made a photobook of the photos I took on the Leica Akademie photo tour of Morocco using Snapfish. I'm really pleased with the large size album.

I've used Blurb, Momento but predominantly Snapfish to make my photobooks over the years. I cannot fault Snapfish's quality nowadays and their software is easy to use. 

I feel that it is important to have prints of my favoured photos. Prints/books are keepsakes for myself and also to show others. I know no one will ever view my digital photo libraries after I pop my clogs but hopefully my children and grandchildren will look at the photobooks from time to time.

As well as making the book I have been enthusiastically posting photos on the new IRYS photo posting app .

IRYS is what Instagram was when it was first launched before Meta purchased it. It is site for photographers to share their work and so far it really works for me. 

British photographer and Leica Ambassador, Alan Schaller, is the driving force and financier behind the app and whilst Leica, and other brands, are supporters it is open to users of all brands of camera.

Some really good, innovative photography is being posted on the app and there is a sense of community-something which is most definitely lacking from Instagram and Flickr. And best of all there are no ads, no reels, no threads and no influencers.

It all looks good so far except I hope they deliver a desktop version soon. Fingers crossed it stays 'pure'. The portents are, sadly, not good.

Here's one of the photos I have just posted on IRYS. It was taken in Salamanca, Spain back in June. 

 

 

 

 

Leica Akademie in Morocco-the pick of the crop.

 I took 260 photos on the Moroccan tour. Not as many as most of the other participants I'm sure but a larger number then I'd normally take in that period of time. 

Of the 260 I count 69 as worthwhile. A pretty good strike rate by my usual standards and there are reasons for this.

 I found having the time to seek and wait for photo opportunities a big help. Also shooting with other competent photographers and seeing, each day, their photos on the IRYS app made me try harder. Advice from Jesse Marlow and Steve Dupont from Leica Australia also contributed. I would not have waited for the eScooter rider and dog without Jesse's advice. Steve set me up for the fruit cart outside the bakery and so on.

Also using the Q3 43 made me frame tighter. I spent more time getting the exposure right and I have done very little post processing and in particular cropping on the photos. For quite a few I could easily have used the jpeg files straight from the camera.

It's also true that whilst Morocco is full of photo opportunities it's also not easy. The locals are becoming less willing to be photographed and that has to be respected.

Of the 69 worthwhile photos I have a few absolute favourites but firstly two which I accidentally omitted in the earlier stories.

The first was one of the first photos I took on the first morning in Tangier- Light and shade.

 

 

The second is a real charmer. A huddle of street kittens snuggling up asleep together.

 And finally the pick of the crop-my top 5. 

 

 

Leica Akademie in Morocco-Part 11

 From Fes it was a drive down to the coast to the capital of Morocco, Rabat, for a short stop and then to Casablanca.

Rabat looked a very attractive, neat and tidy, capital with some impressive buildings including a new football stadium. 

We spent time in the small medina where I took these two photos.

 

Rabat is only an hour's drive north of Morocco's largest city, Casablanca and what a contrast. Casablanca is every bit a big city with a population of just over 3 million.

 Despite its size and the fact that it is the major international gateway through the airport there are few tourist attractions in Casablanca and my advice is don't stay in the city any longer than necessary.

The one major attraction is the Hassan 2 Mosque, one of only two mosques in Morocco which non Muslims may enter. 

It's an impressive building. See Hassan 2 Mosque 

Here are my photos of it. They bring to an end the photos of my photo journey through Morocco. I just wish that I'd seen more. So many places and so little time.