The Demon Drome-Wall of Death

For me over the years one of the great attractions of the Le Mans Classic was the Demon Drome Wall of Death. I loved its vintage feel, the skill of the riders and even the smell of it. These photos were taken at the Classic in 2014 and and 2016 and I'm pleased to see from their website that the Demon Drome team are still going strong and let's hope the Covid-19 lockdown has not impacted them too badly.

One for the wall

On the wall in a prominent position in the living/kitchen area of the house is a large framed photo of a lion taken by me in Zimbabwe 26 years ago. In its day it was a great photo but sadly the strong sun has faded it and it should have been replaced many months ago. The problem has been finding an acceptable replacement. We are not spoilt for choice with literally hundreds of photos from our travels as possible replacements but it has not been an easy task.

Finally we have made a decision and have selected a photo taken in 2013 showing our three grandaughters, Poppy,Ellie and Scarlett, after they had their faces expertly painted at Avoca Beach Sunday Markets. The photo is colourful and joyful and of course it's family. It's also technically very good and should make an excellent big print. Now I have to organise the printing and framing but hopefully the most difficult part is behind me.

Le Mans lament

It's just a few weeks from when the Le Mans 24 hour race would have been run and a few more weeks until when the Le Mans Classic was to have been held.
The 24 hour race has been postponed until 19-20th September although even this date may still be in jeopardy.The Classic has been postponed until 1-4th July 2021.

The 24 hour race has the Virtual sim race-run by the ACO-the Le Mans organisers and the FIA- to entertain us in the interim and although it's very clever it's no substitute for the real thing.

In the meantime a real blast from the past from my archive-a Porsche 917, one of the most spectacular racing cars ever created, in action at the Le Mans Classic 2016.

Stormy weather

A big depression in the Tasman Sea has been whipping up massive waves along the east coast of Australia for the past two days. This morning, Sunday, the local surfers were out at at Terrigal and Avoca Beach. Conditions were strictly for the experts and there was big crowd on the shore at Avoca Beach watching them and the monster waves
The walkway at Avoca Beach is ideal for surf photography although this morning whilst I was there the weather was not co-operating and most of the time the light was really flat under a almost black sky. This is one of only two sunny shots -I junked the rest. And it is a colour shot.

A bleak day

Fortunately we don't have many days like today in Terrigal. It was bleak-cold and with a strong biting wind. The surf was big so the many surfers were happy but as for the rest of us we were happy to stay indoors if possible. I ventured down to beach late afternoon and grabbed this photo. It reminds me of a scene from an English seaside resort.

A really big boy

Nash, a seriously big boy seen at Island Time Cafe, Terrigal this morning. Nash is two years old and fully grown which is just as well . The black and white girls did tell me his breed but I did not catch it. He seemed very docile and friendly.
Friend Wayne and I were able to sit down in the cafe and enjoy our coffee this morning for the first time in seven weeks. Only ten patrons allowed to be sitting with social distancing but it almost felt normal.

San Fran sunset

A photo from 2006 when I was travelling frequently from Sydney to Milwaukee and catching up on the way with friend, Patrick, who was then living in San Francisco. Photo taken as we were heading back towards San Francisco at sunset after a day's driving in his 1971 911T Sportomatic. Taken with my Leica Digilux 1.
Technically not a great picture -very much a snatched shot at the limit of the capabilities of the early digital Leica -but evocative.
Photo below the car on the drive. Memories of fun days. So much has changed since then.

Good morning, sunshine.

One of the joys of life, for me anyway, is an early morning walk and particularly an early morning walk in an unfamiliar place on a bright sunny morning. The walk is even better if a photo presents itself.
This photo was taken in Portland, Oregon just a hundred or so metres from my hotel. It's just an ordinary scene transformed by the low early morning sun. If I had seen this later in the day I would not have given it a second glance.
The scene could be anywhere. I don't go out looking for photos-they present themselves. I invairably take my Leica X1 on my walks because it is unobtrusive and easy to carry. I guess that I could just use my phone but for me at least it's not the same. When I have the camera in my hands and am looking through the viewfinder my mental approach is different to when I use the phone. Maybe it's just a matter of what you are used to. Anyway the camera works for me so why change?

A beautiful walk

It was a beautiful day on Tuesday.-cool first thing but crystal clear so friend Warren and I did the Coastal Walk in the Bouddi National Park from Pretty Beach to Maitland Bay and back. About a 2 hour, 5.5km walk with a few moderate/steep climbs and a spectacular view around every corner. Photo above shows a wooded section of the track.
We were not alone. There were more walkers on the track-young and old -than I have ever seen. Lockdown seems to have spurred many into serious exercise.

The driftwood horse

One of the consequences of the summer bushfires is that large quantities of burnt timber has been washed down rivers and streams and into the sea and it is now washing ashore on beaches all up the east coast as driftwood.
With so many people in lockdown and exercising on the beaches creative hands have turned to building driftwood sculptures and "shacks"on many beaches. Here in Terrigal there is a wonderful driftwood horse on the edge of the lagoon. The builders obviously decided that it should be a horse from the famous Australian Light Horse Rregiment as it has some poppies attached and a "Lest we forget" board put there for the recent Anzac Day.

Travels past

Sitting here in Australia on a May afternoon it's really difficult to contemplate what the world will look like in 6 or 12 months. Even if a vaccine is developed for Covid-19 the aftermath of the lockdowns and the collapse of economies will be devastaing. Without a vaccine, well it's unthinkable.
There is a real possibilty that overseas travel from Australia, other than to New Zealand, may be very constrained for a long time so I am very fortunate that I have done so much travel particularly in the past 12 years. This afternoon I looked back through my photo catalogue and reminded myself of all the great trips and one shines as the absolute best-Oman over Xmas/New Year 2018/19. It was a long way to go for what was only a two week trip but it was well worth the effort. The people were so friendly, the scenery was superb and the itinerary was great.
One of Omani guides who showed us around grew up in the desert inland from Salalah in the south said that he could take me on a 3/4 day expedition into the Empty Quarter right upto the border with Saudi Arabia. If only. I would have loved that. Too late now and I am just too old anyway. My camping days are well behind me.
Here are some photos from that very special country.

Main St, Rosedale, Mississippi.

A photo of Main Street, Rosedale, Mississippi inspired by Stephen Shore, the acclaimed American photographer. Shore's work has been widely exhibited and published. A particular favourite photography book for me is his Uncommon Places- a volume of predominantly American streetscapes shot with a view camera. Through Shore's lens common places become special or uncommon places.

My photo is a pale imitation of Shore's work. He would definitely have waited until there was no traffic on Main Street probably by taking the shot early morning.
Shore carefully plans and frames his photos. Using a large format view camera is slow photography. Setting up the camera cannot be rushed. It has to be used on a tripod and the sheet film is expensive so every shot costs. It's very different to digital photography and even more different to smartphone photography.

This difference was bought home to me yesterday morning .There was another spectacular sunrise. I saw a young woman walker pull her smartphone out, hold it in the general direction of the sunrise, press the camera button and tuck the phone into the top of her lycra tights again all within about 5 seconds. It was fast photography or perhaps it was speed photography. If she had just spent even a few more seconds she could have considered what she was taking and made some effort at framing. It was photography devalued.

Looking at my Main Street photo now -three years after I took it-I realise that with just a little effort I could have framed it so much better but I did make some effort and it did take longer than 5 seconds.

At the lolly shop

 A blast from the polar region hit us on Saturday. It was very windy and cold and the temperature with the wind chill was in single figures. Very unusual for here. The good news is that mid to high 20's(C) temperatures are forecast for the end of the week.

I cannot take the cold like I used to be able to. My blood must have thinned living here. I was watching a British TV travel program last week where a railway worker at a Scottish station was waiting for an SMS on her phone to say that she had approval to remove her tie as it was so hot. It was 19ºC !  At that temperature I'm starting to think about putting on a sweater.

In an effort to shake off the lockdown blues we drove the 13kms to The Entrance on Saturday morning. There were very few people around and with most shops shut-many permanently unfortunately-it was a gloomy place despite the sunshine. It reminded me of an English seaside resort out of season.

To escape the gloom I dived into a lolly shop-Lollies N' Stuff-and found Taylah and Sophie resplendent in their Minnie Mouse outfits stacking shelves and generally radiating good humour despite the lack of customers or maybe because of the lack of customers. Luckily I had a camera with me and the result is above. Thank you for being such good sports girls.

With a shot like this of strangers you have just one chance to get it right. If you start directing the subjects or taking multiple shots and fiddling with the controls the spontaneity rapidly evaporates and you end up with the Instagram pout.

A tale of two photos

I started using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop for my photo processing and cataloguing about 16 years ago. Over the years I have built up my expertise in using Lightroom through a mixture of online and physical courses and a lot of hands on user experience.
Until recently I was using Lightroom 5 which I had purchased years ago and which was running very satisfactorily on my 9 year old Mac.

About 6 years ago Adobe changed their Lightroom business model and introduced what they named Creative Cloud- which incorporates Lightroom and Photoshop- in a subscription model for which they charge a monthly fee. The option of purchasing the software outright was discontinued at that time. So to update my Lightroom and Photoshop to the latest editions I would have to pay Adobe A$12 per month. Included in the subscription is what Adobe call Lightroom Classic-the latest version of what I had before-and Lightroom which is cloud based. Adobe obviously consider that the Classic version is for old stagers-that's me- as they angle the presentation of the package to the cloud based Lightroom which allows you to edit across multiple platforms including mobile devices.
As I was content to continue with my old owned Lightroom 5 I stayed away from Adobe's revenue maximisation subscription model for as long as possible. However when I came to upgrade my Mac to a current model a few weeks ago I found that the old Lightroom 5 is incompatible with the latest Apple OS so I was forced to go to Adobe's subscription package-Creative Cloud.
I have been using Lightroom Classic from the package for about 5 weeks now and I have had a few issues with it but essentially it is what I had before in Lightroom 5 at a higher cost.

There are a number of alternatives to Adobe’s Creative Cloud on the market and the most popular of which is Capture One developed and marketed by a Danish company. Initially Capture One was primarily designed for studio photographers using large format digital cameras but in recent years it has evolved and has grown in popularity.


A photographer acquaintance has recently moved over to Capture One after many years of using Lightroom and this caught my attention. Now in the covid-19 lockdown era I have more than enough free time so when I found that Capture One are offering a 30 day free trial I decided to give it a try. I should say that Capture One is also only available as a subscription model and that is even more expensive than Adobe's but I decided to overlook this until I had tested it thoroughly.

I should emphasise that I have been a happy Lightroom user for years and a major part of Lightroom’s appeal to me is its cataloguing capability which is not Capture One’s forte although Capture One does have the capability to import an existing Lightroom catalogue which I have not explored.
After downloading the Capture One software I spent quite a few hours getting upto speed on how to use it through the excellent Capture One learning hub. It has many similarities to Lightroom but also many differences. I would definitely not recommend it for beginners.
After satisfying myself that I had a good handle on the basics and some of the complexities I decided to do some back to back comparisons with DNG ( RAW) files which I processed in both Lightroom and Capture One to the best of my ability. After years of learning and use my competence with Lightroom is significantly better than my competence with Capture One at this point so it’s not quite an apples and apples comparison..
Two examples of the test photos are below. The top image is Capture One and the second image is Lightroom processed.
On this showing Lightroom maybe just has the edge to my eye however that is a very subjective call.

So in summary I see no benefit for me personally in switching to Capture One. There is no doubt that it is, like Lightroom, an excellent programme but this old dog has made a substantial personal commitment into learning Lightroom and can see no point in learning new Capture One tricks. Besides I have a big Lightroom catalogue and Capture One is a lot more expensive than Adobe’s Creative Cloud. However it has been an interesting exercise and a challenging way to pass a few hours in lockdown. Thank you Capture One for your free trial. It is appreciated.