The twins- reprocessed

 Another reprocesed photo .This time, Poppy, and her twin sister, Scarlett, taken at around the same time as the shot of Poppy below when they were living in Montreal, Canada.

Again a big improvement on my original effort. Another Leica X1 photo.

Poppy-reprocessed

 

 

I took this photo of grandaughter, Poppy, eight years ago on my Leica X1. At the time I was pleased with it and entered it into a couple of  photo competitions-without success.  It was a DNG file which I processed in the then latest version of Adobe's Lightroom program.

I came across the photo a few days ago whilst looking for another photo and out of curiosity I decided to see how the photo looked today when processed in the 2021 version of Lightroom Classic. The result really surprised me. There is a marked improvement.

 I guess that two factors are at play-firstly Lightroom has improved particularly with the incorporation of some adjustment tools which were not in the 2012 version and the tweaking/finessing of some of the other adjustment tools. Secondly my Lightroom skills have probably improved more than I realised. It was an interesting exercise.

Goodbye old friend

 Back in late December I said goodbye to an old friend-my 1977 Porsche 911 2.7. 

I acquired the car in August 2000 and I had travelled 60,000kms in it which is quite a few kms seeing that it was never a daily driver and shared hobby car duties with my 1971 Porsche for 12 years.

I really enjoyed the 2.7 but I decided late last year that it was time to move it on. I was fortunate to sell it quickly at the right price and when it came to hand it over I had no regrets. We'd had a great time together.

It has been replaced by a new, exciting car but more on that later.  

A doggie portrait-against the light.

 A passing shot from my daily early morning walk on the Terrigal Esplanade. In the past 12 months with the number of dogs in Terrigal has soared and I feel almost as if I'm an oddity not walking a dog in the morning .

And yes the light poles on the Esplanade do lean.

Paradise slipping away--Part 2

 See the previous post. As well as making the rock platform and, in particular Cheryl's Rock, inaccessible the cursed walkway has meant that the vista down the base of the cliff is no longer accesible. Previously you could climb on the rock platform and when there was a heavy swell see the sea breaking on the rocks as in this photo looking towards the beach at the Haven.

Paradise slipping away.

 

At the southern end of Terrigal Beach there is small headland with a platform of smooth brown rock at its base. The rock platform stops well short of the beach at the Haven so you have to walk up and over a hill to reach the Haven.

For possibly tens of thousands of years, people, initially the local Aborigines and then early European settlers and latterly local residents and tourists, have fished from the rock platform or just stood gazing out to sea.

 Now sadly that beautiful viewing platform is not accesible. The local council has funded the construction of an elevated walkway under the cliff which they say will improve pedestrian access to the Haven and also be a tourist attraction .They are probably right on both counts but it is an unattractive intrusion and it has destroyed a wonderful local natural feature.

The rock shelf has featured in many photos I have taken on my early morning walks since I retired to Terrigal over 12 years ago and many times I have stood on the shelf and looked at the magnificent view.

 Back in December 2017 I took the above photo and posted it on the blog. It's been a favourite shot of mine but I had no idea who the lady was. Then a local character, Ray, who I see most mornings and who follows my blog, by chance volunteered to me that her name is Cheryl. 

That would have been the end of the story but by coincidence eight months later I found myself walking with Cheryl on the local 5 Lands Charity Walk from McMasters Beach to Terrigal. She was a delightful walking companion and we did another walk together a few months later. After that we
exchanged emails a few times and then she disappeared from my radar until I met her walking in Terrigal early one Saturday morning last November. She misses her rock.

 Now the walkway is nearing completion. The local federal member of parliament who turns out for the opening of an envelope will be there with her tape cutting scissors no doubt but for many of us it will be a sad day. Another part of old Terrigal lost.

I will post some photos of the walkway when it is open if I can bring myself to photograph it.

Afternoon sun

Vintage Oriental furniture in the afternoon sun at home,Terrigal

At the Pie in the Sky

 It's been some considerable time since I managed to get to to the Pie in The Sky at Cowan on the first Wednesday of the month to see the turnout of cars and bikes but this week I managed it and there were a few cars worth looking at including a wonderful drophead Bristol and a superb Alvis. The paint on the Bristol is a wonder to behold. Black is the worst colour for showing imperfections and the Bristol had paint like glass. How much rubbing down how and how many coats went into achieving that finish?

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Stormy weather-Avoca Beach

 

Pure Bathurst-2

 Some photos from  Bathurst12 hour races . I would have been attending the 2021 race this weekend if Covi-19 had not intervened. 

For me, and I am sure most of the spectators at the 12 hour race, one of the highlights is the opportunity to see into the pits during qualifying and the race itself. Sadly in recent years there has a tendency by some teams to erect sight screens across the back of their pits to block the view. I don't know why they do it as it is very antisocial. Motor sport needs fans.

Pure Bathurst

Friend Warren and I have been making our annual pilgrimage to the Mount Panorama circuit at Bathurst for the 12 hour GT Sports Car race every year since 2015. We have a set program. We drive the 250 kms to Bathurst on Saturday morning. Then we watch qualifying and walk the paddock/pits Saturday afternoon, catching up with friends as we wander. Late afternoon we drive to Orange and our overnight motel. 

We have dinner in the pub, the Hotel Canobalas, in the evening and then rise very early on the Sunday morning and drive back to Bathurst-40 mins- for the spectacular 5.45am race start in the dark. We watch the race from a variety of locations through the day and then retreat to Orange exhausted after the end of the race. Then it's another evening in the pub lining up the schooners of draught Stone and Wood before an overnight stay then driving back to Terrigal over the Blue Mountains on the Bells Line of Road on the Monday morning.

Invairably the weather is hot and often it is very hot. Last year it was impossible -heatstroke temperature- and we talked about not going in 2021. We thought that 12 hours out in the open in those temperatures at our age was perhaps not wise. Little did we know that we need not have made any decision as covid-19 made the decision for us. The 2021 race would have been next weekend. 

When will we see the GT teams racing for 12 hours at Bathurst again? Who knows. 

In the meantime-memories of Bathurst 12 hours 2017- a Porsche 911 entering Caltex Chase in the first hour of the race with the sun rising in the east behind the Blue Mountains. Pure Bathurst.

This photo was taken with an unlikely motor sport camera-my Leica X Vario. The X Vario was a very slow seller when launched in 2013 due to a perceived poor specification, a silly marketing strategy by Leica and a hostile reception in the online photographic media. 

In reality the XV is a very capable camera with a superb lens and is now seen as a classic with steadily climbing used prices . The photo was taken at 1/1000th second at F/6.4 -the maximum aperture of the fixed zoom lens at 70mm-and ISO1250. It is a DNG (RAW) file which I processed in Lightroom.