Decay

The roadside and park trees of Singapore often host many other plants. The Rain Tree in particular attracts epiphytes, the most common, the Bird’s Nest Fern. I have tried capturing them many times, but with little success. Instead I focus on smaller detail, here the old leaves, slowly decaying beneath. The plant is lush, it shouts green! So why remove the colour? Without the colour, you can see the texture, the form, the soul. This will always be one of my most treasured images. I finally achieved a silver quality I had only seen in other peoples work. I heavily critique my own work, something I need to let go, so it’s rare for me to sit back and smile and think ‘I made that!'

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Three Trees

The Super Trees of Singapore reside in Gardens by the Bay. It’s a wonderful park, only a few years old, created where there was once ocean. It features more than a dozen of these massive man made trees, they are covered in orchids and climbers. I guess one day these bare branches with be covered on foliage, but for now it’s as close as I can find to an Autumn Tree after it’s leaves have fallen.

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You lookin' at me

The Mynah Bird performs a dangerous dance with a two tonne Rhino at Singapore Zoo.

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Climbing out of the pit

I’ve always been drawn to nature and naturally wanted to photograph animals and birds. I didn’t have the patience or budget to become a wildlife photographer. My attempts were often poorly exposed, badly composed or out of focus. When I started working in B&W, where I reduced and simplified, high levels of noise weren’t a problem. This gave me access to the high shutter speeds and depth of focus I wanted. I could also explore other emotions, away from the obvious. This kind of image straight out of camera is very different to the end result. Not only have a removed the colour, but I’ve removed background clutter and left mostly textures. This is no longer just the foot of a fruit bat, it’s a menacing claw of a creature, crawling out of a pit.

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Impact

First day ready to rock and roll, Nozawa, Japan

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Not all flowers are pretty

The top deck of Singapore's Cloud Forest Done has some unusual residents. This fine specimen lurked, hidden behind a concrete wall, but not hidden from the inquisitive photographer, bored of pretty flowers.

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First run

One hour earlier, I drank coffee, sitting next to my eldest, who sipped his hot chocolate. We had grabbed a couple of bar stools and sat, looking south west out of the window. Mist was rising from the great Chikuma River Valley, the distant range of mountains, only showing a few peaks. By the time we finished our drinks, the village of Nozawa Onsen was shrouded in white, above and below.

We kitted up and left the lodge, for the slopes. The weak winter sun was breaking through. The blanket of fog had risen, holding on in the mountain valley, where our chair lift waited. I wasn’t prepared. My camera was attached to my backpack's shoulder strap, easily accessible, but I had no idea of settings. I knew I only had one chance, the conditions were changing fast. I sat in the chair, wedged my poles between my knees and carefully removed my gloves, shoving them under my thigh. I span the dials, checked the settings and waited. This wasn’t textbook landscape photography! I hadn’t set up in the dark at a previously scouted location waiting for the magic to happen. I didn’t have a tripod, instead I was trundling along at 12mph, 60 feet up, trying not to drop anything. I didn’t care, this is the kind of photography I enjoy. That single five minutes journey produced three keepers.

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Yunomine Slope

There’s an upper valley at Nozawa which has some of the loveliest slopes, a mixture of greens and reds, crisscrossing though the trees. The two chairlifts only operate at the weekends, which is a great shame. You can ski in the week, but your only options are limited. You can trek cross country to the bottom of Paradise, a route we took the first time we visited. It was a miserable half hour of hoofing when we’d rather be skiing. Alternatively you can join the mid station gondola, or ski on down the mountain and take your pick of ungroomed mogel infested blacks. I’ve skied both of them and neither are enjoyable, just a means of getting off the mountain. But back to the Yunomine Slopes, seen here on a busy Saturday morning! It’s a great place to practice carving and enjoy big sweeping turns from one side of the piste to the other.

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Leaving

Long exposure from a moving object, normally results in jumbled chaos. When the moving object is on rails and the camera wedged up against the glass, then structure and regularity emerge. The results aren’t always predictable, and this was a very pleasant surprise. I wanted an off centre vanishing point so tipped my phone down and right, pressing into the corner of the frame. The station was brightly lit behind glass doors, so the only light would come from that side. The tunnel in the far distance and the red light are far enough away to keep some of their structure and a point of reference for the viewer.

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Orchard Gateway

It was one of those really hot days, high humidity. 34’C in the shade but feeling 15 degrees hotter. I had dropped my youngest off for a playdate and had five hours to kill. I wasn’t feeling very enthusiastic despite this being a rare opportunity in the middle of the school holidays. I was a little hungover and unsure of what I was looking for. In the past, I may have wandered taking random street shots, and ended up with nothing. After nearly a year in +Shari Miller's cohort and at the tail end of Alex Lapidus Blurs and Unsharp mentorship program, I wasn’t going to let the voices of doubt creep in. If I turned up and showed willing the Muse would be pleased and she was. I was gifted with a tree perfect for a multiple exposure image, a technique I had studied and experimented with a few weeks earlier.

I set my camera up in Manual Mode, wanting every image to have exactly the same exposure and depth of field. I wanted a clean noiseless image, so worked at ISO 100. It was quite windy and although it didn’t matter if there was some blur, I wanted to keep some texture in the tree leaves, knowing if there was to much blur, then the final result wouldn’t look as good. My main subject is the tree and texture draws the eye. The underside of the tree was dark, so I exposed for that area with out blowing out the bright leaves at the top, in full sun. It’s better to over expose than under expose. I set the focus area to Flexible Spot and positioned it roughly a third in, so it would cover the base of the tree - this would be my anchor point. I checked how much space I had to walk a full circle around the tree and adjusted the zoom, the left hand edge of the tree fitted comfortably within the frame at any position. I checked all the settings, checked the area in focus using the Sony’s Focus peaking. I was set. It took me a full five minutes to complete a lap of the tree, stepping approximately one metre to the left between each frame, and trying to keep a constant distance from the tree. The histogram previews looked good, the only issue was the sky, which although blue with fluffy white clouds, was 50% blown out. I wasn’t concerned, I was going to use Orchard Gateway Shopping mall as the primary backdrop as it had lots of contrast and texture that should look good with this technique.

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