What do you do in Austria when there is no snow? Skateboard of course. Well, that is if you are a skateboarder I guess.
Yesterday I was speaking to a friend in Austria who I had done some skateboard shots with and he told me that he hadn’t seen the shots for a while as he had lost his copies. I realised that I had never actually posted many of them here on my website, so I thought I better rectify that.he shots of Patrik Pittl were taken in and around Innsbruck. The other shots are all taken in and around Brixlegg and the Cradle Skatepark.
I also want to say a big thanks to few people who made these shots possible:
Ben Herbert who introduced me to everyone.
Chris Cab (www.chriscab.com) for his amazing hospitality
and Flo Smith (www.flosmithphotographic.com) for helping me out in Innsbruck and lending me bits of equipment when I realised I had left mine back in Australia.

See more of my skateboard shots here

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A trip over the New Year’s weekend to the Greater Blue Mountains resulted in some shots that I am very happy with. It was nice to get out of the city for a short while. I had been in a rut lately, hence the shortage of recent posts, but a trip to a new destination always tends to crack the rut. A quick tip: If you find yourself in a creative rut take yourself out of your familiar surroundings.

Although I have been a few times to the Blue Mountains it is such a vast area that I think that I could take many trips up there without getting into a rut. They always seem to vary slightly whether it is due to a variation in light, visiting a different spot or a change in the weather. This was the first time I had been as far out as Kanangra Walls and without a doubt the walls look different at other times of the day. The shots from below were taken early morning but I think that late afternoon would be the best time to shoot the actual walls themselves. This is when the light would bring out the colours and light them up. In the morning the walls are all in shade as seen in the shot below (the actual are the cliffs on the right side of the picture).

One of the reasons I wanted to go on the trip was to visit a walk called the Grand Canyon Loop. It’s a beautiful walk that takes you down and along a narrow slot canyon. Inside of the canyon is mostly protected from the sun and is cool and moist with ferns lining the walls. If you leave early enough like I did you might be lucky to get a lot of it to yourself. Later in the day though plenty of people streamed through as it is such a popular walk. The walk takes about 4 hrs including plenty of photo-stops. It is an easy track to follow but make sure you take some food and water with you. The walk out get get quite warm.

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Picks of 2011 – Images by Richard McGibbon

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Yesterday I met up with local rider Nick Turnbull at the Oxford Falls downhill track here on Sydney’s Northern Beaches area for a bit of mountain biking. Its a short track but with a few nice jumps and obstacles. We also met up with another local rider Tom Sanders. Despite being a Friday afternoon we had the track to ourselves so we had plenty of time to set up shots. Here’s a selection from the afternoon’s shoot.

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The sun sets on another hot day as seen from Long Reef Headland on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. Extending right out into the ocean, Long Reef offers great views both up and down the coastline. It’s also a great spot to go and sit and watch the whales swim by.  At this time of year the humpbacks are migrating back to Antarctica after their season up north. As they return they are bringing the newborns with them who seem to love to play, jumping and splashing around.

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Yesterday I went on my first ever photowalk. A photowalk is basically a bunch of photographers (in this case about 130) who stroll around the city and take photos. It should perhaps be called a photostroll as that to me sounds a lot more casual and my photowalk was certainly a casual affair. For me spending time with other like-minded people and just making new friends. That’s not to say that I didn’t take any photos I just didn’t take that many.

The walk started off at Hyde Park in Sydney and meandered it’s way through the streets to Observatory Hill near the Harbour Bridge. So we didn’t come across like a protest march and get ourselves thrown in jail the group was split into smaller ones. The groups kept meeting up with each other and converging at key points through the city. I am sure that as we split again I found myself following a different group each time, not that this was an issue as the whole thing was very casual.

The photowalk was organised by three photographers from Google+, Giuseppe Basile, Michael Sutton and Gretchen Chappelle.  Lockey McGrath from Google got wind of the event as it was being organised  and Google themselves kindly threw their weight behind it giving all participants a t-shirt, new camera strap and to top it all off put on drinks and a BBQ at the end of the day for anyone. I was very impressed by this from Google. They seem to be determined to take Google+ further than just another social media site and turn it into something more like a small online community. It has certainly become an amazing place to talk to fellow photographers, follow their work and get inspired by all the wonderful images on there. So in closing I just want to say a big thanks to all the organisers and to Google for making it such a fun day out.

If you wish to come and join me on Google + you can find me here

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I plan on getting a bit more active on my blog so I have added a new category of Photoblog.  To this category I shall upload a single shot and just a short description all very brief. So without any further ado.

Tinebank creek is in Willi Willi National Park just a short walk along the Waterfall Walk. It seems like quite an isolated park and I certainly had it to myself when I went.  Willi Willi is listed as part of the Gondwana Rainforests World Heritage Areas.

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I got back last week from a 3 week trip to the Northern Rivers region on the north coast of New South Wales. It was a great trip, I caught up with my family and just basically relaxed. I got up on most mornings for the sunrises and as a result I think I have seen more sunrises in the last couple of weeks than I have in my entire life. I took a few days to drive up there stopping off along the way at some of N.S.W.’s world heritage listed national park.

When I thought about Australia and national parks a sea of trees sprung to mind such as the views you get in the Blue Mountains. When I thought about being down under the canopies I thought about the type of scrubby bush that I grew up in and around and visited on camping trips with my parents. Nice to some I guess but as they say familiarity breeds contempt. I wouldn’t say I was at the contempt stage but I just found it hard to get excited about it.  The trip north really changed all that for me and opened my eyes up to a lot more of what Australia has on offer. In 3 days I visited 7 national parks on my whistle-stop tour.  Not enough time to really get to know any but enough to scratch the surface and peek inside.

I tried to visit as many of the World Heritage Gondwana Rainforests as I could (the list is quite long) even if it was only briefly. I was reasonably lucky with the weather. I was following a storm up the coast so although I didn’t get much rain all the waterfalls running not something that always happens in these areas. If  I want to be picky I wouldn’t have minded a slight drizzle for photographing in the forests as this really brings out the colours and adds a beautiful atmosphere.

I would certainly like to return to a few of them and spend a few days walking around photographing them.  I am also planning to visit some more of the Shield Group which is up on the Queensland and New South Wales border as I didn’t get to see too many of these.

Wikipedia entry about the Gondwana Rainforests.

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I have never been overly thrilled with the way my website displays my panoramas to you. They always seem to be lacking a lot of detail, skinny little pictures that don’t really do justice to the original shot. Today I came across a viewer that should be able to change all that. Above is my first test of the Seadragon Viewer from Microsoft.  I would appreciate it if you could let  me know if you have any problems using it. At the moment it is running through zoom.it a website that allows anyone to set it up.

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There has been a few waves around on Sydney’s beaches this last week. Although I don’t really have the lens for surf photography I thought I should take myself down to a few of the local beaches and see if I could get any shots. For surf shots like these I could really do with a much bigger lens but that’s just not going to happen at the moment.I am going to make a special effort to get up early in the morning and get myself down to the beach to go shooting.  Although I love the sunrise and all I have never been much of a morning person so this will be quite a struggle for me but worth the effort I am sure or so I am going to keep telling myself.

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