Melissa

I asked her how she was doing. She said she was fine but a little tired. I asked if she lived in Cape Byron and she said no she doesn’t really have a home but travels. She told me she sleeps in the bush and gets money by cleaning peoples houses along the way to buy some rice. I gave her $10. She said I want to give you some of my art to take along with you. I said if it’s your artwork you’ll need to sign it. Here she’s signing her artwork.  As I wished her well, she said she hopes someday to travel out of the country if she gets enough money.

Surfers at Byron Bay.

Rainforest

This is one of my favorites pics of a scene that doesn’t really have a strong subject. It is an HDR image that I reworked in CS3. I opened the HDR and duplicated the layer and did some colorizing and changed the blending layer to “Vivid Light.” Then I created a blank layer, filled that with black and added a mask while holding the alt key. I could paint the areas I wanted to hold back the light in the image. My goal was to keep the background nicely lit to draw the viewer into the image.

 

Rainforest

Either the rainforest in Australia has some pretty amazing natural geometric shapes or there are little people that travel by night with some sharp scissors.

Cooper Downs, Australia

About 90% of the people in Australia live near the coast. The outback is hot and dry and is less than paradise. This is Jesse and he’s making a go of the outback lifestyle. His dad and mom did it and he’s following in their footsteps. They have a cattle ranch but are very open to visitors. What a great place to get the outback experience. Scattered around the property are antiques that blew me away. Here are some antiques on the porch of one of the bunk houses. The bar was a cool set up with all visitors writing their name on the wall. 

 

 

Fraser Island, Australia

Fraser Island is an island that is all sand – not a reef. It’s undeveloped for the most part with a few dirt roads to get around by 4 wheel. There are lots of photo gifts along the shore to click.

These are HDR images processed in Photomatix. Each pic is the result of merging 7 images taken at different exposures. The tutorial section of this blog has a coupon if you want Photomatix at a discount.