Kyle Simpson's photostream

This shot was taken about twelve months ago on a three day trip to Port Fairy on Victoria's south west coast. The weather was absolutely feral with squally south west winds ripping storm lines through every hour or so for the entire trip. The lighthouse itself is a short walk from the carpark on the mainland and is one of the key spots to photograph when you are down that way. It is a very compact location with not much in the way of room to move and be creative so most of the shots you see of the place are from one of four locations and it tends to be the weather that separates the good from the average image.

I had two sessions at the lighthouse, an evening and a morning, both of which involved a significant amount of wet weather gear testing as you can see from what is coming on the right hand side of the frame. This was taken in the morning session towards the end of the shoot as the sun was about to disappear into the low level cloud. I had the place to myself and could move around without getting in anybody elses way.

In completing the composition I jacked up the color temperature to warm the image up and darkened the right hand side clouds a bit to add more drama (not that they needed too much). I left the shadows intact in the left hand side foreground and across the rocks on the right to keep the eye fixed on the lead in line to the lighthouse. I also left the shaded side of the lighthouse intact to better emphasise the light edge facing towards the sun.

This was shot last week in Queescliff at the pilot pier on another one of those dull frustrating mornings. There had been a run of easterly winds over the previous week which left sea mist blotting out the morning sun and clearing into a fine day by half an hour past me packing up my gear.. I originally started off around at the harbour but the wind was causing too much movement across the moored boats so I wandered south along the beach and past the main pier before lobbing here. The actual pier itself is not accessible as it is still used by the port authority and it took a while to work out how to take the shot - without getting wet or cut up by barbed wire.

To complete the composition I cropped it into a roughly 6x7 format and washed out a lot of the color putting a blue grey color tone thorugh the image but keeping the timber stark white to aid in the lead out line. I also softened the sky considerably and darked the end of the pier and mid right hand side of the image to give the mind a bit of room to wander in the shot. Lastly I reduced the clarity across the pier planks (which are those annoying fibreglass ones now) to eliminate moire and clone stamped out the million or so dust spots that my sandbox kindly replicates on any image shot above f3.2.

Shot last week at 13th beach underneath the bluff. I started off at Point Lonsdale front beach but the sea haze was feral with a slight easterly blowing and an ultra high tide smashing in against the sea wall. Given my kit already gets nicknamed the sand box and not wanting to blow more money at Camera Clinic, I thought better of it and whipped around to 13th and tucked in under the cliffs out of the mist. The sunrise was nothing to write home about but as it popped up over the horizon it lit up the rock in front of me highlighting all the cracks and crags presenting me with this little gem.

Sunrise over the apostles.

I took this image in early 2011 on my second trip to Port Campbell. It was another one of those nightmare photographic trips that made me wonder why I do it. Three days of blue sky blues with not a cloud in the sky or a storm in the making. This was shot on the last morning before I left to head back home and shared it with three other photographers who were shooting in the other direction towards Gibsons Beach to catch the sunrise. As the sun came up over to the right of the image it picked off each of the apostles until I saw this, each of the apostles perfectly lit and gentle hues in the sky.

One of the best locations on the surf coast for wave formation and rock pools at any time of the year. Having said that I have had four shoots at this spot and each of them has been somewhat average. I shot this morning with another photographer who I catch up with every so often and we both spent the morning grimacing looking at the lack of structure in the clouds and the higher than expected tides. Towards the end of the shoot we went out to the point and at the lip of the rock pool I shot the wave crash over and over until arriving at this image. It is kinda freaky that you have this single column of water standing up out of nowhere.