RegularRandom: 5 minutes with dogs and sunset

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Burrill Lake, Didthul/Didhol/Pigeonhouse, RegularRandom, sunset

It’s been a long time, probably two years, since I’ve seen my brother, although of course we’ve had contact. Mind you, it’s often because he’s accidentally pocket-dialled me! But here I am at last, at his coastal retreat on the shores of Burrill Lake, meeting Riley and Bundy for the first time: kelpies are a change from the usual wolfhounds.

We watch evening fall from deck and jetty, in the distance the tip of Pigeonhouse named by Captain Cook as he sailed up the coast of so-called terra nullius.  The Aboriginal name is Didthul (breast) or Didhol (big mountain).

Once upon a time long ago I walked to its summit with my teenagers, up giant stairs and through waist-high heathland. I didn’t brave the ladders to the very top. I found a rocky perch and played “Down in the valley” on my recorder, while they cavorted dangerously above me.

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In the morning, the light is of course entirely different.

 

This post is in response to DesleyJane’s weekly challenge. She asks us to photograph something, changing the light. I let the evening do that for me, and I obviously broke the rigid 5minutesnomore rule: I can’t pretend I didn’t. This week she features a charming cat and a blue flowers.

RegularRandom: 5 minutes with another rusty vehicle

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old vehicle, RegularRandom, rust

Once you’ve seen one, you see them everywhere, even when your focus is on the delicacy of orchids. Rusty vehicles, that is. This one is on the site of the old Bodalla tip, now part of Eurobodalla National Park, and its companions are a pair of magpies, warbling at midday as they avoid my camera. The bits of the vehicle are scattered, and undoubtedly there are more buried in the worryingly desiccated grass.

This is my contribution to DesleyJane’s RegularRandom. Rush over to her blog now for a wonderful gallery of dog portraits to counter my ongoing penchant for rust.

RegularRandom: 5 minutes with a modern midden

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oyster shells, RegularRandom

En route to find orchids, I stumbled across the site of a recent oyster feast just off the road into my village. I photographed it once in the early morning light, and returned at midday when Sue prompted me to think about light. So let’s say I broke up my 5 minutes into 3+2, although to be honest it was probably longer. Then I submitted most of the images to Snapseed Structure until I got a satisfactory opalescent effect.

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This is my contribution to DesleyJane’s RegularRandom, which has become addictive. This week she features closed tulips in all their glory: a nice counter to my opened oysters!

RegularRandom: 5 minutes with Bogola Head rust

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Bogola Headland, old vehicle, RegularRandom, rust

Where the winds have brushed the tops of trees into a backward sweep, looking far down the coast, surrounded by orange flowers, an old vehicle lies deconstructed and sinking rustily back into the earth. Although we’ve finally found the elusive Bogola Head, and presumably the equally elusive Bogolo Formation, I pause to photograph, while J goes ahead and negotiates the steep steps cut into the rock leading down to the beach.

As I do so I wonder how this vehicle came to be here. Maybe the headland was once farmland, and the farmer put his tractor? truck? out to pasture in this beautiful place after many years of faithful service.

This is my contribution to DesleyJane’s RegularRandom where this week she uses overhead light at night to photograph a cupcake. I too use overhead light, in my case the sun at roughly midday.

Note to my friends: I’m easing off blogging a bit, so if a post doesn’t appear daily it doesn’t mean anything’s wrong.

RegularRandom: 5 minutes with alpacas

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alpacas, RegularRandom

My daughter has a mixed bag of alpacas. The two that caused us so much grief a few years ago are now happily earning their keep as shepherds to a flock of sheep. JohnnyMay, the periscope on an icy Sunday morning two years ago, and the latest arrival who’s still suckling, are slated to go off to a place with holiday cabins to become petting animals. 

But for the moment there they are, 5 of them, gathering at the gate whenever I approach, crowding me as I peg out the washing. They are not skittish when I point the camera at them and they seem to me to have far more collective and individual personality than horses. They somehow encourage portraiture. Their charm is their curiosity and the way they approach me when I move onto their turf: it’s hard to resist, even if I can’t remember their names.

This is my last stashed RegularRandom post for DesleyJane’s challenge, where this week she features a modest yellow pansy, photographed with consummate skill.

Now I’ll have start seeking inspiration again: fortunately it’s never hard to find in this wonderful world..

RegularRandom: 5 minutes with iced puddle

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ice patterns, RegularRandom

We are driving the back roads towards Girraween, when my daughter notices what she thinks is glass on the road. It proves to be shards of ice, which lead us to magical patterns in the ice covering a puddle. To be honest, a fair amount of this five minutes is spent squelching with extreme caution through the mud that surrounds eminently photographable ice patterns. I add my ancient hefty hiking boots to my must-take-on-every-journey list: I am too aware of my dress-joggers to dare as much proximity as I desire.

I post ice on puddles: DesleyJane, who prompts 5-minute photography with her RegularRandom challenge, posts icing on cakes amongst other things. Today it’s chocolate cake. She somehow finds time in her five minutes to eat a bit too.

RegularRandom: 5 minutes with sand balls

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crabs, Hervey Bay, RegularRandom

After driving 530 kilometres, I feel strangely energised and amble along the beach at Hervey Bay in the late afternoon light. I’m entranced by the patterns made by tiny balls of sand.  I even catch a brief glimpse of movement before the artist goes coy. I’ve seen this kind of art once before, at Finch’s Beach near Cooktown.

This post was inspired by DesleyJane’s weekly RegularRandom challenge. This week she has focused her photographic – and gastronomic – attention on pumpkin soup. Check out her post to make your mouth water, especially if the weather’s cold and bleak.

RegularRandom: 5 minutes with a cork tree

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bark, cork tree, RegularRandom

I nearly miss the greatest delight of my day in Tenterfield. Why would I want to visit a cork tree? Is this just another attempt by a rural community to lay claim to fame? But my car is pointing in the right direction, and I think “Why not?” Here’s what I nearly missed.

Take yourself back to 1861. Pack a cork seedling in a jam tin. Submit yourself to a long voyage by tumultuous boat from the other side of the world. Arrive in Tenterfield, and plant your precious seedling. That’s how this tree arrived.

This is my contribution to DesleyJane’s RegularRandom which challenges you to spend 5 minutes with something, seeing it in many different ways: in her case, this week, a perfect ranunculus photographed perfectly.

RegularRandom: 5 minutes with dried seaweed

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dried seaweed, Gold Coast, Main Beach, RegularRandom

I’m on Main Beach on the Gold Coast, a long beach whose end I am not drawn too because there are no cliffs, only this:

While the rest of the mob swim and do backflips from a sandhill, I idle for five minutes with a piece of dried seaweed, capturing its detail and then using it to frame the sea.

This week, DesleyJane’s RegularRandom spends five glorious minutes with an elegantly fading ranunculus and captures some beautiful images. 

It seems I may be part of a framing tradition! 

RegularRandom: 5 minutes with horses

Tags

horses, RegularRandom

My beloved daughter-in-law is a horse-whisperer. She owns four horses which she agists on the edge of the escarpment overlooking the towers of the Gold Coast. One morning I go with her as she feeds and waters them, brushes them down, and paints their hooves. I’m a tad fearful of horses and Charlie is huge. But I step over the electric fence and stand amongst the equine snufflings and snortings as K works and the kids and dog cavort. I don’t find horses half as interesting to photograph as fungi or dried seaweed or staghorns, but that may be because I don’t know them as well. It may also be because it seems insulting to focus on closeups of bits of them.

This post is inspired by DJ’s weekly RegularRandom challenge. Have a look at her exquisite photos of  exquisite models, a departure indeed from the usual cupcakes and pencils!!