Rottnest - On Consignment

Originally uploaded by BE Photographic

I got the great opportunity on Friday (which happened to be my day off) to pack up my camera gear and head off on an overseas holiday to Rottnest for the night! A local hotel owner was looking for a new piece for his boardroom :) Those who aren't familar with Rottnest - there is an annual swimming event where they swim from Cottesloe to the island - so technically it is overseas :P

For me it was a 30 min ferry ride :)

All week it happened to be PERFECT blue skies with small patches of clouds to make the sky interesting - up until Friday :/

The gloomy thick clouds came in during the morning, leaving me wondering WTF?

Over there at 8.30am, with bikes, tents, camera gear and clothes set. 9.30am we were all set to get out and shoot some panoramics!

I maybe just my luck, but out of the 1000's of hire bikes, i always seem to get the busted one - but at least it had a comfy seat, unlike Jaz's (my girlfriend) seat.

We rode up on the north side of the island, past the basin - snapped off a couple of rounds, then up to Geordie Bay, then finishing up at City of York Bay...

On the way back, I was very bummed with the shots that I had got at this stage and had resigned myself to think that it aint going to get much better than this. Heavy cloud on the horizon would spoil any sort of sunset. So we packed up the gear and went and had a shower and snooze in the tent.

Originally uploaded by BE Photographic

Woke up an hour later, looked outside and the clouds began to break up. I threw on my back pack and hoofed up the dunes over to the beach. I found myself up at the basin and with tripod and filters at the ready I happened to get a few off that i was quite happy with.

I'm sure it was quite comical to see me SPRINT across the sand, flicking my thongs off my feet when I saw what the sun was doing to the clouds behind me when I was shooting over at the Basin (where the street light is in this photo)

I found myself a nice position where I knew that I would get a great foreground subject and an iconic background - being the Basin's pine trees and snapped away.

I was shooting at about 1/3 sec at 11 - 16f to get the movement of the waves, I wanted a bit of texture not a flat hazy ocean that you see when you are shooting 22-32f at 3-5 sec.

Out of all the ones that I went through, I'm most happy with this one. I hope that it is chosen to be printed up at about 2.7mts wide - love to see it hung on the wall.

I'll keep you updated as to what it looks like on the wall of the boardroom :)