Red Sky Photographer's Delight?

Kevin Caulfield

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Did any of you Sydneysiders capture yesterday's amazing red sky on film? It could have looked good even in mono with the reduced visibility giving some amazing effects.

Please tell me at least one of you ventured outside and captured those sights.
 

Poisson Du Jour

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A blood-red dust storm in mono!?
I predict heaps of Sydneyside lensmen would have been milking the spectacle grandly on Vaudeville Velvia and will eagerly await the outcome!
Dunno about the after-affect on cameras though...
 
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Kevin Caulfield

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Poisson Du Jour said:
A blood-red dust storm in mono!?
I predict heaps of Sydneyside lensmen would have been milking the spectacle grandly on Vaudeville Velvia and will eagerly await the outcome!
Dunno about the after-affect on cameras though...
Click to expand...

Well, you would not be capturing the "redness" of it, obviously, but the atmospheric effects created by the reduced visibility could make for some interesting effects in black and white. That's what I meant.
 

Krzys

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I was considering going to shoot around Brisbane with B&W film during the thick of it but decided it would be better to take advantage of the strong windows and fly a kite on my roof. If anyone asks or saw...I was just just adding some color to the sky.

I couldn't help but think of Trent Parke's photography when I considered shooting B&W in these conditions.
 

Wyno

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I did take photos of the Melbourne dust storm in 83. Some of the photos make the buildings look like doll houses. Almost like tilting the back of a LF camera. I would have loved to have been in Sudney for this one though.
Mike
 

Poisson Du Jour

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I'm wondering too, Kevin, where the northerners are...
The Sydney Morning Herald has an interestingly varied online gallery, with one particularly striking lemon-tinted image of the Opera House pinnacles very faintly visible. That's a winner for me, but I could also imagine it in monochrome as having potentially a greater effect.

Mike (#5 post): '83's storm was memorable for me (as a prelude to the catastrophe of Ash Wednesday) because, being a relatively young tike, I was knocked down by a tram in Elizabeth Street that afternoon (ran in front of it) when visibility was poor: broken arm, broken ankle and concussion, but I survived to recall it as quite a moving experience.
 

sharperstill

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I shoot for the SMH but didn't make anything interesting of the storm due to forces beyond my control. Colleague kate Geraghty had some funny ones of locals at Eveleigh St with dust masks on, apart from the usual bridge/op house etc......
 

Ross Chambers

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Count me as overly careful, but I'd hesitate to take any camera for which I cared out into that dust saturated atmosphere (Leave that to the Fairfax and News Limited folk who can draw a replacement from the store)

Apart from that it was a pretty mild event in the Blue Mountains, I wonder if hitting the atmospherics of the coast made it so much more pronounced?

Early Sydney city photographic landscapes as displayed in the Maritime Museum etc. always make me long (in all the wrong ways) for the days of city-wide smoke stacks, steam ships on the harbour and vehicle exhaust fumes: very flattering to the picture.

The way the environment is going (the road across the Rimutakas, 30 km from Wellington NZ is blocked by snow today) I may have my chance to duplicate them soon.

Regards - Ross
 

Steve Smith

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Kevin Caulfield said:
Any danger of any Sydneysiders chiming in on this thread?
Click to expand...

And showing us what is being talked about (even if it is from one of those 'other' types of camera!).


Steve
 

trotkiller

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Well I missed the red sky as I was slow to get out of bed, by the time I got up the sky was yellow, and as I had the day off I went back to bed and slept untill the dust had mostly cleared

Have a bit of clean up in front of me, bloody red dust everywhere
 

Tony Egan

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I stumbled out of bed at 6.30 am and took a few shots of my street when my early rising wife told me what was going on. I also took my camera in the car on the drive to work but due to some early appointments I didn't have the time to find any striking vantage points. One of the most interesting phenomenon was the way headlights, street lights and traffic lights changed hue due to the effect of a large orange filter.

I am also a bit pissed off because dust got into my darkroom and I will have to spend a few hours cleaning it out. I tell myself it was probably due anyway!

Some interesting shots sent in by listeners to the ABC radio station here:
http://www.abc.net.au/sydney/photos.htm

WARNING:... a few digital shots of my street and from the car...
 

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Vaughn

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Any word on how the dust was up in Port Macquarie? I have rels up in Comboyne.

Vaughn
 

Poisson Du Jour

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You slept "until the dust mostly cleared"!?
That's about 6 hours. Get up and photograph, you'll miss something for sure.
 

Ian David

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Vaughn said:
Any word on how the dust was up in Port Macquarie? I have rels up in Comboyne.

Vaughn
Click to expand...

Brisbane got a lot of dust a bit later than Sydney, and Port Macquarie is halfway to Sydney from here, so your people would have been pretty orange down there too...
 

junqbox

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I too, like Ross (hi), thought twice about taking the gear out into the atmospherics. Also, by the time I got up and ready for work, the best of it was over. The early sunrise, when it was blood red at about 5:30 was the primo time.
 

Ross Chambers

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Then there's just using a yellow filter at the wrong time (but I like it)
 

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