Tark's Australian landscapes

[Tark]

Location: Edith Falls, Northern Territory, AU
Olympus E-3, f/10, 1/640sec/ISO-250/23mm
A popular swimming hole, crocodile free,
guaranteed, trust me ...

Below: My rendition in Oils with wife in the pool ...

 

[koraks]

The scenery is lovely, and I have to say I think in particular the painting is wonderful!

 

[Tark]

The scenery is lovely, and I have to say I think in particular the painting is wonderful!

Thanks, Koraks — that means a lot. Edith Falls is a special place for us, and the painting was my way of holding onto the memory. Glad it resonated with you.

 

[koraks]

That's nice, although I'd wager to say that the dodging or photomontage is a little obvious.

 

[Tark]

Then you would lose your money, korak - it is not a photomontage. The image was shot by my wife.

 

[koraks]

Im referring to the unnatural edges around the body and the inconsistent lighting of the figure in relation to the scene. That's either rather crude digital restoration of shadow detail or photomontage. I'd be happy to assume it's not the latter, but that still leaves the former. Now, there's no accounting for taste, but I find it a little...idk, crude. For me, it doesn't work very well this way, sorry.

 

[benderscameracorner]

Title inspired by the permanence of the subject, Eddystone Point, Tasmania. Exif: Olympus, taken 2002, f/2.8, 1/800, iso100

One of my favourite places, we used to camp here (and the nearby Boulder Point) often growing up.
Photo below was taken by my (press photographer) grandfather of his boat beached for an incoming storm. My mother says it is likely from our 1987 trip but may have been earlier.
(image is a scan of an inkjet print, hence the quality... image originally taken with Nikon F3, possibly a Nikkor or Tamron 35mm, likely Delta 400. Original print Pop would have developed himself).

 

[Tark]

What a great photo Bender; that looks like a very serious tinny your grandfather had, and how serendipitous that the broody cloudscape is somewhat similar to that in mine. Do you know in what year that might have been? My wife and I also set up camp there overnight, Oct., 2003.
Olympus compact, f/2.8, 1/60sec, ISO-100

 

[Tark]

Im referring to the unnatural edges around the body and the inconsistent lighting of the figure in relation to the scene. That's either rather crude digital restoration of shadow detail or photomontage. I'd be happy to assume it's not the latter, but that still leaves the former. Now, there's no accounting for taste, but I find it a little...idk, crude. For me, it doesn't work very well this way, sorry.

Fair enough — digital files can throw up odd artefacts. The original is exactly as shot, though, so whatever you’re seeing is just the camera and the light on the day.

 

[benderscameracorner]

What a great photo Bender; that looks like a very serious tinny your grandfather had, and how serendipitous that the broody cloudscape is somewhat similar to that in mine. Do you know in what year that might have been?

1987 is our best guess but it may have been earlier... my earliest trip there was when I was still in nappies circa 1980/1981. Unfortunately dementia started to get the better of my grandfather in his last decade of life (he passed in 2024) and that coupled with his relative indifference to this photography in retirement (it was a job, not a passion) meant that getting dates and details out of him was increasingly difficult.

The old boat is still about too (my uncle has it) though the original Chrysler 75hp has long gone to the unreliable-two-stroke-outboards-graveyard-in-the-sky. Keeping all the Mercury blue labels company ;-)

 

[Tark]

1987 is our best guess but it may have been earlier... my earliest trip there was when I was still in nappies circa 1980/1981. Unfortunately dementia started to get the better of my grandfather in his last decade of life (he passed in 2024) and that coupled with his relative indifference to this photography in retirement (it was a job, not a passion) meant that getting dates and details out of him was increasingly difficult.

The old boat is still about too (my uncle has it) though the original Chrysler 75hp has long gone to the unreliable-two-stroke-outboards-graveyard-in-the-sky. Keeping all the Mercury blue labels company ;-)

At least the old boat will always be there with your uncle as a kind of memorial to your grandpa. Sadly, I no longer live in Tasmania, only wish I did. I moved over to NE VIC in 2010 to care for a close friend with dementia who passed away in 2015, so I know how devastating that disease is.

 

[Taylor K Nankervis]

I moved over to NE VIC in 2010 to care for a close friend with dementia who passed away in 2015, so I know how devastating that disease is.

Oh yes, I can relate to that too!
My whole family has been wiped out by stuff like that; sister in 2018 (Motor Neurone Disease), brother-in-law (Alzheimers, ongoing); Moose in 2021 (cerebrovascular minute, no doubt from smoking a pack a day of Winfield and half a bottle of sherry for afternoon tea!); Gramps back in 2005, heavy drinker, smoker, sedentary (violent episodes as a run-up to dementia — started in 1995 and twisted and tortured him for 10 long years, leaving the rest of us under a huge burden over that time).

 

[Taylor K Nankervis]

Location: Edith Falls, Northern Territory, AU
Olympus E-3, f/10, 1/640sec/ISO-250/23mm
A popular swimming hole, crocodile free,
guaranteed, trust me ...
View attachment 418706
Below: My rendition in Oils with wife in the pool ...
View attachment 418707

No bull, I love the painting more than the photograph!! A very, very good interpretation of the scene with a sort of cubist interpretive quality to it.

I toured around Australia solo (tenting it!) in 2011 for 9 months, with highlights being Karlu-Karlu/Devils Marbles, Coober Pedy, Darwin, Kununurra, Broome and especially 80 Mile Beach, then the Gasgoyne region south down to (boring) Perth. Did some charcoal drawings of 80 Mile Beach, copping sunburn into the bargain! I do remember Edith Falls in the NT, along with the more popular (perhaps far too popular) waterfalls that doubled as famously crowded swim spots, along with Mataranka thermal pools.

___________________________________________
L to R: Pinhole camera 6x6 of a rock outcrop, Devil's Marbles;
Evening afterglow at Devil's Marbles, and
6x17 panorama from a home made 6x17 camera with an ancient Komuranon 90mm lens (the camera no longer survives); and Sturt Desert Pea, Gasgoyne beaches region, WA.
The two panorama prints were RA4 printed and framed; both in private collections with two Estate editions at home.

 

[Tark]

Very nice memories, Taylor. It seems that we've had similar experiences travelling around the country gathering some wonderful memories. I am very impressed with your 6x6 DIY pinhole camera images. Your trek was much longer than mine - I never made it to the west, just the eastern half.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Looking back to Cox's Bight, Southcoast Trek, Tasmania.
View attachment 418833
A seven day trek from Cox's Bight to Cockle Creek, 1994.View attachment 418835
A snack before the long trek in Tassie's Southwest.

Yup, those were the days, my friend...

I don't do much of that these days. lol.

 

[Tark]

No bull, I love the painting more than the photograph!! A very, very good interpretation of the scene with a sort of cubist interpretive quality to it.

I toured around Australia solo (tenting it!) in 2011 for 9 months, with highlights being Karlu-Karlu/Devils Marbles, Coober Pedy, Darwin, Kununurra, Broome and especially 80 Mile Beach, then the Gasgoyne region south down to (boring) Perth. Did some charcoal drawings of 80 Mile Beach, copping sunburn into the bargain! I do remember Edith Falls in the NT, along with the more popular (perhaps far too popular) waterfalls that doubled as famously crowded swim spots, along with Mataranka thermal pools.

___________________________________________
L to R: Pinhole camera 6x6 of a rock outcrop, Devil's Marbles;
Evening afterglow at Devil's Marbles, and
6x17 panorama from a home made 6x17 camera with an ancient Komuranon 90mm lens (the camera no longer survives); and Sturt Desert Pea, Gasgoyne beaches region, WA.
The two panorama prints were RA4 printed and framed; both in private collections with two Estate editions at home.

Taylor, your 9mths tour was far more extensive and ambitious than mine for only one month. I also tented it.

Im referring to the unnatural edges around the body and the inconsistent lighting of the figure in relation to the scene. That's either rather crude digital restoration of shadow detail or photomontage. I'd be happy to assume it's not the latter, but that still leaves the former. Now, there's no accounting for taste, but I find it a little...idk, crude. For me, it doesn't work very well this way, sorry.

Sorry about that. As you are unable to accept the image as an unedited original, I had no idea that this is a critique board, I've taken it down. Where can I see some of your work?

 

[Tark]

Deleted duplicated thread

 

[koraks]

Where can I see some of your work?

It's in the gallery and on my website; soms of it on my blog and a lot of older (and mostly pretty abysmal) stuff on the main website which I keep up but no longer maintain.

Sorry you've taken down the image; I you're of course free to do so at any time. I think it's a given that not everyone will like every image they ever see; I'd personally try not to be too bothered by it if someone says something critical of an image.

 

[Tark]

It's in the gallery and on my website; soms of it on my blog and a lot of older (and mostly pretty abysmal) stuff on the main website which I keep up but no longer maintain.

Sorry you've taken down the image; I you're of course free to do so at any time. I think it's a given that not everyone will like every image they ever see; I'd personally try not to be too bothered by it if someone says something critical of an image.

Hi koraks - you were right, it wasn't a great image, and it wasn't a camera phone image; it was a snapshot taken by my wife on a DSLR during a tour of the Northern Territory. I didn't bother to process the file before posting it. If I had, I would certainly have considered a shadow/highlight adjusment. I'm looking at the EXIF data: Olympus E-3, f/8,1/80sec, ISO-500, lens 20mm. But it's history now with no hard feelings. Take care mate.

 

[Tark]

Hi koraks - you were right, it wasn't a great image, and it wasn't a camera phone image; it was a snapshot taken by my wife on a DSLR during a tour of the Northern Territory. I didn't bother to process the file before posting it. If I had, I would certainly have considered a shadow/highlight adjusment. I'm looking at the EXIF data: Olympus E-3, f/8,1/80sec, ISO-500, lens 20mm. But it's history now with no hard feelings. Take care mate.

I looked at some of your gallery images and gave them a thumbsup.

 

[Taylor K Nankervis]

Taylor, your 9mths tour was far more extensive and ambitious than mine for only one month. I also tented it.

Ambition and Art. Two great things in life!
But that "simple, economical trip around the traps" cost, all up, $26,000. It was very productive photographically though. Besides petrol, a lot of the cost was accommodation in resort towns where double- and triple bookings were annoyingly troublesome and caused by demanding "grey nomads". Their trick? Edging others out by using displays of money, influence and even cash bribes! Particularly prevalent in Central Australia, NT and the top of WA. Places I would never go to again unless I had a ginormous big rig, dripping with gold bling, a fake orange tan, a manicured poodle and crocodile skin slips : Alice Springs (caravan park there was surrounded by an electrified fence and scrutinised by security cameras to keep the naughty natives away), Coober Pedy, Darwin, Kununurra and Broome.

 

[Tark]

Ambition and Art. Two great things in life!
But that "simple, economical trip around the traps" cost, all up, $26,000. It was very productive photographically though. Besides petrol, a lot of the cost was accommodation in resort towns where double- and triple bookings were annoyingly troublesome and caused by demanding "grey nomads". Their trick? Edging others out by using displays of money, influence and even cash bribes! Particularly prevalent in Central Australia, NT and the top of WA. Places I would never go to again unless I had a ginormous big rig, dripping with gold bling, a fake orange tan, a manicured poodle and crocodile skin slips : Alice Springs (caravan park there was surrounded by an electrified fence and scrutinised by security cameras to keep the naughty natives away), Coober Pedy, Darwin, Kununurra and Broome.

Well what did you expect – after all there were standards to be upheld; what kind of reputation would our country have today if all kinds off unwashed itinerants had been allowed to doss into caravan parks and three star hotels, arriving to wit in a clapped-out kombi or a mufferless FJ. On a 26K budget (better than two grand a month), you were a sundowner p’raps, but hardly a bum - or at least an elete one! For myself, I mostly tented it somewhere hidden off road, except for one great night in a cabin at the Barrow Creek Telegraph Station / Pub where the inhabitants were the friendliest one could wish to meet. But my friend,“May the days to come be as rich in blessing As the days we spent in the Auld Lange Syne”! (“Banjo”).

Tark - https://volinken.wixsite.com/markgreenhill-1

Barrow Creek Telegraph Station - Oil on canvas (2016)

 

[Tark]

What a great photo, 'Bender'; that looks like a very serious tinny your grandfather had, and how serendipitous that the broody cloudscape is somewhat similar to that in mine. Do you know in what year that might have been? My wife and I also set up camp there overnight, Oct., 2003.
Olympus compact, f/2.8, 1/60sec, ISO-100

View attachment 418780

 

[Tark]

Overnight camp, somewheres inconspicuous, off road Outback, NT Australia -

 

[Tark]

Title inspired by the permanence of the subject, Eddystone Point, Tasmania. Exif: Olympus, taken 2002, f/2.8, 1/800, iso100

Yup, those were the days, my friend...

I don't do much of that these days. lol.

Me either GB - it's all I can do nowadays to make it to the letterbox - all we have now are golden memories ...