About a month ago, we headed off to Sydney for the Hillsong Conference. Altogether there were about 20 of us which was pretty cool…unfortunately, we didn’t all travel together (nor did we all stay together). I headed a group of 11, nine of which were gonna fly to and from Brisbane together, while one of them took the flight before and the other came from Singapore! Here’s our group of 9 after we disembarked from the plane:

Okay, that creepy non-Asian white guy in the back is a advert poster…Will isn’t in the shot coz we were on the horizontal escalator where as he wasn’t…of course I was behind the camera…
After countless hours (yes, literally HOURS) or arguing which would be the best transport to get to our accommodation we finally decided on a big shuttle bus which brought us on a 40 minute drive to Parramatta, which is located to the West of Sydney. We happily unpacked our bags and was out the door! We took the train down to the city where we were just in time for dinner before heading toward the Harbour to meet up with Christoph.

Meet Christoph:

Christoph was our housemate back in Toowoomba for a year. He’s currently somewhere between Thailand and Singapore on his holiday before heading back to Germany where he comes from. He moved out by this time and happened to be in Sydney that night so we planned to meet up…being Asians, we had to take a lot of group pics…

How many people can you spot? One of us had relatives in Sydney so he didn’t join us…thats why there’s only 10 ppl. *EDIT* Actually theres less coz I cropped Edna out of the frame…Sorry Edna! I didn’t have my tripod and so I had to improvise…this next shot is heavily cropped so the lamp post I used wouldn’t get in the picture of the Eye of Sydney.

I think its funny how every major city now has an “Eye”…

We walked along the harbour past the Sydney Aquarium and other attractions which were almost closing as it was rather late by this time…We checked the schedule for the ferry and saw that we would be able to make the last one so while we waited for the ferry we walked back to the Sydney Aquarium where they had a nice backlit billboard of Spongebob Squarepants. I noticed it on the way to the ferry and went back for one purpose and one purpose only: to get this shot:

That’s my friend Patrick (which also happens to be from Miri). This picture is titled, “Patrick & Patrick”.

Anyway, we then headed to a place called the Rocks to have some sort of famous pancake. Indeed it was a pancake house franchise which had been sort of springing up all over the place. We went in for dessert. Now, let me make it clear that I do NOT take pictures of the food I eat…its sooooooooooooooooooooo cliche doncha think? …but they insisted so I took a happy snap of my chocolate strawberry pancake…YUM!

Hmm…I’m really sorry but my timeline of the events that occured after this pitstop seems to have screwed itself up in my brain so I can’t remember what we did when we did…All I remember is that along the… (this crossed out paragraph corresponds to the “Patrick & Patrick” picture and the paragraph above it…)

Although I took a bunch of pics after that I’m not going to share anymore simply because I still have a lot to cover…by the way, the current time now is exactly 5.13am. I don’t plan to sleep and I want to finish by dawn-ish so we can go to the Sunday Market before church Who’s “we” you ask? That’s me and Steph…I’m not sleeping tonight because I slept this arvo…what’s “arvo” you ask? its Aussie for “afternoon”. What’s “Aussie”? It’s short for “Australia”. What’s “Australia” you ask? A big island surrounded with water which has a severe water problem. Go figure.

Fast forward through the night and early the next morning…

Yours truly together with his team of intrepid explorers, Patrick and Stephanie, went to pit their strength against the wrath of the mighty Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains is one of Australia’s biggest tourist destination. It is a collection of mountains that expand across the landscape that when looked at appear to be blue in colour. Its blue haze is of a different hue and deeper than anywhere else in the world. This is caused primarily by Eucalyptus trees emitting oil vapour into the atmosphere which along with fine dust particles and droplets of water vapour scatter the blue light (blue light is short wave light) more than any other colour in the spectrum. (That last sentence was taken from the guide book. If you’re interested, look for it on wikipedia.)

Also the home to the Three Sisters, a natural rock formation which is sort of difficult to explain so I’ll show you a picture:

You can see the Blue Mountains in the background. I’ve already warmed up the tones to make the Three Sisters more prominent in the frame of this picture and even so the mountains appear so blue so you can imagine how blue it actually was!

We took the ExplorerBus to Scenic World, home to the steepest railway which has a maximum gradient of 52 degrees!  It feels like its almost 90 degrees!

See how the trees are straight? If I left my bag on the empty seat im front it would’ve ended up right at the front! When we got to the bottom Partrick helped me take a picture of me and Steph and the three sisters…thx Pat!

We continued by foot through the forest to the bottom where we would take one cablecar up to the main platform and another back to the place the bus dropped us. We managed to sneek in a strobist shot while walking through the forest. After a few attempts we got it right…credit to Steph for taking the picture and Patrick for holding the flash:

Heres Steph in the cable car enjoying herself on one of the cablecar rides:

Oh, by the way, this is our ExplorerBus…the hop-on hop-off tour bus we used to get between places…the bus driver was kind enough to let us take a picture before he zoomed off to the next stop:

The driver was very friendly. There are actually two busses but this one seemed to always be the next one up! We walked through the cold forest to Leura Cascades. Its a beautiful stream of water falling all the way to the bottom. Be warned that I LOVE LOVE LOOOOOOOVVVEEE waterfalls. If I see a waterfall I MUST take a picture of it…that means I have to take out my ND filters and spend a good 15 minutes taking the fall from almost every conceivable angle. These are my three favourite shots:

How convenient the series is actually in order of how I shot them and its going from top down so you can actually sort of visualize the waterfall as it slowly cascades down to the bottom where you can see the pool in the last pic…

After this we continued our jungle trek for another hour or so until we finally reached the end and waited for the bus to pick us up. These were the last few shots I took during the day because I was too tired by the time we were out of the forest.

A view from one of the many many lookout points.

Patrick at the bus pick up point to head back to the main town.

The rest of the group actually asked us to go back to the Sydney CBD after our trip to the Blue Mountains but we were just too tired to bother…otherwise we could have met up with Rachel who lives there… By the time we got back to the accommodation (which is 2hr + away from the Blue Mountains) it was about 9pm and I couldn’t wait to sleep!

Fast forward through the night and early the next morning…

Today we had big plans. Places to go, things to see, and stuff to do…unfortunately, we were late.

…sooooooooooooooooo we ended up going to see the Sydney Opera House and then went to some small town for lunch before we did some other things which I can’t remember…crap this is the second time in this post! Well, that doesn’t matter because I only want to share my pics of the Opera House and ask you a question.

This is a rather famous bridge. The Sydney Harbour Bridge. Now for the question. Which of the following two photos do you think is better? They are both the same picture just differently cropped.

Personally, I like the second one. That’s all I got. The day after this was the conference so I’ll get working on it right away! Til then, thanks for reading!

Yes, I was there! It was great! They had a video conference with their Sydney branch and everything! Hillsong Brisbane (hillsongbrisbane.com) was originally Garden City Christian Church which has been officially taken over by the Hillsong Mega-church.

If you plan on visiting, its located at:

16 Rover Street,

Mt Gravatt, QLD,

Australia.

Aaron, Steph, Reshaun and I went for the 2nd 10.30am service. We went early so we could get good seats! Unfortunately, this mean’t my “overview wide shot” didn’t show the real size of the auditorium.

This was from about the 4th or 5th row. Also, photography and videography was STRICTLY PROHIBITED in the auditorium so all my shots were spy shots!

First EVER praise and worship from Hillsong Brisbane (Actually second, it was the 2nd service)

Brian Houston, Hillsong Church Senior Pastor.

Reuben Morgan, lead singer/guitarist.

Joel A’Bell,  Executive Pastor.

This was one of the backup singers during praise and worship. What’s interesting is his resemblance with a friend of mine, Will. This is Will:

Funny right? …maybe not to you…

First up here are some of the more “unique” Easterfest-goers…

The Power Rangers made an appearance with Spiderman…haha…

Here are some campers…recognize anyone?

Next we have the shots from the church service…there were two services but I’m just gonna combine them coz I can’t remember which is which (too lazy to check exif info eiher)

Evan Shelton, our church’s music director…wonderful singer as well!

Ps. Peter Pelicaan, he once prophecized over me…very gifted man of God. Also, he’s the chaplain of Christian Outreach College (COC), Toowoomba.

This is Isaac Moody, CEO of Easterfest. He’s been running it since it started. Nice guy! That’s his daughter during the service…

Next up were the games at the Red Frogs Colleseum. They had stuff from “So you think you can dance” and some games…the games were cool!

This is one I particularly liked. Basically, everyone holds hands in a huge circle…then, a chair is thrown in the middle. The objective is to get everyone else to touch the chair without touching it yourself. If you break the chain then the two people who let go their hands are out. If you touch the chair you’re out. As there’s less and less people more chairs are thrown in the middle. Last one wins!

one of the two hosts…

The Red Frogs Colleseum

There was also some more BMX stunts but I prefer the shots from the first day a lot more…anyway, here are 2 shots of the day that I like:

Ok next is simply a MUST-MENTION. I mean when I saw this guy I was amazed! If you look closely at his fingers you;d notice they’re sort of twisted and tangled…sort of like a disability…but his passion for Christ is unbelievable! respect!

Lead singer of Selaphonic

Next is the Paul Coleman Trio secret show that was at the Epicentre

…and last but not least, before the night was out, I shot Fatis Valor…they were an hour late and I was waiting for them to come on so I missed out on a lot of good shows…oh well…

…and that is the end of the Easterfestseries…at least for this year.

Right now I think I’m the only photographer who hasn’t already submitted their photos…and I’ve only just finished going through day 2!

…so without further ado, lets get on with it shall we:

1) New Empire

2) Austoville

3) Lucy Hannah

4) Into the Ocean

5) Naturally 7 (although only 6 of them were present)

6) Paul Coleman Trio

7) NewWorldSon

enjoy!

1) New Empire

2) Austoville

3) Lucy Hannah

4) Into the Ocean

5) Naturally 7 (although only 6 of them were present)

6) Paul Coleman Trio

7) NewWorldSon

Got church in 6hrs! See ya!

Dato’ David Goh

The first day I arrived in Miri after travelling for over 24hrs was to shoot a formal Thanksgiving Banquet event for Mr. David Goh who was newly named Dato’ David Goh. For those of you how don’t know, the term “Dato’” is sort of like the British equivalent of “Sir”…correct me if I’m wrong.

So I was shooting with Ian and the Medianlabs team – Ian Salang,  Nick Lim (who’s work I’m a huge fan!), and Djohan Rozario. Its funny because they’re all using the same Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 lens (the same one that I sold coz it sucks) but Ian’s on a FF Nikon, Nick’s on a Canon, and Djohan’s using a Sony. Whats with that right?! So anyway, they’ve all posted this like ages ago…wanna see their posts?

Here they are:

Ian Salang:http://iansalang.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/from-mr-to-dato-david-goh/

[no pic]

Nick Lim: http://nicklimjg.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/dato-david-goh/

Djohan Rozario: http://lynnroz.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/thanksgiving-dinner-by-dato-david-goh/

The event took place at…erm…crap I can’t remember…some golf course place in Miri…anyhoo…heres a picture of the beautiful ballroom:

When the event started, I pulled out the 50mm f/1.8D coz I didn’t have an f/2.8 zoom and my travel kit consists of rather slow lenses (not anymore though : ) ). I’m not particularly fond of flashes at formal events and I’d rather crank up the ISO…I was shooting at ISO800-1600 most of the time. Really pushing the D80 I’ve used it plenty and the results are fine.

Ok, this is a lil tip which just so happens to have a perfect example that follows it:

When taking portraits, look around the frame, check the composition and avoid blown out highlights because the human eye is attracted to bright colours and lighter colours…unless of course its a hi-key image or something.

So basically I took this first shot of some two young ladies who were helping out with the event. As you can see I just said “Hey, can I get your picture?”

“Okay, smile!”

Luckily after a quick review on screen a quick repositioning (180 degrees from the before picture) I was ready to reshoot. Simple posing tips like bending joints and creating angles are all that are necessary to make a normal happy snap like the before picture appear to have more quality to it.

Both straight out from camera + watermark + border. No touch ups.

Notice how you can see the shadow of their heads on the wall behind? thats BAD.

My one complaint is the girl in red let her hand hang like its dead…try to avoid the flat back of the hands.

Heres a fun fact:

All humans have red in their skin whether it be white, Asian, black or anything in between. Its the pigmentation of the skin. play with red tones and it will no doubt adjust the hue of a persons skin tone.

by the way, the fashion show exhibits apparel from Giordano, one of the companies managed by the group of companies that threw the banquet.

Notice I didn’t have any pics of the guest of honor besides the first one? …too blur to notice. Jetlagged and I only found out it was him about half way through.

Also I’ll admit the shots are pretty mediocre. I have learn’t one lesson from this:

Can you ued a 50mm prime to shoot an entire event?

“YES”

Should you?

“NO”.

All in all I had fun with the Medianlabs team. Good experience and learnt some new things. In Malaysia? Want an event photographed? Contact Medianlabs!

For those of you who don’t know, Urqhart Castle is situated along Loch Ness, the famous lake which is home to the Loch Ness Monster.

Linzhi and I went to 1 tourist destination while I was in Scotland…as you can imagine, we went to see the Loch Ness. Unfortunately, it was pretty cold that day and Nessie didn’t make an appearance. However, we made the most of it and got some good shots throughout the day.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – Linzhi is better than me at portraits.

Its annoying…but its true…take a look at the shots below (by the way, these following shots are straight from camera only threw in the border):

I was trying to re-enact the Nicholas Cage pose in National Treasure. Credit to Linzhi for taking the photo.

Of course, it could simply be the striking self pose made by yours truly…or more likely the camera recognized that it was in the presence of pure awesomeness. In any case, its a lot better than mine which is below:

Then again, Linzhi didn’t go all the way to the top where the composition is at its most awesome perspective. Yeah, I guess I could argue until the cows come home but at the end of the day the result shows.

Dissapointed?

yes.

Sorry?

no.

Why?

…because there are other areas where I ooze awesomeness and Linzhi is hopeless…behold Linzhi’s attempt to take a picture of me jumping in mid-air (once again straight from camera):

Epic fail. If I took more photos at the spot above I’d have made at least one nice one as well!

I, on the other hand took a single shot:

Behold, awesomeness requires no post processing whatsoever!

Ok, enough about that, we’ll leave our sibling rivalry to another post (and by the way I’m on the path the pure awesome portraiture! What’s with me and awesomeness today?! …must be craving my unwatched How I Met Your Mother episodes…which by the way if you readers have yet to see please start. Its LEGENDARY!

Ok, moving onto the purpose of this post – Loch Ness.

Behold Urqhart Castle. Once a marvellous inpenetrable stronghold, now a ruin of torn down stones and rubble.

It does however overlook the Loch Ness. The lake by the way, is huge! Its like a small ocean because it just spans til forever…it goes all the way to North England…back in the day the Engligh and Scots were enemies…and so the English regularly came up the river to attack the Scots via the lake.

The Castle itself was beautiful. Actually the post although it says Loch Ness and Urqhart Castle is more about me and Linzhi taking pictures of whatever!

This is Linzhi’s proud as heck shot using the wide angle lens after my lecture on how difficult it is to compose a shot at 10mm (15mm Full Frame equiv.)

An old school slingshot that was used to defend the castle.

After much ado, Linzhi finally nailed a shot of me in mid air!

Linzhi shadow play.

Space Conscious Stairs.

Oh, this next pic is cool…as we were exploring the castle I saw a teeny tiny hole in the wall…it looked like this:

Pinhole photography? READ THE POST TO FIND OUT!

So, I slapped on my wide angle lens and poked it out of the hole at the side of the castle risking scratching the lens. I took another shot and what came out amazed me. I threw on the Cokin P 0.6 soft edge Grad ND filter and took a couple of shots to get the composition I wanted.

What resulted is a beautiful view of Loch Ness.

Behold, the Famous Loch Ness.

On our way out there was a rather interesting wall which had what I assume to be farewell in manu languages…my assumption is based on the “Selamat Jalan” that was written…

Selamat Jalan

We finished our little exploration day early and didn’t want to wait for the bus so we walked half an hour back to Drumnadochit Village…along the way we saw a sign with black and white arrow points. I told Linzhi to stick her head to the point so it looked as if it was pointing to her head! …as we were taking the picture a car drove by and the occupants must’ve been thinking what Asian weirdos we were…

It was so funny at the time we couldn’t stop laughing about it!

]]> http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/2009/03/24/loch-ness-urqhart-castle-inverness-scotland/feed/ 5 http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/2009/02/13/singapore/ http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/2009/02/13/singapore/#comments Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:08:14 +0000 Jiaren http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/?p=294

Captains Log

Day 10: 22nd December 2008.

Still in Kuala Lumpur. Just arrived back from Cambo in one piece. This is where we split. Stephanie left to Kelantan, Pastor Yew Meng + family stayed in Kuala Lumpur for a while. Aaron came to the airport and we had the best 15 mins ever! Jason, Will, Patrick, Seng Yee and Andrea stayed in KL a couple days too. Ben, Edna, and myself continued onto Singapore. In the airport we met a lovely lady, Mrs Kate Cheah.

Credit Ben for taking the picture

We later found out that Mrs. Cheah was the owner of Polar Puffs and Cakes, Singapore. She also does missionaries to prisons in Thailand. She details this in her book Sweet Memories Sweet Success.

I sat across the aisle from her as she was flying back to Singapore after her attending her son’s wedding in Malaysia. We arrived in Singapore at night and Edna had plans to meet up with her friends for their annual new year party. Just a couple of them who are best friends. I only took one photo the whole night. This is it.

As you can probably tell it was a costume party. You can see Edna in the pink shirt...she didnt dress up coz we just got out of the plane and came straight.

No, this is NOT how they normally dress. They changed back into “normal” clothes almost right after the shot. I did enjoy myself though…particularly the bed…as we’d been sleeping on hard mattresses in Cambodia…and this particular place was a 5 star service apartment.

Day 11: 23rd December 2008

We spent the day roaming around Singapore, visiting the Merlion among other things.

I like the lines in this shot.

Me and the Merlion. Credit to Ben for taking the picture.

Got these ideas from Anderson

Ben loves Singapore.

this guy looked funny as he was trying to take a picture...I wonder how many of these there are of me?

Ok ok, heres a proper picture of the Merlion.

from the Merlion, you can see bunches of these spherical bouy-like things floating in the water...any idea what they are?

There were many cranes right opposite the lake/big pond thingie which faces the Merlion.

Eye of Singapore...? thats what they call it in every other city!

That night, we decided to go to the Singapore Night Safari. Its basically an extension of the Singapore Zoo thats only open at dusk til midnight. Its an amazing experience viewing all the nocturnal animals. By the way, it really pushes your camera (whatever you have) to the limits. I was shooting at HI 1.0 (ISO3200 equiv.) on my Nikon D80 wide open on my 50mm f/1.8.

The Night Safari, Singapore.

The otters demonstrate the importance of recycling garbage as these items can suffocate such animals and kill them.

Big snake

Tribal dance

They also breath fire...

Of course there were animals too...lions...

A babirusa. (direct translation means Pig Deer)

cant remember the name but its the largest rodents on earth.

Perhaps the coolest thing is in fact the toilets. At first glance its just a normal looking toilet...beautifully designed, elegant, and posh.

...but upon further inspection, you'll notice the outer wall is missing! Its actually really cool! without the flash you wouldn't notice the wall outside. This is the less packed one. At the main entrance theres a better one with fake perpetual rain that really enhances the ambience.

Even the table surfaces match the theme...

After roaming around the entire park we decided to relax by soaking our feet in fish infested waters. Its called Nibbles and basically you stick your feet into the water and the fishes eat away the dirt…perhaps the pictures will tell a better story…

Nibbles, Once bitten, Twice Shine.

Tickles!

Finally after an awesome but exhausting day we were waiting for the last bus...look at Bens black shoes...so gay right? who agrees?

Day 12: 24th December 2008

New Years Eve.

-and what am I doing? …travelling…travelling half way round the world to London to be exact.

Good news is I got to sit on the A380 and it is DEFINITELY WORTH THE HYPE!

Singapore Airlines SQ318 Airbus A380 Cabin.

This is my seat. I started off with a single pillow and blanket. There were so few people on the plane that by the time I arrived I had easily 12+ pillows. This is about half way through.

I love it that they actually decorate the cabin…you can see the chrismas deco hanging on the cabin walls.

BY THE WAY!!! I noticed my pictures in all the previous post were all soft and blurry…I thought it was because of my theme but I realised I was just resizing them too small and Wordpress had to stretch the pictures…heres an example:

Before.

After.

…and another example…

Before.

After.

If you look closely the difference is actually quite obvious…another thing, I realize a photographers blog is supposed to be where they upload their “GOOD” shots where as I’m using it to upload my “CRAP SHOTS” and happy snaps with flickr still being the main showcase on the internet…so after I finish this series of posts from my summer vacation I’ll change it around and use my blog onto for good pictures. I will probably change the theme as well to suit the motive…until then, please don’t judge my skills from this blog…cheers!

Steph and I took a short getaway to the Gold Coast to celebrate a special occasion. I planned a cool day of enjoying the Gold Coast and a day trip to North Stradbroke Island, an Island just off the Brisbane Coast. We didn’t take many photos in the Gold Coast as that wasn’t the purpose but we did head up to Q1, the worlds tallest residential tower. As a matter of fact, its the tallest building in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere. I just found out like 10+ seconds ago that Q1 stands for Queensland Number 1. Below is the view from the Obsevation Deck creatively known as QDeck. It is on the 77 and 78th floor. You have to pay to get up there. It cost a fair bit and you get into an elevator that whisks you up to the 77th floor in 40 seconds flat.

This is the view from the Observation Deck.

It was late by the time we got down so sorry for the crap shot but here it is from the bottom up:

Having been to the pinnacle of urban Australian, we headed to Stradbroke Island the very next day.

It was weird because we left the mainland at about midday…3/4 way into the water taxi trip we went straight into a fog and by the time we arrived at the port it was raining cas and dogs. I was dissapointed because I thought thr whole day would be wasted but the other half of the Island was completely dry! We got off the bus and had some lunch before heading to the nearest short walking trails…This was the first thing we saw:

Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to stay around and wait for sunset because we had to take the bus back to the port, catch the water taxi to the mainland, and drive 2hrs back to Toowoomba…

Anyway, the short time we were there we were fortunate enough to encounter some beautiful scenery and wildlife. We weren’t even expecting most of it. We just stood there bathing in awe of  God’s glorious creation when sting rays, turtles, and even dolphins just swam close enough to the shore to see!

I’ll stop blabbering now and let the pictures speak for themselves…

ok, maybe no THAT close…pictures are cropped even with my telephoto lens…The dolphins would’ve been beautiful except I had my wide angle lens on at the time and didn’t have time to change. The sting ray was close enough but was underwater and was difficult to make out.

We followed the trail which is called the North Gorge Walk which tracks around the edge of a cliff at the tip of the island. According to the sign its a 20-30 minute hike. It took us 20 minutes to walk around the cliff and we stopped all along the way to take pictures but we had to catch the next bus back to the port so we turned around and headed back where we came from which was another 20 minutes. Only when we got back did we realised that the trail was actually a CIRCUIT!!! If we walked another 100m we would have got back to the same place and save 20 minutes! In the end we didn’t even get to touch the sand on the beach!

At least we managed to get some good shots while out there:

For those of you who don’t know – when swimming at a beach in Australia, lifeguards patrol the areas between the red and yellow flags.

Til next time, peace out!

…and by the way, this site is NOT dying. I’m just lazy.

]]> http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/2009/01/20/north-stradbroke-island-qld/feed/ 11 http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/2009/01/08/queen-mary-falls-killarney-se-qld/ http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/2009/01/08/queen-mary-falls-killarney-se-qld/#comments Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:47:14 +0000 Jiaren http://www.blog.jiarenlau.com/?p=89 Hey everyone, Merry Christmas and Happy NEW YEAR!!!

I’m late again (whats new eh?) and have decided to stop apologizing everytime it takes me so long to update…coz its only gonna make it worse, lol..

I’ve been busy and have been extremely enjoying this holiday…unfortunately, my brother went back to school today and my sister went back to Scotland so I’ve got plenty of time now…btw, this is going to be a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong post.

“why?”

“…well, because I have to update on everything that happened in December so I can hurry up and start on this new year…this post is playing catch up.”

The Queen Mary Falls will be the main thingie but I’ll also throw in some pictures of our pre-christmas party (long overdue) and whatever I find in my December folder.

Queen Mary Falls

Ok, so Queen Mary Falls is located in South East Queensland – very very close to the border between QLD and NSW. The story goes something like this:

Queen Mary of England herself rode a horse through the waterfalls and loved the place. This was long ago when she was still a child. Well…either it was her or Queen Elizabeth but its called Queen Mary Falls so I guess the former would be correct. I’m about 10% sure.

I actually went twice. The first was to scout the place out as all good photogs do. The second was to pinpoint the good spots. (By first I meant my friendship parent took me there and by second, I meant I told my friends about it ad ended up planning another trip there!

Didn’t take many pics the first time as there were just the three of us: Me, Steph, and Mark (friednship parent). The upside is that I can some good pictures with steph!

Yes, I’ve cut my hair since then…

Oh, one thing cool about the first trip was that I got to test out my ND and ND grad filters…but me being me I forgot to bring my tripod AND filter holder that day!. Darn. For those of you who don’t know (which I’m guessing are most of you) an ND is a Neutral Density filter. Basically its like sunglasses for your camera so you can take slower shots in broad daylight. A graduated ND filter is the same thing but only the top half is darkened…anyway, you get this sort of effect:

You can see my finger holding the filter on the bottom right hand corner there! Anyway, the second time around the clouds weren’t as beautiful but I brought my tripod so got some nice shots.

Now I’m gonna stop blabbering and throw a bunch of photos so I can get to the next topic. The following pictures were taken on the second trip:

Perhaps this is a good time to explain that the Queen Mary Falls National Park is a nature reserve that consists of three main waterfalls and small streams. The main one is of course Queen Mary Falls followed by Brown Falls and the smallest one being Daggs Falls.

The walk to Daggs falls is amazing. Stop and appreciate Gods work.

…and its 1am…forget it, I’m done for the night…Will continue later…below is a gallery of the shots above and more. 91 pics altogether. Click for a 640×480 picture and feel free to request the pics u want forwarded to you. See ya soon!