Welcome back to my weekly blog, missed a week again last week, not good. sorry about that. This week again a bit flat out here, more on that later. 

First up the roundup of where the last blog post was view. 

Again, a clear winner this week and this week the winner is Australia, followed by the USA then China with South Korea coming next, the following Countries all had one view each, Bulgaria, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, UK, Italy, Mozambique, Netherlands, Thailand, Turkey and the Ukraine. So again, a good collection of countries around the globe viewed this week’s post good to see. Feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of the post if you like, mentioning what country you’re from.

The last week I was a little tied up in preparing present for a photography talk to the Revesby Garden club based at the Revesby workers club. My first time giving a talk in public on photography. The talk was about the basics of photography Subject, Light and composition and how to improve your basic photography based on those three things. I also showed of a series of shots during the talk to reinforce my points. By all accounts it was received well and everyone was happy with the talk from the feedback I received both at the venue and later on via phone conformation. So a good weekend.

Now back to day 2 of my Tasmanian trip. 

Day two saw us leave Launceston and head east to the Bay of Fires conservation area via St Columbus Falls with the odd stop along the way. 

These first two shots are just a pull in on the side of the road in on of the many forests, this one was a pine plantation, so not Tasmanian natural forest.

The trees are all covered in moss giving the green tinge to the trunks whole the ground is covered in the dead pine needles making a striking contrast to the shot.  

Where as this shot is looking straight up, showing just how straight the trunks of these are. 

After the stop off we headed on to St Columbus Falls. It was a little bit of a walk to see the falls and again fungi was about on the fallen branches, this time bracket Fungi. 

The walk was along a path between the tree ferns. Again everything was covered in green. 

The falls were out in the open and in full sun so far from ideal light to do this kind of shot. This was about the best I managed here and not overly happy with this one, but it shows not every shots a winner and the extreme lighting certainly didn't help. Thou I've seen a few shots from some of the others on the trip and they had but angles of the shot, but the lighting certainly didn't help any of us in this location.

Walking back from the falls I stopped and took a few shots of this fungi growing on a log, not the best shot. 

From there we drove to the coast the Bay of fires and to Binalong bay. Nice clear water white sandy beach some cloud in the sky to make it more interesting. All up a nice place for a bright day. 

Towards the end of the beach, there was a flock of Terns diving for fish. This one with fish in beak is a Crested Tern (Thalasseus bergil) from what I can work out.

This next shot was a little off on focus so I had a play with Topaz to see what I could come up with, happy with this one. Some thing a little different, but think it came out OK. 

A Gull decided he also wanted a feed and rather than get wet though it would try and steal from the Tern. The Tern out manoeuvred the Gull and flew off with the catch.

Another shot just as the Tern was about to hit the surface of the sea. 

Along the Beach a Silver Gull (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae) was on patrol, probably hoping for the spoils dropped by the overhead Terns.

From there we drove down the coast towards Bicheno. Stopping for fuel along the way, where I spotted this flowering gum on the other side of the road, So I managed to get this shot. There was a fair bit of wind about to the branches were moving quite fast so not to many of these turned out due to motion blur.

  At Bicheno we managed to get a couple of coastal shots, this is just one of them, you can see the heavy clouds above threatening to rain on us at any time. 

After Bicheno we drove down to Freycinet National Park to catch the Hazards at sunset before driving into Hobart for the night. 

When we got there it was threatening rain and occasionally did and was blowing a gale so again interesting conditions for these shots. Still a great area and one to come back to one day to try again. Some of these shots came out OK. But again something I need to work on. I tried various shutter speeds and angles the slower shutter speeds didn;t work as well most times with the strong wind even with a decent tripod and holding it down at times there was still camera movement. These are the better of the shots I managed. 

With the sun coming in behind the small waves and the wind whipping them up I tried to get a few waves with the sun lighting them from behind. Again not that successful but almost there. Some better than others but still not a great shot. 

So that's it for Day two of the Tasmanian trip. I'll be back with day three next time so stay tuned. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week. Back with more from Tasmania next time. 

Glenn.  

First up the run down on where last week’s blog post was viewed, a clear winner this week again with Russia again the coming out on top followed by Australia then a tie for third between the USA and China. German coming in at number five then seven countries coming in next these being Belgium, Canada, Finland, Italy, Japan, Poland and Portugal. So again a good section of countries having a look at last week’s blog post.  Thanks to all who had a look last week. 

On with this week’s blog. I've just returned for two weeks of Photography in Tasmania, the first week was part of an organised tour with Steve Parish (https://www.steveparish-natureconnect.com.au) in conjunction with Spirit Safaris (http://www.spiritsafaris.com). The second week was a couple of us from the tour and Steve spending an extra week photographing together. So a good solid two weeks of photography. Tasmania certainly is a great place to photograph and one I think I'll be returning to quite often to shoot, I doubt you could ever capture it all, so much to see and such spectacular sights to see. 

The tour was to start in the afternoon allowing everyone time to fly in to Launceston, but as it happens every one flew in the day before so we all meet up and had a meal together that night and agreed to meet up in the morning and start an unofficial photo walk around Launceston. 

The first series of shots are taken from a walk around the town and out to the Launceston gorge.

These first three shot are a series of old terrace house that are now businesses in the city centre. This was the first real try of my newish Canon 5DMk4

A Detailed shot of the wrought iron work around the balconies and the concrete form work.

From the city streets we started to walk along the river up towards the Gorge, through the trees I say the old sailing boat, I tried to frame the boat with the reeds in the bottom and the tree at the top, didn't really work out and not that happy with this shot.

The old bridge over the river to the gorge with the old building in the background makes for a better shot. 

As the sun came out it lit up the silios on the other side of the river and this shows it always pays to look behind you as well as in front, you never know what shot is behind you. As this shot shows. 

Walking back along the streets the old buildings of Launceston have some fine details on the buildings and the light posts are certainly of a unique style compared to the modern ones of today. 

After lunch we meet the Spirit Safari team and our mini bus and started the official part of the tour with a trip out to Liffey Falls. This was our first tastes of Tasmania's forests and the lush greens the go with them. 

The whole area around the falls was covered with tall tree ferns and lush green mosses. This shot shows Steve Parish lining up a shot. 

With all the Mosture around from the falls and the dark enviroment I felt sure to find mushrooms on the trip and I wasn't dissapointed.

This shot was taken with the mushroom growing on a log and the camera mounted on a tripod upside down (The image had to be flipped once processed. ) lit with two speedlites one on the ground the other hand held in this case. 

This shots of me taking the shot above, Taken by Lynn. 

This first shot is of the falls them self. Again showing just how green the bush is around the falls. 

This shot shows the way the water has been carving its way thought the rocks for many years now winding its way thought the weaker areas of the rock, with the tree ferns taking hold where they can. 

Again like so much of the Tasmanian forests I visited in the two weeks everything was so green and lush. 

More of the giant tree ferns that were growing in the area.

On the way back for the falls again I found some Mushrooms to shoot, these were all hand held shots, so not the normal set up all with natural light no flash used on these ones, but the lighting was just nice so still came out OK.  

This last one was some Coral Fungi growing on the ground, I've not came across this sort before the gardens have one area that have some fine white ones but nothing like these chunky ones.  

I'll leave this post here for now and pick up next time with day two of the trip around Tasmania. 

Hope you enjoyed the start of this two week trip. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week. 

Glenn

Welcome back to my weekly blog, though I've been missing in action the last few weeks, more to come one that one in a minute. But first a quite round up of who's viewed the blog these last few weeks, A clear winner the last few weeks easily out doing everyone else combined by a multiple of 2 plus times is Russia, so a big viewing these last few weeks from over there. Net up the local Australian contingent, followed but he united states then the United Kingdom and then Germany, Hong Kong and Taiwan next equal and then comes Finland, Indonesia, Italy, India, Jordan, Netherlands and Vietnam. So, a good collection of countries the last few weeks viewing the blog. Thanks to all. 

Well the blogs been sadly lacking these last few weeks, I've been on the road for a few weeks in Tasmania the southernmost state of Australia, the Island at the bottom of the east coast for those not that familiar with Australia. A photographer’s paradise. Plenty of stunning scenery and wild life, though surprisingly this time around not so many birds. In the coming weeks once I've gone thought all my images I'll put up a series of blog posts on this trip. But Since I'm still working my way thought the images, this week’s blog will be on last Saturdays walk in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan. 

Before I left for Tasmania we were having a heat wave up this way, with high 40 deg C temperatures (116 Deg F) on a few days, but when I came back seems I bought the cooler weather with me, plus the wetter weather. Several days of good rain over the last week. The gardens were well watered after that all the small streams were flowing and of cause an abundance of mushrooms this week, after some many weeks not much, this week everywhere I looked I found them. 

First up is a shot of an old fallen tree and the patterns caved out by the various insets that have been working the timber when it was still covered in bark. This, I used as my entry for this week’s Google plus Australian and New Zealand weekly photo prompts entry. This week’s theme is textures. Been missing in action from that, these last few weeks as well. (no Wi-Fi in most of the locations I was staying in.) This one was taken on the opposite side of the road for the stolen generation walk.

From there I crossed the road and headed off towards the stolen generation memorial area. Good to see the gardens nice and wet, the little streams were flowing around the area, of late they had dried up, normally on a good day they are still but with water in pools, but of late nothing but dry creek beds. I found a few birds in the area, this first one's of a Willie Wagtail (Rhipidura leucophrys) earring out a bit of feather maintenance. 

In the same area is usually found the Eastern Yellow Robin (Eospsaltria australis) and this week was no exception. 

With all the rain over the last week the gardens were alive with Mushrooms. So I spent a far time getting a good collection of shots this week to make up for the lack of them the last few weeks. These first few were around the plant bank. Which is now open not eh Weekends thought Autumn from 10:00am till 2:00 pm with a scientist on duty each day of the weekend over the time. including Fungi - Dr Brett Summerell on the 25th March, which is also the day I'm running a Bird Photography workshop in the gardens, for bookings contact the Australian Botanical Gardens. So I'll be there to see whats on show there after the workshop finishes up. 

These shots are the usual set up of two off camera lights and the images focus stacked from several images to give the details.

Last Saturday the gardens had a Seaweed display in the plant bank so heres a shot I managed to get same set up I use for the Mushrooms two lights and focus stacked, which gives the depth of field and sharpness highlighting all the details. So something different this week. 

There was no shortage of mushrooms about this week, So I made the most of them this week. 

This next shot shows a behind the scenes shot, this shows the actual lighting conditions the shot was taken in and the positions of the lights. Again the 60D with the Articulated Screen is in use, which shows you don't need the latest camera to get these results.   This one is now Three generations behind the current model available. 

All the While a White Faced Heron (Egretta novaehollandiae) watched on. 

Again more mushroom shots this next one the mushrooms were so tiny only about 4 to 6mm in diameter so fine and small not to mention bright red. The colour was what I noticed first, funny that. 

With all the Rain of late the ground was soft and squelch underfoot the Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis moluccan) were having a picnic on the lawn besides the main lakes. 

In the lake was a solitary Royal Spoonbill Platalea regia) today there's usually a small group of these but today I only spotted the one. 

So that wraps up this weeks shots in the Australian Botanical Garden, in the coming weeks I'll start the blogs for the shots from Tasmania from the last few weeks. So stay tuned for those coming up. still processing the images from the trip. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week, back next week with more. 

Glenn.