Opera House and Harbour Bridge - Sydney, Australia

The Opera House and Harbour Bridge - Sydney, Australia

The weather hasn't been the best over the Australian summer and today was no exception. We woke up to another gloomy, wet day with showers forecast. From a photographic point of view, I had been waiting for one of these days to take some close ups of the Opera House with moody gray clouds in the background. I hopped on a train at around 2.00PM for the ten minute trip into the CBD and wandered down to Circular Quay.

More photographs from today's shoot, inside.

 

The Sails of the Opera house - Sydney, Australia

I got down to the Overseas Passenger Terminal to find a massive cruise liner docked at the terminal and blocking the view of the Opera House completely. I was a bit annoyed with my luck but decided to make the most of the day and walk around to Mrs Macquarie's Chair for some shots of the other side of the Opera House. I hadn't planned on shooting from here and I only had my 24-105mm lens with me. As a result I had to shoot and crop the images slightly to get the shots I wanted. I'll head down there with the 100-400mm at some point and re-shoot these images.

 

The Opera House - Sydney, Australia

On my way back to the station I heard the horn(?) of the ship and thought I'd go back to Circular Quay and check if it was moving. I arrived at the Overseas Passenger Terminal to find the ship heading off and the Opera House appearing from behind it. I spent another 20 minutes taking more shots of the Opera House before heading off.

 

The Sails of the Opera House - Sydney, Australia

All images on this post were captured with a Canon 7D and the 24-105mm combo.

Views from the verandah

I hadn't been up to our place near Kandy, in central Sri Lanka, for over three years and I was determined to go up there for a couple of days in January, when I was last at home. Read on for more images and details of how they were taken.

Our place is up in the hills beyond the Peradeniya University. It's fairly high up from the nearest village and  therefore we don't have too many neighbours (thank God). Above us is a forest reserve which is home to Black Eagles, Wild Boar, Muntjac Deer and an abundance of bird life. Needless to say, I love getting up there and spending a few days away from the city. 

From the house we see layer after layer of mountain ranges stretching away for miles. Some of the prominent land marks that you can see include Adams Peak, Bible Rock, the Mahaweli and the Kotmale power station. I've been planning to create a panoramic image of the view but I don't have a decent wide angle lens to capture the required images... yet. The best time to photograph the view, in my opinion, is very early morning or at sunset. Mist rolls into the valleys during the night and early morning, and at these times, only the peaks of the mountains are visible. The early morning light is great for photography. The whole place looks like a chain of islands in a massive, swirling sea. During sunset, the sky is stained with shades of orange, pink and deep purple-blue. The light at that time of the day defines and separates the different mountain ranges.      

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't the best while we were up there in mid January. It either rained in the evenings or was just very gloomy. The clouds were fairly low and as a result the sunsets were not as vibrant as usual. However, the dark clouds with the sun shining through did make an interesting sky line. Since the light didn't really add anything to the images I decided to convert them into black and whites. 

I'm still not sure if these images "work" or not so please let me know what you think of them in the comments.

Both images were taken with the Canon 7D and the 100-400mm lens.

Sunset in Sydney