The Hand in the Drawer

The Hand in the Drawer, originally uploaded by Stuart Forsyth.

My wife called it macabre. Maybe some would interpret it that way but it’s also part of my creative process and a small first step in an alternative realities set I have kicking around in my head.

I’d like to get away from standard photography for a bit, take a walk through the creative space and try something different. Maybe I’ve been watching too much Doctor Who and the Weeping Angels have pushed me over the edge but I will just have to carry on enduring the raised eyebrow and the worried furrowed brow and see what comes of it.

Rock Dolmens on a Field of Green

I have a hankering to get up early one morning when the sky is still dark and head out with the deliberate intention of getting lost. To find yourself out on roads you’ve never seen before, to explore the countryside, to pull over on the verge and grab your camera to explore some strange and wonderful vista – that’s what it’s all about. I think it’s time I called up to photographer buddies and pencil in a date. At the end of the day you can return to a place along your route to stand in the golden luminescence of magic hour as the sun dies in the sky and the light does all it can to negotiate one last hour to the clicking of the shutters. As a dark throw is pulled over the sky, to return home to a couple of beers and good company.

Definitely overdue.

A Red Blanket of Sand Falls on Sydney

by TomHide

Sydney based religeous zealots might have been excused for celebrating the coming of the Rapture over the last couple of days as clouds of red dust blanket the normally green and blue sparkling city.  Photographers have been brave taking their precious gear out into the sand storms to take some really incredible photographs.  There are a number of galleries popping up on Flickr which are well worth a look.

by HighRanger

The Coming Storm and a dash of Yeats

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory’s wood and one bare hill

Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind.
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

…\

- A Prayer for my Daughter

  William Butler Yeats

Lightroom Presets

Here is an antique landscape Lightroom preset I put together this evening to emphasise the drought ravaged countryside in this photo, I made it available as a free download for Lightroom users.

Drop me a comment if you’d like me to keep releasing these presets in future.

Enjoy!

Toxic Shrooms

Toxic Shrooms, originally uploaded by Stuart Forsyth.

Another example of the LX3 macro mode and manual focusing. These slimy little toxic mushrooms were amongst the best examples of forest fungi we’d found all day. Dropped the green saturation of the leaves slightly so that they didn’t overpower the beautiful red hues of the mushrooms. Would love any mushroom experts out there to identify them for me.

Hunting Schrooms in the Forest

My cousins came to spend the Easter weekend with me. We got to explore around the Mt. Dandenong region, East of Melbourne, and went on some incredible forest walks. I spent the last 2 days field testing the Panasonic Lumix LX3 as a carry around camera to replace my dSLR on really big walks and apart from a few irritations which were more to do with me learning to use the new camera it stood up admirably and allowed me to take some really stellar photographs.

My cousins love mushrooms, preferably of the non toxic variety pan fried to perfection, and spent a good deal of time invested in learning about the edible English mushrooms while staying there. Hot on their list of Autumn activities is pounding the forest paths around Victoria with a guide book and their amazing knowledge of these little forest dwellers in search of all sorts of amazing fungi. I will be their designated photographer.

To be fair, until I got in on the action of spotting the little guys hiding under logs or in mossy alcoves I had no idea how fascinating they were and how many different varieties you could find within a couple of steps of each other. From spiky rough puffy ones which explode in a cloud of spores when you touch them to red topped delicate mushrooms with lacy gills the choice is seemingly endless. Getting up close involved lots of kneeling in the moist leaf litter and putting the manual focusing and macro abilities of the LX3 to the test.

It was beautiful to be out in the fresh forest air for the majority of the last two days. I can see the schroom hunting will provide us with some great macro photography over Autumn and in all likelihood I will have to take my SLR and my macro lens along for some of the future walks.

It really was great fun.

The Most Famous Huntsman

Huntsman, originally uploaded by Stuart Forsyth.

I love living in the mountains East of Melbourne. My house is completely surrounded by trees, walking trails and nature in a form not experienced in my many years of suburban hell living. I don’t have neighbour’s barking dogs or loud thumping music, I don’t have my house crammed into a tiny block of land and I don’t have to pay exorbitant property prices.

I do have to drive a bit further to get places and my commute is longer. Oh, and things grow bigger here too … especially the insects and arachnids.

This happy little guy (note the smiling chelicerae) thought that an open packing box would be a nice home. He didn’t expect an oversize mammal to stick his hands into the box. In fairness he tried to run away. I caught him and gently put him on a table top for a photoshoot – he is now the most famous huntsman in Ferny Creek – and he was remarkably relaxed throughout the whole process.

I then found him a lovely home in one of the giant gum trees on our property and asked him politely to please warn me next time he wants to come inside.

My LX3 and a Tumblr Mashup

I indulged in a little retail therapy today,  a purely  selfless gesture to help the economy and stimulate growth in the retail sector.   I splurged, quite happily after all the titilation on TWIP and DPReview about the camera and I’ve been carrying it with me everywhere I go.  This has changed the way I interact with photography, sure the camera will never be able to do what my big heavy dSLR can, but I am able to take so many more photos and have it on hand when the light happens.  Amazing sunset arriving late last night at the train station, snap!; arriving early at work this morning and taking a stroll down to the Yarra river, snap! it really is fantastic.

I have also started a mashup via my Tumblr account of this website, my Twitter account, my photosharing site on Ipernity and other random trivia I find interesting.  If this sounds like a fun (ish) ride then you can link up to the rss feed over at http://stuartforsyth.tumblr.com/

I’ve been a little on the scarce side, kinda like a panda bear in a bamboo plantation, which had to do with me going through all the merriment and joviality of moving house – I hope that phase has now passed and I can get on with the more important and asthetically pleasing aspects of my life.

Miru Kim, Humanising Urban Decay

In this interesting talk on TED.com, artist Miru Kim shares her experiences exploring, photographing and humanising the dead spaces that cities have long forgotten. From tunnels beneath New York city, war bunkers below Berlin or the catacombs of Paris, Miru’s passionate quest to tap into the soul of these places, to interact with the homeless and displaced and catch the faintest echos of history clinging to the strands of memory is inspiring.

Mirukim.com