An image from the archives - many times I had traveled to Europe via Singapore but never stopped to visit the city. Last December I decided to stay over for the weekend and had a ball. I was really impressed by the great vibe of the city, the fantastic architecture around the Marina Bay area. Like a landscape, Marina Bay changes its appearance throughout the day and with the light - this image taken around midnight shows how the city lights complement the arrangement of buildings. I hope you enjoy it.
When, a couple of weeks back, I headed down the Great Ocean Road from Melbourne, I arrived at the Twelve Apostles in heavy rain showers at lunch time. Sitting in the car with rain belting on the windows I checked the weather forecast once again and there was nothing mentioned about rain. Even the rain radar didn't showed anything. I was getting a bit worried that my client and I had done the 4-hr trip for nothing and wouldn't get any great shots. I decided to proceed further westwards along the Great Ocean Road as the weather seemed to be clearing up that way. Thankfully the rain stopped pretty soon and we were getting great images at different spots. For sunset, we had planned to return to the Twelve Apostles and to my delight I discovered that a small waterfall had developed along the cliff face due to all the rain before. Cool!!! Now I was just anxious the weather would hold up until sunset and not cloud completely over as it does so often at this location. In fact, I had been there four times before with no reportable sunset image. In the end, this fifth attempt was very rewarding - it was a sunset that will be ever etched in my memory.
I had this image in my head for a long, long time. When I scouted various locations along the famous Great Ocean Road a few years back, I came across this lesser known location and I immediately realised its potential for a great panorama. Capturing the panorama in daylight I was somewhat satisfied, but I poundered about how I could I turn this into an extraordinary image - the solution was adding the Milky Way!! It is only during certain times of the year when the Milky Way is relatively low on the horizon - a couple of weeks back was such an opportunity. Now if you have been to the Great Ocean Road - and I have been numerous times - you know that it can be a windy, cold, cloudy and miserable place. Which is not good if you want to capture stars or the Milky Way with long exposure shots. After a couple of attempts I was finally lucky. I was at the Great Ocean Road for a private photography workshop and the conditions were for once great. I had worked out before that the Milky Way would the horizontal between 2-4am, so come 2am and I swung into full gear, drove to the location and I could not believe how clear and calm the night was. While I took this 12-image panorama, I witnessed around 30 meteors burning up in the sky. It was just a very magical - one that I have been waiting for a long time.
