Author: Robert Young

A visit to Dubrovnik

It’s been a little while since I said anything here. During September I was traveling in Europe after attending a wedding in Poland, a great experience.

Dubrovnik, Croatia
The roofs of Dubrovnik from the wall

The trip included a week in the Croatian city of Dubrovnik. The old town and port have been restored and rebuilt after a umber of tribulations, most recently the 1991 siege following the breakup of Yugoslavia.

The old town is surrounded by a high wall which, for a price, can be walked. I can recommend that this is done early in the morning during the season, before it gets too hot and too crowded.

Dubrovnik, Croatia
The tiled roofs of Dubrovnik

Staying in the old town is an experience, though getting to my accommodation in this car-less city included a climb of 83 steps up the hill to the apartment between the St Ignatius church and the music school.

Sunset Dubrovnik Croatia
Evening in Dubrovnik,

The evenings were warm, just perfect for sitting in an open air cafe in a small square. I can highly recommend a visit.

This trip I traveled light, only taking the Olympus E-M5, the 12-40 f2.8 lens and the kit 40 – 150 zoom. It performed flawlessly the whole trip.

 

New Gallery

I have just added a new gallery of images to the Galleries menu. All of the images were taken at Jökulsárlón, the glacial lagoon, in the south of Iceland.

Iceland_jokulsarlon_exhibition

The lagoon sits between the head of the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier and the sea. Chunks of ice collect in the lagoon and eventually make their way out to the sea, where wind and tide can wash them back on to the black sand and ash beach.

A lot of people take lovely images  of the ice lagoon with bright sunshine and clear blue skies. I however, have only seen rain, heavy overcast and drifting ash from the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull. This did make for some dramatic images.

This set of images may become my next exhibition.

 

 

The making of a book cover

My clever step-daughter, Dr. Alix, has turned her doctoral thesis into a book, and it has been printed by Brill, a well-known publisher of scholarly books.

Her book, Problematic Identities in Women’s Fiction of the Sri Lankan Diaspora:
“…offers an insightful reading of nine novels by women writers of the Sri Lankan diaspora: Michelle de Kretser’s The Hamilton Case (2003); Yasmine Gooneratne’s A Change of Skies (1991), The Pleasures of Conquest (1996), and The Sweet and Simple Kind (2006); Chandani Lokugé’s If the Moon Smiled (2000) and Turtle Nest (2003); Karen Roberts’s July (2001); Roma Tearne’s Mosquito (2007); and V.V. Ganeshananthan’s Love Marriage (2008). These texts are set in Sri Lanka but also in contemporary Australia, England, Italy, Canada, and America. They depict British colonialism, the Tamil-Sinhalese conflict, neo-colonial touristic predation, and the double-consciousness of diaspora. Watkins examines the problematic identities in this fiction, revealing them as notably gendered and expressed through resonant images of mourning, melancholia, and other forms of psychic disturbance.”

I was very pleased and honoured to be asked to provide a cover shot for the book. Alix wanted the cover to suggest the themes of Sri-Lankan women and colonialism, which is how we wound up on a very windy St Kilda pier early on a Sunday morning. The pavilion at the end of the pier had the look of a colonial-style building and made a good background; early morning put the sun in the right place for me.

After dealing with wind, flowing hair, people wandering about on the pier, people fishing in inconvenient spots and the odd stray dog, we made a book cover. And as a bonus, I got to photograph the elegant and charming Chatu Gunaratne.

The cover image for my step-daughter's book.
The cover image for my step-daughter’s book.

 

Bright yellow

While returning home from a road trip I drove through Benalla, Victoria for a food break. As I was approaching the main shopping area, I saw an eye-searingly yellow building in full midday sun.

Now, I know that traditionally when the sun is high you aren’t supposed to be able to take ‘interesting’ photographs, but light, colour and shadow sometimes work exceptionally well in full sun.

I spent a few minutes walking around with my trusty Olympus E-M5 and 12 – 40 mm lens and got the results below.

From the painted out sign, the building appears to have been a discount chemist of some sort, but if you look it up on Google street view, it was also briefly a Toys R Us, with swing sets.

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Empty space

One thing I like about working in the city of Melbourne in early January is how quiet and empty it can seem. Thanks to the holidays, there is less traffic and I get to the car park earlier and there are far less cars already there. This has given me the opportunity to try out the new f2.8 lens on the Olympus (which is now firmly entrenched as my carry around camera) and also explore an empty car park.

This is what the Melbourne Museum car park looks like before 7.30am in early January.

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An exhibition

There is an exhibition of a selection of my work at the Wyndham Vale art space in the Wyndham Vale Community Centre.

Visit the Wyndham Art Spaces page.

This exhibition, Locations, features images from 2010 to 2014 which showcase various aspects of my interest in a man-altered landscape and how it changes over time.

I would like to thank the staff at the City of Wyndham for this initiative of supporting local artists and providing them with spaces to show their work. At every step of the process the staff have been encouraging and supportive, it has been an excellent experience.

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The Challenge

On Facebook (a social media site) there is an on-going challenge. This involves being nominated to post five (one each day) black and white images and then nominate someone else.

I don’t usually involve myself in such things as I don’t like my photography being restricted by artificial constraints or by some proscribed ‘have to’ deal.

However, this time the request came from a highly respected photographer, Ragnar Steffanson. These are the images I chose. I didn’t nominate any other photographers because I didn’t know any that hadn’t already taken part.

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St Helens

St Helens is a small beach/boat harbour/fishing spot on the western side of Corio Bay in my home town of Geelong, Victoria, Australia.

On a recent morning visit home I noticed the heavy overcast and subdued light as I drove past, so a quick stop and a wander around with the Canon 5d3 between rain showers and I had a handful of interesting images.

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Live update

In a previous post I mentioned that I am auditioning an Olympus E-M5 micro four thirds mirrorless camera for a more important part in my photography. This has been based on weight as much as anything else. But the more I use the little E-M5 the more it impresses me.

One type of photography I like to do is long exposure, using neutral density filters to create movement over time, such as a waterfall or river.

I wasn’t sure if the E-M5 would be up to this, but I discovered a feature called live update. As the shutter is held open in manual bulb mode, the LCD screen on the rear of the 5 updates the image at user selectable intervals. You just watch your image develop.

I tried it out down at the remains of the old pier at Clifton Springs, near Geelong. It was an overcast, rainy day but I managed to get a break in the rain to try some images. Neither the camera nor I was bothered much by the rain, but rain drops on the ND filter show up nicely.

The only major drawback I have is trying to manually focus with the electronic viewfinder (EVF), neither my eyes nor its resolution are quite up to accurate focusing all the time.

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