What A Difference 16190 km Makes :-)

After a great New Years eve celebration in the vibrant township of Bredetved, we managed to make your way to a frosty Frankfurt via Copenhagen airport. After taking full advantage of little G's newly acquired gold frequent flyer status and the associated lounge privileges, we finally found ourselves strapped in and ready to take off towards better weather. Funnily, I finally got the possibility of seeing just how much labor is associated with the deicing of aeroplane wings - I once worked on a project aiming at making the wings ice repellent and hence self-cleaning - maybe I should take up that project again :-)

Sadly it would be night during most of our traverse across Australia, I very much like the possibility of sitting up there looking down and planning/dreaming about when I will be able to make a quick escape there taking a close look at all the exciting stuff happening down below.

Entering mainland Australia we straight away got a very real reminder of the difference between Danish winter and Australian summer. A tropical storm was raging down below hitting the area north of Broome with a cascade of lightening strikes. While sitting in safety 10 kilometers above we saw multiple bush fires starting as the result of lightening strikes - a truly amazing and scary sight.

Approaching Sydney we got one of those great accelerated sunrises where everything happens really fast, while still up high, you get the benefit of clean air and a canvas of clouds below that the sun can paint in all the warm colors.

I started getting slightly excited, since coming from the north-west, we would be passing most of the Sydney landmarks and who would not like a few pictures of the Sydney Opera House from above. Unfortunately Sydney summer mornings do not always give you crystal clear air and warm colors, instead we were treated with clouds and a mist reducing visibility significantly :-/ Under such conditions your pictures will often look very dull straight from the camera, you can make them slightly more punchy and interesting by pumping contrast and broadening the histogram i.e. making the dark darker and the brights brighter. If that sounds complicated then just push the "I'm feeling lucky" button in Picasa :-D

The difference between the two pictures of the Sydney Harbour Bridge above should be evidence enough :-) Below is the ANZAC bridge, where the Magna drives across twice every week day.

Down Town Sydney by Night

It has been a while since I was running around doing touristy stuff here in Sydney - probably not since my action-packed excursion to Watson bay for fish and chips have I ticked any of the touristy hot spots of this wonderful city ;-)

Having a few guests flying in during the next couple of month, I realized I was in desperate need for a guide-skill-refresher so why not head down town Sydney and rub shoulders with some proper camera-slinging overseas visitors, just to get the hang of it again ... and since my American visitor has grown quite fond of the feathered wildlife I could probably score a plus in the book by already pinpointing the favorite tree of the barn owl flying around down town Sydney ;-)

The trees down town Sydney support a surprisingly large amount of wildlife, which makes it hard to find the owl you are after, but easy to get photos of all kinds of other stuff :-)
I though I had nailed it when I got a high ISO + flash shot of something in the top of a palm tree just to realize that it was a juvenile Australian white Ibis when looking at the LCD screen :-D It is not everyday you are in the bush you see possums - Saturday night a member of that family was so keen on me that I think I could have lured it all the way back to Coogee if I had brought a bit of food :-D

Well, well - who would have thought the Barn version would be harder to see that the super duper easy to find Grass cousin...? ;-)
Quite exciting running around with a camera at night in a place like Sydney, I got into the arty mood and found some motifs that did not turn their back to the camera.

Think I understand why people like a good tripod, the next picture was taken by finding a solid stand for the camera and having a shutter speed of 25s. The observant reader will notice that the head of the statue is missing(!) Suggesting that I either need a movable solid stand instead of relying on rocks-on-site or significantly more lens "flexibility" than I get with my fixed focal length 50mm f/1.8. :-)