Rocky Bottom

Rocky Bottom



These rocks are so beautifully placed. Along the river, under the holey tree trunk and topped by some dry grass. The image has been post processed into black and white with sepia filter.

Yawning Cockatoo

Yawning Cockatoo



This cockatoo seems to be yawning away. Yawn... The composition of the picture is not as best as it should be. The large metal bar at the top is unstrategically placed as to say.

Where's My Food

Where's My Food



This guy is peeering through the hollow tree trunk to look for any food. Other than the edible meat, there was a snake there! A fake rubber snake placed prior the performance started though. The bird had perched there quite still to allow me to get quite a sharp picture of its feathers.

Glove of Leather

Glove of Leather



Nobody will want to handle these birds without a glove, especially a strong leather one. All the trainer are of course wearing it to protect them from the bird's sharp claws. The shutter speed are rather slow to capture the wings movinng but sharp enough to keep the head still sharp.

Birds of Prey

Birds of Prey



This bird is not eagle! It is some bird which is larger than an eagle but I cannot remember the name. It almost crashed into one of my friend who had stand up to take a picture of it when it decided to fly pass at his height level. A search in wiki suggest me that this is a kite. Anyone knows what it's called?



Raptor names
Eagles are large birds with long, broad wings and massive legs. Booted eagles have feathered legs and build large stick nests.
Kites have long wings and weak legs. They spend much of their time soaring. They will take live prey but mostly feed on carrion.

Bald Eagle at Combe Martin Wildlife and Dinosaur Park, North Devon, England
Falcons are small to medium sized birds of prey with long pointed wings. Unlike most other raptors, they belong to the Falconidae rather than the Accipitridae. Many are particularly swift flyers. Instead of building their own nests, falcons appropriate old nests of other birds but sometimes they lay their eggs on cliff ledges or in tree hollows.
Owls are variable-sized nocturnal hunting birds. They fly soundlessly and have very acute senses of hearing and sight.
Harriers are large, slender hawk-like birds with long tails and long thin legs. Most hunt by gliding and circling low over grasslands and marshes on their long broad wings.
Hawks are medium-sized birds of prey that usually belong to the genus Accipiter (but see below). They are mainly woodland birds that hunt by sudden dashes from a concealed perch. They usually have long tails.
Buzzards are raptors with a robust body and broad wings, or, alternatively, any bird of the genus Buteo (also commonly known as Hawks in North America).
Vultures are carrion-eating raptors, found in both the Old and New World. They usually have heads which are bare of feathers.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Goated Log

Goated Log

A tree branch that was cut down and has moss growing on it. Making it looks like some goaty growing around someone's face. Notice the interesting horizontal cut on the log.



There are approximately 12,000 species of moss classified in the Bryophyta.^[1]

Mosses are found chiefly in areas of dampness and low light. Mosses are common in wooded areas and at the edges of streams. Mosses are also found in cracks between paving stones in damp city streets. Some types have adapted to urban conditions and are found only in cities. A few species are wholly aquatic, such as Fontinalis antipyretica, and others such as Sphagnum inhabit bogs, marshes and very slow-moving waterways. Such aquatic or semi-aquatic mosses can greatly exceed the normal range of lengths seen in terrestrial mosses. Individual plants 20–30 cm (8-12 in) or more long are common in Sphagnum species for example.

Wherever they occur, mosses require moisture to survive because of the small size and thinness of tissues, lack of cuticle (waxy covering to prevent water loss), and the need for liquid water to complete fertilisation. Some mosses can survive desiccation, returning to life within a few hours of rehydration.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Back To Refuel

Back To Refuel



This is the same eagle as the previous post. The eagle will soar around the sky back then back to its trainer. This reminds me when I was small when I would cycle around the house and go back to my mum to "refuel" with food.

Eagle

Eagle



This graceful bird soaring through the air like an ice skater doing the olympic stunts. This shot has been through many dodge and burn to bring out true colours and the shine on its underwing.  As you may see from the picture, the eagle has its leather strap still on its leg, it's a tamed one. Shooting wildlife and sports is one of the hardest subject to shoot if you do not have the proper equipment. Fei and I who were using the long telephoto but rather slow focusing lens were feeling furious as most of the shots are all blurred.



Eagles are differentiated from other birds of prey mainly by their larger size, more powerful build, and heavier head and bill. Even the smallest eagles, like the Booted Eagle (which is comparable in size to a Common Buzzard or Red-tailed Hawk), have relatively longer and more evenly broad wings, and more direct, faster flight. Most eagles are larger than any other raptors apart from the vultures.

Like all birds of prey, eagles have very large powerful hooked beaks for tearing flesh from their prey, strong legs, and powerful talons. They also have extremely keen eyesight to enable them to spot potential prey from a very long distance. This keen eyesight is primarily contributed by their extremely large pupils which cause minimal diffraction (scattering) of the incoming light.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Stevenson Blunder

Stevenson Blunder

This is the other side to the Stevenson Fall, the highest waterfall in Victoria. This is a High Dynamic Range (HDR) shot which you will never get through with a single exposure photo.

Staring Cat

Staring Cat

Ther is no cat in the widlife sanctury. This cat was snapped in the hedgend maze and I shall assume that it was owned by the owner. The cat was initally eating the grass. Yes, all of us are confused by that. The cat was really fat anyway, luckily it was not green.

A skilled predator, the cat is known to hunt over 1,000 species for food. It is intelligent and can be trained to obey simple commands. Individual cats have also been known to learn to manipulate simple mechanisms. Cats use a variety of vocalizations and types of body language for communication, including mewing ("meow" or "miaow"), purring, hissing, growling, squeaking, chirping, clicking, and grunting.[5] Cats are popular pets and are also bred and shown as registered pedigree pets. This hobby is known as the cat fancy.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Laughing Bird

Laughing Bird

This little bird is called the laughing bird due to the laughing sound it makes. I had focused this birdie through the metal fence and this creates an interesting bokeh pattern at the back.

Sleeping Dingo

Sleeping Dingo

Sleepy, restless dingo lying comfortably on the ground. The leaves helps to make the scene a little less hostile and more friendly as if it was about to tease the animal. The interesting bokeh pattern at the back was caused by me focusing through a metal fence.

Aboriginal people across the continent adopted the dingo as a companion animal, using it to assist with hunting and for warmth on cold nights. (The terms "two-dog night" and "three-dog night" are believed to come from Aboriginal idiom, describing the overnight temperature.)
When European settlers first arrived in Australia, dingoes were tolerated, even welcomed at times. That changed rapidly when sheep became an important part of the European economy. Dingoes were trapped, shot on sight, and poisoned—often regardless of whether they were truly wild or belonged to Aboriginal people. In the 1880s, construction of the great Dingo Fence began. The Dingo Fence was designed to keep dingoes out of the relatively fertile south-east part of the continent (where they had largely been exterminated) and protect the sheep flocks of southern Queensland. It would eventually stretch 8500 kilometres; from near Toowoomba through thousands of miles of arid country to the Great Australian Bight and would be (at that time) the longest man-made structure in the world. It was only partly successful: dingoes can still be found in parts of the southern states to this day, and although the fence helped reduce losses of sheep to predators, this was counterbalanced by increased pasture competition from rabbits and kangaroos.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Pose For Me

Pose For Me

This dingo had climbed out from its cave, climbedto a higher ground and pose for me. Guess that I'm quite attractive to the dingo. Just that the look from it does not reassure me. According to the guide, dingos are like wolf + dog. They howl like wolf and looks more like a dog.

The dingo (plural dingoes or dingos) or warrigal, Canis lupus dingo, is a type of wild dog, probably descended from the Indian Wolf (Canis Indica). It is commonly described as an Australian wild dog, but is not restricted to Australia, nor did it originate there. Modern dingoes are found throughout Southeast Asia, mostly in small pockets of remaining natural forest, and in mainland Australia, particularly in the north. They have features in common with both wolves and modern dogs, and are regarded as more or less unchanged descendants of an early ancestor of modern dogs. The name dingo comes from the language of the Eora Aboriginal people, who were the original inhabitants of the Sydney area.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Emu's Splash

Emu's Splash

This is an Emu. I was also quite luckily as to capture this guy raising its head from the water. If you click on the picture, you will notice the water splash from its beak to the pool. The picture will be better if I had framed the Emu more towards the right so that all the water droplets will be in frame. But hey, I do not know what it's going to do next.

The Emu subspecies that previously inhabited Tasmania became extinct following the European settlement of Australia in 1788; the distribution of the mainland subspecies has also been affected by human activities. Once common on the east coast, Emu are now uncommon; by contrast, the development of agriculture and the provision of water for stock in the interior of the continent have increased the range of the Emu in arid regions. Emus are farmed for their meat, oil and leather.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Sleepy Guy

Sleepy Guy

This guy is sleepy. I caught him yawning. See how cute he is? If I did not remember wrongly, they sleep 2/3 of their lifetime. We, human sleep for about 1/3 - 1/4 of our lifetime.

The koalas sleep for up to 19 hours. The koala lives on the East coast of Australia. They live and sleep in the eucalyptus trees. It's hot, light, and dry here.

The koala has big ears and a big nose. The mother has a pouch. The koala has very thick fur. The adult koala gets 25 to 30 inches long. The koala is very small when it's just born. After a month the cub is 1 cm. long. The koala weighs 15 to 30 pounds. One cub is born at a time.

(courtesy of koalaexpress.com)

Shining Fur

Shining Fur

Mr Koala perched upon a tree at the Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary. The sun shining from above give his opaque fur some golden highlighting. Although some may say that the leaves at the foreground maybe distracting, I felt that it gives some depth towards the picture and bring the shy koala natural character out.

The Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is a thickset arboreal marsupial herbivore native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae.
The Koala is found in coastal regions of eastern and southern Australia, from near Adelaide to the southern part of Cape York Peninsula. Populations also extend for considerable distances inland in regions with enough moisture to support suitable woodlands. The Koalas of South Australia were largely exterminated during the early part of the 20th century, but the state has since been repopulated with Victorian stock. The Koala is not found in Tasmania or Western Australia.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Macroing

Macroing

This is Val. She is taking some macro flower shots of the flower. As she said herself, the picture makes her looks as if she was a small kid. Post processed to give a brown black and white touch with mist look, matching the mysteriousness of her hair covered face.

Roadside Duck

Roadside Duck

I know, this is not a duck. It is some long beaked animal which was very challenging to take due to the white fur and the black head. Post processing in photoshop was needed so that the head can be seen.

Top Angle Of Attack

Top Angle Of Attack

This is Matthew focusing on the flower from the top. Mounted, he has the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM. A great lens which I hoped that I could have one too. I find that picture of people trying to take photo of other things can be quite interesting as it shows our own image when we are doing so. Unless someone took a photo of me taking someone taking something.

The Sweet Entrance

The Sweet Entrance

Over at the back of the Hedgend maze, there was a field of this flowers and a hut. Hue was changed into a purplelish mood deteriorating colour. I thought that the wooden fence plays a nice part in the picture.

The Art of f/2.8

The Art of f/2.8

That's Fei with his gigantormous lens. It's a Canon EF 24-70 mm f/2.8 L USM. Quite a mouthful but guess the weight of it? It weights close to 1kg. When you go round and shooting with that weight, it will really encourages you to go to gym more often.

All-in-all the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens is amazing. The Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens is built like a rhino, and is as sharp as a razor. The Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens is a bit heavy, which tends to bother people with really weak arms, but if gives me confidence in the amount of glass used to help produce superior image quality. I highly recommend the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens and consider one of my all-time favorites.

(courtesy of canonlensreview.com)

Rebel Kiss X Focusing

Rebel Kiss X Focusing

That is Jo. She had the Japanese version (Kiss N) of the Canon 350D. What's the great deal? Her kit lens is USM. It focuses real fast. And we can't buy this lens. It is only available as part of the kit lens in Japan. Now, who talks equality?

Nikon Man

Nikon Man

My model, Sam. Well, I had zoomed in on him and focused on his "Nikon" camera. The "Nikon" word stands out from all of the element as not only it is one of the only thing that was sharp, but also his long telephoto lens and the curl of the fingers help to direct the eye straight to the word.

Hairy Leaves

Hairy Leaves

This was taken at the Hedgend Maze, Healesville again. This time, I had focused on the two leaves just grown out. The focus was perfect and if you click on the picture to bring up a larger one, you can clearly see the hairs on the leaves. Thanks to Shayen for lending me her lens which I will not have gotten such a sharp detail with my own lens.

Budding Out

Budding Out

It's spring again! Well, it is at the time of writing this. This flower has outdo other flowers by blooming early. The early bird gets the worm.

In botany, a bud is an undeveloped or embryonic shoot and normally occurs in the axil of a leaf or at the tip of the stem. Once formed, a bud may remain for some time in a dormant condition, or it may form a shoot immediately.

The buds of many woody plants, especially in temperate or cold climates, are protected by a covering of modified leaves called scales which tightly enclose the more delicate parts of the bud. Many bud scales are covered by a gummy substance which serves as added protection. When the bud develops, the scales may enlarge somewhat but usually just drop off, leaving on the surface of the growing stem a series of horizontally-elongated scars. By means of these scars one can determine the age of any young branch, since each year's growth ends in the formation of a bud, the formation of which produces an additional group of bud scale scars. Continued growth of the branch causes these scars to be obliterated after a few years so that the total age of older branches cannot be determined by this means.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Fei Among The Bush

Fei Among The Bush

My model, Fei, posing when I was about to to take the photo of "Between The Maze" in the previous entry. I find that the neutrality of the green "bush" enhances his face and dark jacket.

Between The Maze

Between The Maze

This is the plant that keeps us from getting t the fina destination. Always blocked by them! You can see the amount of leaves they have and these plants are really strong in term of their branch too. You can also see the short depth of field in this picture.

Handprint of Networks

Handprint of Networks

The hand on the left is my hand. The one on the right, I can't remember whose it was. It can't be my hand as I had to hold the camera. The image has been processed to black and white with an extreme contrast.

The Leader's School

The Leader's School

This is Mao Ze Dong's school, Hunan First Normal College. It is one place of a maze where every turn looks similar. The teacher had warned us to stick together as we will be sure to be loss if we go out from the group. I had taken the image and post processed it as to give it a modern "old" postcard look. Below is our news from their website.

12月29日，2006年印尼华裔青少年冬令营成员与我校学生进行了新年联欢。冬令营一行170余人参观了青年毛泽东纪念馆，瞻仰了青年毛泽东铜像，缅怀了毛泽东等老一辈革命家的丰功伟绩。尔后与我校学生进行了“我们都是一家人”的大联欢，双方表演了十余个异彩纷呈的节目。我校学生与印尼青少年还互赠了礼物，双方增进了对彼此的了解，建立了国际友谊。

(courtesy of hnfnc.edu.cn)

Cultural Cuteness

Cultural Cuteness

Seems like an ordinary portrait photo? But by one look an Indonesian will realise that this girl is one too. Not by her look, but by her action. Indonesian will very often tilt their head down and shoot their eyesight up. It the the Indonesian meaning of cute!

Cuteness is a kind of attractive beauty commonly associated with youth, innocence and helplessness, as well as a scientific concept and analytical model in Ethology, first introduced by Konrad Lorenz. This is usually characterized by (though not limited to) some combination of infant-like physical traits, especially small body size with a disproportionately big head, large eyes, a small nose, dimples, and round and softer body features. Infantile personality traits, such as playfulness, fragility, helplessness, curiosity, innocence, affectionate behavior and a need to be nurtured are also generally considered cute.

(courtesy of wikipedia.com)

Bubur

Bubur

My so unfortunate model, Burhan who went with us to the winter camp trip in China. This photo was taken in a bus. His red jumper and large black sunglasses made him look so feminine or gay.

Road To Nowhere

Road To Nowhere

This picture shows the same view as "Underwater Shed". However, I had focused and zoom in to this part of the land. What interest me was the long dusty land heading of into the horizon. Isn't this suppose to be a dried lake?