Landscape Photography - Self Indulged Online Travel Magazine

Archives

March31st

Torres del Paine – After The Flames

Posted in: Travel & Landscapes

We’ve just returned from 10 days camping in the spectacular Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia and this is one of my favourite captures from the trip…ironically it was taken on the first day. We initially intended to just do the popular ‘W’ trek but somewhere along the line Dave convinced me that we should do the ‘O’. It was certainly a challenge on the ‘O’ circuit lugging our gear around…camera equipment, tent, sleeping bags and food (Dave did most of the lugging – bless him) but we made it around and finally got to the ‘W’ section which was pretty busy in comparison to the deserted back section – I’m not sure if it has occurred to anyone else but the ‘O’ trail combined with the ‘W’ trail produces the ‘OW’ trek…yep, my blisters had blisters and I think Dave could possibly need a knee reconstruction from the downhill pounding. We came away with a stack load of images and a wonderful sense of achievement.

We’ve been hanging out at the Erratic Rock for the past few days for a period of recovery, taking our cue from Bonnie & Clyde, the lazy resident cats.

At this stage I anticipate the next issue of the mag to be out around the 14th of April as we’re going to be offline again for a while when we head over to Argentina for more trekking at El Calafate and then to El Chalten in search of more spectacular granite spires.

I’ve called this image ‘After the Flames’ in commemoration of the fire that swept through the park in December last year. For those who have been enquiring, prints will be available for sale when we return to Australia…I intend to put an exhibition together on our return, if you’d like to be on the mailing list then SUBSCRIBE here for free. Also, there have been a number of emails about the one day course…again, when I return to Perth, I will update the schedules and resume the courses.
February29th

Epic HDR for an EPIC landscape.

Posted in: Blog update, Travel & Landscapes

You can be forgiven for thinking we’d fallen off the face of the planet, it has been a long time between posts. But, as always, we’ve been travelling, shooting and planning the next leg of the trip. We just recently completed a one week whirlwind tour of Ireland. We caught the ferry with the car (GBP215) from Pembroke to Rosslare on the Emerald Isle then drove via Galway to the wonderfully windswept Achill Island. This was a bit of a pilgrimage for me as my Great Aunts family was from there and she once told me that her father had said that there was only a paper wall separating it from hell! With a description like that we couldn’t resist popping in. In the one day we spent there we endured gale force winds, rain, hail, snow and brilliant sunshine. It really was an experience of four seasons in one day…OK maybe not…the sun wasn’t that hot, summer was definitely missing. From the wild west coast we headed North East to the highlight of the trip for me, the Giants Causeway. The landscape here is epic and we weren’t disappointed. We were lucky enough to get a break in the grey weather for a spectacular sunset. As a rule I don’t tend to shoot much HDR but I think, in this instance, the scene warrants the treatment.

We leave today for South America…a new episode begins.
December3rd

STUCK in limbo…

Posted in: Blog update, Travel & Landscapes

The has car died.

Last night we should have been watching the Northern Lights through the dome of a glass igloo at the wonderfully picturesque Hotel Kakslauttanen. Right now we should be on a date with a reindeer, sliding through the snow on an open sleigh…on my way to Santa’s resort with a good meal and log fire awaiting my return. Instead, we are stranded in a hotel in the dark days at Lakselv, Norway.

Where, you ask? Exactly.

I’ve been wanting to get to these glass igloos for months. We re-scheduled because of our emergency rush home to Oz and had the dates locked in for this weekend. We were driving to Finland from Honningsvag down the E6 when we lost power to the wheels. Engine still running – car going nowhere. Thankfully we were only about 40kms north of Lakselv. We called the emergency breakdown service (who have been fantastic) 5 hours, two episodes of Stargate (on the laptop) and one tuna and sweet corn sandwich later, we were picked up by the tow-truck and our injured team member was towed to a cold and lonely carpark to await a diagnosis. It will be a long wait… the repair shop is closed over the weekend.

And so we are stuck…not in the middle of nowhere but close to it. Yes, we’re lucky the car didn’t conk out on the mountain pass a few days ago (pictured above) where the outside temperature was -16^o and yes, we’re happy to be safe and well but we’re so, so sad to be missing out, once again, on the great plans we had at Hotel Kakslauttanen.

Dear Santa,

Please arrange for our car to be OK…or send us a new Jeep!

Cheers

Sandy x
February1st

Seaman’s Sanctuary

Posted in: Travel & Landscapes

It’s been a while between posts and, even though I haven’t put in an appearance here, I have been busy working on a million projects…honest!

After spending a fantastic Australia Day aboard the True North I was keen to try out some of the sharpening techniques that Nick Rains discussed and, with all of the storms that are flying around Australia at the moment, I thought this image was fitting. (Pleased with the result on the hi-res file…it’s hard to see the effects with this squished up jpeg!)

It was taken last year on our hike up Mt Kosciusko, the very top of Australia. There was a storm rolling in, we were kitted out in our warm waterproof jackets and hiking boots and I grabbed this shot on the way up. On the way back down we could barely even see the hut, never mind photograph it so, like many others before us we took refuge inside Seaman’s Hut until the worst of it had passed over. We sat inside munching beef jerky and yearning for a hot cuppa. There’s a visitors book inside full of messages from other hikers who have made the trek from Charlottes Pass, some caught in snow storms, some spending the night so that they can be at the peak for the first dawn of a new year and some just looking to take a 5 minute break from the 18km round-trip.

It was built in 1928 as a sanctuary for travellers after Laurie Seaman and Evan Hayes died on the mountain in 1928. They were skiing on the mountain and were caught in a blizzard and probably didn’t stand a chance. The hut was built by Seaman’s family as a shelter to help prevent further deaths on the mountain. Although we were in no danger that day it was still a very welcome sanctuary for our weary, wet bodies!
October5th

Been WANGLED!

Posted in: Blog update, Travel & Landscapes

Self Indulged was featured on Wangle today. It’s a great site and really flies the flag for all things West Australian.

Thanks Wangle!

Check it out HERE
June3rd

Prompted by Merv!

Posted in: Blog update

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGXWO1-PHq0]

Merv, this post is for you! In a very lazy move I have rehashed this old slideshow which is kind of fitting as another world trip has been at the fore front of my mind for a while.

The trip I have in mind is a while away as yet but will be an EPIC photographic expedition if we can pull it off. Mt Killi and Patagonia are calling….as is the rest of the world. There’s lots of ‘research’ going on behind the scenes to try and fund this project and as such the website is being rehashed to incorporate more ‘travel’ ideas as well as photography.

Gotta start putting the thoughts out there to make it happen but you never know what’s around the corner in this life. I’m also learning the joys of timelapse so hope to post some results in the near future.

Can I use the excuse “I’ve been thinking” as a reason for not updating my blog? Of course I can….it’s my blog!

By the way Merv….love your B&W shot of the boulders!

Return to the Homepage