Lakes Entrance, being on the sea, has a huge array of birds in the vicinity. Here are a few of them. The pelicans are a favourite!

Lakes Entrance again ... from a few weeks ago. These are a couple of images from my abismal pre-dawn/dawn shoot at Lakes Entrance recently. The first photo is of a pedestrian footbridge which takes people to the 90 mile beach. The second image is of the foreshore on the north side of the Lakes Entrance shops. Both were taken around dawn, or what passed for dawn that day!

Circus Royale is in town ... or rather is at Westfield Shopping Centre. I have never before seen a circus set up in a car park but this one is. Even the animals have their hay and feed put down on the bitumen. The lights looked so pretty I couldn't resist taking a few photos of them.

Sunrise this morning. On my way to work at 7:40 am. A lovely golden view to start the day.

A couple of weeks ago I visited friends in Bruthen. While I was there I made the efford to get up early for a dawn shoot at Lakes Entrance, about half an hours drive away. Unfortunately, as you can see, the weather was not kind to me. I did manage to get a few good shots and these are two of them. I'll post others over the coming weeks. Lakes Entrance is mainly a fishing township (although it caters to the luxury pleasure boat trade as well) and you can see many of the fishing boats behind the Cafe. When I got back to Melbourne I discovered that somehow all my shots from Lakes Entrance had been erased from my flash card. Fortunately I had left a few of the better shots on my mates computer so was able to retrieve the best of the shoot. I hope you enjoy.

A week or so ago I stayed after work to do a night shoot from the Royal Women's Hospital looking over Carlton toward the early evening lights of the city. This is one of the better ones. Many of them were blurry because I didn't have my tripod with me. I intend going back, with tripod, to do this shoot again on a clear evening. That's Lygon Street in the foreground with apartment buildings in the mid range and the north east corner of the city, mainly office buildings, in the background.

On my way home tonight I took both of these pictures. The golden sunset was taken at 6:05 pm from the 9th floor of The Royal Women's Hospital. Settings were 1/250 f7.1 105mm focal length. Auto white balance. The photo of a building at Melbourne University was taken from ground level looking up at 6:15pm. Settings were 1/50 f4.5 55mm focal length. Tungsten light setting. You'd think you were in a totally different place. Both photos were taken within half a kilometer of each other. No filters or other post production was carried out on these images (except for a light sharpening).

Docklands ... again! This time, a couple of views of different style apartment buildings. Can you imagine the view from the balcony of the top apartment block? Looking at the Bolte Bridge and across to Williamstown and the western and northern suburbs of Melbourne and across the bay. Some view!

Nothing special came my way today so here is another image from my Dockland shoot a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy!

This is really the post for Monday ... I forgot to post my daughter's portraits yesterday!

These three photos were taken on the banks of the Maribrynong River in Moonee Ponds last Saturday. They show a cold and grey day in Melbourne at around 4:30 pm. However, the weather did not stop people getting out and about ... the hardy ones at least!

On Saturday night, I did a photo shoot with my daughter for an on-line course I am doing. The topic for this week is "portraiture".

The first photo here, the more warm-looking image, was taken with just a bulb floor lamp angled down with no flash. Even though the image is a little blurred, we both like the look of this image. The second photo was taken with tungsten light setting and E-TTL flash on camera ... a very harsh colour look but intriguing none the less.

I will post more conventional images from this shoot in days to come.

My camera is a Canon 10D.

I had a lovely time catching up with a friend this afternoon. We met at the Boathouse Cafe on the banks of the Maribyrnong River in Moonee Ponds. Even though it was another grey day in Melbourne, the scenery was so lovely the camera came out. The first picture is of a man-made lake with rotunda in the middle. The second is a picture of two seagulls taking a rest on a rock. You can see these seagulls on their rock in the large photo also.

Lygon Street, Carlton, Victoria, Australia. Taken at 5:53pm on a cold, damp winters night from the 9th floor of The Royal Women's Hospital.

The image shows the 'old' and the 'new' in the same image. The very old buildings on the street have been around since the early 1900's. The blue posts in the foreground are a recent addition. They are in a park which has recently been 'upgraded' and made more "exciting". I like the juxtaposition of the old and new but my husband thinks the image should be cropped to take out one or the other. What do you think?

Melbourne city at 4:50pm this afternoon. Lovely westerly sun with brooding clouds coming up from the south. It is now raining and more is expected overnight. It was lovely to see the sun even if for a short time. This stitched photo is almost seemless but... I'm working on it!

Bruthen, Victoria, Australia. The first image is looking from my friends' house toward the small township of Bruthen at 1:03am. The second image is looking from the same spot (more or less) but much earlier in the evening at 6:29pm. I like the contrast between the images and I love the colour in the early evening image.

Passion Flower. These three images were taken of a very beat up passion flower (it had been raining for a week!). However, the colours are so amazing that I thought I'd post a few for your viewing pleasure. The third image was taken with 3 extension tubes. I was interested to see the change of colour from using these tubes.

Black Swan and Pelican - taken at Lakes Entrance, Victoria, Australia on a cold overcast morning.

Crimson Rosella and Rainbow lorikeet. Some of the birds I saw and photographed this morning at Bruthen.

A photo of the end of yesterday for the end of this week. This photo is taken looking west across Melbourne University.

I am out of town for four days this weekend so I may not be able to post photos for that time ... depends on whether I can access a computer or not. I wish everyone a relaxed long weekend for the Queen's birthday weekend.

As I have nothing particular to show from today, here is a cityscape from my early morning shoot at Docklands, Melbourne.

Taken 7:36am on 27/05/06. 1.3 seconds. f4.0. Program AE. ISO 200. 28mm focal length.

This morning I looked out my front door and saw the fog ... AGAIN! I cannot recall having so many weeks of fog.

However I went on my way to work and caught my normal tram. After walking in the fog, it was lovely to step into the clean, empty and well-lit tram so here is a picture of what it looked like.

For those who don't know, a tram is like a single carriage train that runs on rails on the roadway and is powered by overhead electric lines. I posted a picture of the outside of our trams previously here if you'd like to have a look.

It's been such grey, foggy, cold weather in Melbourne to mark the beginning of winter that I decided I needed to post photos of the sun and people having fun in the sun.

Both photos today were taken in March, 2006 -- the day prior to the start of the 2006 Commonwealth Games. Lots of people were out and about at Federation Square and Southbank and along the Yarra River -- both sides -- looking at the 'fish' and watching the set-up activities along the river for the grand opening ceremony. These kids found a lovely grassy hill to roll or run or walk down just near the river walkway. Parents were sitting in the sun and watching their kids have a really great time.

Some kids who rolled down the hill were very unsteady on their feet for a moment or two when they stood up. That didn't stop them. Once they regained their balance, they were off up to the top to roll / run / walk down again.

Nice memories for a cold, grey day in Melbourne town!

Merchants of Malmsbury is the name of a cafe in Malmsbury which is owned by a friend. Malmsbury is outside Melbourne on the Bendigo road (north-west from Melbourne) and is about one and a half hours drive from Melbourne on freeway all the way. The freeway ends just before the road goes into Malmsbury.

I believe this building used to belong to the merchant who supplied a wide variety of goods to the small local community and surrounding countryside.

My friend who owns this cafe (Len Johnston) is also a published photographer. I didn't know this until I went to an exhibition he was holding the day I took this photo. (If you can see this photo in large version, you will be able to see frames on the wall of the inside front section of the cafe - in the golden light). His CV told me he had been published in quite a few photographic journals over the years. It also told me he had had many exhibits of his work. I have been to two of them. The others happened when I wasn't living in Melbourne. It surprised me that I thought I knew this man but found that there were large chunks of his life that I didn't know much about at all.

I feel really guilty this weekend because I have been doing 'stuff' but didn't make time to take my dogs Bella and Febee for a walk to their favourite park - Gilpin Park. So, I'm posting photos of my dogs and Gilpin Park which will maybe remind me to take my dogs for a walk!

Bolte Bridge, Melbourne, Australia. Part of the toll way that goes around the city from the Eastern suburbs to the Northern and Western suburbs, including to the Tullamarine Airport.

This is a different view of the bridge -- from the side and underneath, looking both north and south. The more normal view of the bridge was posted to this site a few days ago.