Visit to the coast itself

Although my home is only a handful of kilometers from the sea I vary rarely go to see it. The proximity to the coast gives us a wonderful climate year round so I am fully aware of the sea - but I tend to look more at the country places, the mountains and the farming areas. But that changed yesterday, There was word of high winds and big seas on the way and my eldest son mentioned that he spotted whales breaching while he was driving home from work. So with a sunny afternoon and a couple of hours to spare I dragged my ever willing husband into the car along with my camera, tripod and two lenses and off we went to Tweed Heads.
From the headland we could see the splash as whales hit the surface of the sea - but they were so far away that we couldn't actually see the whales. Into the car we clambered and off we drove to Fingal Head. This is on the other side of the Tweed River from where we had been standing, and, since the opening of the wide and fast highway to Byron Bay, had managed to be "cut off" from too many travellers. The short drive out to Fingal Headland is past riverside homes that are prone to get their feet wet in times of exceptionally high tides and full river flow. It is a pleasant drive - and we seemed to be the only car on the road. As expected, when we arrived at the little carpark we discovered that we were not the only car on the road! Typical!
The walk through the coastal woodland over loose sand got our blood flowing faster and we emerged at the bright white painted lighthouse.

There were not too many people on the lawns after all, we could see a few family groups but they were scattered far and wide. Following the direction they were looking we too could see the activity way out on the Pacific Ocean. There must have been a group of three or four whales in one place and another pair in another. The sea was positively churning with their activity! Again, much too far away for either of my lenses but interesting enough for us to sit down on the lawn and watch them.
Spotting a sea eagle I changed lenses but that was the only sighting of it, I never did get a chance to take a photo! However with the 55-300mm lens I was ready when a pair of dolphin cruised by.

The sea was a most glorious aqua blue and the sky a rich cobalt. Such a perfect day to be out here. The sea was not rough and the threatened strong winds did not even rustle the leaves. It was calm! Since we needed to have an early evening meal we didn't stay too long so made our way back along the boardwalk to the sandy track that lead us back to the car.

In an area that is a mecca for tourists from all over the country and the world it is amazing that we can find places like this that are free of crowds and have so much to offer.
AJ

Does the camera lie?

Sometimes a shot requires a much better background for it to be a satisfying shot. Take this one for instance.

With a little work this same bird looks more at home here.

To make these changes required only a few easily learned processes

1. Selection
2. Clean up using a mask
3. Cloning
4. Selecting layers to be worked.

Selection can be done in so many ways - my preferred method is with the Lasso tool.
I made a rough selection of the bird and then pressed Ctrl+J which is the short-cut for "Copy and Paste".
To make the cleaning up of the selection really clear I then filled the background with a colour - If I had used either black or white I would have run into problems with finding the edges but with a colour I had no difficulties at all.
I then clicked on the bird layer and created a mask (small button on the Layers Palette) and with a soft edged brush and black as the foreground colour I painted away the wall and back of the chair that were still showing around the edges of the bird.
Then I created a background.
Here is the original shot I took for the background.

The stick looks good - but it is too high up in the picture. the left hand side of the picture is too bright and draws the eye over to see the fence and post in the background. Two things to fix up here. The stick first.

Just as with the bird I drew around the stick with the lasso tool and Ctrl+J to make a copy. In the Layers palette (shown on the right of this picture) you can see the stick as a layer - but looking at the picture you cannot see any difference at all.
With the move tool I dragged the stick closer to the bottom of the picture. Again a mask was created and the surrounds to the stick cleaned away. I did not want the original stick to be still in the picture so I then Clicked on the background and used the Stamp or Clone tool to sample in different places and replace the stick with leaves.

Another image was opened and part of that was selected to be used to fill the light area of background behind the stick.

To select this a rectangular selection tool was used and I clicked "Copy" (Ctrl+C)
I then opened the background picture I was working on, clicked on the background (in the Layers Palette) and clicked "Paste" (Ctrl+V)

The bird picture was opened again, the layer highlighted and selected (Ctrl+A). Double click on the background to open it again and Paste the bird and put him on the branch.
It all sounds mighty complicated but look at the list of processes that were used - only four!
So does the camera lie? Did I see a bird on the back of a chair on my veranda or did I see it in the garden?

AJ

Beauty lost

My Sunday drive took me past a wonderful old homestead. Years ago in the company of several other video enthusiasts plus a couple of actors in period costume, I visited this beautiful old house. It was open to the public and completely furnished as it had been left. At the time we were told that two sisters lived here up to the ends of their lives. After that the place was given a complete new coat of paint (It used to look like a haunted house!) and the interior cleaned up and made presentable. The caretakers of the place provided teas and scones in the large kitchen. The garden too had been scoured of rubbish and made suitable for public scrutiny. So you see, I have vivid memories of the place.

A typical fence made in the early days of Australia's white settlement was one made from native timbers and constructed without nails. The boundary fence to the property still stands as a testament to those difficult times and shows that there must have been a home here long before this two storey structure was put here.

The house still looks very imposing even though rust is showing through the paint of the iron lacework.

The garden is now overgrown and the white fence a bit the worse for wear but thanks to being able to zoom in on a photograph I can see that the original lace curtains still hang in the windows!

From the state of the lacework you can tell that it has been made of iron and not zinc or aluminium (as the lacework on my veranda is). This will be hand forged and most likely be worth a bit of money to someone who is restoring an old home somewhere!
It is a shame that once again this beautiful looking place is slipping back into a state of decay but the upkeep on a timber home is very high. There could be all sorts of reasons for it being left to rot.
I would not be at all surprised that the place is riddled with white ants and cursed with asbestos.
You can see it was once magnificent.
AJ
I have just found a story about Lisnagar Homestead and encourage you to follow this link to read more about it. This is an article written by a family member.

Sounds amazing

We occasionally get a visit from a kookaburra as it checks out the boundary to its territory. When it finds an intruder there is a little shouting for a while. I was able to record this snatch of the conversation.

The accompanying animation was created from seven photos (I copied the head and pasted on one picture) I have not discovered how to upload sound only to this blog so I have been forced to create a video. It does make the sound belong to something - so I guess making a video of the sound isn't such a bad thing!
The pity is that the picture is not correct for the sound - there were three kookaburras all sitting on this same branch and I spotted them from the house and managed to get the sound recorder out there but not the camera. When a Kookaburra calls, it points its beak upwards.
AJ

Coffee in the country

It was a perfect Sunday, plenty of warm sunshine and petrol in the car. So warm that most people drove to the beaches so Colin and I drove in the opposite direction and into the country. It was a good choice, there was barely a car on the road!
We stopped and purchased bananas and avocados from a grower and pulled over to take photos of the magnificent scenery and wasted our time in a manner we both enjoy.

 A canefield that has been harvested allowing a clear view across to Mt Warning. A mountain named by the explorer Captain Cook because he felt that it would serve as a warning to shipping about a reef that was off the coast of NSW.
When we saw a couple of railway carriages through a gateway and a sign indicating that coffee and cake were available, we stopped

The Cafe cum craft gallery is called the "Red Rattler" however the red paint has faded in the weather and looks a little drab. We drove the car down the drive and parked in the huge carpark next to this signboard.

There was no chance of a rail motor passing since there were no rail tracks! The sign added to the fun atmosphere though.
I poked my head around the door of the first carriage - both were linked with a timber board floor and shade sales - and this carriage was filled with nick-knacks of every description. Paintings adorned the walls, stain glass light catchers hung from everywhere and if anything could be hand crafted and sold, it was here.

Being quite capable of creating my own craft and not wanting any more I moved on down to where we could order a coffee. While waiting for it to be made I poked my camera into the second carriage - this one had been set out as a dining room - there was even a piano (playable) in the guards compartment at the end!

We did enjoy our brief visit to the Red Rattler, the coffee was good, the staff happy and pleasant and the carriages fun to visit.

With plenty of memory still left in my SD card I was impatient to move on and find more subjects to aim the camera at!
AJ