Entries by Robert

There is a bitter sweetness to that first cracking of the shell. That once beautiful, unblemished egg-shaped form of chocolate can't deliver its gift until it is shattered and broken into pieces.

No longer the visual feast and now cracked and broken its giving of pleasure will last only as long as the last mouthful.

When we were children we made our eggs last all year, carefully spacing out their consumption to the very last. Now we share only one or two, enjoy their beauty before they break and relish the bitter sweetness before Easter is gone.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 100 - Chocolate Eggquake'. 1/2 sec at 105mm f/6.3, ISO 400

It seems your can't avoid chocolate at Easter so why settle for anything less than utter indulgence.

Rather than bunnies, bilbies, eggs and bars we got to indulge in Lachlan MacKinnon's incredible chocolate melange creation.

After than well ... actually I won't say no to more Eater chocolate!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 99 - Easter Treat'. 1/8 sec at 105mm f/4.5, ISO 2500

Moody grey skies make for great backdrops and this morning's grey had a fantastic mix of highlights, dark and shadows.

While on the road this morning I passed by the local skate park and considered the photographic opportunities. I really did not feel like capturing any skating action - and to be honest there wasn't much talent about anyway - so I focused (pardon the pun) on the inanimate features of the park.

This cut-out feature of the skater caught my eye in the way it framed the moody sky beyond. A small aperture and deep depth of field was used to capture the detail in both sky and frame.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 98 - Sk8ter Boi'. 1/1600 sec at 105mm f/22, ISO 500

After a brief burst of summer, today's wild and windy weather was a cool reminder that although summer is over the fun never stops - as this dude was happy to exemplify.

I have always been frustrated taking photos of kite sailors. The large distance between sailor and kite means it is very difficult to get an image that shows it all in one frame. From the beach it is hard to capture the action so the logical thing to do is get in the water with them.

Wearing a nice warm wetsuit, a pair of fins and my camera safely protected I could get close to the action and take wide angle shots. My biggest fear was being run over in the process. In amongst the action it all happens very fast and I found that I really needed fast shutter speeds to avoid blur.

Perhaps 1/8000th of a second was a little overkill but I do love that frozen in time effect of water spray in mid motion.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 97 - Blown Away'. 1/8000 sec at 40mm f/5.6, ISO 800

There's a beautiful moon up there tonight, not quite full but just as bright.
So I sat down my camera in the gritty white sand 'cause I can't hold it still enough with my shaky hand.
It's not from caffeine, it's not that I'm ill but for twenty five seconds the camera must stay still.
So it sat in the sand and the moon lit the shore and this image was caught for evermore.

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 96 - Moonlighting'. 25 secs at 24mm f/14, ISO 200

I was just about to step into the lift when I noticed a beautiful pink and purple fluorescent glow emanating from the lift well. I'm not sure why I had never seen it before.

The lifts in the Innova21 Building on the University of Adelaide's North Terrace campus were already a wonderful piece of aesthetic and technical engineering - an appealing construction of metal, glass and composite materials and a fitting addition to the University's nine-level state-of-the-art education facility.

Are these beautiful lights new? Surely I would have noticed them before. In any case they make the technology look sexy and that can only be good for engineering, maths and computing education. The soft purple glow in the quiet of the evening with all the students long gone was quite meditative.

More on this building and the University of Adelaide can be found at Innova21.



Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 95 - Inner Piece'. 1/20 sec at 105mm f/5.0, ISO 2500

A walk down Hindley Street can be a real eye opener and full of photo opportunities. Unfortunately some of those opportunities are the very ones that make me want to hide my gear or wish I had left it at home!

I thought this photo of one mean looking motor vehicle would be pretty safe. I carefully watched to make sure the owner was not in sight and then casually walked past taking this photo.

As I walked on I could not help feel the need to watch my back and be ready to break into a sprint if needed. Fortunately there was no need and I enjoyed the rest of my evening peacefully.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 94 - Mean Machine'. 1/13 secs at 168mm f/5.0, ISO 1600

Since Christmas I have been tending to a little chili plant I have been growing from seed, the Bhut Jolokia, also known as the Naga Ghost Chili and reported to be the hottest chili in the world.

My ghost chili plant is now 40 cm tall and bursting with little white flowers. It seemed only natural to capture one of these delicate transparent white blooms before it became a fiery journey to hell and back.

The Bhut Jolokia has a Scoville heat rating of over 1,000,000 SHU units making it three time hotter than the hottest habarneros. Here is a short video of what I will expect to experience very soon now.

Eating The World's Hottest Chili

I don't think I'll be recording a video of myself - but I will report on the experience.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 93 - The Bhut Jolokia'. 1/200 secs at 200mm f/40, ISO 100, Strobe Backlit

Sometimes it helps to lie down and look at things from a different perspective.

This sculpture of solar petals outside Adelaide's Festival Centre looks interesting enough just walking by. However, lying down in the middle of it gives a whole new view. From here I think they look like delicate mushrooms of silicon glowing in some surreal moonlight.

Actually, regardless of how you look at them they are pretty cool.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 92 - Solar Mushrooms'. 20 secs at 15mm FE f/20, ISO 400

What a fantastic way to end the the summer season: with a grand final win!

I tried to capture the action. Tried to freeze the continuous motion of players. My performance, however, did not compare to their winning performance.

Come ceremony time I decided to photograph something that did not move, did not blur. My vicarious trophy.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 91 - Winners'. 1/50 sec at 105mm f/4.0, ISO 1600

Driving into the city near sunset I see so many 'golden hour' photo opportunities. More often than not I am too busy to stop or the traffic/opportunity is not conducive.

This time I had a minute or two to spare so I pulled into a loading zone and jumped out with my camera. Too late; the sun had gone ...

Looking up the sky was still very blue and the Westpac building looked imposing as that beautiful blue sky reflected back down to me from every window on the building. It was a building of blue screen windows without the horrible white writing!

I took this shot which I found very strong, jumped back into my car and headed off on my way.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 90 - Windows Blue Screens'. 1/125 sec at 105 f/5.6, ISO 500

What an amazing sunset we enjoyed this evening as this perfect fiery ball descended into the ocean.

My goal today was to experiment with taking photos exposed directly into the sun without overexposing and as I have no good quality neutral density filters that meant late in the day when the sun was at a low angle.
I was surprised at how bright the sun still was nearly on the horizon with a substantially stopped down aperture. Even at my fastest shutter speed I could have only opened up to around f/20.

The technical challenge encountered was focussing. The camera completely refused to auto-focus and I was not prepared to use live view with the camera pointed directly at the sun for fear of sensor damage. Manually focusing simply based on the viewfinder seemed ok but the results were quite soft in the final images.

Next time I will use some ND filters for live view manual focusing and then experiment with removing them or not for final shots.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 89 - Fiery Ball'. 1/1600 sec at 400mm f/36, ISO 100

This morning I was looking for a photo opportunity in our front garden. I was not sure what I was looking for. Usually I leave this part of the challenge up to chance and opportunity.

It was an odd morning, cloudy and overcast from the direction of the sun but bright blue sky behind. Then for a moment a ray of light shot from a gap in the clouds and lit up a spot on the trunk of the shaggy bark tree. The spotlight of sunlight with the beautiful blue sky behind was simply too good not to capture.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 88 - Barking Blue'. 1/500 sec at 200mm f/8.0, ISO 400

I heard a rumour this morning of a rare conjunction of Jupiter, Venus and the Moon so I decided to see what all the fuss was about.

Well 8pm came and went and all I could see to the west was a cloudy sky. I was dismayed that I'd missed out on all the fun. With the hindsight of similar cloudy evenings where patience won out and a little bit of 'you never know...', I chose to set up my camera anyway.

As if by magic the clouds parted in just the right spot and there they were, all three of them: Jupiter to the lower far left, the moon near the middle and Venus off to the upper far right.

A few locals intrigued by my antics enquired as to what was in the sky. One particularly enthusiastic youth was so interested that he decided to light up me and my camera with his car high-beam headlights just to get a better look!

The clearing in the clouds lasted only a few minutes so I only got a few shots before Jupiter, Venus and the moon danced off behind the clouds again.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 87 - Jupiter Moon Venus'. 5 secs at 140mm f/8.0, ISO 800

The golden hour abounds with photo possibilities with its distinctive glow and soft yellow cast. There's also a brief period where the sun has indeed set but high above it sill casts its golden light.

Looking up this evening with the setting sun behind me I noted the glow of the city and the hills beyond as the sunlight slid underneath the grey clouds. The effect was magical as if the city shone its own light to light the hils behind and the clouds above.

As I stood and watched, a small plane took off, flying through the clouds into the dying rays of the sunset.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 86 - Suspended In Mid Air'. 1/8000 sec at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 800