Robert's Ramblings

I love watching a happy dog play in the water as their owner strolls along side.

Can you imagine the opposite? While pondering this question I remember a scene back in summer here where a couple of small children played in much the same way in the tiny surf while a great German Shepard stood by keeping a watchful eye. I am sure there would have been been a parent somewhere nearby but somehow it seemed their faithful friend would not allow anything untoward happen just like 'Nana' in the story of Peter Pan.

Either way 'best friend' seem appropriate.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 517, Best Friend' 1/50s f/18 ISO100 15mm

This view of the The Lamson Rapid Wire System shows both its simplicity and complexity.

To send the cart the clerk would pull down slowly on the pull-chord until the the launching frame was held under stretched elastic against a stop. On release the the launcher would send the cart flying along the wire to its receiving station where a similar mechanism was ready to initiate the return journey.

I have not seen how the packages would have been attached or removed from the carts but can imagine something equally as imaginative.

Next time you are strolling down Rundle Street and have a moment to spare, come up to The Writer's Centre in the Malcolm Reid building, take your mind back 100 years and imagine would it would have been like.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 516, The Lamson Rapid Wire System II' 1/160s f/2.8 ISO1600 70mm

The beautiful zebra plant would have you believe it boasts beautiful bright yellow flowers which last all through the winter. You'd be mistaken.

Now a common indoor plant, Aphelandra squarrosa is native of Brazil. It gets its common name from its striking striped foliage which gives no clues at all to those wonderful non-flowers.

The non-flowers are actually called 'bracts' and are a special king of leaf associated with the flowers. The flowers themselves appear only briefly and have since gone.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 515, Zebra Plant' 1/1250s f/2.8 ISO640 100mm

I have read that the ideal 'landscape' has three key elements; the foreground, the middle ground and background.

With that in mind I decided to look for something washed ashore. These two washed up lumps of sea weed may not be the most exotic foregrounds imaginable but at short notice and without a lot of options I decided to make them my feature. I think it works though this kind of depth of field can be quite challenging and even at f/22 it is a compromise.

One thing I recently came to realise is how important hyper-focal calculations are in getting this kind of depth. Simply focusing on getting the foreground tack sharp at wide open aperture and then stopping does not work and would have resulted in an out of focus background.

An alternative to using hyper-focal calculations to get the focus right is to use the live preview, stop down to your target aperture and pick two points, one in the extreme foreground and the other in the background. Using live preview zoomed in to the maximum magnification, manually find the best focus for each of the two chosen points in the frame set the focus about halfway between. It's always best to use the largest aperture you can get away for the depth you need as very small apertures will make the entire image soft due to diffraction.

So does the combination make for an ideal landscape? Your thoughts are welcome.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 514, Washed Up' 20s f/22 ISO200 15mm

What caught my eye in this image was the way the reflections of the sky, the beach, the jetty and the sunset seems to perfectly balance the the light coming from within the Thai Orchid restaurant.

Like a perfect fusion of two worlds, beautifully set dining tables seem to float over and through the outside world of the the jetty and the sunset beyond.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 513, Fusion' 15s f/8.0 ISO100 15mm

Emily Davis had the crowd in the palm of her hands as she wooed them with her bluesy tones at the Wheatsheaf the other night.

This was my first time at the Wheatsheaf on Goeorge Street and it will certainly not be my last. We listened a bit, chatted some, drank a little, solved some global problems in our conversations and I even got to take a few photos.

I have to say I loved the lighting on the stage with the artist being well lit while the background remained subdued. I have blown out the highlights just a little on this image so I am feeling the need to return soon for a bit more practice. Oh and for a bit more of that Yeasty Boys, Hud-a-wa' Strong!


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 512, Emily Davis' 1/20s f/2.8 ISO2000 200mm

There is a strange device hanging from the ceiling of the top floor of Adelaide's Malcolm Reid building.

In 1885 Robert McCarty patented a system of carrying packages on a wire and his invention was licensed to the Rapid Service Store Railway Company of Detroit. In 1887 Lamsons took control of this company and marketed the system under the name "Rapid". The Rapid Wire system was born and so it came to pass that the Lamson Rapid Wire system was installed in the Malcolm Reid building of Rundle Street.

I've since learned more about how this amazing contraption transformed the retail experience for countless shoppers over the decades allowing them to complete their transaction with the sales person and not with a back office clerk. Perhaps this heralded the beginning of the 'ideal retail experience'.

I've not yet discovered when the Lamson Rapid Wire system was installed here in the Malcolm Reid building so please let me know if you know more about its history.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 511, The Lamson Rapid Wire System' 6s f/11 ISO100 15mm

When I first started preparing this image I was not sure which way to take it.

There is a lot going on and I am still not sure if it is all too busy. All my attempts to draw the eye to one subject seems to fail as I found my eyes tracing circles around the water. Framed by the bridge, the path, the horizon and the wall.

In the end I just decided that it didn't really need to have a main subject after all.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 510, Tracing Circles' 20s f/8.0 ISO160 15mm

No sooner had I decided on a title for this image and I had Abba songs coming to mind!

Perhaps the recent Eurovision Song Contest had a little to do with it as well! In any case this image really has nothing to do with any of those! I have collected a few aircraft images so far but not really tried to tackle anything really interesting. The idea of capturing aircraft in silhouette does however intrigue me, especially the technical difficulty in getting a sharp moving object while still conveying movement.

This image has achieved some of my goals but I am not sure I like the propellers frozen as if flying with no engines. The shutter speed was very fast which was great to lock in the plane but I think to get a decent amount of movement blur in the props I might have to drop it down to somewhere around the 1/200-1/100s. I suppose I should do the the maths first though and try and nail it first go next time.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 509, Arrival' 1/3200s f/2.8 ISO640 200mm

Our sea grasses are a very important part of the local coastal ecosystem. As well as providing important habitat for many creatures unique in the world to our southern shores they are also important nurseries for commercial fish species.

My very first encounter with our coastal sea grass took place in a scene very similar to this one. Piles and piles of washed up and rotting dark matter turned amusement park as we built fortresses and tunnels from the towering mounds. By the end of the day we were covered in black, green and brown fragments of squished rotting matter mixed with sand and we stank.

I miss those days!


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 508, Seaweed Dreams' 5s f/11 ISO800 15mm

According to common expression, the last thing you would want is to be 'led up the garden path'.

Unless of course there is a well stocked bar, a cosy fire and a live band up there. Which there was!

So much for common expression...


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 507, Up The Garden Path' 1/6 f/10 ISO500 15mm

The last tenuous rays of an already set sun catch the tail of Corporate Aircraft Charter's Beech 200 BB-1150 (VH-URU) as it prepares to land at Adelaide Airport.

I discovered a little incident 5 years ago where this very same plane become the spectacle of the day by landing here on its belly when the pilot could not get the landing gear down. To make matters worse half of Adelaide's aircraft enthusiast community were there to see the first arrival of the new A380. They got more than they bargained or had hoped for that day!

It's funny the things I learn about the images I create.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 506, Lights and Landing Gear Down' 1/1250 f/2.8 ISO640 200mm

This weekend we were privileged to share in the wedding of two of our very dear friends.

The location was kept secret and as late afternoon became evening we were whisked away on a chartered bus to enjoy a wonderful evening.
The McLaren Vale winery 'Maxwell Wines' turned out to be the secret venue and the evening was perfect in every way.

Thank you Christine and Wayne. Your ceremony was sincere and beautiful, the food and wine exquisite and the dancing fun.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 505, Wedding Dance' 2.5 f/10 ISO1600 15mm

The afternoon sunlight during late autumn and winter add a golden magic to images made with evening approaching.

This image shows that beautiful combination of yellow light from the setting sun and dark greys of the sky. This is another example of using a fish-eye lens for a landscape by placing the horizon right in the middle of the frame and then cropping a little of the bottom away to give some compositional interest.

Oh, and as I have mentioned before, I love jetties.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 504, Golden Light' 1/13 f/18 ISO100 15mm

Time and time again I am drawn to jetties.

Historically the role of jetties is quite clear in being a way for boats and ships to operate out of a beach with a gradually sloping sea bottom. I suspect that the re recreational thing just evolved from there. For most jetties now on our our South Australian coastline, their only role is recreational.

I think the thing that most people love about being on a jetty is the way it transports you to a place out over the water without losing the feeling of security of being on land.

When ever I visit someplace new and there is a jetty in sight the first thing I do is go for a stroll along the jetty, peer out to sea or across the water and then look back at scene I know I wont get any other way.

Yes, I love jetties.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 503, Autumn Grange Jetty' 1/4 f/11 ISO160 15mm

I often wonder what is on board a ship I see on the distant horizon.

In this image I captures a second smaller vessel cruising past the larger container ship. It was moving a quite pace as it seemed to race by the larger ship.
With the dramatic sky behind it made for quite an evening spectacle.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 502, Ships On The Horizon' 1/250s f/6.3 ISO640 200mm

I have been back to this same location a few times now to try and capture one specific image.

Each time the light was not right due to the recent heavy cloud and unpredictable light around sunset. I have seen the image I want to capture a few time while driving but never at the same time as an opportunity to capture it.
So with pun intended I will keep you in the dark until I do get the right light and I took this image instead looking in the opposite direction.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 501, Duck Pond' 0.4s f/13 ISO320 17mm

I watched for some time as this man stood leaning over the railing. He was already there when I arrived late in the afternoon.

I wondered what he wondered about up there on the jetty staring down into the water. Perhaps it was more of an idle curiosity than a true wondering but then I was on a mission to observe and create and he unwittingly had become the subject of my creation. Most of my wondering was really about composition and lighting and f-stops and exposure. I did wonder if he had even noticed me and if he minded being in the image but felt no great compulsion to ask.

It was dark after I left and he was still there, wondering upon the tide.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 500, Wondering Upon The Tide' 1/40s f/18 ISO100 15mm

When I was child 'Mother's Day' was a special occasion to make a big fuss about our Mum with flowers, presents and breakfast in bed.

I remember a time later in life when I had become cynical of these 'invented' occasions and the commercial hype and activity that sought to wring every last dollar out of out pockets.

Time changes perspectives and now these invented occasions serve as a poignant reminder of why it is so important to make each other feel important and never take anyone in your life for granted. Today we gave this beautiful pink cyclamen to my mum but in some way in our hearts it is for all out there who are mothers, aspire to be mothers, never had the chance to be mothers and who find themselves being mothers.

Never forget and use any excuse to celebrate the important people in our lives. Happy Mother's Day Mum.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 499, A Cyclamen For Mum' 1/400s f/2.8 ISO640 100mm

I often hear about 'the golden hour', that last hour before sunset where everything becomes bathed in the soft remaining sunlight.

Sure this is a lovely time to create images but then there is that last 2 minutes. It begins the moment the sun touches the horizon, the last moment when full face of the sun shines its yellow light on the landscape. This is the brightest yellow and most horizontal the light will get. Actually at this point the sun has already dropped below the horizon. It is only still visible due to refraction and the sun's rays being bent by the earth's atmosphere.

From this moment the light begins to dim and the yellow begins to fade. One minute later the sun is sitting as a semicircle on the horizon and the colours in the landscape begin to cool towards the grey blues of twilight. After two minutes the sun finally dips below the horizon and the landscape's transition from yellow-orange to blue is complete.

A two minute window to capture this is not long, but not so short that you can't enjoy the experience and take photo.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 498, The Last Two Minutes' 1/13s f/9.0 ISO125 15mm

Today's annular eclipse probably went completely unnoticed, at least here in Adelaide anyway!

For those in the Northern part of Australia and living within the 150Km wide transit path the experience would have been a surreal soft yellow ambiance. For those actually observing the eclipse they would have seen the moon fitting neatly inside the the sun creating a fiery donut of light in the morning sky.

Here in Adelaide we only got to see a 33% partial eclipse. As I was capturing this image a high school student walked by. I showed him the eclipse in the camera display and he was dumbfounded how nothing around hinted at what was happening tin the sky.

If only there were a way to show both the sun and the moon in the same frame rather that just its silhouette. Still I think this image is dramatic enough on its own with surface texture and sunspots visible.

More about today's annular eclipse can be found at http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/OH2013.html#SE2013May10A


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 497, An Odd Shadow' 1/8000s f/32 - ND ISO160 400mm

More and more I am noticing the role reflections have on composition and bringing a dynamic element to a scene.

It is funny how the brain works. Most of the time it sees what it believes is there and the uses the visual input to validate it rather than the other way around. When water is perfectly still I find myself marveling in the beautiful reflections but is there is just a little bit of surface disturbance the entire scene reverts to normal and the reflection goes unnoticed.

Here is where a photograph is different. Now even quite poor reflections become very important in creating the scene, the feel and the sense of a reality. Here in this image of the Seaview Road bridge over the Torrens River these soft reflections, though not perfect, provide what feels like to me a strong but gentle counterpoise to the complex and almost harsh detail being reflected.

Or maybe all you see is a bridge!


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 496, On and Out To Sea' 0.6s f/7.1 ISO160 15mm

Many times arriving after dark into Adelaide Airport I have seen this sight.

Looking back at the control tower with the main terminal and awaiting/parked planes off to the right and light aircraft off to the left it looks so small and compact. I have seen it change considerably over the years I have been here and have to say I prefer it over nearly all other Australian airports. It's compact, efficient and very functional. It may not be as exciting or entertaining as our bigger neighbors but if all you want to do is get in and out it's just right!

I actually didn't create this image from the tarmac, that would have been very naughty! Instead I scoured the perimeter and found a secret spot where I could take this without a fence in the way. Still I was looking over my shoulder the entire time and was glad to pack up and leave when done.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 495, Across The Tarmac' 8s f/3.5 ISO160 100mm

Less than a year and a half ago the view from here was very different.

The dates on the three headstones in the foreground are separated by one of the hardest 6 weeks our family has had to experience. In that very short space of time my mother lost her last two sisters and her husband (our dad).
Recently a very good friend of mine lost their dad as well and other friends are on watch for one or the other of their parents. When it comes to dealing with loss and grief there are as many reactions and ways to manage feelings as you could imagine and everyone is different.

I can only really speak for myself but for I have discovered that taking time to learn about my dad and his homeland abroad has become very important. Allowing myself to both regret and then let go of all the questions I will no longer be able to ask; funny how they were questions I'd never even have thought to ask when he was still around. And lastly visiting the essence of him. Be it at his grave or in my head, not asking any questions, simply being.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 494, Alive in My Heart' 1/5s f/18 ISO100 15mm

A change of vision from the very large to the very small led to this image.

I was actually playing around with a macro lens and 2x converter and trying to capture bugs in flight. After many attempts I still had not managed to get a critter right on the focal plane which was incredibly tight, perhaps around 1mm deep. In the end I gave up in frustration and photographed something I had a little more control over.

There is nothing really exciting about paper napkins but it did give me the opportunity to play with lighting. For this image I used a soft fill flash in the front and brighter flash at the rear right to provide a combination of strong side lighting with just a hint of rim light.

I'll try for those critters again soon enough.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 493, Paper Napkins' 1/200s f/11 ISO100 200mm Macro + Strobes

One of the best things about living near the sea are amazing sunsets.

One of the worst things about living near the sea is that you get to see yet another sunset! At least I can talk a little about this image and make it worth your while.

Last night we enjoyed yet again another magnificent sunset and on surveying the beach and noting that the tide was out I immediately decided to work with the still pools of shallow water lying about. Working with a wide angle lens I was careful to keep the horizon in the center of the frame for the initial capture in order to hide the inherent barrel distortion.

You often hear about placing horizons either above or below centre as part of composition rules. This can however create unpleasant and unintended distortion in the captured image. If you are shooting with a very wide lens where placing the horizon where you want creates an undesired curvature, I would suggest moving the horizon to the point in the frame where it is perfectly straight and then later cropping it to where you really intended it to be. In this case though I wanted a centered horizon to make a feature of the mirrored reflections. The centered horizon did not however quite look right thanks to the prominence of both the sun and the jetty so I dropped it just a little.

Sure you can see elements of the 1/3 rule in this image if you look but I find that even though rules are a great starting point I ultimately create what feels right to me even if I can't express 'why' other than with the image itself.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 492, Just Feels Right' 1/80s f/18 ISO100 15mm

I once heard an old Polynesian proverb, 'the Gods do not take from a man's life the time spent fishing'.

The cynic in me suggests it might have been invented by ancient island chiefs to curb laziness and promote survival of island clans through promoting ongoing fishing and the provision of food. I wonder if the proverb might have a spark of truth in our modern stress filed lives though.

I am not a fisherman but I am around them quite often and one thing I notice is that when fishers are fishing, nothing else matters. Work, finances, the car needing repairs or the home needing maintenance all seem to fade at least for a while and if there is a group of friends there almost always laughter and playfulness. It does not even seem to matter if they go home empty handed. It is about the shining, not the fish.

I know for a fact this fisherman went home with an empty catch but while he was there he was happy and maybe he will live a little longer for it.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 491, Empty Catch' 1/80s f/11 ISO125 15mm

Time for something new, at least different from my last set of images.

They say that to be a really great photographer you can't be a generalist. You need to find a niche and then become the best you can in a very specialized area. There is probably some truth in that but I'd argue that does not make a really great photographer , just a really great 'insert niche here' photographer.

For now I am still working out what I like and am more than happy being a generalist. That said I find my self time and time and time again, being drawn back to the beach.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 490, Back To The Beach' 1.6s f/14 ISO320 17mm

The very first keyboard I ever owned was a Korg.

To this day the first place my eyes go when surveying a stage are the keyboards and especially the brand labels on the back.

So this image is a bit of a fan-boy shot for Korg but hopefully I have captured a bit of stage action to go with it.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 489, King Korg' 1/40s f/2.8 ISO1600 15mm

I love watching a great musician practice their craft, in this image that musician is Chino Yuson. It really connects the musician and the music.

It was not always this way for me. Why bother going to a live show when I can enjoy the perfectly produced version. For years I could not relate to my friends and their love of live music. Things are very different for me now

I'd like to say that one day I had some epiphany, some magical experience that changed how I felt about live music but I can't. For me it crept up on me gradually. The product of years of being taken to gigs, concerts, band practice sessions and just watching amazing musicians practice their craft.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 488, Practicing His Craft' 1/40s f/2.8 ISO1600 200mm