Dubrovnik. While I was walking.

Dubrovnik. Croatia. First impressions and Travel tips.

(First tip is for bloggers. Save your post as you go or you might make one last adjustment before you post it and choose to discard that change only to discover you’ve discarded the whole fucking blog post with no way to recover it).

The people are friendly.

The place is beautiful.

Everyone speaks English.

They don’t use Euro so bring plenty of cash (Kuna)

It is peaceful. Nobody hassles you. There are no spruikers or hagglers or hustlers. Apart from the thousands of tourists, it is a pleasure to walk the streets. It feels safe and peaceful.

It’s costs 200 Kuna (close to $50 depending on the exchange rate) to walk the Walls of the Old Town. The steps aren’t as bad as they say. If you’re staying in the Old Town it would be a hassle to lug your luggage to your accomm. We stayed 4km away at Lapad and caught the bus in. It was worthwhile for us to buy a 3day Dubrovnik Card as it included entry to the Walls (and a stack of other places) as well as bus passes.

The beaches are pebbly so bring shoes you can swim in as they’re impossible to walk on as you sink into the pebbles and it’s very ouchy.

Best tip I received before I left home - Bring a powerboard.

While I was walking...

A new neighbourhood, on the other side of town, in the middle of winter.
Late one sunny winter afternoon, after being holed up inside working all day at my mates house while cat sitting, I set off with the camera to see what I could find.

Hiding in plain sight

A tiny flower in the back yard. I sent the photo to my mate and he said he didn’t know he had any flowers in the back yard. He’s home now and still hasn’t found the flowers. They are pretty tiny.

A timeless classic

A Camelia in the front yard.

Hope

In the depths of winter, a splash of vibrant yellow provides hope for the future.

Succulent Surprise

Succulents remind me of warmer climates and seemed out of place, but quite happy, in a neighbours front garden.

Clouds

I give my students ‘word challenges’ to photograph. One of the words for this week was clouds so I thought I’d join in too.

Amongst the bleak background, a tiny bud of life.

High achiever

A fancy little surprise growing prolifically along a footpath. These dainty alyssums caught the fading sunlight. They remind me of my grandmothers garden, growing through the cracks in the concrete path. Apparently they stink, but I don’t recall that about them.

It's complicated

Arum lilies mean different things to different people. My (ex) mother-in-law shuddered when she saw one as they were know as a Funeral Flower when she was growing up. They’re a pest in Western Australia. But to me they are exotic flowers from my childhood and I adore them.

My week at an artists retreat

Ok, so it wasn’t an artists retreat. I was staying at a friends house, keeping his cat company while he was off holidaying in a sunny and exotic location. Just so happens he has a spacious studio I could play in. I had grand ambitions of doing a photoshoot every day I was there. It didn’t quite work out that way but I did manage to do a bit of experimenting. Mostly with flowers. And I’m sure my dear friend will be finding lilly pilly berries hiding all around his studios for weeks to come.

Whilst I didn’t create any masterpieces this time, it did make me value making time to just create. It’s the best way to learn and explore. I did have work and other commitments during this week but having space to ‘play’ has inspired me to look for an actual artists retreat for next year. If you know of any or know anything about Artists Retreats, please let me know. I have so many ideas and projects…

PS. Still life is a lot harder than it looks.

While I was walking...

Late one afternoon on a cold and gloomy day, I was at home feeling tired and snappy. I donned a coat and grabbed the camera and walked around the block. I moved to Fairfield earlier in the year and walk these streets often, but always on my way to a destination. This time, I had no goal other than to clear my thoughts. The first thing I noticed was the house number on the dilapidated fence a couple of doors down. 41. I don’t know if I’d call it a lucky number but it’s a significant number for me, and whilst I’d always been aware of the fence (in an otherwise orderly street its precarious state and the ramshackle yard it fronts is intriguing), I’d never noticed the number before. It was somehow reassuring.
I kept walking and looking around. Front yards, letter boxes, rusty gates, fences, trees, flowers, leaves, bark, porticos, arbours and architectural features.

The light was fading. I made it home just before the rain came down.
I can’t do mindfulness, but I can do this. I think it works just as good.

Have you been for a walk around your neighbourhood with a camera lately?

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How to Photograph Flowers

How to photograph flowers in a small kitchen without any fancy equipment.

Fingers included to show scale

Ingredients:

One stolen flower from the tree you walked past on the way home

A few pieces of baking paper from the third drawer.

One white chopping board

One camera with macro lens

One tripod

One kitchen window

Daylight

Optional: Spray bottle for water droplets. Timber chopping board for a dark background.

Method:

Tape one or two pieces of baking paper to the kitchen window. (Any window will do)

Place flower with baking paper behind it (backlit). I tried several options, including sitting the flower on a glass jar covered with baking paper, which worked quite well. I also used a complicated combination of a peg and some rubber bands and a spoon in the jar so the flower was ‘floating’. It worked, but was a bit precarious. I have since bought a gadget from an electronics shop that is perfect for holding flowers. I’ll share a photo in a future blog post.

Use the white board to reflect light back in to the shadow side of the flower.

Place the camera on the tripod as you’ll need a smallish aperture to get enough depth of field and you’ll end up with a slow shutter speed and you want to avoid useing a higher ISO to avoid noise in the image.

Camera used: Fujifilm XT-2. 60mm Macro lens.

Settings: A range of apertures between f/2.4 through to f/16. Shutter speeds from 1/125sec to 1/4sec. ISO 400.

Below: Behind the scenes iphone photos. Can you spot the Zebra in the background in the kitchen? (He was just a silent observer and had nothing to do with the photoshoot).

If you like this post or would like to see more photography recipes, leave a comment or at least hit the ‘like’ button so I know you’ve stopped by.
Thanks :-)

The tree with the tiny pink flowers

Time is a slippery devil. Tesselaars

I was just commenting on Facebook this morning (or was it yesterday?) about how much a broken wrist slows you down. I’m a few weeks out of plaster and hand therapy is going well but I’m amazed at how the year is disappearing. I picked up a brochure last week for a Flower Festival coming up at Tesselaars. This morning I was running through a list of possible things to do with the day when I pick up the brochure to check the dates. I was sure it was for the next month. Turns out today was the last day of an almost month long festival. Somehow, I was a month out.

I’ve been in Melbourne for nearly 9 years now (feels like about 2) and I’ve never been to Tesselaars. So I jumped in the car and off I went and spent a delightful afternoon amongst the flowers and gardens at Tesselaars. Here are a few of my favourites in no particular order.