Andrew Thomas Photographer: October 2013

Amongst the Rocks and Trees at Lake Burrumbeet

Some nice evening light out at Lake Burrumbeet on Thursday. I found a new spot I hadn't been to before and amused myself with different rock and tree combinations. Always worthwhile visisitong Burrumbeet....I always come home with something worth sharing.

"The Falls" at Kooroocheang

I've finally got around to posting this selection from last Fridays visit out to "The Falls" at Kooroocheang. It really is an amazing place, I know I could spend a lot of time exploring up and down the gorge. And by the way , the creek that feeds the falls is known as Jackys Creek.

Smooth Water

Wednesday turned out grey....what to do? Play around with long exposures on water at Lake Wendouree seemed like my only chance to capture something of interest. Fortunately the sky was pretty nice and these turned out quite well. For the technically minded, these varied between 5 seconds and 13 seconds to get the water looking that way.

Black and White Water

Here's another set from Tuesdays adventure. All of these looked really good in colour, though I thought they were even better in black and white.

Waterfalling Wonders

On Tuesday I had an appointment in Daylesford, about 45kms north of Ballarat. I thought I'd take the opportunity whilst up that way to do a bit of waterfalling. There are 3 different falls all within a relatively close position of each other. First time I have been to these falls this year....I was very interested to see how they were all flowing. First stop was Loddon Falls at Glenlyon - a very nice falls that is hard to get a unique view of, so hopefully this is a bit different.
Then onto the well known Trentham Falls - Trentham Falls is one of the longest single drop waterfalls in Victoria, plunging some 32 metres over basalt columns. Though it looks great from up high on the official viewing platform, from down at river level you can really capture the whole feel of the location. Water flow here was excellent and water spray was everywhere.
Next stop was Sailors Falls, about 6km south of Daylesford on the Ballan Road. This falls had the lowest flow of the 3, but there was still enough to keep me occupied for almost an hour.
As you can imagine I took plenty more images of all these locations, hopefully I'll post a few more later, though I'm building up a big back log of images!

Last Light Late at Lake

Though I did catch some very green colour earlier in the day on my run around Lake Wendouree in Ballarat, it was the late burst of light right on sunset, after it had been very wet and grey, that produced the best results form the day. This is a great example of living so close to the Lake......you can keep an eye out the window and when something interesting develops you can be up at the Lakes edge in a couple of minutes. The last one here shows how I keep myself dry when shooting!
Today is my two year anniversary ........ I'll send a card to the first person that guesses what for!

While The Waters Flowing........

.....you know I'll be there! Still making the most of the weeks heavy rainfall, a visit to the ever popular Bo Peep Creek always allows for some fun in the water. And these 2 trees often catch my eye, this time in black and white. And an added extra from the day before's trip.....heading back to the car after photographing the falls a short burst of sunlight lit up the fields with some great skies in the distance.

Lal Lal Falls - The Edge

With the good rain this week I decided a visit to Lal Lal Falls would be worthwhile. This time, after many previous visits here, I wanted to come home with something a bit different, so I decided to spend my time on the north side of the falls. After the first image here from along the gorge rim, I then started to explore ways of getting right into the action. So I (very!) carefully made my way down to the edge so that I could get some views looking out, and down into the gorge. You can see in the last one here how close the tripod was to the edge - the tripod leg was a lot closer to the edge than I was! Any more water flowing and this would have been impossible, so looks like I timed it just right! Definitely worth clicking on these for a larger look!

Back to "The Falls" at Kooroocheang

On Friday morning I made a return visit to Tuesdays exciting new location - "The Falls" at Kooroocheang. With about 40mm of rain since Tuesday I was expecting to see a very noticeable increase in the flow over the falls. It was an early rise and I was out there just after 7am on a lovely cold, clear, frosty morning. And it did not disappoint....the water flow was considerably higher....but those images will have to wait! I got so many great images I'm going to split them up, and to start this set shows some of the other great scenery here all within a very small area. The last one here was what I was hoping was my way out of the gorge at the bottom of the falls. Only on reaching that gap high up did I realise that was as far as I was going, so I had to back track down again into the gorge and back down the creek to get out! Plenty of Falls images to come........!

Lal Lal Catch Up

Not the falls...the Estate. These are from a visit last Friday morning. Some great spring colours were highlighted by reflections in the waterfall at the edge of the lake.

3 Visits to the Lake

On Thursday I made 3 trips up to Lake Wendouree here in Ballarat. First one was whilst running a lap from home mid afternoon (blue beak), then a bit later in the arvo when I thought we might get some interesting conditions that faded away...and then I wandered up for the sunset that was a lot better than I though it would be from down the street!
I'm heading back to "The Falls" (that I visited on Tuesday) on Friday morning.....can't wait to see how the heavy rain this week has helped the flow!

Spring Colour at Ballarat Botanic Gardens

Plenty of colour around at the moment, so on Wednesday I thought a visit to the Ballarat Botanic Gardens was likely to offer some good subjects. And the lily pond, alongside the fernery, had some terrific colourful plants on its banks that were catching the late afternoon light and the reflections with the wind ruffling the water surface were spectacular. Certainly worth clicking on these for a larger, colourful look!

Kooroocheang Surprise

It's not often I post here on the blog with something totally new and unexpected. As those who are regular visitors here realise, I know the Ballarat district quite well and in particular I'm always searching out new "water" locations. A trip out to Kooroocheang, about 30 minutes north of Ballarat, presented me with a new location that got me very excited. After the Smeaton display from a couple of weeks ago I received a call from a local, offering to show me a few sites that I may not be aware of, and I readily accepted Bryden's offer. So at 9am on Tuesday we met at the Smeaton Hotel, first stop the top of Mt Kooroocheang, perhaps the most iconic of the large volcanic hills in the entire area. I've often wanted to get to the top and was really happy to get there, especially as we were able to drive all the way up! Though it was a grey day, the vibrance of the local district at the moment, with some dark threatening clouds that almost felt were within reach, the views were fantastic and will certainly be worth a return visit or two.
Second on our agenda was a place known as "The Falls". I must admit I was expecting some nice 2-3 feet cascades on a small creek. So you can imagine my surprise when I was getting closer and realised that we had something major here....in fact I reckon this falls has got to be around 40 feet high! Still enough flow to enable me to get some nice images, and after spending some time around the top, we decided to make the long trek down to the bottom. Though very overgrown in parts, and more so now than in previous years, we made our way along the rocky creek to come out at a very pretty clearing that gave you a great view of the falls. We've had some really good rainfall overnight as I write this so I'm hoping to go back and see how much more water is falling in this very special place.
And to finish off a great morning, I stopped off at the often visited Berry No. 1 Mine at Lawrence. Yes, I went home very content after this adventure!