My life has been hectic lately with a number of events and undertakings. While my priority is still on finishing the sorting and processing of all my photographs from my Mongolia Cycle Challenge, there have been a few new prerogatives and incentives added to this. One of those is an exhibition that I'm currently working on with the proceeds fully going toward the Christina Noble Children's Foundation an organisation who's astounding efforts and dedication I was privileged to experience first hand while in their Orphanage in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

I'm still working out the finer details on how this will proceed, however in nutshell I plan on having a collection of my images from both Mongolia and China on display in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, over a six month period.

My experience with this charity while based on a short, half a day visit, was both profound and inspirational. I was captivated with the children in their beauty of spirit, swarming around, holding my hands, playing with my cameras, enjoying the warmth of the human touch after having their innocence and youth ripped away from them them in completely unimaginable ways.

I have found a great level of support for my Christina Noble Children's Foundation fund raiser drive, a support that has made me realise just how many other people feel the same way. Even my own two sons have agreed to forgo their Christmas presents this year and to allocate all our usual present founds toward buying a Ger or a Yurt for a family of six, in Mongolia. Therefore starting with this wonderful gesture that has made me very proud I now embark toward a new path in my life, one filled with more meaning and purpose...

Finally I would like to pass on a definition a new friend that I met in Mongolia recently emailed to me:

"If on the day you die it can be said of you, that "There is someone in this world who is better off because of the life that you have lived", then you have achieved success in life" definition of a successful life... Leonard Martin

When I first started with digital photography around three years ago it was with a pretty decent compact, a Canon A95. For the first year and a bit I sharpened every single of my images by a factor of 150% & pixels at 3-4 ignore threshold and 3-4 radius, sometimes more in addition to boosting the contrast and brightness by 40/30 or more..

The resulting images looked great on my monitor and didn't turn out too shabby on 8x10 prints either, while for web they were ideal... However.... when I started looking at selling my images via microstock I got a whole lot of rejections (over 90%) due to over sharpening and over filtering. Only the best images made it through and even those I would never submit now days.

Thus the learning process commenced.

Read More...

So I got this email during the week from David, asking me if I was interested in entering the Tumut 3 Hour race on Sunday 27 April. Never having done anything like this before but with a bit of confidence in my fitness and riding abilities I figured why not, it can't hurt, right ? After all with my mountain bike trip coming up in Mongolia it seemed prudent to make most of every opportunity to improve my fitness. Besides I figured it could be fun to test myself against other riders.

This race has now been part of the Tumut’s Festival of the Falling Leaf, third time in a row and doesn't seem to be going away. For the last three years it has attracted more than 200 participants, many who have traveled from Wagga, Canberra, Albury, Beechworth and the South Coast to take on the demanding, 7.3km Tumut course, comprising a selection of the recreational trails and road network within Tumut State forest.

Read More...

The April 2008 school holidays as opposed to the usual time away at a single destination comprised of number of shorter jaunts that included camping by the seaside, some challenging bike rides, bushwalking in the rainforest and exploring the local national parks, Namadgi and Tidbinbilla. The boys had a blast but did end up feeling a bit worn out by the myriad of activities thus this was balanced by a few in between days of computer games time.

While the bike riding was enjoyable and allowed me to continue building my fitness for the upcoming cycling trip in June/July this year, the camping and bushwalking allowed me for some great photo opportunities in my favourite times of dusk and dawn.

Read More...

For my Xmas 2007 holiday I went camping for a week into the Australian Snowy Mountains with my adventurous mum. During this trip, which took us all around the snowies, in addition to providing many great photo opportunities I ran into Peter Cochran who runs horse treks in Kosciuszko National Park with the permission of National Parks and Wildlife.

Peter's family settled the area in the early 1800's and they have a long and interesting history, embodying the spirit of the man from Snowy River. While this meeting was incidental (he spotted me taking photographs of his beloved horses while in the paddock), we got on quite well and one thing led to another and before I knew it we agreed for me to come along to his next horse trek (all costs inclusive) in order for me to take some pro photographs which could then be used on his revamped website, also to be arranged by myself. Not being one to knock back an opportunity to spend some time with a great man like Peter, in the outback and on horseback, I was back in the Snowy Mountains after only one night Canberra with my cameras lock and loaded.

As easily foreseen, I ended up having a great time that amounted to being easily my best horse riding experience. Five days in the saddle all in all, eight to nine hours per day horse rides, cameras in hand in the fabulous high country of the Kosciuszko National Park, I could not ask for more. Peter's personal company added a lot to this, both during the rides and at the campfires where I really enjoyed his poetry with his Brumbies poem being my favourite. I was also fortuitous to be in great company with the other riders, Kate and Steve, Ian and Heather, Lesley and Jenny the cook making it extra special.

Not having visited the area for a while, I instantly feel in love with this country, a passion which hopefully some of my photography has managed to transpire. Peter's now completed and new website is at http://www.cochranhorsetreks.com.au/. Also several of my images have already been used in German magazines and newspapers re. the brumbie situation down under.


Read More...