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Ever dreamed of travelling to isolated wilderness areas to photograph the landscape but been defeated by the practicalities of getting there? Wished you had a helicopter? Wondered how you could hike with a heavy pack and camp out for days at a time?

Well, this Australian amateur wilderness landscape photographer did it. Here’s the story of the daunting task that lay ahead and how I overcame the obstacles.

Background

My son works at Olympic Dam Mine situated about 90km north of Woomera in outback South Australia, and lives with his wife and little family at Roxby Downs, the town constructed to service the mine. He’s an electrician, and besides taking a few pictures of electrical installations, the massive machinery he often works on, and my granddaughter, has little interest in photography.

I drove for 21 hours from the Far South Coast of New South Wales, to visit my son and to see this arid desert region, which has become his home for the foreseeable future.

Opportunity for Wilderness Landscape Photography

Well, the desert is fairly flat and quite bland at first glance but that’s not the full story.

With dry salt lakes, myall trees, stone strewn clay pans, and red sand dunes, wilderness landscape photography images clamour for my attention from Roxby Downs to Andamooka and beyond to Lake Torrens.

Getting Around the Desert

But how can I get around? Distance is so vast and the country so inhospitable. It will kill you just for being there if you don’t look out. The family station wagon won’t go far off the bitumen. The tracks are so rough, and when it rains in this six-inch rainfall country, even a 4×4 will bog down or slip in the clay soil. There’s no way I could afford a 4×4 good enough for the trip from the coast to the centre and reliable enough to go out alone into that country. Furthermore, you wouldn’t take a good-looking vehicle on those rocky, desert tracks.

So I decided on an ATV. That’s an “All Terrain Vehicle,” “Quad Bike,” “four wheel motorbike.” I can transport it in a trailer behind the car and go to the end of the road, then jump on the bike.

Setting Up The ATV

The bike, set up with boxes on the back and front racks, pulls a small trailer. With this configuration I not only get myself way out beyond where a 4×4 will go without too much walking, but also my camera gear, tools, emergency supplies, water, fuel and my camp as well. In a nutshell, that’s about it.

Navigating the Wilderness Landscape

Navigation is with a topographic map, compass and GPS. Using the coordinates from the GPS, I know where I am on the map which is so much simpler than trying to identify distant features on a flat landscape.

For months, in my spare time, I studied the maps, getting the feel of the geography and topography and comparing this to the satellite images on Google Earth. This way I identified areas of likely interest. It’s amazing how the salt build up in Lake Torrens shows up on the satellite images confirming what I suspected from the elevation contours on the topographic map.

Wilderness Landscape Photography Trip

It’s 82 km from the bitumen to Bosworth Homestead, travelling right across Arcoona Station on the way. Parking the car beside a shearers hut, and after some good geographic and topographic advice from the pastoralist, I jumped on the bike and headed out along the track that follows the western side of Station Creek to Andamooka Island and made camp as the sun was setting.

Now, I’ve always wanted to camp on an island since I read “The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe”, as a boy. Andamooka Island, about 40 km long and up to 10 km wide is in Lake Torrens and separated from the mainland by a channel varying in width from a couple of hundred meters to a couple of kilometres.

The shallower parts of the channel were dry, so crossing was no trouble. Extensive salt water holes in the channel, super saturated and with the salt crystallizing out, provided micro and full view landscape images over coming days. With the sky subtly reflected in the base of salt crystals covered with shallow water, the stark vista was a wilderness landscape photography opportunity to be seized. Sights to blow your mind!

Camping Out

Camping, as you would imagine, was pretty basic. You can’t carry much on an ATV. No esky means no fresh meat, but tinned tuna on top of tinned beans and spaghetti goes down well when you’re hungry.

Priorities in Wilderness Landscape Photography

Photography took precedence over eating. Each day: out of bed, on the bike and off photographing before sunrise. Back to camp for brunch about noon. Off photographing again till late and then try to get back to camp before the diminishing glow of the setting sun left me in the dark. Although I have good lights on the bike, the country is just too rough to cover in the dark.

Hidden Dangers in the Desert

Although rare, this country is known to host the world’s most venomous snake, the inland taipan, as well as the king brown and several other dangerous species. There are also said to be scorpions about. I’m told that the dingoes have been eradicated from this area, south of the dog fence, but the nights were still pretty scary. Every time the breeze rustled the tent I’d wake, laying tense and listening for the sound of pads on the rocks. Needles to say, I gave my sleeping bag a good shake out before getting in each night.

Coming Wilderness Landscape Photography Trip

Well, I came home with a heap of digital images, some colour film to send for processing and some B&W to process myself. I’m going again, you know. Want to come with me? Then go to my website, send an e-mail and we’ll talk about it.

Laurie McArthur is a wilderness landscape photographer based on the New South Wales Far South Coast, Australia.

Laurie’s images may be viewed at http://www.southimage.net/

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Photographers have been trying to utilize the light of the moon in their landscape photography ever since the photographic process was invented. It was not until World War II, however, that technology had improved enough to make night photography possible.

Today, despite technological advances, knowing the phase of the moon during a nighttime photography shoot is important as it will affect everything from the type of equipment that you’ll need to the actual composition of your photos.

When embarking on a night photography trip, there are standard types of equipment that you will need to take with you.

• A 35mm camera that will allow you to manually set very long exposure times is a must
• A good, sturdy tripod is mandatory
• A cable release
• A good carrying case or a vest with a lot of pockets for your equipment
• Extra batteries for your camera
• Many rolls of slow or medium film (60 or 100 ISANEVER use 400 ISA even if it’s what happens to be in your camera. Your photos will turn out much too grainy to be useful).
• Lenses with which you are already comfortable
• A stopwatch rather than a wristwatch to record exposure lengths is preferable. Stopwatches are more accurate and will give you more reliable information for future moon photography shoots.
• A notebook and several pens for recording exposure times and other important information
• A flashlight so that you can easily record your information

Remember that if this is your first attempt at night photography by moonlight, you will largely spend your time experimenting. The resulting photographs and your records will help you plan your next venture more effectively.

The best times for landscape photography without additional light sources, or looking at it in a different manner, away from city lights, is either when the moon is full, the two days before the full moon and the two days after the full moon. Any clouds in the sky will also affect the amount of light available for your night photography, just as they would if you were shooting during the day.

You will have to experiment with your exposure times as so many elements will affect the outcome. The degree of available moonlight; any other light sources; clouds; rain; light reflective surfaces; each of them can make a huge difference to the amount of exposure time needed.

In general, during night photography, one can say that on a night of full moon, with optimum conditions, 8 seconds at f/8 using ISO 100 film will be about right. If there’s a crescent moon and conditions are also optimal, you’ll need as much as 10 hours on one shot! So you see, experimentation while photographing the moon is really the only way to go.

Repeat your shots with different exposure lengths so that you can get a feel for what your camera will do for you.

A very nice composition for a moonscape might include the moon with beams bouncing off of a river, stream or creek.

As the moon moves through its different phases, you can still enjoy landscape photography at night although you may have to bring some “extras” and move locations.

Different moonscape compositions to experiment with during your moonlight photography shoot include:

• A waxing crescent, or a small portion of the moon, hanging in the sky over sparkling city lights.
• Bring a flash or a flash unit to your moon photography shoot in order to illuminate an abandoned house, use colored gels to get different color effects and have a muted last quarter moon lurking in the background.
• As the moon goes from full to new, you can play with light effects from the stars or allow car lights to streak through your composition.

When photographing the moon, be sure to record not only the length of time that you exposed your film, but also general weather conditions and what phase the moon was in. This will help you to produce better photos in the future.

Night photography becomes easier when you’re able to plan properly so knowing how much natural light is likely to be available will help you pick the right time to go out and what kind of equipment to take.

Nighttime landscape photography is a creative, rewarding challenge that every keen photographer should try.

David Rose is a nature photographer and the creator of QuickPhase Pro, a popular moon phase software program. Visit http://www.calculatorcat.com/moon_phases to discover the fun and easy way to view the phases of the moon.

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