Generated by All in One SEO v4.9.7.2, this is an llms.txt file, used by LLMs to index the site.

# Public Domain Astrophotography - Dylan O'Donnell

All the astrophotography on this site is considered public domain - use it however you want for free.

## Sitemaps

- [XML Sitemap](https://deography.com/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website.

## Posts

- [Archives](https://deography.com/archives/)
- [Centaurus A (Galaxy)](https://deography.com/centaurus-a-galaxy/) - Here's a free 4096px wide wallpaper of Centaurus A! (Also yes, I'm still alive) Cent A is a galaxy, but you'd be forgiven for not recognising that. It's distorted dust plane and the glow of hundreds of billions of stars we can't resolve make this a truly odd looking galaxy. I was happy to catch
- [The Pink Pony Club](https://deography.com/the-pink-pony-club/) - Are you a member of the pink pony club? Not the metaphorical gay bar, but the moment in your astrophotography journey when you capture the horsehead nebula for the first time and go "Wow, it actually does look like a horse." Unlike other nebulae nobody has to draw the outline, tell you to squint your
- [NGC 253 - Sculptor Galaxy](https://deography.com/ngc-253-sculptor-galaxy/) - This one was rushed but also a first light test of the new image train setup on the Celestron 14" EHD with F7 reducer. It needs way more integration time and extra channels to do it justice but I am happy for the FOV generally and to see this looking so sharp and detailed in
- [NGC 6729 - Old Mate Yoda](https://deography.com/ngc-6729-old-mate-yoda/) - I really smashed it out of the park with this shot! 10% talent/tylenol, 10% effort, 40% equipment and 40% weather/conditions! I don’t want to gloat but this southern hemisphere region is crazy good! I know you have andromeda in the north but southern stuff is just BONKERS. NGC 6729 - Old Mate Yoda Apertura 75Q
- [M17 Omega Nebula](https://deography.com/m17-omega-nebula-3/) - M17 Omega is like the TEMU version of M42 Orion. It kind of has the same shape and colours but looks like it's been hitting the crystal pipe and has fallen on hard times. And these are hard times. NASA budgets being zero'ed out. Telescopes and electronics cost a million dollars now. It's almost enough
- [M8 - The Lagoon Nebula](https://deography.com/m8-the-lagoon-nebula/) - Byron Bay is slowly changing. I don't need special filters to cut light pollution, but I fear that is now changing. When I started, the sky around Sunrise (North Byron Bay) was pristine, but it's degrading to Bortle 3-4 for me as the suburb grows and streetlights start to dot the new developments. I will
- [M20 - They call me Tripod](https://deography.com/m20-they-call-me-tripod/) - Although it could've used a longer RGB integration, the Ha Lum I added really brought out some depth in the background region with gentle glowing wisps of gas right around the whole frame. It's nice to see so much of the blue of this dual-coloured nebulae favourite and how far it extends. Another success for
- [The Dusty Eagle (Lupus)](https://deography.com/the-dusty-eagle-lupus/) - I finally got a couple of clear nights on the New Moon so was able to do some straight broadband for a change! This object doesn't have a designation and is just one small sliver of the huge amount of dust in the Lupus region. This is an amazingly rich area visible from the Southern
- [Cat's Claw Nebula NGC 6334](https://deography.com/cats-toe-nebula-ngc-6334/) - It doesn't look like the "Cat's Paw" at this magnification (3910mm) so I'm going with claw. Oxygen stretched hard to show the areas usually overwhelmed by this dominant hydrogen emission nebula. Celestron 14" Edge HD ZWO 2600MM Duo / EFW SkyWatcher EQ8-Rh Pro HOO 39 x 10m - Hydrogen 50 x 10m - Oxygen[III] Total
- [NGC 6164+6165 (Dragon's Egg Nebulae)](https://deography.com/ngc-61646165-dragons-egg-nebulae/) - This is a "first light" test image for the ZWO2600MM-Duo where I use on-axis guiding. It's a nice close up view of the "Dragon's Egg" nebula outburst from a young, binary star system that sometimes interacts. New measurements should the current outburst started only 7,500 years ago! “Dragon’s Egg” Celestron 14” EHD / F11 /
- [NGC 3603,3576 Nebulae](https://deography.com/statue-of-liberty-nebula/) - While my bigger (slower) telescope works away on smaller, distant patches of space it's nice to have this little portable setup which I've been carrying outside to grab images like this from larger patches of the sky. I've been told not to get political so I'll refer to this region by its scientific designation instead
- [The Great Carina Nebula](https://deography.com/the-great-carina-nebula-2/) - This very long photo is the result of the QHY Minicam8's quite long sensor that I decided to leave mostly uncropped! Everyone is looking at these images on their phones these days anyway right? 😆 The Carina nebula is too big to even fit onto the sensor, but looks great even with this modest focal
- [Keyhole Nebula with Eta Carinae](https://deography.com/keyhole-nebula-with-eta-carinae/) - My goal for this photo was to resolve Carina's famous star, Eta Carinae in a way to show its binary shell (Homunculous Nebula) that surrounds the star, but also the hydrogen ring that surround the outburst itself. This is very hard to do since the whole emission is hydrogen and the outer region and the
- [Rosette Nebula (Test with Petzval Quintuplet)](https://deography.com/rosette-nebula-test-with-petzval-quintuplet/) - Haven’t posted a nebula on here for a while as I’ve been enjoying the planet season but it’s time to get back to space clouds :) This Rosette Nebula shot is a mere 42 minutes of data with a new portable telescope I bought (a Petzval Quintuplet!) and the QHY miniCAM8 and Q-focuser. It actually
- [The Sun (Spectroheliograph Scan)](https://deography.com/the-sun-spectroheliograph-scan/) - This image of the Sun is a little different from my others as it was captured with a spectroheliograph that "scans" across the Sun's hydrogen-alpha spectral line in a single 20 second pass to produce an excellent image of the surface details and outer activity at the same time. It's a first attempt so I
- [Comet G3 Atlas (2024), Byron Bay](https://deography.com/comet-g3-atlas-2024-byron-bay/) - Comet Atlas G3 (2024) on Jan 27th from Coolamon Scenic Drive Lookout looking towards Lismore - Still naked eye (just)! Happy to get more detail, including the two main tails (dust, and gas). 8 x 30s / F4.5 / ISO 2000 / 47mm Canon 6D MK II + kit lens.
- [C/2024 G3 (ATLAS)](https://deography.com/c-2024-g3-atlas/) - C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) over Byron Bay Monday 20th January. 10 x 5s, tracking Move-Shoot-Move rotator / ISO 3200 @ 95mm, cropped. Canon 6D Mk II.
- [M42 Orion Nebula](https://deography.com/m42-orion-nebula/) - I'm returning to an old favourite of the southern summer nights. But this time, I've come back with a itty bitty little telescope and a new camera from QHY (miniCAM8) which they sent me for testing. I'm very lucky to get to use this camera before most people can even buy one (thank you!). It's
- [The Tarantula Nebula Core (NGC 2070)](https://deography.com/the-tarantula-nebula-core-ngc-2070/) - I can't believe this worked! This is the furthest I've ever imaged a deep space object that isn't a planet. There is a behind the scenes video on some of the interesting features but in the main star cluster is the largest star we know about, surrounded by a dense group of blue supergiants and
- [Full Solar Disc During the Solar Maximum 2024](https://deography.com/full-solar-disc-during-the-solar-maximum-2024/) - Are you winning, Sun? Nov 17th 2024 - Lunt 40mm Solar Telescope / QHY678M Camera / SW GTI Mount / Autostakkert 3 / IMPPG / PI Solar Toolbox
- [Comet 2023/A3 in the Clouds](https://deography.com/comet-2023-a3-in-the-clouds/) - The clouds parted and I was able to catch a glimpse of the comet again, but this time only photographically. I wasn't able to see it naked eye from cape Byron and the full moon diluted it's brightness significantly. I'm glad I saw it on the other side of the sun when it was naked
- [C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) from Australia](https://deography.com/c-2023-a3-tsuchinshan-atlas-from-australia/) - If you have to get up at 3am to see it, is it really a "great" comet? 😆 C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) this morning as seen from Cape Byron. The tail is definitely naked eye visible if you know where to look, but otherwise it's easy to miss (see widefield image) as the sun rises. In
- [Saturn re-emergence after Lunar Occultation](https://deography.com/saturn-re-emergence-after-lunar-occultation/) - Moon Surface - 1/4000s f5.6 ISO 800 / 400mm Clouds & Saturn - 1/30s f5.6 ISO 800 / 400mm Canon 6D MK II - 100-400mm Lens
- [Messier 8 - The Lagoon's Edge](https://deography.com/messier-8-the-lagoons-edge/) - The problem with looking at photos of space on your phone is you'll miss most of the detail. When looking at my own photos I'll spend a good deal of time zoomed right in, to see the beautiful structures within structures. Close inspection of many nebulae reveal Herbig-Haro patches of dense star formation, and bok
- [NGC 6729 - Yoda's Walking Stick](https://deography.com/ngc-6729-yodas-walking-stick/) - In their 2022 paper "R CrA & cyclic brightness variations in NGC 6729", Evans & Privett imaged this nebula that looks like Yoda's head, over a period of two years. Yoda's right eye here (R CrA) has a period of 65 days where it changes brightness, but they suggest that a light echo ripples over
- [The Pillars of Creation (M16)](https://deography.com/the-pillars-of-creation-m16/) - I sometimes get comments saying stuff like "NASA takes the best photos - so why even bother?" and this area has been done so well by NASA, recently by JWST. And yet, I enjoy still astrophotography. Just like I enjoy chess, even though I'm not a grandmaster. I like to play guitar, even though I'm
- [M17 Omega Nebula](https://deography.com/m17-omega-nebula-2/) - It's nice to be back in the observatory with some clear weather! And by that, I mean, inside with a glass of wine while I push buttons and listen to the faint whizzing and whirring of the telescope dome in my backyard. This time I've gone back to M17, the Omega Ω nebula, so called
- [Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex](https://deography.com/rho-ophiuchi-cloud-complex-3/) - If the constellation Scorpio looks vaguely like a scorpion to you (with a bit of imagination) then this collection of stars is the sting in the tail. With even modestly long exposures, this massive and colourful dark nebula cloud complex is revealed. It's a favourite for photographers as it's huge in the sky, so really
- [The Cosmic Bat LDN 43](https://deography.com/the-cosmic-bat-ldn-43/) - This crazy bat dark nebula is pretty close to Antares and the Rho Ophiuchi area but pretty faint. Most versions push this in processing to look pretty red and scary, but I tried to keep it as colour neutral as possible. It would have benefitted with more data but it's the first time I've ever
- [69% Colour Moon](https://deography.com/69-colour-moon/) - Saturation boosted for colour/mineral detail. Celestron 11" EHD / F7 / 1960mm QHY268M 1m x R 1m x G 1m x B Captured in FireCapture Best 20% stacked and deconvoluted in Autostakkert Colour histogram balanced and boost in PS No AI tools used.
- [NGC 5367 - Cometary Globule](https://deography.com/ngc-5367-cometary-globule/) - I've been doing this for 10 years now and I'm still finding crazy new things to shoot. This "cometary globule" is barely visible to visual astronomers and wasn't even seen and designated as such until 1976 when photographic plates revealed its nature. The weird thing about it is how far away from the galactic plane
- [M83 - Southern Pinwheel Galaxy](https://deography.com/m83-southern-pinwheel-galaxy/) - We've got some kooky looking galaxies in the Southern Hemisphere but this isn't one of them. M83 is a classic barred spiral galaxy. If a cartoonist or a child is asked to draw a galaxy, this is probably what it would look like. This took many nights and BlurX does some heavy lifting here to
- [NGC 5128 - Centaurus A](https://deography.com/ngc-5128-centaurus-a/) - I've been taking photos of Cent A for years, but this year was different. Using 20-minute long hydrogen exposures I was able to reveal the ring of nebulosity properly. When you look at this galaxy, it's really hard to see what's going on - but I finally get it, and I understand its shape now.
- [The Dark Emu Rises](https://deography.com/the-dark-emu-rises/) - Went aurora chasing (nothing in Byron on the second night of the mega storm) but am thankful it prompted a trip to the cape. It's my favourite place for watching the Milky Way rise straight out of the horizon and over me. This region is tipped by Carina at the peak, then the "Dark Emu"
- [Great Solar Geomagnetic Storm 2024 - AR 3664](https://deography.com/great-solar-geomagnetic-storm-2024-ar-3664/) - This is the sunspot that caused the worldwide auroras on May 10th ! Behind the scenes video of how I took this photo : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zII3CnH36Fg
- [M104 Sombrero Galaxy](https://deography.com/m104-sombrero-galaxy/) - Love Mexican food and cocaine? Then you'll love the Sombrero galaxy! It's named after the Mexican hat, LOL! Pictured here with faux tilt shift gradient blur so even a big galaxy somehow feels small and insignificant against the vast backdrop of space. Just like you. Celestron 11" Edge HD Telescope F7 Reducer 1960mm QHY268M Camera
- [The Southern Seagull Nebula Complex (NGC 2011, 2014, 2020, 2021, 2030,2032, 2035, 2040)](https://deography.com/the-southern-seagull-nebula-complex-ngc-2011-2014-2020-2021-20302032-2035-2040/) - This is definitely the most complicated and diverse region of space I've ever photographed. It has the usual emission nebula and star formation, but also several supernovae remnants, clusters, reflection nebulae, oxygen and even a Wolf-Rayet star blowing an oxygen bubble shell. The area harbours old stars and their supernova corpses in the same place
- [LDN1622 - Bogeyman Nebula](https://deography.com/ldn1622-bogeyman-nebula/) - I faced my fears and collaborated by data sharing with two inspiring astrophotographers from Canada and the USA and we turn our 3 Celestron C11 telescopes to the same strange place in space. Andrea Girones : https://www.instagram.com/andrea_girones/ Marsha Wilcox : https://www.marshawilcox.com Photo info : HA / L / R / G / B Target :
- [Lavender NGC 3324 "Gabriela Mistral" Nebula](https://deography.com/lavender-ngc-3324-gabriela-mistral-nebula/) - Processing in PI, Image Calibration, Star Alignment, Integration, Drizzle, Channel Combination, Colour Calibration, Background Neutralisation, Deconvolution, Star-Net RGB star recombination. Combined as HaGO[III]/RGB Taken mid May 2023 using: Celestron 11" Edge HD @ F7 / 19600mm QHY294M Camera SkyWatcher EQ8-Rh-Pro Mount NexDome Observatory 74 x 3m Ha 40 x 3m G 56 x 3m O[III]
- [Sunrise on Clavius Crater](https://deography.com/sunrise-on-clavius-crater/) - Sunrise on Clavius Crater @ 7000mm Focal Length Best 10% of 1600 frame 2 minute video (Red Channel) Celestron C11" Edge HD ZWO 174mm 2.5x Powermate
- [Helix Nebula](https://deography.com/helix-nebula-ill-be-watching-you/) - There is no more indisputable proof that god exists than the Helix nebula. This giant eye ball in the sky is looking right at you ALWAYS, except when it sets over the horizon for most of the day/night. It's a reminder that Jesus is constantly watching you. He knows your browser history and he wants
- [IC 4685 - Bow and Arrow Nebula](https://deography.com/ic-4685-bow-and-arrow-nebula/) - This little region is so small it doesn't actually have a common name, so I'm open to suggestions! I'm going to say "bow and arrow" and you can insert a mythical backstory of your choice. A star forming region near the much bigger M8 Lagoon, IC 4685 shares similar features to M20 Triffid with reflection
- [M20 Trifid Nebula](https://deography.com/m20-trifid-nebula-2/) - "Trifid", which means split into three, really undersells the chaos of this multicoloured nebula cloud. I know I've photographed this a few times but I think this year turned out best so far. It was actually meant to be a "test" shot after collimating my telescope properly! I've made the image fairly large so you
- [The Dragon's Egg NGC 6164](https://deography.com/the-dragons-egg-ngc-6164/) - I wish I could tell you more about this rare O-type star, the only one we know with it's own nebula, but there isn't a lot of research about it. I try to share what I know in this video about it : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv8vzhJrt6Q It is very spectacular looking though, with two obvious outbursts and
- [6% Moon with Earthshine.](https://deography.com/4-moon-with-earthshine/) - 6% Moon with Earthshine. 4 x 1/60s / F5.6 / ISO 3200 / 400mm Averaged stack on Moon. Canon 6D mk II
- [TWO GALAXIES KISSING - NGC 4038 & 4039](https://deography.com/two-galaxies-kissing-ngc-4038-4039/) - There is a lot of space, in space. But there is also everything, so eventually stuff hits other stuff. Sometimes a meteor hits a woman napping in her lounge room and sometimes your entire galaxy smashes into someone else's which sounds disruptive but is likely to be mildly inconvenient - because there is a lot
- [M42 Orion's Misty Peaks](https://deography.com/m42-orions-misty-peaks/) - Wherever you are on Earth, you can probably see this without special equipment. A pair of binoculars will do. Find the line of 3 stars "Orion's Belt" and then the other other 3 nearby (Orion's Sword) and the middle of those is actually this big bright cloud. If you do have special equipment though, it's
- [M78 Dark Nebula](https://deography.com/m78-dark-nebula/) - If you're looking at this on a phone, during the day, it probably doesn't look like much. Do me a favour and turn your screen brightness to 100% for a moment. Unlike the showy, bright emission nebulae, M78 is a dark shroud hiding a pocket of baby starlight reflection deep within it's dusty womb. Spooky
- [NGC3576 - "Statue of Liberty" Nebula](https://deography.com/ngc3576-statue-of-liberty-nebula/) - The loops at the top of this nebula are formed by the surging stellar winds produced by the hot new blue stars hidden throughout the interior and are also ionising the clouds which you see here as glowing red. Some oxygen is thawed from the dusty clouds when the new stars burst into life which
- [Henize N70 Superbubble Nebula](https://deography.com/henize-n70-superbubble-nebula/) - This is such an interesting target. So interesting that I did a deeper-dive on the object in this video if you're interested. https://youtu.be/xBls183X3Io Long story short, it's not just a supernova remnant but a multi-supernova remnant in the process of carving out a massive void in space. Details: Celestron 11” EDGE HD Telescope QHY268M Camera
- [Thor's Helmet - NGC 2359](https://deography.com/thors-helmet-ngc-2359/) - Taken 11-12th Feb 2023 using Celestron 11” EDGE HD Telescope QHY268M Camera SkyWatcher EQ8-Rh-Pro Mount 15 x 5m Oxygen[III] 46 x 5m Hydrogen Alpha Combined As HOO in PixInsight Image Calibration, Star Alignment, Image Integration, Drizzle Integration, Automatic Background Extractor, ChannelCombination, Colour Calibration, SCNR, Star Masked Photometric Colour Calibration, BlurXterminator, StarNet++, Recombination, Curves & Levels
- [SH2-279 - Orion's Little Brother](https://deography.com/sh2-279-orions-little-brother/) - SH2-279 is the Luke Hemsworth of star forming nebulae. Overshadowed by his famous brother sitting in close proximity, most cameras are turned to Orion's direction instead of Luke's. When the cameras are pointed in his direction, people realise he's actually an excellent actor and deserving of individual contemplation. This is a test image of the
- [Lunar Eclipse Totality (HDR) November 2022](https://deography.com/lunar-eclipse-totality-hdr-november-2022/) - For tonight's lunar eclipse my goal was to capture totality and the star field around the moon while it was dim enough to reveal. As a bonus, Uranus is shown as a bright blue point of light to the right of the moon towards the edge of frame. Taken with a stacked image of the
- [M16 - Eagle Nebula](https://deography.com/m16-eagle-nebula/) - Although there is less colour dynamism when viewed in "natural" colour which is very red-dominant compared to the classic Hubble-palette, the sharp details within M16 never fail to impress. Like many nebula it has a bright inner core area but the star forming pillars of dust and gas in the centre structure here are always
- [M20 Trifid Nebula](https://deography.com/m20-trifid-nebula/) - One of those targets I enjoy redoing over the years to see if I'm getting any better yet. M20 is a reflection & emission nebula side by side which shows blue and red respectively. It's no JWST image but it's not a bad poke from the backyard all things considered :) Image Details : Celestron
- [NGC6188 - The Krakken (Nebula)](https://deography.com/ngc6188-the-krakken-nebula/) - The recent reprieve from the weather allowed me a few nights to scrape some photons from the sky and zoom into one half of the "Dragons of Ara" region NGC6188 - into just one of the dragons, the cooler, more badass one. Isolated, I realised it looks like a giant squid, or kraken, or Cthulhu
- [Thackeray's Globules in IC2944](https://deography.com/thackerays-globules-in-ic2944/) - Deep inside the Chicken (IC 2944) are these dark spots called Bok globules which is a strange name to me because they aren't always round (or globular) at all. The dark dust and gas are carved out from their surroundings as new stars form around them before they themselves are amalgamated into existing or new
- [The Jaguar in the Rose (NGC 2238 Detail)](https://deography.com/the-jaguar-in-the-rose-ngc-2238-detail/) - The huge Rosette Nebula (NGC2237) has so many different parts it's divided into at least 5 distinct NGC objects. I often find myself drawn to this inner section (NGC 2238) which is a sinewed knotting of dark nebulae dust scattered about the inside near the open cluster of new stars. Some people can see a
- [Horsehead Nebula (IC434) & VdB 52](https://deography.com/horsehead-nebula-ic434-vdb-52/) - Horsehead Nebula (IC434) & VdB 52 --------------------------------- Thanks to a record breaking summer of rain and flash flooding, this image was slowly exposed over several months through any potential gap in the clouds. What it lacks in exposure time I've made up for processing the hell out of it until it was adequate! I wanted
- [The Horsehead Nebula (B33, IC434 & Alnitak)](https://deography.com/the-horsehead-nebula-b33-ic434-alnitak/) - Really doesn't get more iconic than this group of friends does it? The apparent void that forms the horse's head sits faintly against the bright ionised hydrogen which makes it difficult to photograph without completely blowing out the bright star Alnitak. This has made Alnitak the least favourite star for astrophotographers as evidenced here by
- [NGC 2070 - Tarantula Nebula](https://deography.com/ngc-2070-tarantula-nebula/) - Tarantula is a remarkably large star forming region on the edge of a neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. It's so bright it's easily visible in binoculars in the Southern Hemisphere. It's so big that if it were in our galaxy, like the Orion Nebula, it would cast shadows on Earth. Taken over several nights
- [M31 Andromeda from Australia](https://deography.com/m31-andromeda-from-australia/) - They said it couldn't be done. Well not quite, it can be done with a clear view north if you're closer to the equator than most Australian's but it's not without a good deal of effort which in this case involved a chainsaw and really heavy handed processing to deal with the red bias near
- [M17 Omega Nebula](https://deography.com/m17-omega-nebula/) - I've been so distracted by real life that I completely forgot I'd taken this photo of M17, the Omega or Swan Nebula a couple of months ago. Which is super weird given I'd spent days and hours taking it but honestly life in Australia has been a little weird lately. Processed as HaSHO / Narrowband
- [Helix Nebula - Deep Exposure](https://deography.com/helix-nebula-deep-exposure/) - I never usually spend this long on a single target. 20 minute exposures .. for over 11 hours worth over a week or so! If you turn your phone brightness up you should be able to see the faint outer details! HELIX NEBULA Celestron C11 / F7 Reducer 1960mm Focal Length QHY268M + QHY247C 19
- [IC1284 - The Hermit Crab Nebula](https://deography.com/ic1284-the-hermit-crab-nebula/) - I've been exploring less popular destinations in space lately and I have not been disappointed. This region near the Serpens side of Scorpio lacks the clarity and brightness of other popular targets in the area. I used the wide and fast RASA to reveal the structure of the dark nebula but the dense area of
- [Boussingault Crater - Moon](https://deography.com/complex-terraced-crater-moon/) - 2 minute lunar video taken at 7000mm focal length and stacked best 12% using Autostakkert! Check out the terracing in the crater towards the top edge of the frame. This complexity indicates an older impact that has degraded over time, although after some research I think this may be an illusion as Boussingault crater are
- [SL-17 - Dark Wolf Nebula](https://deography.com/sl-17-dark-wolf-nebula/) - This amazing patch of sky is not commonly photographed for some reason and is new for me. It's certainly fainter than some of the more popular targets but it is huge and detailed if you get enough data. It's a star forming region dominated by hydrogen emissions but also dark swathes of dust and gas
- [M8 Lagoon Nebula and IC 4685](https://deography.com/m8-lagoon-nebula-and-ic-4685/) - M8 Lagoon in all her natural coloured glory captured as Ha/R/G/B .. about 4 hours worth over 4 nights and only using the best data. Except blue. Blue is always a cranky little bastard. Shot with Celestron 11” RASA at F2 using 2m exposures, QHY268M Camera and Skywatcher EQ8Rh-Pro. 1.5hrs Hydrogen 1hr Red 1hr Green
- [Old Stars & New - M4 & Al Niyat](https://deography.com/old-stars-new-m4-al-niyat/) - From this oyster of Hydrogen comes the new baby pearl - Al Niyat, actually two twin stars too close to tell apart. The region is clouded with orange glowing dust from Antares out of frame but ten-times further away from this oyster the globular cluster M4 floats in the background, filled with thousands of stars,
- [IC4603 Dark & Rho Ophiuchi Reflection Nebulae](https://deography.com/ic4603-dark-rho-ophiuchi-reflection-nebulae/) - New B-type dwarf stars Rho Ophiuchi and companions, and HD 147889 near the intensely dark molecular cloud that seems to envelope and erase all the stars within and behind it. Looking closely here I can see what I think is the top left star's motion away from the cloud, leaving a wake in the darkness.
- [NGC6334 - Cat's Paw Nebula](https://deography.com/ngc6334-cats-paw-nebula/) - Ok I was a little heavy handed with the star reduction BUT check out that Hydrogen emission! It was all I could do to not just post a starless version. The most aptly common-named nebula in the sky, Cat's Paw. First go at a new configuration which is pretty epic : Celestron 11” RASA F2
- [Centaurus A Galaxy Up Close](https://deography.com/centaurus-a-galaxy-up-close/) - I just finished this image of Centaurus A, a weird looking and relatively close galaxy best viewed from the Southern Hemisphere. I was especially pleased to resolve hints of a relativistic jet for the first time in the bottom left area which are emissions coming directly from it's central black hole! The strategy for this
- [The Sombrero Galaxy M104 Up Close](https://deography.com/the-sombrero-galaxy-m104-up-close/) - Here's a hard fought close up of the Sombrero Galaxy I just finished using the Celestron 11" EHD Telescope at it's maximum 2800mm focal length and the 2-camera trick with the QHY268M for mono and QHY247C for colour. I really wanted to get up close and personal with this galaxy because the only thing better
- [The Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253 / Caldwell 65)](https://deography.com/the-sculptor-galaxy-ngc-253-caldwell-65/) - I haven't done a great deal of galaxy photography as I find it challenging.. but I think this might be my best attempt at a distant galaxy yet. Like most galaxies (with a few exceptions) it looks particularly small through a telescope, so you really need to get in close to get a shot like
- [NGC6188 / HaGO Palette](https://deography.com/ngc6188-hago-palette/) - This region is normally called "Fighting Dragons of Ara" but I'm zoomed in so close here you barely see any "dragons". This dark cloud however visually hides it's intense star formation occurring within - where an entire cluster of young stars is hiding early in their life cycle, having just been formed. We know this
- [NGC 3576 - Statue of Liberty Nebula](https://deography.com/ngc-3576-statue-of-liberty-nebula-2/) - Definitely the best astrophoto I’ve taken in a long time! The “Statue of Liberty” NGC 3576 a star-forming Nebula not far from Carina. A real treasure of the Southern Hemisphere, weirdly named after an American statue from France 😆 .. the massive bump in quality is due to my Celestron C11 telescope being used with
- [Jupiter's Cloudtops in 3D](https://deography.com/jupiters-cloudtops-in-3d/) - A 3D conversion of Björn Jónsson processing of NASA's Juno data from Sept 16, 2020. By using the luminance of the textured clouds to displace darker areas further back and bright areas closer to the viewer, the surface of Jupiter comes alive in spectacular fashion. You'll need to use cross-eyes to see this properly, but
- [The Helix Nebula - NGC 7293](https://deography.com/the-helix-nebula-ngc-7293/) - Is this the eye of god? Spoiler alert, no. Just a dying star passing wind. Taken this week from the backyard spaceship! 39 x 3mins / ZWO1600MM / Hydrogen Alpha 34 x 5mins / QHY247C / No filter Full science breakdown of the image and planetary nebula in this video if you're interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcz0fffOit8
- [Corona Australis Dark Molecular Cloud](https://deography.com/corona-australis-dark-molecular-cloud/) - Close up view of this region. I provide a deeper analysis of this region in this 10 minute rant on my YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJMAcyGgs4E Total Integration ~3hrs, C11” Edge HD ZWO1600MM for mono broadband & QHY268C for true colour
- [Mermaid Waters - M8 Detail](https://deography.com/mermaid-waters-m8-detail/) - I was doing some test shots under the nearly full moon so didn't expect this to look like much but I can't stop looking at it. The detail is from the wider M8 Lagoon nebula but I focussed in with my big telescope (C11) on the little mermaid feature which is surrounded by at least
- [The Trifid Nebula - M20](https://deography.com/the-triffid-nebula-m20/) - Feels good to be back shooting nebulae again! M20 is a stunningly dual colour region captured here with separate R, G and B runs and broadband luminance. If you aren't sure what that means, basically I'm shooting with a black and white camera (ZWO 1600mm) but instead of narrowband filters with small bandpasses for chemical
- [A Closer Look at Centaurus A Galaxy](https://deography.com/a-closer-look-at-centaurus-a-galaxy/) - I got in closer to Centaurus A than I ever have before! 66mins of 3m broadband exposures with Celestron 11" EHD / Zwo1600 for and QHY247C for colour :) Behind the scenes (with added drama) video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBWwAvKvMD0
- [Deep Exposure - Centaurus A Galaxy](https://deography.com/deep-exposure-centaurus-a-galaxy/) - This image is a little unexpected. I had a small window this evening before the moon rose after 8pm and started shooting around 6:30pm with the "wrong" telescope and the QHY-247C colour camera. I knew it would be super wide and not very detailed with this focal length, but shot it anyway. After drizzle, stack
- [Free 8k Space Wallpaper - The Great Carina Nebula](https://deography.com/free-8k-space-wallpaper-the-great-carina-nebula/) - Hi, Dylan O'Donnell, professional computer wallpaper creator here. I'm releasing this years portrait of the Great Carina Nebula in super wide, 8k high resolution! 2 panel mosaic of Carina's intense core with it's emission nebula stretching all the way to the edges. Shot in true-colour using the QHY247C one shot colour camera, Celestron 11" RASA
- [Leo's Triplet (M66) / Sarah's Galaxy](https://deography.com/leos-triplet-m66-sarahs-galaxy/) - I'm honestly a little surprised at how well this turned out. Leo's Triplet (M66) captured only with a one-shot-colour camera, the QHY247C and the Celestron RASA 11" over 80 minutes. Of course this galactic neighbourhood contains far more than 3 galaxies and is a part of a cluster filled with nearby fuzzy blobs. By running
- [NGC 3576 - "Statue of Liberty" Nebula](https://deography.com/ngc-3576-statue-of-liberty-nebula/) - Star forming region NGC 3576 does look a bit like the Statue of Liberty is soaked in bleach and flipping us the bird if you look closely. This years attempt is a vast improvement on previous tries and the current avalanche of these natural colour images is due in part to the improvements to the
- [Omega Centauri in 4k Resolution](https://deography.com/omega-centauri-in-4k-resolution/) - Globular Clusters like this, the biggest one in the Milky Way, hang around galaxies in nice spheres and WE DON'T REALLY KNOW HOW. Are they failed galaxies? Do they have a black hole? How do they even? I've shot Omega Centauri here in true colour and provided the image in greater than 4k resolution so
- [Vela Supernova Remnant (Detail)](https://deography.com/vela-supernova-remnant-detail/) - This is not a typical "stellar nursery" where nebulae coalesce to birth new stars. This is the opposite. The gruesome remains of a star that has died violently - it's corpse shredded and splattered across the night sky like bloody veins stretched to their limits in every direction from the fury. A small detail from
- [The Tarantula Nebulae in the Large Magellanic Cloud](https://deography.com/the-tarantula-nebulae-in-the-large-magellanic-cloud/) - Of all the things you can photograph in space, the "Tarantula" nebulae region in the Large Magellanic Cloud is truly the weirdest. It may also be the object that most resembles a virus with it spiny shape and tendrils. Unlike every other nebulae you see photographed from Earth, this is the only one that is
- [Rainbow Rosette - Caldwell 50 (Hubble Palette SHO)](https://deography.com/rainbow-rosette-caldwell-50-hubble-palette-sho/) - Well it finally stopped raining for a few seconds and even though the moon was out I had to take the opportunity to spend some quality time with my favourite piece of motorised metal and glass, the Celestron RASA 8" telescope. This quick (like really quick, 63 minutes total) image took 2 nights as MOST
- [Space Clouds - M42 Orion](https://deography.com/space-clouds-m42-orion/) - I’ve been trying to shoot nebula clouds through earth clouds and bushfire smoke and I somehow managed to squeeze this take on M42 Orion through the haze. It’s not perfect but I like it 🙂 As usual, I’m using a Celestron RASA 8” for this nice wide field view. (60 second exposures) .. I also
- [M17 Omega Nebula Widefield in Broadband Colour](https://deography.com/m17-omega-nebula-widefield-in-broadband-colour/) - Here I've captured the Omega Nebula / M17 over 2 nights using the Celestron RASA 8" and 2 different cameras to combine as a broadband LRGB image. This simple trick allows me to capture all the colour all at once with a one shot colour RGB camera, then overlay onto a broadband mono image all
- [Tesla Model 3 & The Milky Way](https://deography.com/tesla-model-3-the-milky-way/) - As if being an Apple Mac user, iPhone early adopter and ex-smoker wasn't annoying enough, now I've bought an EV I am well on track to being the most insufferable person you know. God help you if I go vegan. Look I haven’t driven anything but a twenty year old manual shitbox ever so when
- [M8 Lagoon Nebula in True Colour - Free 4k Wallpaper](https://deography.com/m8-lagoon-nebula-in-true-colour-free-4k-wallpaper/) - So this is the updated truecolour version of the earlier narrowband run I did on this target. You can find that one here. I'm really very happy with how this one turned out after 3 nights of capturing and a lot of processing! Combined here as HaRGB for a truecolour representation of this magnificent nebula
- [The Blue Lagoon (Nebula) - 4K Resolution](https://deography.com/the-blue-lagoon-nebula-4k-resolution/) - This deep space nebula really lives up to it's name in this colour treatment, and looks like an overflowing reservoir of space water. I'm hoping to get some truecolour over the next little while on this incredible region, but am still amazed at the detail and clarity of the filtered light in the photo. The
- [The Busiest Part of the Sky - Our Black Hole](https://deography.com/the-busiest-part-of-the-sky-our-black-hole/) - If you're out at a dark sky in most parts of the world, but particularly the Southern Hemisphere during winter and you look up and around to the brightest, busiest part of the sky - you will be looking here. At the middle of our galaxy, the Milky Way. In this image taken at QLD
- [Close up of the Trifid Nebula (M20)](https://deography.com/close-up-of-the-trifid-nebula-m20/) - The Trifid Nebula (M20) is named after the trisected red hydrogen side, but it is most well known for it's blue-red duality. It's really quite bright but pretty dainty so I had to get up close with a 1645mm focal length. I threw away about half of the acquired data to only stack the best
- [NGC6188 Fighting Dragons of Ara](https://deography.com/ngc6188-fighting-dragons-of-ara/) - I know I've said this before but this may be my best photo to date. NGC 6188 is a massive nebula whose edges are rarely in frame but the Celestron RASA 8" field of view really captured the outer waves of hydrogen spectacularly. This is a Southern Hemisphere target and certainly one of the most
- [The Sulphur in NGC 3603 and NGC 3576](https://deography.com/the-sulphur-in-ngc3606/) - I'm astounded at the level of detail in the gas clouds surrounding NGC 3603 and NGC 3576 and their gentle interplay among the surrounding sea of stars I was able to capture in this image. The Hydrogen-rich clouds (pictured in blue) stretch across the whole field of view with the secondary emission being the orange-brown
- [λ Centauri Nebula (IC2944 / Caldwell 100)](https://deography.com/λ-centauri-nebula-ic2944-caldwell-100/) - The λ Centauri Nebula has no Messier designation, which means it's one of those Southern-hemisphere-only targets. It's huge and weird looking, and is a bright and powerful emission with several small, dense "Bok" globules which are the precursor to new baby stars. There is a tiny planetary nebula in the bottom right of this image
- [Carina Nebula in Hubble Palette (Rasa 8 First Light)](https://deography.com/carina-nebula-in-hubble-palette-rasa-8-first-light/) - The clouds parted and I was able to snatch the Carina nebula in mono/narrowband in 74 mins of total integration time! An incredible telescope with an incredible target - couldn't go wrong really. Technical Details ... Celestron RASA 8 with ZWO1600mm cooled (-15c) ~25 Ha @ 60s ~25 Oiii @ 60s ~25 Sii @ 60s
- [The Rose or the Skull? NGC 2237](https://deography.com/the-rose-or-the-skull-ngc-2237/) - It's known as the Rosette nebula, but ever since someone pointed out the very distinct skull features I've never been able to unsee the skull or frame it any other way. It even appeared on the cover of an Avenged Sevenfold metal album. I took this image of the famous skull nebula last night and
- [M42 Orion Nebula + Running Man (Dust and Gas)](https://deography.com/m42-orion-nebula-running-man-dust-and-gas/) - Orion may be one of the most spectacular regions of space we can see from Earth and the wider area around the famous M42 nebula is a popular target for astrophotographers of all levels and even for viewing through binoculars or modest telescopes due to it's apparent brightness. With deeper exposures like this one, the
- [Saturn Swims Amongst the Nebulae](https://deography.com/saturn-swims-amongst-the-nebulae/) - Another in my recent series of widefield short exposure images of the Milky Way, pictured here Saturn shines brightly as it passes through the dense Sagittarius area near the galactic center. This conjunction created a sweet little triangle between M8 Lagoon, M20 Trifid and Saturn which I thought was rather lovely :) 93 x 30x
- [Antares and the Rho Ophiuchus Region](https://deography.com/antares-and-the-rho-ophiuchus-region/) - This photo is not taken with a telescope, or any special astronomy camera. It's such an awkwardly large patch of sky the moon would only take up about a centimeter of what you see on your screen. This also means I don't have the gear for this particular focal length (200mm) as I rarely need
- [Carina and the Keyhole Nebula in 4K](https://deography.com/carina-and-the-keyhole-nebula-in-4k/) - I don't normally do this but here is a 4K resolution version of the inner region of the Carina nebula. It's a 2-panel mosaic and close to the full raw resolution so if you download the file and zoom in you get to see all the noise imperfections and colour mapping distortions and all that
- [Centaurus A - The Candle Galaxy](https://deography.com/centaurus-a-the-candle-galaxy/) - I took this image of the weirdest looking galaxy in the sky, NGC 5128 Centaurus A, over 2 nights but honestly didn't manage to get enough good data to do it justice. Sometimes called the "Hamburger" galaxy, which I think really undersells how amazing this view is, I think it looks like a brilliant candle.
- [NGC 2070 The Tarantula Nebula](https://deography.com/ngc-2070-the-tarantula-nebula/) - Oh do I need some sleep. After months of terrible conditions I got 5 nights in a row of near perfect astronomy weather. So here also is this years take on the Tarantula Nebula, resting on the edge of the Large Magellanic Cloud. This massive cascade of nebulosity is different from the ones I usually
- [Christmas Tree Nebula - NG2264](https://deography.com/christmas-tree-nebula-ng2264/) - The Christmas Tree Nebula, including the Cone Nebula, vaguely looks like a christmas tree I suppose! It certainly is a colourful cluster (NGC2264) with both reflection and emission showing blue and red clouds respectively. This is taken in broadband mono + one shot RGB over two nights for a true colour / natural view as
- [Will you Accept this Rose? (NGC2237)](https://deography.com/will-you-accept-this-rose-ngc2237/) - I just finished this Rosette nebula photo just in time for Valentines Day. I would've given it to my wife, except it probably represents more time I've spent by myself in the observatory rather than our romantic coupling. In any case I managed to capture this image over several nights as a 2 panel mosaic
- [A Christmas Fire, Horse and Flame](https://deography.com/a-christmas-fire-horse-and-flame/) - I've photographed this region many times now as subscribers know (I even did a panorama version last week) but I wanted to focus less on the horsehead itself this time and more on the intensity of the surrounding dust cloud. This arresting scene is literally fuelled by the cascading dust clouds and the bright stars
- [The Sky Bridge from Horsehead to Orion](https://deography.com/the-sky-bridge-from-horsehead-to-orion/) - This is an interesting experiment but it's *really* cool looking as a panorama in Facebook. Click Here to check it out on Facebook! Seriously, do yourself a favour and click that link for an immersive "360" view of this image. Here's a panoramic view of the small distance between the Horsehead and Orion - they
- [M45 Pleiades (The Subaru Logo)](https://deography.com/m45-pleiades-the-subaru-logo/) - The clouds parted! It's a miracle! In the secular, that-seemed-unlikely kind of way. But I don't want to talk about the weather, I'm not a farmer, just an astronomer with some pent up, astrophysical energy that needed release. This is m45, the Pleiades aka The Seven Sisters aka The Subaru logo taken over 2 nights
- [The Mighty Andromeda](https://deography.com/the-mighty-andromeda/) - Ok so I talk a lot of smack to the Northern Hemisphere and to a lesser extent galaxy people in general (I'm team nebula, all the way), but I really have to hold my tongue when it comes to this monster of a galaxy, M31 Andromeda. This beast is heading towards us and will "crash"
- [Caldwell 68 Corona Australis (Dark Molecular Cloud)](https://deography.com/caldwell-68-corona-australis-dark-molecular-cloud/) - Still my favourite target in the night sky, the weird area around Caldwell 68 still gives me pause. Unlike the showy, energetic nebulae that typically glow in pinks and reds, this dark nebula hangs in space like a shroud trying to hide it's binary stellar infants. Globular cluster NGC6723 also floats nearby but off into
- [Oxygen in the Great Carina Nebula](https://deography.com/oxygen-in-the-great-carina-nebula/) - I imaged this last night under perfect conditions in record time (82 x 60s total) with the usual 3 narrowband filters. Using the PHP/GD online narrowband preview tool I developed recently (link below) I decided the Hubble palette was the most compelling as the doubly ionised Oxygen spewing from the core is really brilliant and
- [Fighting Dragons of Ara NGC 6188 (in Hubble colours)](https://deography.com/fighting-dragons-of-ara-ngc-6188-in-hubble-colours/) - The Fighting Dragons of Ara (NGC 6188) is a beautiful, large emission nebula currently above us in the Southern Hemisphere in the early evening. Photographed last night in narrowband, the oxygen is seen as blue and the hydrogen as green. The long tendrils of dust and gas stretch and swirl into core where bright new
- [The Big Prawn (Nebula) IC 4628](https://deography.com/the-big-prawn-nebula-ic-4628/) - The next biggest prawn in my life besides the iconic Ballina roadside icon (now a Bunnings), IC 4628 is captured here in it's natural red/pink prawn palette. Using the hydrogen as the main luminance, or detail layer, you can see how far much of the dust and gas go - right to the edges of
- [Ghostly Green - ESA Deep Space Tracking Station (Australia)](https://deography.com/ghostly-green-esa-deep-space-tracking-station-australia/) - Really thrilled to have one of my photos on the European Space Agency homepage tonight as "Image of the Week"! http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/…/Ghostly_green "Title Ghostly green Released 02/11/2017 8:45 am [CC] ESA/D. O'Donnell Description Just in time for Halloween this week: a green deep-space tracking station. This image was taken by Byron Bay-based astrophotographer Dylan O'Donnell, in
- [Deep Space Tracking Station, West Australia](https://deography.com/deep-space-tracking-station-west-australia/) - The Southern Celestial pole and the European Space Agency's deep space tracking station, in New Norcia, Western Australia. I took this image last Saturday while the dish was in its "parked" position pointing straight up, and intended to exposure for an hour for the star trails effect. About 15 minutes in though, the team in
- [Holly II](https://deography.com/holly-ii-9102017/) - Just over 12 years have passed since I posted a photo of my little cousin Holly, aged 7 years old standing in the morning light and shadow. Today we replicated the same image, with the afternoon light and shadow only now she is 20 years old. Canon 6D mk II, 1/100" - ISO 100 -
- [International Space Station Transit (Illuminated)](https://deography.com/international-space-station-transit-illuminated/) - Rarer than transits generally, tonight ISS passed over the moon but illuminated by the recently set sun which meant I could photograph the pass with colour detail rather than a silhouette like my previous transit photos. I've never done this before so was super excited to get it in great clarity! Taken tonight from the
- [Going Deep on Thackeray's Globules](https://deography.com/going-deep-on-thackerays-globules/) - Thackeray was the last name of the guy who noticed these little dark patches in 1950. If you look closely at the biggest dark patch you might see it's actually two - one further away in the distance. 1 light year in fact. To give you an idea, the Voyager satellite which has just left
- [NGC 3324, The Nebula with a Face](https://deography.com/ngc-3324-the-nebula-with-a-face/) - Can you see it? The round face with the nose to the right? The common name for this one is the Gabriela Mistral Nebula as some think the face looks like a Chilean poet of the same name. While this image is taken in true colour, narrowband versions reveal much nicer structure to the energised
- [NGC 3576 The Statue of Liberty Nebula](https://deography.com/ngc-3567-the-statue-of-liberty-nebula/) - Phil Plait recently said that this nebula was 'aptly named' for it's resemblance to the statue of liberty. He also said in the same article that projecting our interpretations like this 'tells us just as much about ourselves as it does the object in question'. So I have to admit that all I see is
- [Keyhole Nebula Near Eta Carina](https://deography.com/keyhole-nebula-near-eta-carina/) - During the recent "Stargazing Live" TV broadcast with Brian Cox the AAO telescope took an image "live" during the broadcast. In reality, much of the data for the photo had been gathered the previous night and they quickly finished processing it during the show. It was a photo of the Keyhole Nebula taken and processed
- [IC2944 - The Dragon Nebula ... and other news.](https://deography.com/ic2944-the-dragon-nebula-and-other-news/) - Thanks to cyclone Debbie which smashed northern Australia yesterday, all the bad weather was sucked away from my home observatory for just long enough to image IC2944 (λ Centauri Nebula). I've always thought this area should be called the Dragon Nebula though as it really reminds me of Larry Elmore's oil paintings from the Dungeons
- [Geostationary Satellites (Animated)](https://deography.com/geostationary-satellites-animated/) - People often ask me if I ever see UFOs when I'm imaging space and I say - "All the time. Almost every second photo." That was literally true for this particular session where the Rosette Nebula was moving right along the celestial equator. Or more precisely, the earth was rotating and these geosynchronous satellites -
- [The Flame Nebula](https://deography.com/the-flame-nebula/) - It's funny how using the same gear, from the same location, so much diversity exists in the sky just depending on where I point my telescope. Pictured here, a natural colour close up of the often overlooked Flame Nebula where I've intentionally pushed bright Alnitak out of frame. The star still manages to "wash out"
- [Heaven`s Gate & The Pink Panther](https://deography.com/heavens-gate-the-pink-panther/) - I was helping to judge an astrophotography competition over at PhotographingSpace.com and I saw a wonderful, high magnification shot of this area I really liked. It's the dark nebula around the inner core of the Rosette nebula but the long filament looks a little like a panther leaping into the void. I wanted to try
- [Dragon's Head Nebula NGC2035](https://deography.com/dragons-head-nebula-ngc2035/) - 30 x 3m L / QHY9m 15 x 3m RGB / QHY12 Celestron 9.25" Edge HD / F6.3 FR / CGX Mount
- [The Rosette Nebula (Caldwell 49/50)](https://deography.com/the-rosette-nebula-caldwell-4950/) - If you're following me on social media you've already seen this and know that it's the first real test of my new telescope (An 11" Celestron F2 RASA)! I captured the nebula firstly in a narrowband test against the full moon. This means only collecting a small sliver of light with filters. The result was
- [Horsehead Nebula up Close](https://deography.com/horsehead-nebula-up-close/) - I've photographed and shared the famous Horsehead Nebula a few times now but this is the first time I've done it so close, at 1480mm focal length. Thanks in part to the stability and tracking of the new Celestron CGX mount I'm using, but no thanks to the tropical Australian summer weather which meant I
- [Killer Lightning](https://deography.com/killer-lightning/) - When life gives you storms... take photos! It's probably been over a year since I posted something on the photoblog that wasn't space related. Here is a photo from the lightning storm two nights ago. It was easily the biggest I've seen in the 8 years or so I've been living here. There were 3
- [The Clouds of Orion](https://deography.com/the-clouds-of-orion/) - He's back! Even city dwellers can see "Orion's belt" in the sky each evening, and near it the Orion Nebula. Is anyone watching Westworld on HBO right now? (If not, why not? It's incredible.) There's a little astronomical treat in the story line with one of the robot hosts carving what appears to be the
- [The Horsehead Swims in Hydrogen](https://deography.com/the-horsehead-swims-in-hydrogen/) - I was going to do more to this image but I had such a positive reaction to it online I think I'll just leave it. I've mapped the Hydrogen to blue which I think makes the Horsehead and it's surrounding emissions look incredible. Interestingly, although this is a "bicolour" image I've only used one filter
- [M45, The Pleiades (Seven Sisters)](https://deography.com/m45-the-pleiades-seven-sisters/) - I stayed up long enough to catch the "Pleiades" open star cluster clearing my roof, which as far as most boring old star clusters go, is terrifically enchanting. It is surrounded by deep clouds of dust and gas that aren't being charged as you see in red nebula. A classic image for photographers and star-lovers
- [Luminous Supermoon Corona in Full Colour](https://deography.com/luminous-supermoon-corona-in-full-colour/) - Did you catch the *cough* Supermoon? By overexposing frames and saturating colour, the moons colourful surface and glow are revealed in this high dynamic range photo. Taken with c9.25" SCT & Canon 70D DSLR "Supermoon" is an astrology term. Astronomically speaking, it's called a syzygy-perigee and is very common as the moon swings near and
- [M31 Andromeda, King of the Visual Galaxies](https://deography.com/m31-andromeda-king-of-the-visual-galaxies/) - Technically not as big and bright as LMC and SMC that we can see easily here in the Southern Hemisphere, Andromeda is a massive spiral galaxy seen from the Northern Hemisphere with a classic morphology. So it was with some surprise that after taking some test images I realised I was close enough to the
- [Sculptor Galaxy up Close](https://deography.com/sculptor-galaxy-up-close/) - 2 hour and 27 mins of exposure time on The Sculptor galaxy has yielded my best galaxy image yet! That classic side on spiral shape. I used my new trick of using 2 different cameras - one for mono luminance and one for colour. This image is brought to you by Pink Floyd, Mr Robot
- [Looking Directly at the Sun.](https://deography.com/looking-directly-at-the-sun-like-some-kind-of-god/) - I've wanted a hydrogen alpha solar telescope ever since I learned about them. They block all but a small sliver of the light spectrum allowing you to peer into the otherwise blinding light and look at the roiling surface. I took this image of the Sun this morning as a first test of this little
- [Collaborating on a Photo - M20 Trifid](https://deography.com/collaborating-on-a-photo-m20-trifid/) - This is what happens when two space nerds team up on the same target! +john mills and I planned ahead of time to capture the Trifid Nebula (M20) with roughly the same field of view configuration and framing/rotation so that we could combine our data later. John took the Hydrogen Alpha from his backyard in
- [Double Iridium Flare - Satellites catching a Sunbeam](https://deography.com/double-iridium-flare-satellites-catching-a-sunbeam/) - This is my second attempt at an iridium flare and it turned out great! Iridium communications is a company that launched a grid of satellite clusters that covers the entire planet to provide constant satellite-phone connectivity anywhere. There are about 90 of them, but about 20 of them have died including one that smashed into
- [M16 Eagle Nebula. Widefield and Narrowbands!](https://deography.com/m16-eagle-nebula-widefield-and-narrowbands/) - M16, The "Eagle Nebula" is a hugely popular photographic target because of the iconic "Pillars of Creation" Hubble image, which is also the "eagle" shape in the middle of the bright core of the larger structure. In this sulphur-heavy narrowband image I wanted to focus instead on the incredible beauty of the greater nebula which
- [M8 Lagoon Nebula (with new camera!)](https://deography.com/m8-lagoon-with-new-camera/) - I just finished my first "test" image with a second hand camera I picked up online that uses the Kodak 8300 sensor and boy, am I impressed. The jump to mono has increased the detail in my images by triple but in this image, I managed to blend in narrowband data from the mono camera
- [My Astro Selfie (And I was on TV!)](https://deography.com/my-astro-selfie-and-i-was-on-tv/) - I took this a couple of months ago but never thought to post it here on my blog. This kind of image is cool, if not a bit cliched. It's true that on social media the most popular space photos are ones that anchor the viewer with foreground details here on Earth. They give the
- [Lagoon M8 Up Close ...](https://deography.com/lagoon-m8-up-close/) - It took a few nights but I finally got enough data to finish the Lagoon Nebula (M8) I've been working on! One of the bigger and brighter Southern Hemisphere nebulas. 34 x 5m for 2.8 hours total integration in RGB using my Celestron 9.25" Edge HD, Lepus 6.3 focal reducer & QHY12 CCD. Processing in
- [The Tree of Life (M17) Omega Nebula](https://deography.com/the-tree-of-life-m17-omega-nebula/) - This spiffy looking nebula is M17, but also known as Omega, Swan, Checkmark and Horseshoe, is a HII rich region in the dense and bustling Sagittarius area of the Milky Way. I captured it last night in 75 minutes worth of exposure time in it's natural RGB colour, a typical pink-red emission. It has a
- [Celestial Beauty, The Trifid Nebula](https://deography.com/celestial-beauty-the-trifid-nebula/) - So happy to have a dream run of exposures for 102 minutes on the Trifid Nebula tonight! This spectacular little area is divided into sections of both emission (glowing clouds) and reflection (dark clouds with starlight on them). It's a wonderfully dual coloured deep space star factory which isn't common of nebula generally. Nebulas (nebulae?)
- [Cape Byron Lighthouse Animation](https://deography.com/cape-byron-lighthouse-animation/) - Something a bit different! An animation of the rotation of the lighthouse, and the rotation of the Earth looped as an animated GIF. Because, why not? 6 x 15s @ f3.2 ISO 1600 / Canon 70D
- [58% Moon in Full Colour with Earthshine](https://deography.com/58-moon-in-full-colour-with-earthshine/) - Fresh off the sensor, here is tonights 58% moon with full colour and earthshine as imaged from Byron Bay Observatory. When the moon gets this bright and high in the sky she is hard to ignore, and it's almost impossible to image anything else except the larger planets. So I've tried here to photograph her
- [The Dark Clouds of IC4603, 4604, 4605 in Rho Ophiuchus](https://deography.com/the-dark-clouds-of-ic4603-4604-4606-in-rho-ophiuchus/) - This has to be one of the coolest things I've imaged to date. Seeing dark nebula clouds always seems so visceral, and comprehendible compared to glowing emissions. They somehow seem more real, like you could reach out and feel them unlike the abstract points of starlight or dreamlike energetic regions. This area is clearly visible
- [Cats Paw Nebula, NGC 6334](https://deography.com/cats-paw-nebula-ngc-6334/) - I tried and failed last year to get this, so I'm really happy I got it this time around! Of all the crazy things people call nebula and constellations, this one I completely agree with. It's as if God herself is a cat, and on the seventh day having reviewed her creation and seen that
- [M8 Lagoon Nebula & NGC6559](https://deography.com/m8-lagoon-nebula-ngc6559/) - Just finished two nights of imaging for this LRGB image of M8, the Lagoon Nebula framed with NGC 6559 beside it. I just love this dense and bright area filled with star formation and nebulosity and dark veins and clouds running throughout. One of the larger and epic winter nebulas! So good to capture this
- [ISS Lunar Transit. Tim Peake Prepares to Come Home.](https://deography.com/iss-lunar-transit-tim-peake-prepares-to-come-home/) - I got her again! The International Space Station flying past the moon tonight over Byron Bay, Australia with Tim Peake aboard, who prepares to return to earth tomorrow. I'm so happy to get this as it was cloudy all day and night, but cleared beautifully for the crucial split second so all my planning paid
- [The Keyhole Nebula in Carina](https://deography.com/the-keyhole-nebula-in-carina/) - Here is a total 1 hour integration of the Keyhole Nebula in the heart of the Great Carina Nebula tonight in one-shot natural colour. This is at 2350mm focal length / F10. This target has been great to see this season and will be about in the early evening for a little while longer in
- [Once in a Blue Moon 2016](https://deography.com/once-in-a-blue-moon-2016/) - It’s the “blue” moon tonight. Not literally, just figuratively, being the occasional month with 4 full moons in a season instead of the regular 3. But if you take a photo of the Moon, and crank up those colour saturation sliders the typically monochrome lunar surface transforms into a fairly colourful, and blue, planetary object.
- [The King of the Planets and his Lovers.](https://deography.com/the-king-of-the-planets-and-his-lovers/) - If you looked up last night (and tonight really), you would see a very bright star passing close to the moon. But if you whipped out your binoculars, telescope or took a photo and zoomed in, you would see the star has a bunch of little stars next to it. That's because its not a
- [The Earth Glows Green](https://deography.com/the-earth-glows-green/) - I've been wanting to take this photo for a long time now and everything came together last night with the conditions, despite a quarter moon on the opposite end of the sky. Pictured here the core of the Milky Way rises above the horizon, but what is special about this view is the green glow.
- [The Emu's Head in Aboriginal Astronomy](https://deography.com/the-emus-head-in-aboriginal-astronomy/) - This is colloquially known as the "Coalsack" as it looks a bit like a black bag. To the indigenous people of Australia however, it was the head of the Emu looking downwards towards the land. An ancient rock engraving of this nebula exists in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, and when the seasonal rotation of the
- [IC2944 - Running Chicken Nebula](https://deography.com/ic2944-running-chicken-nebula/) - Imaged last night, the "Running Chicken" Nebula pictured here is a wide group of emission clouds with active star formation and striking "Bok globules" which are the dark clumps of dust floating in the middle of the nebula. They are about to collapse and ignite from their own collective weight and show the final stages
- [The Great Carina Nebula](https://deography.com/the-great-carina-nebula/) - I almost forgot to post this I'd been agonising about it for so long, processing and reprocessing, learning something new then reprocessing again! I collected this data last month and it's not a lot (about 1.5 hours worth) but since it's the biggest and brightest thing in the sky, it doesn't need a very long
- [The Sombrero Galaxy](https://deography.com/the-sombrero-galaxy/) - Last night's conditions were still and dark and perfect for photographing this amazing galaxy M104 at the maximum magnification my telescope is capable of. 43 x 3minute exposures in RGB were enough to show those beautiful dust lanes. People say it looks like Saturn, or a UFO, or a mexican hat. What do you think?
- [The Rising Core](https://deography.com/the-rising-core/) - Here she comes again... The middle of the Milky Way rising from the airglow on the horizon tonight.
- [Running Chicken Nebula (Collaboration)](https://deography.com/running-chicken-nebula-collaboration/) - A collaboration between +john mills and myself! John captured the 20 X 5m Ha data last week and I captured the RGB last year. This is the belly of the chicken.. The Running Chicken Nebula IC2499. We had a wild Friday night processing in PixInsight.
- [Byron Bay Observatory](https://deography.com/byron-bay-observatory/) - Here's a photo of my new backyard observatory (SkyShed Pod) last night. I wasn't sure if a star trails photo would work with the full moon out, but with 30s exposures at ISO 100 and f3.5 it actually worked ok. You can see the South Celestial Pole behind the dome, which is the point in
- [ISS crosses the Sun, and other little victories!](https://deography.com/iss-crosses-the-sun-and-other-little-victories/) - This is an inverted high-speed video capture of the International Space Station crossing the disc of the sun today as seen from my location in Byron Bay. It's actually captured in black and white, but most people prefer to see the sun in orange even though it's actually white. (click to enlarge) I'd like to
- [The Seagull Nebula](https://deography.com/the-seagull-nebula/) - Long time subscribers will have seen me image this magnificent emission nebula last year, and I hope that you can see the improvements in my work since then! The "seagull" is too wide even for my widefield setup at 540mm magnification, it's wings really extending out of frame. To be honest, it looks more like
- [Corona Australis Molecular Cloud](https://deography.com/corona-australis-molecular-cloud-2/) - Apart from a few mistakes, I'm very happy with this 2.5 hour session on this stunning region of deep space! Easily one of my favourite southern sky regions - it's the complete package! Away from the flashy and crowded milky way regions, the Corona Australis Molecular cloud is a beautiful mix of dark and reflection
- [Comet 252P/LINEAR passing the Large Magellanic Cloud Galaxy](https://deography.com/comet-252plinear-passing-the-large-magellanic-cloud-galaxy/) - So here's a funny story for you. I was sick as a dog last week. At around 8:45pm last Thursday (March 17) I decided to go to bed uncharacteristically early to lay in a cold sweat with my fever dreams. I checked Facebook on my phone as I lay there, because I'm addicted to my
- [Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (M83)](https://deography.com/southern-pinwheel-galaxy-m83/) - One of the better shots from my recent break in the weather, the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (M83) which is big and bright in the southern sky, you could even see it with binoculars. Six supernovae (SN 1923A, SN 1945B, SN 1950B, SN 1957D, SN 1968L and SN 1983N) have been observed in this relatively close
- [The Death of a Star, Supernova 2016adj in NGC5128, Centaurus A](https://deography.com/the-death-of-a-star-supernova-2016adj-in-ngc5128-centaurus-a/) - We tend to think of the stars as "fixed" in the sky, and indeed they appear that way in our short life times. They are of course not only moving around and interacting with each other, but new stars are born, and old ones die. If you aren't looking closely though, you'd never know. Some
- [DSA1, The Other Dish](https://deography.com/dsa1-european-space-agencys-australian-dish/) - ESA reached out to me this week to see if I had any photos of their dish in my archives that we might have passed over. I had a dig around as I took hundreds of shots over 2 days and nights and found this one with the dish illuminated. From memory I shined my
- [Keyhole Nebula in the Great Carina Nebula](https://deography.com/homunculus-nebula-in-the-great-carina-nebula/) - The Keyhole in the Great Carina Nebula - In the upper bright region pictured here is a small human foetus shaped blob. What you are looking at though is a huge explosive outburst that begun in our skies 175 years ago. Before 1841 this blob just looked like a bright star, but in that year it
- [The Running Man Nebula](https://deography.com/the-running-man-nebula/) - I think I did some astronomy last night because I woke up all groggy, there is an empty wine bottle on my desk and my liver hurts. But when I looked on my computer I found that I'd imaged this oft overlooked group of nebulas without my beloved Hyperstar lens. That means it was "slow"
- [The Rosette Nebula (or The Skull)](https://deography.com/the-rosette-nebula-or-the-skull/) - This is above your head at night right now and as big as the full moon. It's called the "Rosette" nebula but oriented this way, it's also a pretty rad looking skull. See it? You can't see this at night because of your puny human eyes and its faintness. Even with a telescope it's virtually
- [Alnitak, The Horsehead Nebula & The Flame Nebula](https://deography.com/alnitak-the-horsehead-nebula-the-flame-nebula/) - Here's my Horsehead and Flame Nebula with full colour as promised! This is such a popular target for space nerds that you're probably seeing it from other photographer accounts right now too, as it's in season and prime for photography. Although popular, it's actually pretty difficult to do well. That bright star Alnitak usually dominates
- [The 7% Moon](https://deography.com/the-7-moon/) - I recorded some video frames of the moon through some new gear this morning as a test before work, not even framing it properly on screen. But when I processed it into colour I fell in love with how it's balanced in the frame. It feels like a sci-fi prop on a movie almost. There's
- [International Space Station over Australia](https://deography.com/international-space-station-over-australia/) - I was super happy to catch the silhouette of the ISS over the disc of the moon last night! The CalSky website sends me alerts for potential fly overs for which I've been waiting a long time - about 12 months. I got one this week and this was adjusted by 15 seconds by the time
- [Moon in Colour](https://deography.com/moon-in-colour/) - The moon has natural colours that can be seen when processed with enough data and high saturation. The green is said to be lithium and the blue areas titanium oxide. Photographing along the terminator makes it harder to get this colour as it's shifted.. imagine trying to photograph Earth's natural blue from space while you
- [The Great Orion Nebula & Running Man](https://deography.com/the-great-orion-nebula-running-man/) - About a year ago I was featured by Canon for what I considered my first really successful nebula photo of this amazing region of space. Since then I've been learning and upgrading my tools with all the Southern Hemisphere winter objects and just waiting for another crack at Orion! I got my chance from about
- [The Pleiades](https://deography.com/the-pleiades-2/) - I finally got a clear night to make a photo! When I say "clear" I mean, I setup in the rain with the cloud radars promise of an hours band of relatively clear sky before the moon came up. I could tell you a story about the "seven sisters" or that you already know this
- [Ethereal Moonrise](https://deography.com/ethereal-moonrise/) - Tonights ethereal moonrise over Byron Bay from the cape looking south-east, with the Southern Cross and the Milky Way shining brightly!
- [Earthshine](https://deography.com/earthshine/) - Ok look. I know I post a lot of photos of the moon but I really try not to! I'm posting another because I think this is the best one I've ever captured. It's a layering of 2 separate stacks, both of 20 exposures each for a total of 40 exposures. This was done to
- [Connection](https://deography.com/connection/) - Kids who grow up with nature have a deep connection to the world and their place in it. It's a perspective that can't be taught, only experienced. Photo of my son taken at North Byron Estuary, Byron Bay.
- [LMC - Our Galactic Neighbour](https://deography.com/lmc-our-galactic-neighbour/) - The Large Magellanic Cloud is easily visible with the naked eye from a dark backyard, and bigger than 370 full moons in the sky! It used to look like a classic "barred spiral" , like the ones they draw in comic books. It's been disrupted though leaving it as a largely irregular shape. Weirdly, it has a long thin
- [Milky Way Season](https://deography.com/milky-way-season/) - Guess who's back? Back again? Galactic Core. Tell a Friend. It's Milky Way season again with spectacular views of the galactic core rising in the east from about 8:30pm. Best viewed on moonless nights and especially easy to photograph with a tripod and a 30s exposure away from light pollution. This was taken 2am this
- [IC 2944 - Dragon Nebula](https://deography.com/ic-2944-lambda-cen-nebula/) - This stunning emission nebula is usually referred to by it's common name "Running Chicken Nebula" which is almost as uninspiring as the Seagull Nebula! I'm just going to call it the "Dragon Nebula" because I think the blue star looks like an eye, with horns above it, and the large red area the curled up
- [True Colour Great Carina Nebula](https://deography.com/true-colour-great-carina-nebula/) - This is 2+ hours of 180s exposures over 2 nights using my 9.25" SCT Telescope + QHY12 One Shot Colour CCD camera. In processing this, I've tried to draw out the details with respect to the natural colour of this MASSIVE southern hemisphere nebula. You can tell a photo like this has been "over-photoshopped" if
- [66% Moon and Apennine Mountain Ranges](https://deography.com/66-moon-and-apennine-mountain-ranges/) - Here is a close up of the Apennines Mountain Ranges I captured last night with the QHY5L-II CMOS camera with scale shown. Waxing Gibbous 66% Moon. Celestron 9.25" Edge HD, 6 x 1/1250s ISO 640 @ F10 / Backyard EOS / Stacked in Autostakkert 2 - Imaged from Byron Bay
- [3D 66% Waxing Gibbous Moon - Australia / New Zealand](https://deography.com/3d-66-waxing-gibbous-moon-australia-new-zealand/) - Get out your 1980s copy of "MAD" magazine and find those 3D red/blue glasses, because it's time for another 3D moon! This image was created by combining 2 separate images of the moon taken simultaneously, but from different places on earth. Paul Stewart from New Zealand, and myself from Australia on May 27th. And yes,
- [Omega Centauri](https://deography.com/omega-centauri/) - Imagine we had two suns. You'd have longer, maybe multiple overlapping days. Shorter nights. You'd have to buy twice as much sun screen, and endure warmer weather and seasonal cycles. Synchronised sunsets would be pretty I'm sure, and overlapping reflections on the moon. Now imagine you had TEN MILLION SUNS. That's what life must be like
- [NGC 6357, Flying Spaghetti Monster Nebula](https://deography.com/ngc-6357-lobster-nebula/) - Ok I know I'm suddenly cranking out the space jams like it's 1996 but the conditions haven't been at all favourable until yesterday. I set up in the rain tonight (stupid, I know), then had to pull it all down in the drizzle later, but somehow by the grace of the great cat goddess in
- [Eagle Nebula](https://deography.com/eagle-nebula/) - 27 x 2 minutes exposures on this smaller but deservedly famous target, the Eagle Nebula! It has the Messier designation 16, as in the machine gun, M-16. You may remember it as the location of that very famous Hubble image "The Pillars of Creation", which are those three spires in the middle pointing downwards. I
- [Nocturnal Emissions](https://deography.com/nocturnal-emissions/) - Here is a 7-photo stitched panorama of the milky way as seen from Byron Bay, NSW last Friday night. The glow on the left comes from the lighthouse on the cape. As a stellarphile, some of the nocturnal emissions may have been mine.
- [Lagoon Nebula, M8](https://deography.com/lagoon-nebula-m8-2/) - This was the best astrophoto I was able to image last weekend, and I'm really happy with the low noise and high clarity from this amazingly bright nebula. 24 x 2 minute exposures (48 minutes) of RGB data from my cooled QHY12 CCD camera. This giant interstellar cloud is about 4000-6000 light years away from earth and quite large in
- [Labradorite Labradorescence](https://deography.com/labradorite-labradorescence/) - I just bought a small slab of this impossibly beautiful mineral "labradorite" for $12 from the local lapidary club in Byron Bay. It has a specific internal crystalline nanostructure and "twinning" that causes light not to simply absorb and reflect back into your eyes at one wavelength, but to split and reflect various wavelengths depending
- [Comet Panstarrs Q1](https://deography.com/comet-panstarrs-q1/) - Just like that, the southern skies were suddenly graced with a beautiful comet just as the sun set, and the moon chased it over the western horizon. Just out of view with the naked eye, this brightness-enhanced image was taken using 39 exposures, separately stacked in order to show the amazing structure of this transient
- [M20, The Trifid Nebula](https://deography.com/m20-the-trifid-nebula/) - The beautiful duality of the "Trifid" nebula, where two stars and two dust and gas clouds produce two completely different colours. The red cloud is energised by it's young star's ionsation, while the blue cloud is illuminated by the sheer heat and brightness of it's hotter blue star. The interplay between the faint red and
- [Pinnacles Desert, Galatic Core](https://deography.com/pinnacles-desert-galatic-core/) - I spent at least 8 hours in the Pinnacles Desert (Western Australia) today and tonight scouting and shooting, and it was truly incredible. If you live in Perth, do yourself a favour and go there at night. I watched the sun set over the ocean while standing on a limestone bluff, and the glorious milky
- [DSA1 - ESA Deep Space Tracking Station, New Norcia WA](https://deography.com/dsa1-esa-deep-space-tracking-station-new-norcia-wa/) - The first of a few photographic studies of this beautiful 35m tracking station I had the privilege to photograph this weekend for ESA! Pictured here facing east, the antenna was in operation communicating with the GAIA mission and slowly tracking across the sky! GAIA is doing detailed measurements to create a 3D map of the
- [The Pinnacles, 3 Galaxies](https://deography.com/the-pinnacles-3-galaxies/) - Another photo from my night in the desert in Western Australia, this is the duller side of the milky way showing the dark squarish "coalsack" nebula. With skies this dark however, and stacking the stellar regions for greater signal-to-noise ratio, the star density and brightness can be imaged intensely! In this image you can see
- [DSA1 / ESA Deep Space Tracking Station (Gallery)](https://deography.com/dsa1-esa-deep-space-tracking-station-gallery/) - Here is the whole gallery of "portraits" of ESA's tracking station I had the privilege to photograph at their New Norcia facility in Western Australia. All the best photos are now on ESA's ESATRACK FlickR page at : https://www.flickr.com/photos/esa_events/sets/72157651185624085 .. The first 7 are mine. :) The clouds threatened to ruin the night stars I
- [The Pinnacles by Moonlight](https://deography.com/the-pinnacles-by-moonlight/) - When the full moon rose over the Pinnacles Desert WA, the milky way retreated, no match for the rays of sunlight it shoots back at the earth. Low on the horizon, and bathed in gold, a moon rise is a lot like a sunrise or sunset, but dimmer. A long exposure reveals the familiar warm
- [Perseid Meteor over my Tent](https://deography.com/perseid-meteor-over-my-tent/) - I've just got back from my first Star Party, the QLD Astrofest which was held during the Perseid meteor shower, so we were treated to constant streaks across the superbly dark skies all night long. This one caused a "flash" it was so bright and on reviewing my timelapse shots I found it falling right
- [Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex](https://deography.com/rho-ophiuchi-cloud-complex-2/) - This will be the best shot I get from the Astrofest QLD Star Party this week! I finally got back to photographing the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex with an excellent field of view thanks to a Canon 200mm L-series lens I borrowed from a friend. I can't afford that kind of kit. This is the
- [Eye of Sauron Nebula ... and a news update!](https://deography.com/eye-of-sauron-nebula-and-a-news-update/) - Here is my first crack at the "Eye of Sauron" nebula, imaged from Astrofest QLD 2015 where I pitched a tent and my telescope for the first time away from home. It was a great experience being around lots of other enthusiastic space nuts like myself and meeting some online and society friends there. This
- [Adventures in Narrowband ... Eagle Nebula and others.](https://deography.com/adventures-in-narrowband/) - This one may get a little nerdy, so if you are here for the pretty pictures just skip the text and check out this photo of the Eagle Nebula I took last night! If you want to deep dive with me into a little primer of how these "false colour" images are created however, read
- [The Exact Middle of the Milky Way](https://deography.com/the-exact-middle-of-the-milky-way/) - The phallic looking thing at the bottom is sometimes called the Pipe Nebula, or if you are from New Zealand it's the head of the Kiwi bird. This photo is close to the centre of our galaxy, the brightest and densest area of the Milky Way. The middle of the photo is roughly the dead
- [M20 Triffid Nebula](https://deography.com/triffid-nebula/) - The Triffid Nebula, so called because the red cloud appears to split into three, is a specially colourful deep space object as it is both red and blue at once. This image is a bit rough, only 40 minutes of exposure, but it still shows the finer dusty details of this small pair which are
- [At the Edge of the Lagoon (Nebula)](https://deography.com/at-the-edge-of-the-lagoon-nebula/) - I love how this turned out! It just looks like magic stuff. Here is a close up of the inner core, the star forming region, of the Lagoon Nebula (M8). The area is littered with "Bok Globules" which are dark, dense areas of dust ready to coalesce into a new star. This is another quick
- [Sculptor Galaxy NGC 253](https://deography.com/sculptor-galaxy-ngc-253/) - The Sculptor Galaxy! AKA The "Silver Coin". My best attempt yet at a small distant galaxy using the full magnification of my Celestron 9.25" Edge HD SCT. Though small, it's the largest and brightest you can image after LMC, Andromeda and SMC so it comes up pretty nicely framed. This 55 minutes of 300s exposures
- [Zodiacal Light and The Monolith](https://deography.com/zodiacal-light-and-the-monolith/) - The solar system is kind of flat. Like marbles on a table, the planets spin around the sun in the middle on a flat plane. Along that plane we see the planets and moon move all year round. Seen here, after sunset a dusty glow illuminates that normally invisible line. Here, leftovers from asteroids and
- [A Billion Birds](https://deography.com/a-billion-birds/) - Birds, mammals, reptiles and insects depend on the night sky and the moon, not just for light, but for direction. It's estimated a BILLION birds die in the USA every year because the lights of New York City disrupt their migration. How many countless species have suffered just because we feel safer (but aren't actually),
- [Earthshine II](https://deography.com/earthshine-ii/) - Here's a quick stack + composite of the 10% moon with earthshine taken last night over Australia. There are many ways to merge two different exposures, but a simple gradient layer mask makes the moon look quite spherical which I like! Taken with my Celestron 9.25" SCT / F10 and Canon 70D at prime focus.
- [The Eye of God (Helix Nebula NGC  7293)](https://deography.com/the-eye-of-god-helix-nebula-ngc-7293/) - That's a dramatic name isn't it? It certainly does look like an eyeball. Many people now call it the "Eye of Sauron", the evil omnipresence from Mordor in Lord of the Rings. What it actually is, is a planetary nebula, but that's wrong too. It's only called that because early astronomers hard a hard time
- [Small Magellanic Cloud in HaRGB](https://deography.com/small-magellanic-cloud-in-hargb/) - Star Formation on a Massive Scale - Small Magellanic Cloud imaged 18th Nov in HaRGB. SMC is a "dwarf galaxy", but even small things in space tend to be massive. 7,000 light years across and with a mass of 7 BILLION suns, this image shows hydrogen-rich star formation nebulas scattered throughout the galaxy amongst several
- [Large Magellanic Cloud (The Biggest Galaxy Near Us...)](https://deography.com/large-magellanic-cloud-the-biggest-galaxy-near-us/) - Move over Andromeda, here is the Large Magellanic Cloud - the biggest galaxy you can see with your naked eye besides the Milky Way. This is a quick (4 x 30s = 2m) of integration with a Canon L Series 200m lens @ f4 / ISO 3200. Tracking on EQ8 mount, piggyback. You can see
- [Southern Celestial Pole](https://deography.com/southern-celestial-pole/) - This is an extreme timelapse stack I did last weekend that took 3.5 hours! It used up a 16gb card and almost the entire battery. Aimed directly at the Southern Celestial Pole it reveals the rotation of the earth as seen from Northern NSW Australia. American readers will notice our distinct lack of any kind
- [Fire in the Sky, Australian Winter Night Sky](https://deography.com/fire-in-the-sky-australian-winter-night-sky/) - I captured everything you see here in the last 30 days or so. Sometimes it's nice to sit back and look at all these things in context. Just a few of the highlights from the Southern Hemisphere in the Winter months! I'll attach the wide shot below as well in case you want it. (Click
- [DSA1 in 3D](https://deography.com/dsa1-in-3d/) - The European Space Agency's New Norcia Deep Space Tracking Stationing Western Australia, now in 3D! This image was ESA's "Image of the Week!". It's taken by a single camera, moved manually a few meters on the ground between exposures, then converted to mono and red/blue channels for viewing with 3D glasses.
- [180 degree Milky Way Panorama - Western Australia](https://deography.com/180-degree-milky-way-panorama-western-australia/) - Here's a 180 degree panorama of our home galaxy stretching over Western Australia, with the glow of Perth city over the horizon. 9 photos stitched together each 25 seconds @ f.28 / ISO 1600 with a Canon 70D DSLR and Tokina 11-16mm lens. These kinds of photos weren't possible only 10 years ago with consumer
- [The Tarantula Nebula](https://deography.com/the-tarantula-nebula/) - Now that summer is over the nights are crisp and dry, and for most of this week there have been clear, still, blue skies all day. Which means lovely dark skies at night and more chances for me to image a fresh batch of new stuff coming into view from my backyard. This nebula is
- [Black Ant](https://deography.com/black-ant/) - The light wouldn't stop changing. One second the sun was beating down, and then a cloud would pass over and it would become dark. I bumped the ISO up to 800 for a close up in a darker moment. Digital is a boon at least for being able to change "film speed" on the fly.
- [Fuck Bush](https://deography.com/fuck-bush/) - How long do you think it took to convince these people to write these words in the air with sparklers? Less time than the shutter was open for, and in fact it was mostly their idea. I am shocked and awed, but now my mission is accomplished, its time for me to go home and
- [The Trifid by the Lagoon (and in 3D!)](https://deography.com/the-trifid-by-the-lagoon-and-in-3d/) - M8 + M20 / Lagoon & Trifid Nebulas side by side. These two targets are far enough apart to usually be photographed individually. Here I've imaged them together in the same field of view. This astrophoto is 2.3 hours of 5 minute exposures with the #celestron 9.25" Edge HD & Hyperstar 3 lens, stacked in
- [No tracking, no telescope.](https://deography.com/no-tracking-no-telescope/) - No tracking, no telescope! This is taken with a regular DSLR + tripod with a cheap wide angle lens. I wanted to see how far I could push a stack of 11 x 20s exposures. There is some coma distortion on the edges and I've cropped in a bit. f3.2 / ISO 3200 / Canon
- [Galatic Core](https://deography.com/galatic-core/) - Something simple from the side of the road near Byron Bay, NSW Australia. Keep looking up! 4 x 30s ISO 3200 / f2.8 / Canon70D / Tokina 11-16mm Here's another taken at the same time, just the other side of the sky, looking over the busy pacific highway!
- [The Prawn Nebula (IC 4628)](https://deography.com/the-prawn-nebula-ic-4628/) - Taken over 2 nights, this is a deep space astrophoto of the "Prawn" nebula 6,000 lightyears away from earth. This kind of deep space work takes a long time usually and this one is about 2.5 hours of exposure time in 3 and 5 minutes exposures. In fact most of the data was quite blurry
- [Virgo Supercluster (Galaxies)](https://deography.com/virgo-supercluster-galaxies/) - Lately I've been posting pretty "showy", visually compelling nebulas. This image is not perhaps as visually impressive as it is conceptually mind blowing. Using long exposures in the constellation of Virgo, a whole local group of distant galaxies is revealed. Normally in starry photos you see nice distinct pinpoint stars. But if you look closely
- [Rosette Nebula](https://deography.com/rosette-nebula/) - I finally managed to capture this incredible nebula! I've uploaded this in slightly higher resolution than normal because it's quite sharp and has lots of fine detail and clouds on the inside areas if you want to zoom in. The Rosette Nebula is a massive ball of charged hydrogen gas and dust forming stars rapidly.
- [The Carina Nebula](https://deography.com/the-carina-nebula/) - This is an image I developed from 78 mins of exposure time (26 x 180s) a couple of nights ago. It covers a relatively large area of sky - roughly 4 full moons worth. I think it's the most technical and successful nebula photo I've ever done! Eta Carinae is the bright star in the
- [Leo Triplet](https://deography.com/leo-triplet/) - And now for something completely different! The Leo Triplet, M65, M66 & NGC3628. When I share space photos I like to tell you how far away the light was. Eg Earth was in the bronze age when the light you see in the Rosette Nebula started it's journey to your eyeball. The light from these galaxies
- [The Horsehead Nebula Region](https://deography.com/the-horsehead-nebula-region/) - The intensely mysterious and beautiful Horsehead Nebula region really comes alive in this natural colour photo I took 2 nights ago over Byron Bay NSW, Australia. A classic astronomy image but deservedly famous!
- [Horsehead Nebula Region](https://deography.com/horsehead-nebula-region/) - I almost didn't post this today because it's so rough, only 15 minutes of exposure time through the telescope. But with the weather conditions being what they are this year it looks like I won't see these features until next summer as they roll westward and out of view. The horsehead nebula is a really
- [M22 Globular Cluster](https://deography.com/m22-globular-cluster/) - I'm not really a globular cluster kinda guy, give me a nebula any day.. but I captured a deep space globular cluster called M22 last night and it turned out great.. nice sharp pinpoint stars, unguided. 10 x 30s exposures on the canon70D through the 9.25" Celestron SCT. There are 2 black holes in that
- [Alnitak & The Flame Nebula](https://deography.com/alnitak-the-flame-nebula/) - The flame nebula is a beautiful emission nebula that, like a middle sibling, always seems to play second fiddle to its immediate neighbours, the famous Horsehead nebula and the bright blue brilliance of Alnitak. The multiple star system itself is like a battery for the nebulas glow, its solar winds charging the dust clouds much like
- [First Sun](https://deography.com/first-sun/) - This is my first ever astrophoto of our star, Sol! It was taken with the Southern Astronomical Society's $5,000 Lunt LS80THa Solar Telescope, and with my $350 QHY5L-II planetary CMOS camera. It's a bit rushed as I grudgingly had to share the scope with the other members (hehe), and I was being roasted to death
- [Two Galaxies You Can See With Your Own Eyes.](https://deography.com/two-galaxies-you-can-see-with-your-own-eyes/) - The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC) really do look like clouds. When I point them out to people they often say "Wait, I thought they were clouds?". In fact they are entire galaxies. The larger has at least 60 globular clusters, 400 planetary nebulae, and 700 open clusters, along with hundreds of
- [Jupiter / Lunar Conjunction 3/3/2015](https://deography.com/jupiter-lunar-conjunction-332015/) - Last night I tried something different and did a "Live broadcast" using Google Hangouts from my telescope! Several friends jumped on to watch as I imaged Jupiter and checked out the craters on the moon. This Jupiter image is "First light" with my new QHY5L-II CMOS planetary camera. No barlow, 9.25" SCT. 250 Frames stacked in Autostakkert. Right
- [Orion, Running Man & Flame Nebula Widefield](https://deography.com/orion-running-man-flame-nebula-widefield/) - Here is a graphic I put together with a widefield view of the region in which the Running Man Nebula (NGC 1973, 1975, 1977) is highlighted. Both photos were taken on the same night. For more details about the Running Man image click here. And just for fun.. if you want to go DEEPER here
- [Running Man Nebula NGC1977 w/ QHY12 CCD](https://deography.com/running-man-nebula-ngc1977-w-qhy12-ccd/) - So recently I bought a new camera for my deep space pursuits, a QHY12 One shot colour CCD and it's a totally different ballgame! It's cooled to -15 degrees c while it takes the exposures. This is my third attempt at imaging with it and I've finally come to grips with the process. As a
- [Happy Australia Day - The Southern Cross (is not Australian)](https://deography.com/happy-australia-day-the-southern-cross-is-not-australian/) - I took this one a few days ago but held off posting until Australia day. You can see the Southern Cross (aka Acrux) as the 4 brightest stars in the middle of the bottom half of the photo. It's like an upside down crucifix. There's also a 5th, dimmer star. If you are still not
- [Sunset Lightning, Byron Bay](https://deography.com/sunset-lightning-byron-bay/) - When a crazy weather event or special sunset occurs nowadays, my social media feeds usually light up with people in the area posting. It's really interesting to see the same phenomenon from dozens of different phones, cameras and angles. That happened tonight with a spectacular storm cell rolling right over the sunset causing a moody
- [Moon Wax](https://deography.com/moon-wax/) - I really like how this stack of about 10 exposures of the 16-18% moon turned out. The detail and dynamic range are pretty good and it's nice and sharp even at higher resolutions. 1/130 - ISO 640 - F6.3 Focal Reducer / Canon 70D / Celestron 9.25" SCT
- [Jupiter Rising](https://deography.com/jupiter-rising/) - When the forecast says rain later, I can't risk setting up the telescope. So last night I took some photos with my DSLR and a regular 50mm prime lens. As I was focussing on Jupiter, rising up in the east I was surprised to learn that it's moons are clearly visible through a regular camera!
- [The Running Man Nebula](https://deography.com/running-man-nebula/) - This beautiful region of space is near the Orion Nebula (M42) and is usually included with that in most photos. It really stands on it's own as a target though so is nice to image by itself. It is a grouping of 3 reflection nebula clouds whose dark inner area separating them is said to
- [Jupiter and it's 4 Moons](https://deography.com/jupiter-and-its-4-moons/) - This is my first attempt at planetary astrophotography aside from the lunar stuff, which is a very similar approach but with a much brighter, bigger target. Compared to photographing nebula, which takes hours or days, planetary imaging takes mere moments. This image is a processed stack (Autostakkert) from about 400 frames (40 seconds of video)
- [Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy / January 8 2015](https://deography.com/comet-c2014-q2-lovejoy-january-9-2015/) - After some learning I've finally been able to image a comet through my main 9.25" SCT telescope! I was helped of course by the fact that Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy is unexpectedly bright, so much so that it is visible with the naked eye in a dark sky, even next to the mostly full moon.
- [Astroimaging the Moon With a 1970s Childrens Telescope using 2015 Technology](https://deography.com/astroimaging-the-moon-with-a-1970s-childrens-telescope-using-2015-technology/) - I recently found my childhood telescope, an "Amasco" 600mm refractor, stowed away in the attic. These were sold in Sydney in the 70s and 80s and made it's way into my childhood bedroom when my father passed it onto me. I nearly fell off the ladder when I saw it, as I've been somewhat obsessed
- [Crystal Skull Vodka Bottle & Industrial Laser Beam](https://deography.com/crystal-skull-vodka-bottle-industrial-laser-beam/) - Did you know that Dan Aykroyd (Ghostbusters, Blues Brothers) is co-founder and owner of the award winning Crystal Skull Vodka, sold in a beautifully rendered glass skull bottle? Pictured here, the large 1.75 litre ($199 AUD - 56 standard drinks) bottle illuminated by an industrial laser beam which was the first thing I thought to
- [M42 - Orion ](https://deography.com/m42-orion-close-up/) - Ok so this is the best astrophoto I've ever taken to date and I'm excited to share it! It's a close up into the heart of the well known favourite M42 (Orion Nebula). I've kept the rough border so you can see the layering it takes to capture a nebula. About 20 x 60s exposures (ISO 800/1600) stacked in
- [The Pleiades](https://deography.com/the-pleiades/) - I got so hung up on imaging nebula that I'd forgotten about 12 stacked 2m exposures I did of The Pleiades, a cluster of stars with some faint reflection nebulosity. This is taken with my Canon 70D and a regular kit 135mm lens piggybacking on the tracking mount as it follows the stars. You can
- [Trains Comin / Sirius & Canopus](https://deography.com/trains-comin/) - There's so much going on in this photo. There's me off to the left, like a kind of cameo in my own astrophoto. There's the satellite darting out from the patchy clouds high up in the earths orbit. There's the subtle play between the white spectrum and sodium streetlights illuminating the rusty train tracks. And
- [Geminid Meteor Shower 2014](https://deography.com/geminid-meteor-shower-2014/) - They should probably drop the word "shower" because it really conjures up false expectations. A good shower is about a shooting-star per minute, which last nights was expected to fetch. It wasn't quite that active however and I personally only saw a good few streaks in the stars, but it's still nice to be outside.
- [Milky Bay Town Lights](https://deography.com/milky-bay-town-lights/) - Get it? Byron Bay? Milky Way?? Ok whatever. Here is a photo I took a few months ago at a roadside lookout. I really don't know how or why the town lights (and lighthouse) are flaring up like that. It only occurred in a few photos and seems to be related to the illumination of
- [Cape Byron Stormy Weather](https://deography.com/cape-byron-stormy-weather/) - What's an eager astrophotographer to do in this kind of weather?! There's nothing else to do but take wide landscapes with brooding, blustery skies. Lightning would be nice, I would settle for some lightning. The local wetlands have had a nice top up of rain and the grasses are green again. With any luck the
- [The X and the V on the Moon](https://deography.com/the-x-and-the-v-on-the-moon/) - For 4 hours only during an entire lunar month, the letters X and V mysteriously appear on the moon's surface, as the terminator shadow cuts the moon in two halves. Of course, it's not a mystery, just a nice play between the rocks, the sun and the shadows that astrophotographers challenge themselves to capture. Can
- [Belongil Beach Night Sky](https://deography.com/belongil-beach-night-sky/) - I had a great little drive around town last night to test various urban/coastal areas light pollution levels. The photos I took were all for a photoessay about Byron Bay's light pollution (or lack of) compared to other towns and you can read the whole article on Common Ground Byron Bay. Pictured above, the view
- [Andromeda Galaxy from Australia](https://deography.com/andromeda-galaxy-from-australia/) - A long long time from now, in this galaxy currently far far away, our home the Milky Way will smash into Andromeda Galaxy. We are on a collision course with this beautiful region which reminds us that all life here is temporary and that we are all doomed. Doomed, I tell you. This massive galaxy
- [Brain Coral](https://deography.com/brain-coral/) - Polyp colonies often form coral that resemble the striations and folds of a brain, but I was surprised to find an example washed ashore that was roughly shaped and sized much like a human brain! If it had hemispheres I'd have been on the lookout for a nearby shark neurosurgeon.
- [Apollo 14 "Kitty Hawk" Command Module ](https://deography.com/apollo-14-kitty-hawk-command-module/) - I took this photo last year at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre. This command module was used to fly 3 astronauts to the Moon and back in 1971. On board were 500 seeds which were then germinated back on earth and are now know as "Moon trees". They were planted in various places across America and
- [Looking at the Centre of Our Galaxy](https://deography.com/looking-at-the-centre-of-our-galaxy/) - Earth swings around a star, and that star is in one of the outer spiral arms of our galaxy - the milky way. When we see the light band across the night sky, we are looking "side on" at the rest of the galaxy. The brightest part, pictured here, is the view towards the middle
- [Comet Siding Spring Shoots Past Mars](https://deography.com/comet-siding-spring-shoots-past-mars/) - I thought I'd slip in this wide field photo of Comet Siding Spring racing past Mars last night before NASA and the other professionals share their amazing photos of the event. Last night Comet Siding Spring went closer to Mars than any comet has ever been observed going by any planet, including Earth. NASA moved
- [Coffs Harbour Milky Way](https://deography.com/coffs-harbour-light-pollution/) - It's hard to see the milky way in an urban area flooded with streetlights. Some urban areas are illuminated with sodium-vapor streetlights, which colour the area with that familiar orange glow. These lights are slightly more forgiving for astronomers, as you can see here compared to the towns white streetlight glow on the left, virtually
- [Mare Imbrium & The Postage Stamp Incident](https://deography.com/mare-imbrium-the-postage-stamp-incident/) - Here is a colour enhanced version near the Mare Imbrium region of the moon - a wide, relatively flat area that has been visited by the Americans, the Russians and more recently a Chinese robot. On the Apollo 15 mission that flew near here in 1971, the astronauts took 398 postage stamps + covers on
- [Tycho & Clavius Crater](https://deography.com/tycho-clavius-crater/) - I heard you like craters dawg so I put some craters in your craters! That recursive crater is called Clavius. In 2001 A Space Odyssey this is where the moon base is located and the monolith (TMA-1) appears at Tycho. It was taken earlier this week when the terminator shadow was angled nicely in order
- [Utopian Sunset](https://deography.com/utopian-sunset/) - This cloudy mountain sunset was taken in Byron Bay, NSW. The word "Utopia" is latin for "no place" and this scene was actually taken in my laundry. In fact, this is a piece of bluestone basalt sitting in a tea saucer of hot water and liquid nitrogen. It was photographed with the afternoon sun through
- [Montes Apenninus Mountain Range & Copernicus Crater](https://deography.com/montes-apenninus-mountain-range-copernicus-crater/) - Montes Apenninus is a 600km mountain range on the moon. In the top left of this photo, near the gap in the range, is where Apollo 15 landed. You know those shots of the astronauts doing donuts in the Lunar Rover? Yeh, this is where that happened. The Copernicus Crater is one of the largest
- [Daytime Moon](https://deography.com/daytime-moon/) - Tonights moon was really great. I wanted to capture it while the sky was still blue but also tried to draw out as much detail as possible with the 9.25" SCT Celestron and this stack of 20+ exposures @ 1/140s | f11 | ISO 400, most of which were taken from the dinner table from
- [ Corona Australis Molecular Cloud](https://deography.com/corona-australis-molecular-cloud/) - Space is vast, but far from empty. Everywhere we look in any direction with our most powerful instruments is filled with more stuff. I've become increasingly fascinated with "Dark Nebula" where patches of the stars are obscured by mostly unlit clouds of dust and gas. Their presence is revealed by what you can't see, rather
- [Sagittarius Star Cloud (M24) and Friends](https://deography.com/sagittarius-star-cloud-m24-and-friends/) - This intensely crowded area of our view near the core of our Milky Way galaxy is centred on the Sagittarius Star Cloud. Despite appearances, it's not a cluster of stars at all. Our view of the "cloud" is actually a break in the dark dust bands that run through the Milky Way, creating a small
- [Astronomy Dork](https://deography.com/astronomy/) - In between doing "proper" photography I've been playing with some secondary shots to build timelapse video of the sky. This one is a still from one of the frames and should make an interesting video sequence. This is what I look like being a total dork outside on a clear night. It's starting to get
- [Will the real Mars please stand up?](https://deography.com/will-the-real-mars-please-stand-up/) - In the last couple of days planet Mars has moved to it's closest point to it's evil twin Antares, which in ancient greek translates to "That big bloody red thing in the sky that totally looks like Mars". Can you spot the imposter? This colourful region of cosmic dust clouds is known as the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud
- [September 2014 Supermoon in 3D from Aus / NZ](https://deography.com/september-2014-supermoon-in-3d-from-aus-nz/) - This 3D stereoscopic image can be seen by those lucky enough to control their eyes enough to merge these two images into one in the middle, by going cross-eyed. The left image is taken by Paul Stewart in New Zealand, and amazing astronomer. At the same time, I took the image in the right on
- [Eastern Water Dragon](https://deography.com/australian-water-dragon/) - Back to earth for a bit with more favourable conditions for wildlife photography today. An Eastern Water Dragon (Physignathus lesueurii) joined us for our morning coffee in Byron Bay today. This is a little fella.. but he kind of looks like an alien landscape up close.
- [NGC 6357 War and Peace Nebula ](https://deography.com/ngc-6357-war-and-peace-nebula/) - This faint and curious part of deep space was dubbed the "War and Peace" nebula because of two main features that look like a dove and a skull, apparently. My 1 minute exposures are not enough to pull out that kind of detail I'm afraid! I'm still working on my alignment procedures and this was
- [The Celestial Equator](https://deography.com/the-celestial-equator/) - I took this timelapse in the yard while I was imaging M22 and M8 over about 4 hours. As the earth spins on it's axis, the stars appear to rotate around the north and south celestial poles. In the middle of these is the celestial equator. Notice how the top stars curve up, and the
- [Lightning over Monument Hill](https://deography.com/lightning-over-monument-hill/) - This photo from the series lacks the drama of the other taken moments afterwards. It is however, the better one technically. The exposure settings I'd chosen were suited to this level of light generated by the strike and as the wind as not lashing the vehicle as much, the whole image is sharper including the
- [Lightning over Monument Hill, Albury](https://deography.com/lightning-over-monument-hill-albury/) - Something possessed me to get up on hearing the faint rumble of thunder at 3am, put on some shorts and a t-shirt, and drive to east-hill with my camera and tripod. Opening the back doors of my 4wd I setup the tripod looking out over Albury and focussed on the town lights and opened up
- [Byron Bay Lookout Panorama](https://deography.com/byron-bay-lookout-panorama/) - I wasn't going to post this as it's quite ordinary, but I felt guilty for not doing any recent updates and I do like the light/dark tropical weather mixed into this view, shot as the sun sets from the pass lookout at the end of the main beach.This is another panorama, stitched from a series
- [Nobbi Dragon - <i>Amphibolurus nobbi</i>](https://deography.com/nobbi-dragon-amphibolurus-nobbi/) - Jacky Lizards extend from QLD down the eastern edge of Australia and across to SA. In Albury their range overlaps with the Nobbi Dragon. They eat small inscects like crickets and beatles and are "sit and wait" predators that wait for food to pass them by before making the effort to move. Unlike skinks that
- [Jacky Lizard - <i>Amphibolurus muricatus</i>](https://deography.com/jacky-lizard-amphibolurus-muricatus/) - Another photo of this charasmatic reptile, this time a good 50-60 kilometers from the last pair I took a photo of in Albury. I'm no reptile expert.. perhaps it is a bearded dragon, but its hard to tell without looking in it's mouth. The beard is lacking though, and without agitating the creature I am
- [Comet McNaught](https://deography.com/comet-mcnaught/) - To see a comet in your lifetime is a lucky thing indeed. So see one night after night, with such a magnificent tail is just brilliant. No nation can lay claim to a comet, but its tempting for me to call it 'The Aussie Comet' not only as it was discovered by an Australian, in
- [Deography Record](https://deography.com/deography-record/) - I started the Deography Record project as an anti-theft measure. It automatically snaps a photo using the Macbook Pro built in iSight camera each time the laptop lid is opened, and then uploads the photos to an FTP or web server when it next connects to the internet. I figured if my laptop ever got
- [Deography Widget](https://deography.com/deography-widget/) - Thanks to the beta release of 'Dashcode' from Apple inc, I was able to put together a widget for the deography RSS feed. Click Here to download the widget or browse to http://deography.com/images/Deography.zip. This will only work for readers using Mac OS X version 10.4.3 and above, so I apologise to the windows users out
- [Black Eye - Globe Hotel Albury](https://deography.com/black-eye-globe-hotel-albury/) - Despite physical and electronic surveillance security, and a history of violence that includes one murder, the Globe Hotel Albury, can't seem to shake the patronage of dickhead's who think that a good night out has to include a violent altercation. In my friend's case, not only was she on the receiving end of an unprovoked
- [Diesel Fire](https://deography.com/diesel-fire/) - Fire fighters have suspected that diesel tanks stored by tenants in the world trade center, contributed to its structural collapse. I have a funny feeling it was those two planes myself. Pictured here a diesel fire begins to warm, causing smooth, curved flames from the barrel of water as part of a State Emergency Service
- [Little Lorikeet - <i>Glossopsitta pusilla</i>](https://deography.com/little-lorikeet-glossopsitta-pusilla/) - A strongly arboreal species, the Little Lorikeet is a diminutive bird that is hard to find. While looking for crakes in patches of combunghi in a shallow pondage I looked up for a moment to see the small green body sitting still and silent. About 10 minutes later I realized there was a second lorikeet
- [Hotham Sunset](https://deography.com/hotham-sunset/) - I walked around all day, up mountains, down mountains, through the resort, over ski areas, down slopes, up the car park and so on. I had an idea of where I wanted to take the sunset photo for that day, but knew that when it happened, and when the clouds and the sky finally showed
- [Quan Yeomans - Regurgitator](https://deography.com/quan-yeomans-regurgitator/) - A crowd stood staring at the band in a glass room in the middle of Federation Square. Profanities could be heard from the band members as they lay down the various parts to the song they were recording. Old couples glared curiously before moving on. Teenagers laughed and pointed at the messy room, filled with
- [Ben Ely - Regurgitator](https://deography.com/ben-ely-regurgitator/) - They had been in the ''bubble'' for 24 hours now and for the most part, everything appeared to be going according to plan. Quan strummed a slow but chunky four chord rhythm which the drummer Pete followed with a precise kick beat. After three hours, the song was growing on me. I found myself tapping
- [Dolphin - <i>Tursiops truncatus</i>](https://deography.com/dolphin-tursiops-truncatus/) - A pod of dolphins raced the fishing boat we were in as powered along at full speed out to the shelf. The dolphins overtook us easily, they jumped out of the water several times directly alongside the boat racing along at the same speed so they appeared suspended floating in front of you for a
- [Durrass Beach](https://deography.com/durrass-beach/) - I had slept in a national park rainforest without paying entry fees as I pulled in late and slept on a roadside instead of a camping area. My nokia's alarm clock woke me at 5:30 and I engaged 4wd so I could get out in time to see the sun rise over the beach. My
- [Lunar Eclipse - August 2007](https://deography.com/lunar-eclipse-august-2007/) - Taken from 7-9pm, from Albury NSW Australia.
- [The Wisdom to Count the Clouds](https://deography.com/the-wisdom-to-count-the-clouds/) - This timelapse video (Youtube Link) was composed over 4 weeks in various places around Tahiti. It involved staying in the one place, sometimes for several hours taking a single exposure every 7.5 to 15 seconds. I used photoshop actions and quicktime to process the nearly 5,000 photos into a video of the clouds. It was
- [Let It Go - Original Song (720p HD)](https://deography.com/let-it-go-original-song-720p-hd/) - Because of Youtube's great HD support, I decided to recut this time-lapse video footage with a song I recently recorded again from one of my old demos. The clouds and seascapes are from Tahiti, and the music was written and recorded in Australia. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE VIDEO Note : This video footage represents
- [Harvest Sunday (Original Song & Video)](https://deography.com/harvest-sunday-original-song-video/) - I wrote this song years ago but am playing it here on a dobro lap steel slide guitar my father imported from Vietnam for me as a wedding gift. He says it's more of an "ornamental" guitar but I think it sounds pretty neat. The actual live recording footage was pretty boring so I added
- [Lightning Video HD Timelapse](https://deography.com/lightning-video-hd-timelapse/) - It's true. I have an extreme weather obsession. There is something electric (pun intended) about lightning, thunder, howling wind and rain. In this 7 second video a storm rages for 30 minutes off-shore. Too far away to hear, but large enough to seen for kilometres. Click here to see the video : YOU TUBE LINK
- [Gold Coast Timelapse Video (2:46) HD 1080p](https://deography.com/gold-coast-timelapse-video-246-hd-1080p/) - Click here to watch Gold Coast Timelapse Video (2:46) HD 1080p Shot with my Nikon D5100 over several days using the inbuilt intervalometer feature. Images batch post-processed then converted to HD Video using Quicktime. Editing in iMovie, and music composed in Logic Pro specifically for the resulting footage.
- [Southern Sky Milky Way](https://deography.com/southern-sky-milky-way-2/) - Here is my second tentative attempt at a Milky Way photo. This is a single exposure with a wide angle lens (Tokina 11mm) of 30 seconds, ISO 1600 / f2.8. It is taken from the old railway track that runs through Byron Bay. The light pollution from the street is very clear at the bottom
- [Wodonga SES](https://deography.com/wodonga-ses/) - I like some of the photos I take, but its hard to really stop rethinking the photo sometimes.. perhaps I could have used a longer exposure and/or a smaller aperture, but when I look at this photo I honestly feel like it is complete. No cropping was required and only a slight white balance adjustment
- [Darkness](https://deography.com/darkness/) - Multiple exposure at the local high school entrance. I had done a few test shots at home to get the process right and played with a few different ideas which in some ways actually look spookier due to added grain and odd saturation to make them look like old photos, however I like the clarity
- [Speed](https://deography.com/speed/) - Rev, ride pan and shoot.. A friend says goodbye and rides off down the road.
- [Table 5](https://deography.com/table-5/) - I own a telephoto lens for birds (the avian kind), but a telephoto lens is also good for observing people from afar. Some passerby's would look briefly at me clicking away, but for most people seeing a photographer in the city must be regular, for most people didn't react in the slightest. Least of all
- [Southern Sky Milky Way](https://deography.com/southern-sky-milky-way/) - This is my very first photo ever of the milky way and though it is not perfect, I am pretty happy with how it turned out. It is a vertical panorama stitched from 11 photos, totalling about 20 million pixels after cropping. In order to draw out the colours I had to use 45 second
- [Mars](https://deography.com/mars/) - Here is a photo I took this evening of beautifully bright red Mars rising in the constellation of Virgo. And we all know what that means. Absolutely nothing! Special thanks to the North Byron Parklands security patrol spotlight who illuminated the tree-line for this exposure while I ducked down like a commando in the swamp
- [Byron Bay Wetlands Milky Way](https://deography.com/byron-bay-wetlands-milky-way/) - This 180 degree Milky Way panorama from 9 x 15s exposures may be the best photo I have ever taken! The colours are real, and come from the light of the Byron Lighthouse on the left, the town itself, the industrial area and the highway bypass construction. The picture is taken from the banks of
- [New Moon](https://deography.com/new-moon/) - The big dark crater bottom left that kind of looks like the death star laser lens is called Mare Crisium and was successfully probed by the soviets in 1969, bringing moon samples back to earth independent of the American missions. This is my first attempted at a multiple stacked exposure from a DSLR attached directly
- [Backyard Astronomy](https://deography.com/backyard-astronomy/) - I am lucky to live somewhere with relatively dark skies, even if the sea breeze contributes to the atmospheric distortion. This was just a quick test photo from last night but it turned out better than I expected. Although it is sometimes an exercise in patience, there is something wonderful about the quiet contemplation in
- [Byron Bay Milky Way](https://deography.com/byron-bay-milky-way/) - Just a quick single frame photo of the night sky over the railway tracks in Byron Bay. I hope you are all having a cosmic weekend!
- [Cape Byron Lighthouse](https://deography.com/cape-byron-lighthouse/) - I like to think that when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, he turned off his radio comms for a second, unzipped his space-fly, held his breath and drained the main vein in microgravity on the lunar surface, boldly whizzing, where no man has whizzed before or since. So too, as I looked up at
- [High Dynamic Rage Moon](https://deography.com/high-dynamic-rage-moon/) - Did you know that you can still see the full moon, even when it is not full? In the right conditions as a partial moon falls into a sunset, the sky is both dark and light enough to see the craters on the lit and unlit parts of the moon at the same time. You
- [Star Trails over Byron Bay Lighthouse](https://deography.com/star-trails-over-byron-bay-lighthouse/) - Thanks for all the great feedback about the last lighthouse photo I posted! It was featured on Common Ground Byron Bay last night and quickly gathered thousands of views and over 500 likes. Here is the other lighthouse photo that I shared online that a lot of people liked. It is a composite of 50
- [Iridium 59](https://deography.com/iridium-59/) - My first iridium flare! Which is a fancy word for the quick little glint of light that comes off satellite solar panels as they turn in the sky. They look like mini shooting stars. Trippy right? It takes split second precision to catch them, especially when the sky is still quite bright so exposures are
- [Coolamon Scenic Drive Lookout](https://deography.com/coolamon-scenic-drive-lookout/) - Here is the view from the lookout at Coolamon Scenic Drive, just before the turnoff to Byron Bay. That is, if you look up, and not out.
- [Little Meteor](https://deography.com/little-meteor/) - Hello there little meteor! You flew through the universe for aeons and came into my life briefly, until my planet burnt you to a crisp before you even had a chance to say hello. Now nobody knows you existed except for the small photons you deposited into the CMOS chip on my Nikon camera. Such
- [The Table of Scorpius](https://deography.com/the-table-of-scorpius/) - Still working out the kinks in my workflow, but here is a decent stack of exposures from my driveway of the Table of Scorpius region which is filled with all kinds of crazy star clusters, nebula, dust clouds, gas and basically anything you can imagine. If you held up a business card at arms length
- [Blue Mountains Observatory](https://deography.com/blue-mountains-observatory-2/) - Here is another photo from the weekend of the observatory as the clouds parted for a moment. The guys at the site and the booking agents liked this photo enough to put it on their website! If you would like a romantic nerdy weekend (was that an oxymoron?) be sure to check out the cottage
- [Holly Throsby](https://deography.com/holly-throsby/) - Holly Throsby is a video clerk from Sydney, a singer, a songwriter, the daughter of Margaret Throsby, a thinker, a writer, a beautiful person. Her album, On Night has been well received by the industry including regular rotation on Triple J and a warm review from Rolling Stone magazine. You should go out and buy
- [Folk Rhythm and Life - Fern](https://deography.com/folk-rhythm-and-life-fern/) - Folk Rhythm and life is a particularly children-friendly festival and it was a pleasure to meet our interstate friend's little elfin girl Fern who wouldn't hesitate to run up and give you a hug, use the didgeridoo as an impromptu monkey bars or stick out her bottom lip and throw a tantrum for not having
- [Folk Rhythm and Life - Firetwirler](https://deography.com/folk-rhythm-and-life-firetwirler/) - This girl passes her great balls of fire behind her back, turning as she does so spinning them over, under and around her easily and hypnotically to the steady beat of a jembe drum and a circle of onlookers.
- [Folk Rhythm and Life - Colonel Viper and his Whipstick Band](https://deography.com/folk-rhythm-and-life-colonel-viper-and-his-whipstick-band/) - This is not a great photo, but it is a photo of a great band. So great, you can't buy their CD's anywhere, or see them perform and you have probably never even heard of them. I hadn't either until a few years ago. On this particular night, I saw Colonel Viper himself staggering towards
- [Miss World Australia 2005 - Dennae Brunow](https://deography.com/miss-world-australia-2005-dennae-brunow/) - Dennae Brunow, an Albury/Wodonga girl, was awarded Miss World Australia to follow after Jennifer Hawkins who with the same title the previous year became Miss Universe 2004. Pictured here, Brunow listens as the National Anthem as sung at Australia Day celebrations in her home town of Albury/Wodonga.
- [Aashish Chowdhry and Sanjay Suri, Bollywood, Mumbai India](https://deography.com/aashish-chowdhry-and-sanjay-suri-bollywood-mumbai-india/) - Playing an extra in a Bollwood movie, ''Speed'' to be released in May allowed me access to wander around the set with my camera taking photos of the actors and the scene, especially seeing as I had miraculously been cast as a photographer in a crowd greeting the prime minister as she stepped from her
- [Girls](https://deography.com/girls/) - These girls approached me to have their photo's taken. Obviously friends or sisters, the older girl has already had a child in homeless circumstances. For many poor communities, having a baby can improve the ''return'' on begging generally, and at a young age the child can then take over the begging duties primarily or even
- [Girls pumping water](https://deography.com/girls-pumping-water/) - Social Inequality is nowhere more prevalent than India. Being an impoverished, young, Indian girl however is a confluence of so many dimensions of social inequality it is hard to imagine from the perspective of a young, middle class, Australian male.
- [Surfer](https://deography.com/surfer/) - I'm compelled to sit on the sand and watch these guys and girls all day slicing through the waves deftly. It's kind of hypnotizing and looks very enjoyable though I haven't the ability or the stamina to follow their lead. Although the horizon is skewed in this photo (which isn't cropped) I like the way
- [White necked Heron <i>Ardea pacifica</i>](https://deography.com/white-necked-heron-ardea-pacifica/) - These birds, formally known as Pacific Herons, are a shy species that grow up to 1 meter tall. A foraging water-bird, they prefer open areas and will eat fish, frogs, aquatic insects, small reptiles & freshwater molluscs.
- [Banded Huntsman - <i>Holconia</i>](https://deography.com/banded-huntsman-holconia/) - I had intentions of photographing the Aurora Australis. Camera in tow I drove into the hills on the outskirts of town and up to a deserted homestead. I parked the 4wd and prepared to camp, the sky was completely clouded over. Disappointed I walked into the house with a torch and my camera/tripod. Immediately as
- [Humpback Whale - <i>Megaptera novaeangliae</i>](https://deography.com/humpback-whale-megaptera-novaeangliae/) - Humback whales could be counted in tens of thousands from land not more than 60 years ago. Today that number is in the low hundreds. This is one of the reasons whaling stations like the one in Byron Bay were closed and international fishing laws designed to protect the species from extinction. Despite a global
- [Lace Monitor - <i>Varanus varius</i>](https://deography.com/lace-monitor-varanus-varius/) - This Lace Monitor (so called because of the lacey pattern on it's underside) was photographed in a tree in the Chiltern-Ironbark National Park VIC on the Eldorado side. I was actually at a folk festival at the time and was standing in front of my car focussing on a butterfly that was teasing me at
- [Murray River Turtle - <i>Emydura macquarrii</i>](https://deography.com/murray-river-turtle-emydura-macquarrii/) - The Murray Turtle lives in South-Eastern Australia in the Murray River. It eats crustaceans, mollusks, and fish but sometimes will eat aquatic plants as well. They can sometimes be seen basking in the warm sun on logs and on the shore, but are quick to dash away into the water if they hear somebody, like
- [Grey Fantail - <i>Rhipidura fuliginosa</i>](https://deography.com/grey-fantail-rhipidura-fuliginosa/) - Fairly common, though localised, the Grey Fantail has a sweet tinkling call and can be observed fairly closely. It is curious enough to stay relatively close to equally curious, homo sapiens. Grey Fantails catch their food in the air, eating mostly insects. This one was observed and photographed at King Lake National park in Victoria.
- [Common Crow - <i>uploea core corinna</i>](https://deography.com/common-crow-uploea-core-corinna/) - The Common Crow is a widespread butterfly across Australia. It is quite large and as a defence mechanism, emits a strong foul odor to repel would be attackers. Birds that eat them often vomit them up for that reason, but the toxins are not fatal.
- [Glasswing <i>Acraea andromacha</i>](https://deography.com/glasswing-acraea-andromacha/) - The photo is terrible I know! What a horrible crop, but it is a nice sharp image of the Glasswing and shows the wings nicely I think. Click Here for more inform about Glasswings and the caterpillar they come from.
- [Macleays Swallowtail - <i>Graphium macleayanus macleayanus</i>](https://deography.com/macleays-swallowtail-graphium-macleayanus-macleayanus/) - Not terribly close, but just enough to identify and get a view of those colours.
- [Monarch - <i>Danaus plexippus plexippus</i>](https://deography.com/monarch-danaus-plexippus-plexippus/) - I observed this butterfly fondly sipping from the roadside weeds, and here as it stopped for a moment to clean its probosis which you can see curled out from its mouth.
- [Small Dusky Blue - <i>Candalides erinus</i>](https://deography.com/small-dusky-blue-candalides-erinus/) - Using the reversed lens technique I took this photo on my knees looking closely at this postage stamp sized butterfly sitting on a branch near a railway line. I also cropped the image further as it was sharp enough to appreciate the smaller features..
- [Small Green Banded Blue - <i>Danis hymetus</i>](https://deography.com/small-green-banded-blue-danis-hymetus/) - To me.. the banding on this butterfly is distinctly blue. I supposed its bording on aqua'ry, maybe. Or perhaps I'm colour blind. Its almost a pastel blue.
- [Giant Green Grasshopper <i>Valanga irregularis</i>](https://deography.com/giant-green-grasshopper-valanga-irregularis/) - Giant Grasshoppers are the largest variation in Australia. You can see the compound eye clearly in this photo take using the lens held backwards.
- [Wingless Grasshopper <i>Cedarinia sp.
Family Acrididae</i>](https://deography.com/wingless-grasshopper-cedarinia-sp-family-acrididae/) - They have wings, they are just very small. The female is almost twice the size of the male. Watching them mate is like watching a goat mounting a bull.
- [Nightcap National Park, Byron Bay](https://deography.com/nightcap-national-park-byron-bay/) - "Almost 5,000 hectares of Nightcap National Park was given World Heritage status in 1989 when it was added to the Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves of Australia (CERRA) group." - tropicalnsw.com.au The view of the forest canopy here shows the dense tropical rainforest typical of northern NSW and Queensland. A great habitat for species found there
- [The Day After](https://deography.com/the-day-after/) - Clean up Australia. Nobody wants an innocent carp to choke on the Australian flag.
- [Orchid (Caladenia sp)](https://deography.com/orchid-caladenia-sp/) - This Caladenia orchid grows wild in the hills around Beechworth and Chiltern national park. Orchids are a interesting subject by the very nature of their evolution, having formed into various shapes to attract certain insects to cross pollinate, the orchid relies on this symbiosis with an entirely different order. As such, they represent the complexity
- [Dainty Swallowtail - <i>Papilio anactus</i>](https://deography.com/dainty-swallowtail-papilio-anactus/) - A fairly large sized butterfly, and modest sized swallowtail, the Dainty Swallowtail is common and widespread across Australia, possibly to its taste for introduced citrus monocultures, which is not uncommon for a few species of native butterfly. The Dainty Swallowtail caterpillar is a highly advanced species that feeds on both native plants such as Wild
- [Peaceful Dove - <i>Geopelia striat</i>](https://deography.com/peaceful-dove-geopelia-striat/) - Peaceful Doves are also found in south east Asia, and while they are found near Albury and other cities, are mostly a tropical bird and are more common in northern Australia.
- [Nobbi Dragon - <i>Amphibolurus nobbis</i>](https://deography.com/nobbi-dragon-amphibolurus-nobbis/) - Jacky Lizards extend from QLD down the eastern edge of Australia and across to SA. In Albury their range overlaps with the Nobbi Dragon. They eat small inscects like crickets and beatles and are "sit and wait" predators that wait for food to pass them by before making the effort to move. Unlike skinks that
- [Whistling Kite - <i>Haliastur sphenurus</i>](https://deography.com/whistling-kite-haliastur-sphenurus/) - A friend and I disturbed this Kite which then spiralled above us, circling upon a thermal and slowly getting higher and higher. We wandered over to where we had flushed it from and saw a freshly devoured ibis corpse.
- [Cruiser <i>Vindula arsinoe</i>](https://deography.com/cruiser-vindula-arsinoe/) - This photo was taken at the Butterfly Hot House in Coffs harbour. They also had a good many other species from nearby regions which they farmed themselves. In the wild, a cruiser will drink from animal droppings and feed from lantana blooms.
- [Large Grass Yellow - <i>Eurema hecabe</i>](https://deography.com/large-grass-yellow-eurema-hecabe/) - Another photo from the hot house, this one was hard to take as these little yellow butterflies would rarely sit still, fluttering madly from flower to flower, only pausing for a split second before moving along. I managed to get two photos at all of this particular species and this was the better exposure.
- [Great Egret - <i>Ardea alba</i>](https://deography.com/great-egret-ardea-alba/) - Only yesterday I uploaded a photo of this same species in its classic natural pose with the neck curved into an 's', looking into the water for fish. There is something about Egrets I just love to look at. The plumage and the graceful long neck are remarkable and the milk white feathers make them
- [Green Catbird - <i>Ailuroedus crassirostris</i>](https://deography.com/green-catbird-ailuroedus-crassirostris/) - Typical rainforest species with a wailing call that can sound both like a crying baby or a scowling cat. As they like to feed and chase in the mid to lower canopy I managed to get this one shot in the dappled light. The pair of catbirds stayed for a while before moving along the
- [Beetle - <i>Coleoptera sp</i>](https://deography.com/beetle-coleoptera-sp/) - I noticed this beetle after observing a bush in the front garden that had been decimated by something, leaving holes all over the leaves and a skeleton of the former vegetation. Turning the leaves, the culprit appeared to be beetles. Using the reverse macro technique I set the focus manually and moved in to get
- [Cabbage White - <i>Pieris rapae</i>](https://deography.com/cabbage-white-pieris-rapae/) - A european butterfly, the Cabbage White made it's way to various part of the world including the USA, Canada and Australia and in all these places has become very common and widespread, adapting well to living side by side with humans and the monocultures they produce. Initially imported with cabbage, the Cabbage White butterfly has
- [Dainty Swallowtail - <i>Papilio anactus</i>](https://deography.com/dainty-swallowtail-papilio-anactus-2/) - I think this photo is a bit sharper than my other photo of the same species . The Dainty Swallowtail is common and widespread across much of eastern Australian with a few isolated sighting further inland. They appear fairly comfortable eating certain introduced species such as citrus which may go some way to explain their
- [Azure Kingfisher - <i>Alcedo azurea</i>](https://deography.com/azure-kingfisher-alcedo-azurea/) - The Azure Kingfisher enjoys dense habitat close to wetlands, lakes and watercourses. Matthew spotted 3 or 4 in a particular area through the wetland and we sat a moment to watch them pass. this one got quite close and I took some much closer photos than this small grainy one, but I must have been
- [Dylan Thomas O'Donnell - <i>Homo sapien</i>](https://deography.com/dylan-thomas-odonnell-homo-sapien/) - So I'm entering a photography competition and one of the entry requirements is a self portrait. Another is a biography. After the horror of summarizing my life into a couple of paragraphs, I was faced with the prospect of taking my own portrait. I could have used the studio, but really didn't feel comfortable with
- [Australian White Ibis - <i>Threskiornis molucca</i>](https://deography.com/australian-white-ibis-threskiornis-molucca/) - These chicks had not flown before and became anxious the closer I came to the nest. The parents had long flown away on my approach, but the chicks stayed put and I captured a few shots of the birds before leaving them. I used a tripod for this photo, but mostly as I was waist
- [Spotted Marsh Frog - <i>Limnodynastes tasmaniensis</i>](https://deography.com/spotted-marsh-frog-limnodynastes-tasmaniensis/) - Despite the latin "tasmaniensis", the spotted marsh frog is one of victorias most common frogs. It prefers wet areas, flood plains, damn and semi-permanent wetlands. We found this one hopping along near the camp light, possibly attracted away from the watery edge by the the moths and other insects I was photographing at the time.
- [Red Browed Finch <i>Neochmia temporali</i>](https://deography.com/red-browed-finch-neochmia-temporali/) - Where there are one, there are many red brow's often travelling through woodland and forest and through the grassy plains feeding on seed. The colours in the photo are tainted by the warm afternoon light. Taken handheld with aperture priority. Doesn't the Exif say some strange stuff? (35mm eq.: 1464mm) I'm not sure thats right,
- [Rainbow Bee-eaters <i>Merops ornatus</i>](https://deography.com/rainbow-bee-eaters-merops-ornatus/) - Rainbow Bee-eaters are an amazingly aesthetic bird found across most of Australia except Tasmania and the far west. They nest in the sides of river banks and the holes they dig in the sandface can extend for over a meter. Being one of my favorite birds, I was happy to finally capture many good close
- [Willie Wagtail - <i>Rhipidura leucophrys</i>](https://deography.com/willie-wagtail-rhipidura-leucophrys/) - A common Australian bird, most people are familiar with the buoyant willie wagtail who never hesitates to stop by garden. Its namesake tail is obscured from view in this portrait of a curious, possibly young wagtail that flew by that afternoon.
- [Black Swans - <i>Cygnus atratus</i>](https://deography.com/black-swans-cygnus-atratus/) - These swans come towards me as I lay on my belly. Several Pelicans also floated over to see what all the swans were looking at. The Black Swan has been introduced to New Zealand and New Guinea but is endemic to Australia. They are a monogamous bird that rely on openly space wetlands with deeper
- [Rainbow Bee-eater - <i>Merops ornatus</i>](https://deography.com/rainbow-bee-eater-merops-ornatus/) - Rainbow Bee-eaters are an amazingly aesthetic bird found across most of Australia except Tasmania and the far west. They nest in the sides of river banks and the holes they dig in the sandface can extend for over a meter. Being one of my favorite birds, I was happy to finally capture many good close
- [Little Pied Cormorant - <i>Phalacrocorax melanoleucos</i>](https://deography.com/little-pied-cormorant-phalacrocorax-melanoleucos/) - One of Australia's most common wetland birds, the Little Pied Cormorant thrives on fish stocks in the Murray River and wetlands habitat across the land. It doesn't discriminate between fresh or salt water and uses both to subsist on a variety of aquatic animals and insects.
- [Honey Bee <i>Apis mellifera</i>](https://deography.com/honey-bee-apis-mellifera/) - The introduced honey bee is a staple of the Australian honey industry and also a widespread bee. Its sting, which kills the bee after use, is painful and causes swelling, but can also cause allergic reactions in some people resulting in debilitation. I had to get very close with the reverse lens, which disappointingly did
- [Cane Toad - <i>Bufo marinus Bufonidae</i>](https://deography.com/cane-toad-bufo-marinus-bufonidae/) - Cane toads naturally occur in the southern areas of the United States to South America. They were introduced to Australia in 1935 from Hawaii in an attempt to biologically control scarab beatles which were devastating sugar crops. Unfortunately, the ecologists of the time got it wrong, and the toads simply could not get high enough
- [Purple Swamphen - <i>Porphyrio porphyrio</i>](https://deography.com/purple-swamphen-porphyrio-porphyrio/) - Its easy to see the similarity between the native hens and fowl of asia. The purple swamphen tend to thrive at most wetland areas. Purple swamphen's collectively care for young and breeding with whole families involved in the process.
- [Water Rat - <i>Hydromys chrysogaster</i>](https://deography.com/water-rat-hydromys-chrysogaster/) - A native rodent, the water rat is found in estuaries and waterways and breeds in holes along their edges. Its small eyes and ears are all that is required to prey on almost everything small than it living in the water, including insects, fish, mussels, snails and more. The water rat is one of only
- [Yellow-bellied Water Skink - <i>Eulamprus heatwolei</i>](https://deography.com/yellow-bellied-water-skink-eulamprus-heatwolei/) - This large skink lives near two billabongs at the entrance to Wonga wetlands and its species has been spotted regularly there, however they can be found across much of Victoria where the habitat permits. NOTE - ''This species is interesting as it is one of a few that appears to have extended its range in
- [Golden-headed Cisticola -<i>Cisticola exilis</i>](https://deography.com/golden-headed-cisticola-cisticola-exilis/) - An elusive wetland passerine, the Golden-headed Cisticola is rarely seen in the open, preferring instead the cover of dense wetland vegetation and reed beds much like similar species such as the Reed Warbler.
- [Horse or March Fly <i>Family Tabanidae</i>](https://deography.com/horse-or-march-fly-family-tabanidae/) - Horse flies lead a relatively short life of only 3 to 4 weeks and pack a fairly annoying sting (out of focus in this photo). In actual fact it is the female Horse fly that seeks "blood meals" by biting an animal (such as a cow) and letting the blood weep from the wound which
- [Dusky Woodswallow - <i>Artamus cyanopterus</i>](https://deography.com/dusky-woodswallow-artamus-cyanopterus/) - Went out walking with a cheap Opteka 500mm lens today, and became frustrated with its quality and changed it for the trusty 300mm, not great either but far easier to use. Also the 500mm was useless when a small bird flies in close and stops, there is no way to get focus at that distance.
- [White-plumed Honeyeater - <i>Lichenostomus penicillatus</i>](https://deography.com/white-plumed-honeyeater-lichenostomus-penicillatus/) - Somewhat cautious but generally easy to photograph as they are common in gardens and bushland in the region. Extremely territorial, they are often observed defending areas and competing with other species and themselves for nectar.
- [Grey Shrike Thrush - <i>Colluricincla harmonica</i>](https://deography.com/grey-shrike-thrush-colluricincla-harmonica/) - Unfortunately known as a bird of drab colouring, the Grey Shrike Thrush (GST) has a varied vocal range and inhabits woodlands throughout most of Australia. It eats a lot of insects but also birds eggs, frogs, lizards and even carrion. Usually paired for life, both parents look after the 3-4 young that can be produced
- [Snake / Long necked Turtle - <i>Chelodina longicollis</i>](https://deography.com/snake-long-necked-turtle-chelodina-longicollis/) - Kneeling in the treated water, the area was already ''on the nose'' but none so much as I when I knelt to feel the surface of the turtles back. I continued to take photos and was overwhelmed by a foul smell I naturally assumed would be from the ''poo pond'' I was sitting in. The
- [Cane Toad - <i>Bufo marinus Bufonidae</i>](https://deography.com/cane-toad-bufo-marinus-bufonidae-2/) - Under every log, in every thicket on every shore of Brown Lake on Stradbroke island are tiny, multiplying Cane Toads in various stages of development. Which made me feel a little better about the golf we'd been playing at night.
- [Blue Tiger - <i>Tirumala hamata</i>](https://deography.com/blue-tiger-tirumala-hamata/) - This butterfly flutters around weakly, feeding on plants mostly but will gladly drink from moist sand in the dry season. Although the species is fairly common and widespread in Queensland they may only breed one generation annually and their range is limited.
- [Orange Ochre - <i>Trapezites eliena</i>](https://deography.com/orange-ochre-trapezites-eliena/) - This butterfly was found at Stradbroke Island near the ''conservation area'' at Brown Lake. It was only spotted twice during a lengthy walk around the lake and settled a few times before continuing through the sparse bush. A common but local species, the Orange Ochre underside has patterns nearly identical to the Brown Ochre so
- [Laughing Kookaburra - <i>Dacelo novaeguinea</i>](https://deography.com/laughing-kookaburra-dacelo-novaeguinea/) - The Laughing Kookaburra, so called for its iconic cackle familiar to Australian's everywhere, is the largest of the worlds 86 kingfisher species. A competent reptile hunter, the Kookaburra actually consumes insects as the major staple of its diet. Interestingly, the Laughing Kookaburra was introduced to the western side of Australia in 1897 and has lived
- [Crested Tern - <i>Sterna bergii</i>](https://deography.com/crested-tern-sterna-bergii/) - The fisherman's friend, terns are often spotted by the boats feeding on the wing over school of small fish often in a frenzy. The Crested Tern is one of the most common Terns seen in Australia and prefers coastal and island habitat.
- [Grass Yellow - <i>Eurema sp</i>](https://deography.com/grass-yellow-eurema-sp/) - An easy way to find butterflies in the bush is too look for the lantana weed, usually full of flowers where the native species are not in season. This allows species such as this one to flourish for longer annually than usual. This girl may be Eurema alitha (Scalloped Grass Yellow) or Eurema hecabe (Common
- [Brahminy Kite - <i>Haliastur indus</i>](https://deography.com/brahminy-kite-haliastur-indus/) - A scavenger as well as a hunter, the Brahminy Kite is referred to as the ''Singapore Bald Eagle'' north of Australia. It uses it talons to fish and collect food including frogs, insects, fish and more. An opportunistic raptor this bird will purposely flush roosting shorebirds to identify the weak, follow fishing and food processing
- [Rainbow Lorikeet - <i>Trichoglossus haematodus</i>](https://deography.com/rainbow-lorikeet-trichoglossus-haematodus/) - The Rainbow Lorikeet is a brightly coloured Australian bird, much like the Eastern Rosella, that has done favorably with the colonial occupation and subsequent modernization of Australia. In Byron, where this photo was taken, huge swarms amass in the pines along the main beach and produce a cacophony of sound until the sun goes down.
- [Unidentified - <i>Ocybadistes walkeri</i>?](https://deography.com/unidentified-ocybadistes-walkeri/) - It took me a little while to get this guy identified, but after staring and comparing hundreds of ''skippers'' I've decided that I am 99.9 percent sure of it. The size and coloring matches perfectly. However, I'm going to have to verify this simply because the distribution in the field guide is around the northern
- [New Holland Honeyeater - <i>Phylidonyris novaehollandiae</i>](https://deography.com/new-holland-honeyeater-phylidonyris-novaehollandiae/) - The New Holland Honeyeater is a reasonably common honeyeater that can be found in many suburban settings in capital cities across Australia. Despite its small stature, it is fairly territorial and in numbers holds it own against even the larger, Red Wattle bird. A striking black and white bird that feeds on nectar and other
- [Australian Ringneck Parrot - <i>Barnardius zonarius</i>](https://deography.com/australian-ringneck-parrot-barnardius-zonarius/) - The Australian Ringneck parrot in Western Australia may well be two distinct parrots. The ''Twenty Eight'' parrot pictured here and found in Perth, or the port Lincoln Ringneck.
- [Australian Painted Lady - <i>Vanessa kershawi</i>](https://deography.com/australian-painted-lady-vanessa-kershawi/) - The Australian Painted Lady is a common species of Australian butterfly that has responded well to settlement in this country. Particularly because of the introduction of Scotch Thistle and Lavander, both of which are used by the butterfly larvae for food. Adults migrate from coastal NSW inland, some such as this one pictured, making the
- [Common Grass Blue - <i> Zizina labradus
</i>](https://deography.com/common-grass-blue-zizina-labradus/) - The common grass brown is ubiquitous across Australia. A casual walk through the grass and you will see these tiny tiny flashes of grey-blue you might mistake for moths. In fact, I always assumed they were moths until I got a proper field guide (Braby) and realized they were actually, beautiful little butterflies. Eventually I
- [Rabbit - <i>Oryctolagus cuniculus</i>](https://deography.com/rabbit-oryctolagus-cuniculus/) - The common domestic rabbit's history in australia is as long as european history here, in that they arrived on the very first ship that we did. In 1859 however, they became widespread after being introduced to southern victoria. Hunters were initially pleased at having an established species to shoot, but soon realized that for every
- [Eurasian Coot - <i>Fulica atra</i>](https://deography.com/eurasian-coot-fulica-atra/) - An typical wetland bird of Australia, it is not uncommon to see the Eurasian Coot swimming in flocks numbering in their hundreds amongst ducks, hens, swans and other birds. It does not mind the deeper water and can dive for long periods.
- [Marble Gecko - <i>Christinus marmoratus </i>](https://deography.com/marble-gecko-christinus-marmoratus/) - Gecko's are small reptiles not unlike skinks that have evolved pads on their hands allowing them to cling to the most precarious of surfaces. Marbled gecko's can also be found in Melbourne but are thought to have been introduced to the area via granite supplies brought in from other parts of Victoria. Variations of the
- [Caper White Butterfly - <i>Anaphaeis java</i>](https://deography.com/caper-white-butterfly-anaphaeis-java/) - The great tragedy of the Caper Whites, who have returned this year and can be seen anywhere from the victorian high country to the south east coast to Queensland, is that their annual migration is entropic. I'm not sure of the evolutionary importance of the migration, but every year they return from Queensland, where they
- [Caper White - <i>Anaphaeis java</i>](https://deography.com/caper-white-anaphaeis-java/) - While I am on the subject of this years migration of suicidal caper white butterflies, here is an extreme macro of a caper white. You will notice the "scales" that make up the colour on the wings, this is what all butterfly wings are made of, a natural and complex mosaic of tiles.
- [Echidna - <i>Tachyglossus aculeatus</i>](https://deography.com/echidna-tachyglossus-aculeatus/) - The echidna is an easily recognized and extraordinary animal. Besides the fact that it is one of two species on earth in the primitive monotreme group (the other being the platypus), it has many interesting behaviors. There is a well known story of researchers having left an Echidna alone in a room overnight, only to
- [Rainbow Lorikeets - <i>Trichoglossus haematodus</i>](https://deography.com/rainbow-lorikeets-trichoglossus-haematodus/) - One of the more colourful Byron locals, the Rainbow Lorikeet is a vibrant Australian parrot with some localized subspecies in very low numbers. The main species however is far from being in any danger, and is considered a pest to be eradicated in Western Australia where it was introduced in the 1960's and in New
- [Red Belly Black Snake - <i>Pseudechis porphyriacus</i>](https://deography.com/red-belly-black-snake-pseudechis-porphyriacus/) - Red Belly Black Snakes are commonly seen in dry forests and depending on the weather can be very quick moving. Unlike brown snakes their temperament is much more placid and their alarm in the presence of humans is quite obvious as they will flee readily. This one was photographed near Beechworth and quickly slithered into
- [Koala Bear - <i>Phascolarctos cinereus</i>](https://deography.com/koala-bear-phascolarctos-cinereus/) - Koalas are not bears. Like bears they are hominid mammals, but that is where the similarity ends. Like kangaroos, they are marsupial mammals distinguished from others by their ability to raise their young from embryonic stages within the pouch. The name ''koala'' is a phonetic bastardization from several versions of the name for the animal
- [Little Penguin - <i>Eudyptula minor</i>](https://deography.com/little-penguin-eudyptula-minor/) - Eudyptula minor is the only penguin known to breed in Australia, although its range is limited to the south coast of Australia only, and its status in Australia is not common due to threats including oil spills and habitat disturbance. The Little Penguin is a flightless pelagic seabird and the smallest of all the penguin
- [Brown Thornbill - <i>Acanthiza pusilla</i>](https://deography.com/brown-thornbill-acanthiza-pusilla/) - The Brown Thornbill is an elusive bird despite being relatively common in eastern NSW and Tasmania although its curiosity will help bring it closer with ''twitching'' and squeaking noises. A proficient imitator, the Brown Thornbill can mimick the birdsong and calls of other species easily and is set apart from other thornbills by its striking
- [Laughing Kookaburra - <i>Dacelo gigas</i>](https://deography.com/laughing-kookaburra-dacelo-gigas/) - The Kookaburra is the worlds largest Kingfisher species with a loud echoing call that sounds much like a human cackle of laughter. The subsist on a diet that includes lizards and snakes and can often be seen perched above grassland scanning the ground for movement.
- [Bush Stone Curlew - <i>Burhinus grallarius</i>](https://deography.com/bush-stone-curlew-burhinus-grallarius/) - These ground-dwelling birds were common throughout much of Australia, but through habitat loss and predation from cats and foxes, their numbers are dwindling although they are easier to find up North. The Bush Stone Curlew gets most of it food on the ground including insects, molluscs, small lizards, seeds and even small mammals. They will
- [Australian Painted Lady - <i>Vanessa kershawi</i>](https://deography.com/australian-painted-lady-vanessa-kershawi-2/) - Reverse Lens Macro (50mm prime reversed in front of Canon 18-55mm kit lens) of a butterfly on the windowsill lit by the morning sunlight. There are over 600 species of Butterfly in Australia, but this one is one of more more common and widespread species.
- [Eastern Grey Kangaroo - <i>Macropus giganteus</i>](https://deography.com/eastern-grey-kangaroo-macropus-giganteus/) - There are some photos going around the internet of a kangaroo that appears to jump into the surf and swim away. The sequence of photos presented however show little more than a kangaroo being coerced into the water by the photographer who chases the animal further in until it is well into the water near
- [Painted Snipe - <i>Rostratula benghalensis australis</i>](https://deography.com/painted-snipe-rostratula-benghalensis-australis/) - The sighting of these birds is significant, as Painted Snipe are officially classified as ''Nationally Vulnerable'' and are one of the rarest birds in Australia today. The two pictured here of the five I witnessed today represent an entire quarter of the currently known-to-exist population of a mere eight individuals. In recent years fewer and
- [Pink-Eared Duck (Dead) - <i>Malachorhynchus membranaceus</i>](https://deography.com/pink-eared-duck-dead-malachorhynchus-membranaceus/) - Australia's Pink-Eard duck is the only living member of the Malacorhynchus genus, its other relatives having since become extinct. An unmistakable bird with distinct markings and zebra-like striations, the Pink-Eared duck has a particularly evolved bill whose spade-like shape and extremely fine ''teeth'' (which aren't teeth at all) that filter small organisms and crustaceans from
- [Superb Blue Fairy Wren - <i>Malurus cyaneus</i>](https://deography.com/superb-blue-fairy-wren-malurus-cyaneus/) - A common wren in South East Australia, the Superb Blue males grow bright blue plumage during the summer months, which recedes later except in older males. They are known to court the females with offerings like small presentations of flowers, much like humans. Nests and breeding is a task shared among families of wrens and
- [Curl Snake - <i>Suta suta</i>](https://deography.com/curl-snake-suta-suta/) - One bite from the curl snake releases a paralyzing venom that in humans causes the lymphatic nodes to burst. One sedated, the skink in this photo is easily consumed head first and gradually swallowed until the tip of the tail disappears into the curl snakes mouth. Curl snakes are local only to the Murray-Darling basin.
- [Meadow Argus - <i>Junonia villida</i>](https://deography.com/meadow-argus-junonia-villida-2/) - Less common in the winter months, the Meadow Argus is sometimes mistaken for the Painted Lady, an extremely common species across Australia. As well as the lesser 'eyes', the Meadow Argus has two prominent 'eyes' on the upper wings and the name 'Argus' comes from the greek myth about a giant with 100 eyes. It
- [Meadow Argus - <i>Junonia villida</i>](https://deography.com/meadow-argus-junonia-villida/) - This is a butterfly you will be able to find anywhere in Australia , except west Tasmania. A migratory butterfly, the Meadow Argus is territorial by nature and males stop in open areas to establish their territory. With two "ringlets" or "eyes" on each wing, a total of eight eyes looking back at you, this
- [Spotted Jezebel - <i>Delias aganippe</i>](https://deography.com/spotted-jezebel-delias-aganippe/) - Apologies up front of this very soft photo, but I had to include this as it is the only shot of this particular species I have so far. i will try and update it with a better version next time I get the opportunity to see this one. Spotted eating from the "butterfly bush" (buddleia)
- [Spotted Jezebel - <i>Delias aganippe</i>](https://deography.com/spotted-jezebel-delias-aganippe-2/) - I've taken this species before but got a better view of the same last weekend. While they normally feed on mistletoe, a parasitic vine that imitates its host's form, they also like to feed from other plants such as this one, found in many gardens Australia wide. As common as the mistletoe is depends on
- [Australian Common Wombat - <i>Vombatus   ursinus</i>](https://deography.com/australian-common-wombat-vombatus-ursinus/) - Several hundred kilometers from home on the snowy mountains highway crossing the great divide in the high country, a wombat shuffles across the roadside and a car flashes its headlights to me as they drive past. Pulling over, I grabbed my camera and cheap video camera and followed it into the ditch. As I sat
- [Red Wattlebird - <i>Anthochaera carunculata</i>](https://deography.com/red-wattlebird-anthochaera-carunculata/) - A common bird even among human settlement, The Red Wattlebird is one of the largest of Australia's Honeyeaters, often seen with its head in a bud feeding on nectar. Its distinctive "chock" call sounds more like a cough that the melodic trill of its other honeyeating cousins. The younger birds have browner eyes unlike this
- [Infant Langur Monkey <i>Presbytis entellus</i>](https://deography.com/infant-langur-monkey-presbytis-entellus/) - Its easy to anthropomorphize primates by way of their striking similarities, in appearance and behavior. To do so, however, is not as far as stretch as some people go when doing the same with other animals, or even inanimate objects. It is no co-incidence that monkeys and apes should share such familiarilty as they also
- [White-headed Pigeon <i>Columba leucomela</i>](https://deography.com/white-headed-pigeon-columba-leucomela/) - Sometimes called 'Baldy' or 'Baldy Pigeon' this Australian Native is unlike the feral pigeons found in the city areas. Usually found in tropical areas in QLD, they also extend down the coast to southern NSW and subsist despite dwindling numbers due to the opportunistic feeding on introduced camphor laurel.
- [Spotted Jezebel - <i>Delias aganippe</i>](https://deography.com/spotted-jezebel-delias-aganippe-3/) - A common but striking Jezebel butterfly along the south east coast but also appearing well inland, this female Spotted Jezebel feeds on coastal plants along the Mornington Peninsula bay. Its proboscis clearly visible probing deep into the flower for its nectar.
- [Peacock - <i>Pavo cristatus</i>](https://deography.com/peacock-pavo-cristatus/) - ''Eyes'' are a shape that occur throughout the natural world as deceptive fakes, on the wings of butterflies, a leopards spots, caterpillars, butterfly fish, rays, sharks and so on. The peacock's dazzling display capitalizes on this motif to attract the attention, and hopefully the affection, of a mate. For most species eyes are a challenge,
- [Blackbird (<i>Turdus merula</i>)](https://deography.com/blackbird-turdus-merula/) - Should I make them into a pie? Or should I respect this introduced species fills an ecological niche in domestic Australia? To kill or not to kill? I suspect my better half won't let me make this decision anyway, since all babies are cute regardless of their species.
- [Black-tipped Reef Sharks <i>Carcharchinus metanoperus</i>](https://deography.com/black-tipped-reef-sharks-carcharchinus-metanoperus/) - As an Australian, jumping into the water with sharks and stingrays is counterintuitive to my regular instincts. Nevertheless, this swarming pack of sharks darted around us with their fins poking out of the waves cutting the water as they frenzied for fish guts. They didn't seem to mind me poking my camera at their faces
- [Bottlenose Dolphin <i>Tursiops truncatus</i>](https://deography.com/bottlenose-dolphin-tursiops-truncatus/) - According to the US Naval FAQ on military use of marine mammals, before this dolphin retired to a life of swimming with fat tourists for $250USD a pop, it was trained to detect and tag deep sea mines. Apparently this isn't dangerous.
- [Cockatiel - <i>Nymphicus hollandicus</i>](https://deography.com/cockatiel-nymphicus-hollandicus/) - The latest addition to our family, ''Sweetcheeks'' seen here trying to eat it's human custodian (me). She was born in Dec 2007 and was hand raised by breeders in Albury who sold her to us 4 weeks ago. For the first 2 weeks, she was scared, confused and depressed sitting alone in the corner of
- [Redback Spider <i>Latrodectus hasselti</i>](https://deography.com/redback-spider-latrodectus-hasselti/) - Once considered a highly deadly spider, the medical reality seems dull compared to the public perception of this somewhat toxic arachnid. While certainly painful, and serious, only female bites are potentially dangerous and in many cases healing is rapid and uneventful. In some hundred cases each year however, bite victims are treated with anti-venom.
- [Titan Stick Insect - <i>Acrophylla titan</i>](https://deography.com/titan-stick-insect-acrophylla-titan/) - By fortune Anna spotted this usually camoflaged Goliath Titan Stick Insect, made conspicuous by being nowhere near a tree but on the neighbor's front lattice. This is a massive specimen, possibly maximum size (?) although appears to be in nymph (pre-adult) stage as they are usually fully green. "These are among the largest and longest
- [Grey Butcherbird  - <i>Cracticus torquatus</i>](https://deography.com/grey-butcherbird-cracticus-torquatus/) - At first I thought it was endearing that this stout little bird kept returning each day to my balcony, staring longingly into the windows at my pet cockatiel. Maybe they had become friends, I imagined. After some cursory research however it's clear that this bird probably wants to eat my pet. I was able to
- [Intermediate Egret - <i>Ardea intermedia</i>](https://deography.com/intermediate-egret-ardea-intermedia/) - I find it hard to tell the difference between medium's and great so I could be wrong here. It's such a subjective thing as they are so similar. This guy was sitting on his "ankles" in the backyard today while I was working. They are pretty flighty so I had to creep up behind some
- [Pied Cormorant - <i>Phalacrocorax varius</i>](https://deography.com/pied-cormorant-phalacrocorax-varius/) - This isn't a particularly typical wildlife photo, but I'm posting it anyway because I like the surreal, ephemeral quality it has. I also like the angle and depth of field that was only possible from the canoe.
- [Striated Heron - <i>Butorides striata</i>](https://deography.com/striated-heron-butorides-striata/) - Another photo from the canoe, a "Mangrove Heron" sits on a branch in the mangroves along the Richmond River. This bird is nature's fisherman, using feathers or leaves as "bait" they drop on the waters surface, then ambushing fish, frogs or insects that might be attracted to it.
- [Royal Spoonbill - <i>Platalea regia</i>](https://deography.com/royal-spoonbill-platalea-regia/) - A predominantly Australian bird, the Royal Spoonbill is also observed in the countries and islands around the region. It's unique "spoon" shaped bill allows it to dig deep into the soft, muddy earth in wetlands and mangroves to sweep out insects, crustaceans and even fish. I love watching them move along the banks slowly searching
- [Solider Crabs - <i>Mictyris longicarpus</i>](https://deography.com/solider-crabs-mictyris-longicarpus/) - Unique to tidal sand-flats and mangroves, Solider Crabs are well known for being seen in huge numbers and look very much like an "army" moving across the dunes in search of plants and scraps to eat. Interestingly, they have evolved to walk forwards unlike many of their other crab relatives. I snapped lots of photos
- [Australian Wood Duck (Family) <i>Chenonetta jubata</i>](https://deography.com/australian-wood-duck-family-chenonetta-jubata/) - This little family has been spotted living around our house, and I have a suspicion they even nested in a tree in the backyard after observing and adult returning to a hollow of reasonable height a few weeks back. The male in the background of this photo is eyeing me off cautiously while the adult
- [Green Tree Frog <i>Litoria caerulea</i>](https://deography.com/green-tree-frog-litoria-caerulea/) - I've always thought that the Green Tree Frog is the ideal stereotype for frogs. When I think of frogs in general, the closest match to the frog in my mind's eye is the green tree frog with its bright green skin, it's big eyes and its bulbous fingers. Though common and successful despite urbanisation, I
- [Eastern Water Dragon - <i>Physignathus lesueurii lesueurii</i>](https://deography.com/eastern-water-dragon-physignathus-lesueurii-lesueurii/) - The Eastern Water Dragon, one of two subspecies of the Australian Water Dragon, is identified by the dark band behind it's eye. A large reptile that grows up to 60cm long, they are excellent swimmers and when chased or threatened can sit underwater for up to 90 minutes to avoid detection. This one was photographed
- [Noisy Friarbird - <i>Philemon corniculatus</i>](https://deography.com/noisy-friarbird-philemon-corniculatus/) - A large honeyeater, the Noisy Friarbird is relatively common in urban areas from north east Victoria to Queensland, although is also found in southern New Guinea. The distinctive "bump" on their bill and scaly appearance has always reminded me of Jim Henson's Skeksis from the Dark Crystal. Despite their title and appearance, their song is
- [Crested Pigeons - <i>Ocyphaps lophotes</i>](https://deography.com/crested-pigeons-ocyphaps-lophotes/) - This is not a particularly typical or useful wildlife portrait, but I just liked the softness of the framing created by the tree they were sitting in. Crested Pigeons only naturally occurred inland in Western Australia, but have become common across most of Australia as their favoured habitat was expanded with increased pastoral land clearing.
- [Peron's Tree Frog - <i>Litoria peronii</i>](https://deography.com/perons-tree-frog-litoria-peronii/) - I know what you're thinking, what's with all the frogs lately? I swear it's just circumstantial with all this rain we've been having throughout NSW. In fact, this tree frog is very different to the bright green ones I've been seeing in Byron lately. Although the Peron's Tree Frog is found throughout NSW, this one
- [Green Tree Frog Macro (1920 x 1200 Wallpaper) <i>Litoria caerulea</i>](https://deography.com/green-tree-frog-macro-1920-x-1200-wallpaper-litoria-caerulea/) - I'm not sure I'll ever tire of finding these guys around our small garden. I was watering one of our potted plants this afternoon when I realised I was pouring water right onto this little frog, who was perfectly content sitting around while I shoved a long reverse macro lens mere millimetres from his face.
- [Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo - <i>Calyptorhynchus funereus</i>](https://deography.com/yellow-tailed-black-cockatoo-calyptorhynchus-funereus/) - Personally unfamiliar with this species, I awoke to their rhythmic screeching thinking that a white cockatoo was dying. What a pleasant surprise to find these giant birds outside my window instead. Although listed as least concern on the threatened species list, their numbers are declining. Their scientific name funereus comes from their black plumage, as
- [Holly](https://deography.com/holly/) - The streaked light and shadows used to light this shot is difficult to expose correctly, however I found it was more important to expose her face correctly, despite the over-exposure towards the lower part of the photo which can be used to effect, enhancing the feeling of the morning sunlight. Holly rarely looks this serious
- [Darren Hanlon and Holly Throsby](https://deography.com/darren-hanlon-and-holly-throsby/) - As Darren Hanlon's tour continues across Australia, pictured here is a special encore duet with special guest, Holly Throsby after a verbose performance of Hanlon's familiar works, and his entertaining banter with Albury patrons. Hanlon was the second act to perform at the newly opened Three Legged Dog, on Dean Street, Albury.
- [Blue Mountains Observatory](https://deography.com/blue-mountains-observatory/) - This weekend I had the pleasure of visiting the Blue Mountains Observatory in Leura, NSW. Unfortunately despite staying for 3 nights during the moonless lunar phase, the site was covered by cloud, fog and rain the entire time. The only exception was 1 hour around 1am on the second night, by which time I was
- [NGC2070 - Tarantula Nebula](https://deography.com/ngc2070-tarantula-nebula/) - I've been doing some pretty nerdy stuff lately. Out of interest, and to subdue my immediate urge to spend lots of money on my own telescope I have leased telescope time from the SkyLive project which has 6 telescopes, 4 in Italy and 2 in NSW, Australia. This allows me to remotely control the Celestron
- [Perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun](https://deography.com/perigee-syzygy-of-the-earth-moon-sun/) - Otherwise known by the media as the (sigh) supermoon. The difference in size is really quite minor and does not make a huge difference to the casual observer. Honestly, every full moon is pretty wonderful regardless. Most astronomy nerds who have to put down their telescopes for a few weeks waiting for it to go
- [Byron Bay Main Beach Sunset](https://deography.com/byron-bay-main-beach-sunset-2/) - Wide angle sunset taken at Byron Bay - 11mm / f2.8 / ISO 160
- [Lightning](https://deography.com/lightning/) - I chased this storm as it quickly passed over me heading southwest. I got to the outskirts of town and started driving through the hills before coming to an opening in the canopy that looked out across the sky. I used a tripod and remote switch to open the shutter for 37 seconds and set
- [Ladybird](https://deography.com/ladybird/) - There are 300 species of ladybird in Australia, of which four are common and widespread. I'm not sure whether this is one of them, but this one occurs on the northern NSW coast. Laybirds have small fat larvae that look like black slugs with legs, but become the beatles which hibernate in the winter and
- [SES training](https://deography.com/ses-training/) - Another SES training photo, when daylight savings is in effect, training is in full swing as the sun goes down. When it does they use the flood lights to illuminate the area to train volunteers in the use of various rescue equipment and protocols.
- [Lagoon Nebula (M8)](https://deography.com/lagoon-nebula-m8/) - This is my first attempt at the Lagoon Nebula (M8) and after much fiddling and cursing in the dark I managed to grab a few short frames that were relatively ok. About 4 or 5 exposures stacked together. Though not as sharp or detailed as I would like (the view slipped behind a tree just
- [Cello Strings](https://deography.com/cello-strings/) - All string instruments require a bridge or other form of termination that defines the 'edge' of the instruments tonal range. Beyond this, the frets or fingerboard define the distinct notes, as the string is divided.
- [Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex](https://deography.com/rho-ophiuchi-cloud-complex/) - My New Zealand readers might be familiar with the big kiwi bird in the Sagittarius region of the milky way. Can you see it? It looks kind of like a big ball sack to me but I can go with kiwi bird, sure. This tiny patch of the milky way is dominated by Antares, the
- [Oakland Bay Bridge, San Francisco](https://deography.com/oakland-bay-bridge-san-francisco/) - APOLOGIES An repeated email just went out from an older post
- [Zenon Thomas O'Donnell](https://deography.com/zenon-thomas-odonnell/) - My son Zenon was born at around 4:20pm last friday. This photo was taken 9 minutes after that moment. After being born, he was lifted onto Anna's bare chest to lay skin-to-skin and was cleaned off. After some gurgling and a short cry to clear his throat, he quickly settled and locked eyes with his
- [Louis](https://deography.com/louis/) - I was lucky to capture this relaxed portrait of our friend's one year old during a recent visit. The backlighting from the sun nicely frames his soft features and gentle eyes. Typically with my post production method, I've tightened the levels to exaggerate bright and dark. I've also added to sharpening to the eyes after
- [Datura / Angel's Trumpets](https://deography.com/datura-angels-trumpets/) - Datura's natural distribution is unknown, because the plant had been so widely distributed and cultivated by humans. This plant is growing at the Crystal Castle near Mullumbimby. The classic hanging trumpets are typical of Datura plants which are often seen in regular garden's across Australia. The toxicity of the plant however is well known and
- [Wave Photography](https://deography.com/wave-photography/) - This is a test of a new Digipac enclosure I bought for my Nikon DSLR. I took a leap of faith, and without testing, assumed the $100 case would protect my $2000 camera. Happily, it worked as intended. (Phew.) My results were mixed. Conditions weren't great and I'll need more practice if I'm to get
- [Baby on a Piano](https://deography.com/baby-on-a-piano/) - Our 3 week old son, Zenon, listens to his mother playing piano.
- [Baby Nicolas](https://deography.com/baby-nicolas/) - Today I met my cousin's five month old son, Nicolas. He inherits our diverse family ethnicity including Portuguese, Burmese, English and Italian, as well as his mother's French and German ancestry. It was great to meet such a well tempered, engaging little boy. In post processing I tightened the levels, slightly shifted the colour balance
- [Releasing Sea Turtles, Byron Bay](https://deography.com/releasing-sea-turtles-byron-bay/) - Pictured here, a large adult sea turtle is lifted from it's harness by volunteers to be released back into the sea from the main beach at Byron Bay. Australian Seabird Rescue released 5 sea turtles this morning, some which have been rehabilitated for over 7 months by the Ballina branch who are notable for their
- [Ultrasound](https://deography.com/ultrasound/) - Up until this morning, my perspective of Anna's pregnancy was a faint blue line on a test kit and her sudden aversion to vegetables. Now however, it's a fuzzy little blob on an x-ray film. And it's our fuzzy little blob, sucking it's cute, blurry, little thumb in it's out-of-focus little amniotic sac! If all
- [The Remarkables - New Zealand](https://deography.com/the-remarkables-new-zealand/) - According to wikipedia there are conflicting accounts of why the ''The Remarkables'' are so named. It's either because they are one of two mountain ranges in the world that run perfectly North-South, or because early settlers thought they was so beautiful. I was secretly hoping it was discovered by someone called Mr (or Mrs) Remarkable.
- [Abandoned Railway Line](https://deography.com/abandoned-railway-line/) - Trains stopped running on these tracks in 2004 after 110 years. The tracks are still mostly walkable all the way into Byron Bay apart from patches of trees or shrubs now starting to overrun the rails. As an icon of industrial progress, there's something ironic and bittersweet about their desolation.
- [Pupil and Iris](https://deography.com/pupil-and-iris/) - Taking a clear shot like this is proving difficult with my rig. It's hard enough to get a clear macro of an insect, let alone a human eyeball which is necessarily attached to said human and as such complicated by unintended movements like blinking, laughing and impatience at having a large camera shoved mere millimetres
- [The Mighty Sea](https://deography.com/the-mighty-sea/) - The swell slams into the rugged eastern cape as a woman looks on. The eastern most point is a short walk from Watego's beach, Byron Bay. The huge kinetic force of these kind of waves and their low, thunderous roar often make me feel very small.
- [Laser Beam Hitting Clear Obsidian](https://deography.com/laser-beam-hitting-clear-obsidian/) - Here is a blue laser beam shining through a piece of clear obsidian, because I just know thats what you wanted to see today! Lasers can damage your eyes, and apparently bring down 747's so you should always be careful when using them and be careful to only use low powered hand held lasers since
- [Byron Bay Surf Sunset](https://deography.com/byron-bay-surf-sunset/) - It's been a while since I posted a shot, as I've been busy moving and opening our DNA Digital Byron Bay Web Design studio from Ballina to Byron Bay. As part of the design for the new website, I used this photo I took of surfers at the pass as the leading image in the
- [Byron Arts Classic 2010](https://deography.com/byron-arts-classic-2010/) - The Byron Arts Classic is an art award and exhibition that began as the "Easter Arts Classic" but has not run for about 10 years. It's return this year saw over 350 entries from local artists who are only eligible to enter by virtue of their residence in and around Byron Bay, Lismore & Ballina.
- [The Gecko Nebula](https://deography.com/the-gecko-nebula/) - I see these house geckos on my upstairs bathroom window at night, and if you get the angle of the streetlight just right, you can imagine our reptilian overlords flying through space, destroying worlds and consuming universes. Or, you see a gecko in the streetlight.
- [Rainforest Tilt Shift](https://deography.com/rainforest-tilt-shift/) - I haven't been taking many photos lately because of my study but here is a recent one, heavily over-processed with the ever popular "tilt shift" effect that gives the look of a miniature scene photographed up close instead of the large forest scene it was. I imagine this effect would be cultural as it's the
- [A Walk In The Park](https://deography.com/a-walk-in-the-park/) - At the moment, there is an outdoor art exhibition along the park that runs from the main beach to the Byron Beach Cafe (walking towards the lighthouse) that saw the whole area come alive recently as people strolled through the wispy trees with their scarves and coats. It's cold in Byron right now, and the
- [Baby Photography (Poppy)](https://deography.com/baby-photography-poppy/) - Move over Anne Geddes, I'm quitting my job as a professional Web Developer to pursue my career as a celebrity baby photographer! Well not quite, and it's hard to take a bad baby shot with such a cute subject, but here are a few insights into this photo that might help you. First, you have
- [Splendour in the Ass](https://deography.com/splendour-in-the-ass/) - I probably didn't need to post this, but I just couldn't let a good pun go to waste! Have shorts always been this short or is my blood pressure just getting worse as I get older?
- [Splendour in the Dust](https://deography.com/splendour-in-the-dust/) - Bring your gumboots they said! The weather for Splendour in the Grass, Australia's largest winter festival was faultless. A sunny, warm weekend was the perfect backdrop for what many are calling the best lineup for any festival worldwide for 2010. Stay tuned for more photos from the festival from this dusty, happy music patron!
- [Piano Strings](https://deography.com/piano-strings/) - So after a long year saving our acorns, we bought a grand piano. It's a Kawai KG5-C 6"4 concert grand piano and Anna has been tinkling the ivories for days now. It is quite a dynamic instrument, capable of pounding bass that seems to shake the walls or gentle droplets of notes from the other
- [Green Tree Frog Silhouette](https://deography.com/green-tree-frog-silhouette/) - It rained, hard and heavy for most of the day. The night turned into a amphibious orchestra, as what seemed like every frog in Byron surrounded our house, like Hitchcock's birds. Thankfully, they did not want to eat our faces, only our insects.
- [Retard River - Banjo/Hip Hop (Original Song)](https://deography.com/retard-river-banjohip-hop-original-song/) - Inspired by Gangstagrass I sequenced some beats and laid down some banjo, guitar and slide for my interpretation of the banjo classic "Cripple Creek". If someone wants to lay down some rhymes download the full quality MP3 - http://deography.com/mp3/Retard_river... - Licensed Public Domain.
- [Shelley's Beach (HDR)](https://deography.com/shelleys-beach-hdr/) - This is a combination of two long exposures layered and combined to expose evenly across the sky and the foreground rocks. Beaches with tidal rock pools or other features the waves lap around make striking images with the longer exposures capable at dusk or dawn. I also used a UV filter in order to get
- [Utopian Fire](https://deography.com/utopian-fire/) - Utopian Fire are a professional fire dancing duo from Byron Bay. Pictured here, "Za Utopia" during one of her performances at a friend's wedding. They put on a great show, for bookings check The Utopian Fire Website
- [Catch The Fire](https://deography.com/catch-the-fire/) - Byron Bay and the surrounding region was coated in thick bushfire smoke today, so I thought I'd take a few photos of the dramatic sunset. Catch The Fire ministries pastor Danny Nalliah recently blamed increased bushfire activity to liberal Victorian state abortion laws, and that it was God himself seeking vengeful retribution by burning some
- [Moon Kiss](https://deography.com/moon-kiss/) - The moon is 3476 kilometers in diameter, about quarter the size of the earth, but looking at it from here I could cover it with my thumb, or these two lovers can be seen kissing beside it. In another sense, when the moon passes in front of the sun which is 109 times the earths
- [Electric Chair](https://deography.com/electric-chair/) - This was a light experiment I tried with a very long exposure and a light pointer. It wasn't as successful as I'd hoped, but it's still an interesting image I think. The geometry of the chair and the room seem exaggerated, almost like that classic 80's movie Tron! I'd like to try it again with
- [Fiber Optics](https://deography.com/fiber-optics/) - Invented in the 1950's, optical fibers true potential was not immediately realized but has become the cornerstone of modern communication. Optical audio cabling has also become popular, as data transmitted via light does not suffer from the attenuation and electromagnetic interference or traditional wires. Despite it's potentially advanced uses, it is still widely known and
- [Four Seasons in One Day (Cover)](https://deography.com/four-seasons-in-one-day-cover/) - Here is a YouTube video of Anna and I playing Crowded House's "Four Seasons in One Day". (I'm pretty sure the following embedding video will break in the email, so just follow the link! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xbDY3uMh7U
- [Orion Nebula (M42)](https://deography.com/orion-nebula-m42/) - Welcome to the International Year of Astronomy 2009! To celebrate the new year the staff of the SkyLive remote telescope project allowed me to take control of the Celestron 14" telescope at Grove Creek Observatory and expose the first image taken from the observatory for the Australian New Year - what an honor! This year,
- [Lennox Head Lightning](https://deography.com/lennox-head-lightning/) - Another attempt at lightning photography. You can see heat noise in this as I had the sensor active for about 20 minutes before this strike. I managed to get a few forks, but this shot just struck me (no pun intended) as a sublime landscape with that classic Lennox Head view glowing in the distance.
- [Hume Weir - Minimum Flows](https://deography.com/hume-weir-minimum-flows/) - As the drought sets in, the Hume Dam has reduced the output of the flow into the Murray River down to below minimum flows to 400 Megalitres per day. The lake itself is low, but the Murray has been reduced from a once mighty river into a series of sandbars and islands. Most points around
- [Starry Night](https://deography.com/starry-night/) - The stars are not as bright as they are back home in Australia, but on a quiet night, with no tripod and plenty of time to experiment, I tried this long exposure using the back table and a towel. It is a 45 minute exposure which needed a lot of denoising in post processing.
- [Stingray Sophia](https://deography.com/stingray-sophia/) - She glides effortlessly over the seaweed and coral towards my camera which she then attempts to eat. A regular at Bora Bora's southern private motu (island) owned by Robert and Tina and their pension, Sophia shares these waters and her fish with an old moray eel which also enjoys the human attention from curious tourists
- [Wonga Wetlands Sunset](https://deography.com/wonga-wetlands-sunset/) - A cliched sunset over a land I used to go walkabout, Wonga Wetlands just out of Albury. This photo was one I had meant to post years ago but didn't and I just happened upon it while going through my old raw JPEGs for something else. Better late than never!
- [Water Drops on CD](https://deography.com/water-drops-on-cd/) - I've been meaning to try this for a while, a simple subject that is easy to take hand held provided there is enough light. Depending on the angle, vivid spectral colours are thrown back into the lens producing some other-worldly effects.
- [Water Drops on CD (macro)](https://deography.com/water-drops-on-cd-macro/) - Another image of the same subject, only macro and from a different angle that produced a deep orange. I also like the way the evening sun's shadows give definition to the droplets.
- [Bill Henson Portrait](https://deography.com/bill-henson-portrait/) - I've decided to revisit and post process my portrait of Bill Henson, taken in 2005 at Wangaratta Art Gallery, particularly in light of the recent media frenzy regarding his work, and the issues surrounding his photography. Reproduced below is my original text I blogged in 2005. --------------- Bill Henson has been taking (making) photos since
- [Dallas Frasca - Fan Art](https://deography.com/dallas-frasca-fan-art/) - Here is an appropriation of mine based on a photo of the wonderful Dallas Frasca, one of Australia's up and coming blues and roots artists. Dallas is currently touring with Xaivar Rudd with sell-out shows and I hope to catch one of her shows in Ballina this week. You might also enjoy Dallas' new film
- [Stop, Revive, Survive](https://deography.com/stop-revive-survive/) - Apart from a few immediate tests, this is one of the first 18 photos taken with my brand new, just out of it's box Canon 450D DSLR! The sun set's early this time of year so I really didn't have a chance to enjoy the daylight after work but look forward to putting the camera
- [Tony and Christina](https://deography.com/tony-and-christina/) - Congratulations Tony and Christina Sceats! One of the most honest and wonderful wedding's we've ever been to. It was our great honor to attend and participate in your special day. Enjoy the honeymoon and our warm wishes and love for the future.
- [Fire (Isolated)](https://deography.com/fire-isolated/) - Taken whilst camping near Nightcap National Park when the multiple self designated fire experts came to an agreement about wood positioning, citing combinations of armchair science and opinions to justify their decisions. After much coughing in the smoke, we eventually had a fire worth taking a photo of.
- [Fire Twirler - Folk Rhythm & Life](https://deography.com/fire-twirler-folk-rhythm-life/) - Folk Rhythm and Life 2008 draws to a close tonight, and alas I wasn't there this year to enjoy the sights, sounds and friends that make this festival special. So here is a photo from a previous FRL dug out from my archives. I hope everybody had a great time, let's do it all again
- [Moon River - Guitar and Violin](https://deography.com/moon-river-guitar-and-violin/) - This text will be replaced Anna and I sent this clip to all our friends and family as part of our digital wedding invitation. We recorded the song last weekend with a couple of different versions and layers (eg piano) but we liked this simple guitar and 2 violin parts version best. You can watch
- [Ancient Scroll](https://deography.com/ancient-scroll/) - I picked up this ancient scroll from a small street stall in Kathmandu, Nepal. I was enchanted by its weathered pages, and mystical script. What secrets does it contain I wondered... maybe a lost gospel, or an important canonical translation or genealogy that would unravel the very foundations of modern christianity Da Vinci Code style
- [Autumn Colours](https://deography.com/autumn-colours/) - It's that time of year again, with the same sense of foreboding and impending gloom that washes over you in waves. The cold heart of winter is not close, and yet it grows nearer each day.
- [Water Droplet](https://deography.com/water-droplet-2/) - A hugely cliched photographic subject, photographing water droplets is a favorite subject for countless photographers. The somewhat controlled, somewhat random results are a good way to practice using your camera, but also great material for post processing. This photo has had a hue / saturation layer added for that classic blue wash. I'm ashamed to
- [Sun Dog](https://deography.com/sun-dog/) - Here is the first post of many in the newest Deography category : Music and Audio. This song was arranged in Logic Pro and is probably once of the heaviest, loudest electronic songs I've recorded in a while. I wanted to push the limits of compression and I probably pushed it a touch far. This
- [Bird in Flight](https://deography.com/bird-in-flight/) - A happy accident, this blurry and streaky photo still caught my eye in post processing. It feels good to get out and about again, taking photos and generally not looking at a computer screen, although that is precisely what I'm doing now!
- [Hands](https://deography.com/hands/) - For reasons that will become clear to you, dear readers, sometime in the not too distant future I took a photo of a friends hands tonight. I think the photo turned out better than I expected for the impromtu studio session we set up with a desk lamp and a piano stool. Some post processing
- [Lighthouse Sunset](https://deography.com/lighthouse-sunset/) - After scaling the hill and the multiple steps, many a person stops to enjoy the dramatic sunsets over Byron Bay as viewed from the iconic lighthouse.
- [Fishing Brunswick Heads](https://deography.com/fishing-brunswick-heads/) - Many fisherman choose to fish directly off the man made ''walls'' that separate the river openings and the sea to allow them access to the larger ocean fish such as Tailer, Jewfish, and Salmon without the sea sickness and money required for boat fishing. It does however take a large rod and a lot of
- [Byron Bay Panorama](https://deography.com/byron-bay-panorama/) - Byron's beach has to rate at least in the top 5 beaches I've ever been to. Seen here at low tide from the lookout on the far end of the bay, a group of drivers come back from their training. This image is stitched from 7 individual photos.
- [Happy New Year 2008!](https://deography.com/happy-new-year-2008/) - From the other end of the international date line, we send our best wishes and warmest regards for the new year, 2008. Pictured here, the view over Tahiti's capital, Papeete, from a black sand beach just east of there, as midnight heralded the new year with a cacophony of legal fireworks from every direction, many
- [The Great Conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and the Moon](https://deography.com/the-great-conjunction-of-venus-jupiter-and-the-moon/) - Jupiter (my pet favorite), Venus and Luna herself converged this evening in what would ordinarily be a spectacular lunar occultation anyway only that for us in Australia (at least? Not sure about others) they form a beautiful smiley face with the crescent moon giving us a perfect smile. I believe the next time we see
- [The Gathering Storm](https://deography.com/the-gathering-storm/) - Dark and foreboding, a tropical storm plunges a sunny afternoon around 4pm into creepy darkness. Sometimes the storms pass as quickly as they arrived, and sometimes they are part of larger cells that pass over the state bringing wind, rain and lightning.
- [Sunset Rocks](https://deography.com/sunset-rocks/) - Without the need for a natural density filter, simply waiting for the light to fade at dusk and dropping your ISO to 100 is enough to allow long exposures that create streaky, ephemeral water effects, especially when you have still foreground objects (like rocks) that remain sharp and focussed.
- [Base of Minyon Falls](https://deography.com/base-of-minyon-falls/) - The base of the Minyon Falls in Nightcap National Park. For details about the walk there including GPS maps (!) check out the new deography blog - http://deography.com/?p=51.
- [Sea Foam](https://deography.com/sea-foam/) - Sea Foam is considered to be the byproduct of gelatinous microorganism's such as Phaeocystis globosa that break down and become the foam we observe in the lapping waves. Pollution is understood to occasionally cause a "bloom" (or mass killing?) of these causing the foam to increase and wash up en masse onto the shore. It
- [The Weight of the World](https://deography.com/the-weight-of-the-world/) - I am not afraid of Terrorism. I don't want you to donate anything, I don't want you to sponsor anything. I don't want you to revolt. I don't want you to buy anything. I don't want you to visit a website or forward an email. I just want you to care.
- [Lilly](https://deography.com/lilly/) - Pure lilly blossom. A ratio of nature, that looks right through you.
- [Hume Dam Wall](https://deography.com/hume-dam-wall-2/) - As water supplies dwindle in Eastern Australia, the politics and debate rages for the management of the Murray Darling river system. Operators around the lake call for minimum lake levels while farmers downstream argue for minimum river flow levels. City and town residents are told to keep their water consumption down, while irrigators take more
- [Wild Orchid](https://deography.com/wild-orchid/) - For two weeks of the year these small orchids grow wild in the hills around Beechworth Victoria and are not easily spotted. Reversed macro.
- [Xray Leaf](https://deography.com/xray-leaf/) - Take a beautiful leaf, and hold it up to the sun. Set the camera to expose on the leaf details and auto focus at a low ISO (100 or 200). It should take a nice sharp photo which can be set to black and white in photoshop, add sharpening and you should have a dramatic
- [Father and Son](https://deography.com/father-and-son/) - Little Finbar in the arms of his father, Nige,l during a recent visit as they sat at the back door in the retreating afternoon sun.
- [Transparent Desktop](https://deography.com/transparent-desktop/) - A transparent desktop effect that turns your laptop screen 'see through' as in beer, is achieved simply by positioning your laptop/screen and sitting at the desk holding your camera. Move the screen out of the way and snap your photo at roughly the same 'square' as your screen space. Import the photo, set it as
- [Persephone - Sand Sculpture](https://deography.com/persephone-sand-sculpture/) - Perseophone, one of many fabled earth mothers and femme deities, sculpted here in sand at the sand sculpture exhibition 2007, at Mornington Peninsula. Can you spot the third nipple? I didn't even see it until I saw the photo on screen later... maybe because I was focussing on the first two.
- [Gayadham, Pharsar, Barhalganj, Gorakhpur.](https://deography.com/gayadham-pharsar-barhalganj-gorakhpur/) - Built in the unique Mughal style, this orphanage was constructed by Ravi Rai and the Children of Mother Earth foundation to shelter, feed and provide the most basic opportunity for the poorest children. In a caste society where social inequality is real and often impermeable barrier of classes, Ravi sought to build a shelter that
- [Sand Scupting Australia 2007](https://deography.com/sand-scupting-australia-2007/) - Shangri-la is a fictional city based on the city described in Tibetan Buddhism, Shambhala. Pictured here, an amazing sand sculpture at the Sand Sculpture 2007 event at Rye, Mornington Peninsula.
- [Comet McNaught](https://deography.com/comet-mcnaught-3/) - Comet McNaught's evening view in the Southern Hemisphere is now dimming, and the tail is less spectacular as it has been recently. The comet is still visible however during the morning twilight, though this subtle shot was taken in the evening and the tail is much more subtle.
- [Stingray](https://deography.com/stingray/) - As an Australian, and someone who loves the natural world, I was suprised to hear that Steve Irwin had been killed in an accident with a stingray whilst filming a documentary off Queensland. Irwin's methods were sensational and dramatic, but such is the nature of entertainment. Whether the stringray was provoked is unclear, especially as
- [Mowray Point - Ben Boyd National Park](https://deography.com/mowray-point-ben-boyd-national-park/) - A long exposure during the dying light along the rocks that frame the small, isolated and very beautiful beach at Mowray Point, the next accessible coastline along from Leatherjacket Bay in Ben Boyd National Park. It is found on a track to the left from Edrom road.
- [New Delhi Railway Station](https://deography.com/new-delhi-railway-station/) - Delhi's two railway systems are anachronistically distinct. In one, the middle class travel dressed in modern western clothes and carry electronic tokens through automated gates in a shiny, organized, on-time and well run railway system that rivals, and easily excels anything Australia has to offer. The other, national railway, is crowded and dusty. Red tobacco
- [Ravi](https://deography.com/ravi/) - Children of Mother Earth was started by Ravi to shelter, clothe, educate and feed a small number of railway children, often orphaned and without anything. Over time, COME International has opened 3 shelters with more being planned. To many children Ravi has become a father, and has indeed ''saved'' them from the cycle of abject
- [Kiandra Pass](https://deography.com/kiandra-pass/) - As global warming (or climate change if you prefer) continues, both rainfall and snow are in short supply in various parts of Australia and the world. The drought continues to affect agriculture in NSW, VIC and QLD but tourism in the high country is also suffering as the seasonal snowfalls dwindle. Pictured here, a single
- [Mumbulla Mountain](https://deography.com/mumbulla-mountain/) - Bega Valley Shire Council liases with local Aborinal elders from two tribes associated with Mumbulla mountain for contruction and infrastructure changes at the summit. Telstra has been banned from the site after its use of explosives on inconveniently placed, but sacred rocks and boulders. Pictured here, riggers prepare a commuincations tower for further radio infrastructure
- [The Esplanade - Singapore](https://deography.com/the-esplanade-singapore/) - The Esplanade is a unique piece of architecture that is host to Singapore's touring entertainment and large conferences or events. It was designed by DP Architects Pte Ltd. and Michael Wilford & Partners and is based on the shape of two durian fruits, Singapore's national fruit. The durian fruit is called "The King of Fruits"
- [Hermit Crab](https://deography.com/hermit-crab/) - Baby hermit crab found at Sever Beach, Ben Boyd National Park NSW, one of a large population living in the beach pondage amongst dozens of adults some of whom have grown to full size over twelve years of life. This is an extreme macro using a reversed lens (50mm) and represents about 5mm across. You
- [Sever Beach, Ben Boyd National Park](https://deography.com/sever-beach-ben-boyd-national-park/) - The temperature of the water on the australian south coast is not nearly as nice as it is north of Brisbane, where it begins to be comfortable, but is refreshing none the less on a hot summer day. The clarity of the water at Sever beach, along Haycock Road in Ben Boyd National park just
- [Mosque, Delhi India](https://deography.com/mosque-delhi-india/) - Among the sealed, relatively tidy middle class streets of Delhi, an ancient mosque stands tall and precariously, its outer walls falling to ruins. A sign promising conservation prohibits stealing bricks from the site. A pair of old men sit in the shadows to remind people to remove their shoes and squirrels wait patiently at their
- [Sikh Sunset, Delhi India](https://deography.com/sikh-sunset-delhi-india/) - The sun dips behind a band of pollution and the palace that became a Sikh temple in Delhi, India.
- [Burnt out car](https://deography.com/burnt-out-car/) - I heard the explosion quite clearly. Instinctively, I looked at the time ; 3:44am. It wasn't until the following morning as I drove past and realized what the explosion was. Three cars were torched last night in the Mercy hospital car park nearby the local nursing housing. Rascist and violent graffiti has been cleaned repeatedly
- [Kovalam Soccer](https://deography.com/kovalam-soccer/) - As the light faded over lighthouse beach, boys kicked up the sand with soccer, frisbee and volleyball while others sat along the rocks or the sidewalk enjoying another magnificent Indian Ocean sunset.
- [Morning Meditation](https://deography.com/morning-meditation/) - Meditation is an ancient practice from many various faiths and disciplines mostly from asia and other parts of the east. Recently meditation has also been used as a clinical intervention since articles published in 1970 in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology documented medical benefits and brought meditation into the main stream.
- [Micro-molluscs (Sea Snail)](https://deography.com/micro-molluscs-sea-snail/) - Not more than 4-5mm across, micro-molluscs are a large diverse family of invertebrates that are extremely abundant and as such, many species within the family have not been described.
- [Station Shelter](https://deography.com/station-shelter/) - Pictured here, a cess puddle outside a locked abondoned railway house. Hundreds of homeless live outside, sleeping under the stars among the rats, dogs, cows, and plague insects for which the place is a fertile breeding ground. Some corrupt railway gaurds charge the poor to open the shelter for the night and let them in,
- [Albury Statue](https://deography.com/albury-statue/) - Visitors to Albury may have passed through the main street and central park square and raised an eyebrow, as I did when I first saw this confusing artwork many years ago. At first glance it appears the artist has depicted some kind of sex act, I'll let you decide what. The two figures are definitely
- [India](https://deography.com/india/) - Sitting on the bed flipping through pay-tv at a 5-star Hotel we reluctantly paid for due to our other booking falling through, I notice several ''LIVE'' broadcasts from Mumbai airport where we fly out the next morning. I channel surf trying to find a broadcast that isn
- [Ram Nagar Children](https://deography.com/ram-nagar-children/) - Today I descended further than I have ever been into the world of India's poor millions. The children in this photo live along disused railway lines, among donkeys and dogs, crows and human waste. The community cooks their food from the fires fueled by any railside wood or animal feces they can find. Parents of
- [Cobras](https://deography.com/cobras/) - Cobras are a diverse family of snakes (Elipidae) most recognizable for their hood, a flap of skin and muscle that flares out when provoked, presumably to appear larger to predators. Snake charmers rear the snakes and remove their fangs in order to train them to rock and sway with accompanying music, thus earning the charmer
- [Eta Carinae Nebula NGC3372](https://deography.com/eta-carinae-nebula-ngc3372/) - To take this shot I controlled a telescope remotely from several hundred kilometers away. Grove Creek Observatory allowed me to access the scope and have a play with its features. It only takes B+W photos but you can use several filters, so I used the Red Green and Blue filters and layered them in their
- [Kovalam Sunset](https://deography.com/kovalam-sunset/) - Kerela state is on the south western tip of India, so the sunsets from Kovalam beach were beautiful displays of the fiery red orb dipping into the sea, although on most day it never quite made it to the horizon, swallowed instead by the countries atmospheric pollution. I did however, see the stars in South
- [Man](https://deography.com/man/) - A new category for India has been added to Deography for upcoming photo series in the next couple of weeks. Many thanks to Ashley for the Canon rig I'm using for this project, and Children of Mother Earth for inviting me to India. This is a quick grab shot from the street this morning of
- [Lucy in the Sky](https://deography.com/lucy-in-the-sky/) - Not a great exposure, and upon reflection (no pun intended) some reflected light might have help illuminate the subject better without losing the tones in the sky. This large, dirty mirror that was lying around in the backyard was interesting to photograph, though this photo was taken in passing without much consideration.
- [Honey Bee](https://deography.com/honey-bee/) - Spring is well and truly here. Birds are singing, trees are flowering, bee's are buzzing and all kinds of vegetation have chosen my nose as a suitible conduit for their invisible reproductive products. If they wanted to cross pollenate my computer screen, they have probably been successful.
- [Nah Nah Nah - The Uppercuts](https://deography.com/nah-nah-nah-the-uppercuts/) - This isn't the kind of video I had in mind for this song ''Nah Nah Nah''. The one I imagined involved a troupe of jumping women, dozens of midgets dressed as ninjas, several thousand rainbow coloured doves and millions of litres of whipped cream all filmed on location at stonehedge during a full lunar eclipse.
- [Dry Lake Bed](https://deography.com/dry-lake-bed/) - Another photo from the NSW side of the Lake Hume water supply, currently at around 15% capacity, the scene reminds us that the drought never begins and ends, it never 'breaks'. The harsh realities of Australian climate are only exacerbated by the increasingly stressful global warming and severe weather experienced throughout the world.
- [Cello Strings](https://deography.com/cello-strings-2/) - All string instruments require a bridge or other form of termination that defines the 'edge' of the instruments tonal range. Beyond this, the frets or fingerboard define the distinct notes, as the string is divided.
- [Smoke Turbulence](https://deography.com/smoke-turbulence/) - Turbulence is an observable effect even within controlled environments whose nature is unpredictable, leading it to be a prime aspect of chaos theory. The same effect is also visible in water, air and atmospheric matter. Smoke coming from a direct source such as above is laminar for some centimeters, until instability creeps in. German Physicist,
- [Taj Mahal, Agra India](https://deography.com/taj-mahal-agra-india/) - The Taj Mahal is a type of islamic mosque, but specifically a mausoleum. It was built by Shah Jahan, for his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal in 1653. Jahan himself rests also in a mosque on the same site. Agra is a few hours from Delhi and is a bustling city filled with the pollution and
- [Kosciusko National Park](https://deography.com/kosciusko-national-park/) - Dividing the south east coast of Australia and the Murray Darling region are the mountain ranges, some of which encompass the Kosciusko National Park, home to Australia's highest mountains. In the winter months the snow covered ranges host the ski resort faithful while in summer, the often barren landscape is visible to travelers crossing the
- [Sundial](https://deography.com/sundial/) - Just wanted to quickly apologize for the slow down lately, work and study have caught up to me and are flailing the creative impetus out of me. In the meantime, here is a sundial, an ancient time keeper to convey the feeling of time passing. A sundial can be as ornate as this, or as
- [Leaf and Tar](https://deography.com/leaf-and-tar/) - I noticed this leaf among the molten tar, alongside the construction at a bridge. Where the road ends and the dirt begins is an edge effect where worlds collide and all manner of interesting things occur. For example, due to back burning and relative protection, the area immediately adjacent train tracks is usually teeming with
- [Footprint](https://deography.com/footprint/) - As the drought continues throughout much of NSW and QLD, lakes, dams and rivers all run at low levels, drying the banks increasing the likelihood of erosion on their bare edges as the once nutrient-rich much becomes hard and sandy.
- [Delhi, India](https://deography.com/delhi-india/) - A typical Delhi thoroughfare, the streets around the Jama Masjid Mosque are bustling areas where people, animals and vehicles volley for space in the ever moving tide.
- [Monkey Business, Delhi India](https://deography.com/monkey-business-delhi-india/) - The monkeys of India are wild nomads of the city often seen cruising the rooftops or, like most malnourished mammals in India, just sitting quietly conserving energy. Pictured here, female and male monkeys demonstrate the process of baby monkey making.
- [Petersham Train Station](https://deography.com/petersham-train-station/) - Sydney's workers commute via the vast bus and train network that extends throughout the easterly city. Unlike Melbourne, the city's suburbs stretch unabated to various satellite cities like Liverpool and Campbelltown making the drive out to the city limits very long indeed. In the winter months, this often means daytime workers see little sunlight, waking
- [Brydie, Mumbai India](https://deography.com/brydie-mumbai-india/) - Expensive by India standards, but affordable by our exchange rate, the rooftop Koyla restaurant was a pleasant break from the chaos of the busy Indian metropolis. Beautifully creamy lamb, chicken and goat curries were served with fresh naan bread and two massive hookahs with apple and cinnamon flavored tobacco. It took a while to get
- [Sikh Temple, Delhi India](https://deography.com/sikh-temple-delhi-india/) - Behind the pond in this photo, a grand palace stands over the neighboring buildings filling the air with lilting melodies. It was donated to the Sikhs hundreds of years ago and now worshippers offer money, leaves, nuts and spices to the altars, bowing reverently and praying. The building is filled with people, some kneeling, others
- [Leper, Delhi India](https://deography.com/leper-delhi-india/) - He scowls and gurgles and speaks gruffly as he begs for alms. I give him 10 rupees (30 cents) and ask if I can take his photo. He seems surprised as I motion to my camera but understands and leans back as I come down to his level. Like most Indians, he stares intently and
- [Albury Fog](https://deography.com/albury-fog/) - The avenue is shrouded in morning fog, the leaves slowly turning to ochre and falling away into piles sorted by the traffic flow. Like snow it drifts consistently to the ground blanketing all. As Autumn turns to winter, the leaves cling gently to the branches waiting for the final wind to pluck them from their
- [Highly Dubious](https://deography.com/highly-dubious/) - Sydney DJ, Highly Dubious asked me to do a portrait of him for promotional material and general internet media. Of course, this was after a belly full of liquid gold and a long night at the Oxford tavern so the shoot was naturally pretty rushed and honestly, a hazy memory, but I like the way
- [Graduation Hat Toss](https://deography.com/graduation-hat-toss/) - Mortarboards with tassels date back to the 1700's and are an Oxford tradition. Amazingly, they were worn even by some schoolteachers up until the 1950's, but today they are mostly only worn at graduation ceremonies like this one, where the tradition of throwing them in the air after the ceremony is one of the most
- [Halal Goat Head, Delhi India](https://deography.com/halal-goat-head-delhi-india/) - Outside a grand Islamic mosque in Delhi, Jama Masjid, thousands of people jostle for position in the narrow marketplace that surrounds it. From car parts to poultry, roadside chapattis to a range of halal meats, the sights and smells come thick and fast. Pictured here, a line of butchers discect a goats corpse methodically, separating
- [3D Photography - Model Ship](https://deography.com/3d-photography-model-ship/) - Stereo Photography is only visible to those who can go cross-eyed at will. If you are one of these lucky people then this will work for you. The trick to it is like this.. if you can hold two fingers in front of your face vertically and then go cross-eyed until you have a third
- [Vapour](https://deography.com/vapour/) - I hadn't seen vapour trails like this until I moved to the country. I remember a friend laughing at me for not knowing what it was, but having grown up in the city meant that I had never seen an aircraft so high up. As the boeings sail across the sky at high speeds and
- [Stars](https://deography.com/stars/) - A seven minute exposure with the foreground roof lit by passing traffic. I was listening to the audiobook version of Stephen Hawkings Brief History of Time, which helped pass the time between photos.
- [Gothic Melbourne](https://deography.com/gothic-melbourne/) - I wanted initially to get a shot of the pigeons flying away chaotically (an obligatory shot for any photographer's portfolio) so I ran into the flock, only they being tame, or fearless, city pigeons barely moved. A larger flock however saw me from afar and sensing the possibility of food came flying towards me in
- [Corner of Bourke and Swanston](https://deography.com/corner-of-bourke-and-swanston/) - 5 exposures. As I scouted the corner I pointed my camera towards a busker who was playing a many stringed lap instrument who promptly stopped playing and held the instrument close to his chest preciously. He looked at me and said "Ask first." I apologized and told him that this was a public place. The
- [35th Floor](https://deography.com/35th-floor/) - I used a cubicle.
- [Folk Rhythm and Life - Traditional Welcome](https://deography.com/folk-rhythm-and-life-traditional-welcome/) - Every year at Folk Rhythm and Life on Saturday morning a traditional welcome is performed by the local elders including a ceremony where leaves are passed among the crowd and burnt together.
- [Butterfly Eye](https://deography.com/butterfly-eye/) - This eye is only a little over 1mm in size, and is taken at full frame (no cropping). Due to lighting constraints it was hard to take a sharp shot at anything less than an ISO of 800. There is something wonderful about that level of magnification, that gives you a sense of an unfamiliar
- [Day Lightning](https://deography.com/day-lightning/) - Not a great, shot.. all the basic rules went out of the window (no pun intended). Shot from inside my (running) car handheld.
- [Peeling Paint](https://deography.com/peeling-paint/) - Texture and light.
- [Road Crash Rescue](https://deography.com/road-crash-rescue/) - Its the long weekend, so please drive safely! Police, ambulance officers and SES volunteers are capable of rescuing you but would rather enjoy the long weekend themselves.
- [Murray River](https://deography.com/murray-river/) - Taken with tripod on a moored houseboat downstream from Echuca, where tourism is sustained by the river and the hundreds of moorings allocated in stretches along the Murray. We saw nesting Darters, and Yellow Spoonbill as well as Eagles and more along the way. I thoroughly recommend trying some boating of any kind along the
- [Altocumulus](https://deography.com/altocumulus/) - Altocumulus clouds appear like "cottonballs" and occur roughly 3 to 5 kilometers above the surface of the earth in moist air that undulates, much like a wave at sea, creating ripples and Islands in the cloud.
- [Aquariums](https://deography.com/aquariums/) - I remember once this pet store burnt down. The burnt out building was covered with flowers from well wishers who, like me, couldn't help thinking that the stock endured the unimaginable that night. They say a fish has a memory that only last seconds, and that their brains are too small to register pain as
- [February Lightning](https://deography.com/february-lightning/) - This was my second chance at lightning photography. The first time I had used the wrong ISO and the aperture was too closed. The photo worked, but hadn't the quality of this attempt. With my ISO set to 400 I set the aperture to 9 so that the hyperfocal distance would keep the lightning in
- [Folk Rhythm and Life - Markets](https://deography.com/folk-rhythm-and-life-markets/) - On the outer circle between the main stage and the Guinness stage, are markets selling clothes, herbs, fruit and veg, food, and as shown here, jembe drums. Pictured here, a potential buyer tests the drums tone, as the various timber, skins and acoustics of each drum mean jembes are always unique despite their fundamental design.
- [Folk Rhythm and Life - Reidy Creek Swimming Hole](https://deography.com/folk-rhythm-and-life-reidy-creek-swimming-hole/) - During the goldrush the creek was sluice dredged and pillaged by its population of 6000+ miners mostly Chinese, Irish and Australians who had all come to seek their fortunes. I myself have found beautiful red crystals in the creek (I have a miners license) much to the amazement of friends I've been swimming with. Reidy
- [Folk Rhythm and Life - The Storyteller](https://deography.com/folk-rhythm-and-life-the-storyteller/) - He opens his arms and half-yells half-speaks the bush yarns, of lovers in the dreamtime or cooking on the campfire billy, sometimes with nobody listening at all, and sometimes with a crowd who throw coins into his billy as he stands in the sun next to his swag. The Storyteller travels to festivals sharing his
- [Stencil Art - Melbourne](https://deography.com/stencil-art-melbourne/) - Stencil graffiti is the greatest thing to happen to urban artwork since the aerosol can.
- [Melbourne](https://deography.com/melbourne/) - In the morning, it takes some time for the sunlight to permeate into the dense structure of the CBD so many buildings, halls, tunnels and alleyways are illuminated by their own light sources. As the hours pass, businessmen and women flock to their cubicles only stopping for take away coffee and to answer their mobile
- [Folk Rhythm and Life - Jimi Hendrix Tattoo](https://deography.com/folk-rhythm-and-life-jimi-hendrix-tattoo/) - It didn't surprise me when Daniel Firth, ex Trevor's House, current My Left Boot lead guitarist first peeled his sleeve away to reveal his new tattoo in Byron Bay. Firth has always drawn on Jimi's virtuosity which shows in his level of technical proficiency. Whenever I get the chance, I always ask him for a
- [Eskimo Joe - Stu Macleod](https://deography.com/eskimo-joe-stu-macleod/) - Also with their touring keyboard player, whose name escapes me, Eskimo Joe put on a great show after Steve Perkins and the Foreign Films. My ears were ringing for several days, but it was well and truly worth it. The benefit of living in a small rural center is that when touring bands pass through,
- [Wisdom](https://deography.com/wisdom/) - Having my self portrait online is confronting enough as it is, but I've outdone myself. The image is self explanatory but how I acquired it I thought was worth posting. As time goes by laws are being relaxed in Australia to allow us greater access to our own medical records (I think) however there is
- [Beechworth Star Scape](https://deography.com/beechworth-star-scape/) - The darkness of a moonless night in rural Australia is overwhelming. I have used two exposures here, the first a 31 minute exposure with aperture 3.5 and ISO 100, the second a 34 second exposure at ISO 1600 to punctuate the stars. I then blended the two photos into a single frame to create the
- [On Night](https://deography.com/on-night/) - A composite of two photos, a sunset taken from the side of the Hume Highway (31) and a starscape captured at Talmalmo about 100 kilometers away, this photo is a happy accident after playing around with the two photos for an illustration for work in which I overlayed a satellite to promote broadband in rural
- [Folk Rhythm and Life - Firetwirler](https://deography.com/folk-rhythm-and-life-firetwirler-2/) - This photo shows 15 seconds of twirling, and the movement in space that the fire carves into the freshly fallen night of the saturday night of the tenth Folk Rhythm and Life at Bilyana.
- [Folk Rhythm and Life - Happy High Herbs](https://deography.com/folk-rhythm-and-life-happy-high-herbs/) - In the marketplace, clothes, chai, massage, organic food, fruit and veg, craft, and alternative herbal drugs are all on sales. Happy High Herbs offer natural, legal placebos to help you feel good, or keep you going all night long.
- [Folk Rhythm and Life - Kate Grealy](https://deography.com/folk-rhythm-and-life-kate-grealy/) - Kate Grealy, understated and demure lets her soft voice soar as she picks and strums her acoustic guitar leaving her audience enraptured by her gentle melodies. As she giggles between each song and apologizes for, really no reason, you can't help but enjoy her deceptively simple tunes and moody stories.
- [Folk Rhythm and Life - Chai Tent](https://deography.com/folk-rhythm-and-life-chai-tent/) - Chai, which literally translates as ''tea'' from many languages, is a spicy Indian milk drink that is popular with the festival scene but also as an alternative to regular milk based drinks in cafes. While it increases in popularity in the west, coffee culture is permeating India with coffee houses and cafes appearing in the
- [Folk Rhythm and Life - Dallas Frasca](https://deography.com/folk-rhythm-and-life-dallas-frasca/) - Dallas Frasca is a powerhouse of dirty vocal blues sensibility. Accompanied only by a bassist and the steady stomp of her big left boot, Dallas screamed the eager crowd into a rootsey display of appreciation not only with her soulful vocal presence, but her heavily pounded dobro guitar style.
- [Folk Rhythm and Life - Bubbles](https://deography.com/folk-rhythm-and-life-bubbles/) - Soap bubbles never seem to lose their inherent fascinating quality, bulging and stretching through the air on an slow invisible path until they inevitably disappear out of existence as quickly as they arrived.
- [Folk Rhythm and Life - Drum Circle (Voodoo Healers)](https://deography.com/folk-rhythm-and-life-drum-circle-voodoo-healers/) - A tight communicative drum group, the Voodoo Healers call rhythms and changes and somehow co-ordinate the large group of passerby's and musicians into a beat harmony that stirs the gathered into a tribal dance complete with impromptu calls, random instrumentation, jumping, singing and smiles.
- [Sunset over Church Steeple](https://deography.com/sunset-over-church-steeple/) - Ok so its another cliched sunset... spring is here and the sunsets just seem to get better and better every day. I suppose depending on the context the photo could be used in two different ways. With an inspirational message about the divinity of life, or maybe a quote about the more sinister aspects of
- [The Stables](https://deography.com/the-stables/) - Underneath the stables which were being used as a small arcade for decades, they found a forgotten cellar that stretched a good way under the building. The area will be the site for Albury's new cultural precinct and museum.
- [Commercial Club](https://deography.com/commercial-club/) - A conscious decision to diversify my subject matter, and release myself from the subjectivity of my surroundings. As hard as I try to intellectualize the fact, I still find this a mundane photo of an ugly car park I've seen too many times.
- [Storm Passing](https://deography.com/storm-passing/) - A quick shot, this was taken handheld over the bonnet after watching the fog still settled in patches well into the morning. Fog and cloud photos like this one are less common in the middle of summer so it was worth my while getting up early to see how the light would look. The Ettamogah
- [Murray](https://deography.com/murray/) - The Murray River is two and a half thousand kilometers long from the Snowy mountains to the sea. There are thirteen dams along its length. Historically it was used by the Australian aboriginal people and then by colonists as a means of transportation with paddle-steamers mainly. The damming of the Murray River generates electricity and
- [Murray River Sunset](https://deography.com/murray-river-sunset/) - A few people I know, myself included, find sunsets to be quite cliched in photography. The exposure on the sky nearly always gives a dramatic underexposure so most digital cameras take sunsets sharply and with warm color balance. That said, when I am sitting there on the banks enjoying good company, and good food and
- [Jeff Lang](https://deography.com/jeff-lang/) - Jeff Lang is, in my opinion but shared by many, currently the best Australian guitarist. People like John Butler cite him as their influence, and the speed at which his fingers fly around the fret board, or find distant notes on the fret-less lap steel slide guitar never ceases to amaze me. It was a
- [Jeff Lang](https://deography.com/jeff-lang-2/) - Taken during the encore performance of "Batemans Bay"
- [Ian Collards (Collards, Greens & Gravy)](https://deography.com/ian-collards-collards-greens-gravy/) - Someone yelled out from the crowd "Ian Collard is a madman!" and by the way he blows that harp, they weren't joking. Collards Greens and Gravy were awarded "runners up" to being the best blues band in the world at the awards in Memphis. For more information visit their website : http://www.collardgreensandgravy.com/
- [Christmas Beetle](https://deography.com/christmas-beetle/) - People seem to refer to this as a Christmas Beetle, and it certainly has a nice shiny green shell that is quite striking however as a common name I believe it is widely applied to many beetles of similar appearance. Although this can't be the same kind of Christmas Beetle they have on the other
- [The Betty Sessions](https://deography.com/the-betty-sessions/) - Playing around with gradient maps and adjustment layers (extreme levels) and layered transparencies. Photo was setup in the golden afternoon light casting great long shadows to the left.
- [Rainwater](https://deography.com/rainwater/) - Australia is by geography, a drought prone country. The 7 years from 1895 - 1902 were known as the ''Federation Drought'' followed by a shorter dry period in 1914-1915. Another longer spell during world war two lasted 8 years, then a 3 year drought from 1965. In 1982-3 there was another shorter drought before the
- [Tree Blue](https://deography.com/tree-blue/) - I've been using the circular polarizer a bit more lately, it can really produce some amazingly deep blues. This exposure is hand held and exposed manually on the sky itself which also gives the tree this bright, almost infrared type glow. I haven't altered the colour of this in post processing at all.
- [Mathoura Bird Hide - Tri Avian Corridor](https://deography.com/mathoura-bird-hide-tri-avian-corridor/) - This is the view from behind the bird hide I posted earlier here, only this time I am not in the water. One of three bird hides erected in the region, bird watchers can use the vantage point to see many excellent local species including your typical waterbirds, Royal Spoonbills, Egrets, Darters, Cormorants and some
- [Tsunami](https://deography.com/tsunami/) - This, of course, is completely false. A digital composite of some waves at Byron Bay. I mean no disrepect to the victims or their families. The image is one that went through my mind after hearing about the disaster since the western media did not show much of the few images of the tsunami that
- [Cirrocumulus](https://deography.com/cirrocumulus/) - Cirrocumulus are one of the least common of various cloud formations, Being high level clouds, they are made up of ice crystals and the strips and gaps are caused by the degeneration of cirrus or cirrostratus clouds with with warm air from below which causes air to rise and fall within the cloud as the
- [Friends](https://deography.com/friends/) - Taken on Dean Street Albury for World Photo Day, June 2005.
- [Illegal Fireworks](https://deography.com/illegal-fireworks/) - They just get better and better every year. It used to be a few crackers at midnight, or a rocket or two perhaps. This year however the backyard pyrotechnicians held nothing back. Every fifteen minutes for an hour after midnight, loud volleys of fireworks crackled like lightning into the night. I grabbed my camera after
- [Unidentified Moth](https://deography.com/unidentified-moth/) - When it rains it pours, then it drizzles, and eventually it stops.
- [Starscape](https://deography.com/starscape/) - Number one on my "things to do with my first DSLR camera" list was astrophotography and other long exposure experiments. Whilst camping at a travelling stock route I decided to try, making many mistakes and lacking basic equipment such as a tripod much improvisation was required. A lot of patience is required although at least
- [Byron Bay Sunset](https://deography.com/byron-bay-sunset/) - In Byron Bay people gather every evening to sit on the shore, in the parks and all along the coastline to watch the sun set. Often the sound of the drums and musicians resonate from the car park. Sand artists make large sculptures in the sand and light them with candles as the sun wanes
- [Eucalypt Leaf](https://deography.com/eucalypt-leaf/) - As spring retreats, this eucalpyt leaf changes colour and glows in the afternoon sunlight. Have you heard the one about the American that bought a eucalypt tree for his porch? He took it to the tree doctor when its behaviour seemed strange only to be told that it is normal for a eucalypt not to
- [Red Night Sky](https://deography.com/red-night-sky/) - The red sky in this photo is due to the glow of the town nearby. Bats flew overhead and night birds shrill calls could be heard in all directions. The wetlands across the way sent up a cool mist across the water and I sat in my car reading a book while taking the long
- [Bee](https://deography.com/bee/) - Bee takes flight, a brief moment captured luckily with a 300mm telephoto lens. The bee's work the lavender well every year.
- [Leatherjacket Bay](https://deography.com/leatherjacket-bay/) - A campsite right on the beach like this is wonderful. It was a bit of a hairy drive in but well worth the effort. The sun and the clouds were dull and lifeless. I had scouted the location the previous day trying different parts of the landscape, but a mid sized bay is hard to
- [Cascades, Beechworth VIC](https://deography.com/cascades-beechworth-vic/) - I've taken many happy snaps of this place and people swimming and drinking beer there, with a wide open panaramic view that looks towards the setting sun in the west. The rocks are smooth and ornately carved by the torrent of water that cuts through them. Though small, the rock pools are deep and inviting
- [Lake Hume Dam Sunrise](https://deography.com/lake-hume-dam-sunrise/) - Over time some people have said to me "What difference does it make if you photograph the sunrise or the sunset?" wondering why the effort to wake up in the darkness in order to capture the sunrise. At the very least, the sun is coming from an entirely different side of the sky thereby bathing
- [Max](https://deography.com/max/) - This is a photo of a local guitarist at the open mic night. These kinds of portraits are difficult due to the low lighting at venues such as this. I prefer not to use flash due to the way it can falsify the setting with harsh frontal light. In this case I've opted for a
- [Droplets](https://deography.com/droplets/) - Leaves at the botanic gardens covered with large water droplets during an interlude between rainfall. Red level decreased in post processing.
- [Kitten Rescue](https://deography.com/kitten-rescue/) - The kitten had crawled into the storm water drain pipe from the street. The home owners children heard the meows of the kitten sometime in the morning and they stopped by the afternoon. The kitten was rescued quickly after the drainpipe was dismantled and they looked down the pipe at the dust covered feline.
- [Rain Droplet](https://deography.com/rain-droplet/) - A water droplet clings onto this creeper vine. I kneeled down and snapped of two photos before it splashed down to earth. In the droplet you can see both the sky and the ground. My holiday on the north coast was rained out, but after the rains everything felt rejuvinated and fresh. Before long the
- [Frosted Weed](https://deography.com/frosted-weed/) - The radiator packed it in. I was stuck at a service station on highway 31 with nowhere to go until the mechanic opened shop the following morning. I woke early, though I didn't have much choice, since the cold snap of the morning had thrust me into the waking world. After taking a few photos
- [Retro Youth Cafe](https://deography.com/retro-youth-cafe/) - This was one of the first photos I'd ever taken with my camera. I mounted the camera body on a tripod and put it on a cafe table. Then I took the right hand %70 of the photo and swivelled the camera around to the left to take the other 30%. I stitched them manually
- [Hot Donuts](https://deography.com/hot-donuts/) - I don't normally like this sort of photo... but the planets aligned and this turned out quite nicely. I used my new cheapie 50m 1.8 MkII canon lens but was still taking long exposures, fortunately for me the flashing lights and smell of donuts had mesmerised this policeman who stood tranfixed amidst the surge of
- [Sparkle](https://deography.com/sparkle/) - I bought my camera whilst I was still living on the road, on my own, with no direction home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone. How did I feel? Well it was all very exciting buying my first DSLR but when the sun went down, I was a little lost for subject matter,
- [Server](https://deography.com/server/) - I pressed escape. Nothing. I pressed it again. I was still there, at my desk. Apparently there was no escape.My only companions being my laptop, my workstation and my camera. Those, and the soft omnipresent hum of computers in every direction like a collective 'Om' on the breath of a hundred silent monks. Somewhere in
- [Albury Sunrise](https://deography.com/albury-sunrise/) - When this photo was taken, I was in a state of severe delirium. It was about the 20th hour of a 24 hour shift I was working, I was on a breakfast break and headed up to the lookout to watch the sun rise over the township. My intention was to capture the light of
- [Dead Wallaby](https://deography.com/dead-wallaby/) - Taken at Mimosa Rocks, NSW this unidentified wallaby carcass slowly decomposes as the waves slowly draw it into the pacific ocean. Like the inland tourist I am, and stopped to take a few photos.
- [Small Eggs](https://deography.com/small-eggs/) - Close to shore, these eggs had been dug up, tasted, and abandoned by some kind of scavanger. I took my shots and rolled the eggs back into their hole and covered them up again.
- [Snow Laden](https://deography.com/snow-laden/) - I've only been to the snow twice. Each time it looked like a wash-out, with pitiful snowfall and bad reports. Then, the night before I, the incompetent skier and worse boarder, head up the mountain, there are massive record breaking snow falls heralding in a bumper season of thick white powder. Then after the mass
- [Wonga Wetlands](https://deography.com/wonga-wetlands/) - I took this photo(s) after the storm passed over Albury leaving everything wet and fresh, and a beautiful mauve sunset with dramatic clouds all at once. The wetland is a great place to photograph birds, but also an excellent open area with beautiful foreground and middle ground features such as water and reeds as well
- [Eucalypts in Snow](https://deography.com/eucalypts-in-snow/) - The snow was challenging to photograph.. it was so bright, it was hard to take a photo that didn't look washed out. The camera automatically tries to balance things out and makes incorrect speculation due to the glare. Setting the film speed relatively fast (400) allowed me to close the aperture quite a lot while
- [Stanley Sunset](https://deography.com/stanley-sunset/) - I was chasing birds around a property when I saw a car stop to open a gate. After driving through and closing the gate, the car sped off leaving a trail of dust hovering in the air. Because it was so dry and the air was so still, the dust hovered for what seemed like
- [Blister](https://deography.com/blister/) - Eww.. why would I take a photo of this you might ask. But here you are, looking at the photo and wondering why. Sure its gross, but humans are inately perversely curious and you are apparently no exception. I could tell you that this is the result of my unabating passion for photography which has
- [Lake Sambell](https://deography.com/lake-sambell/) - I wandered away from the group and slid down the grassy slope down into the creek system below the lake. Soon I was in my element again, focussing on this and that, crawling in the dirt, scurrying over rocks. After an unknown length of time I heard a voice behind me above the gushing sound
- [Hume Dam Wall](https://deography.com/hume-dam-wall/) - The mighty Murray river is not the roaring wide open body of water it used to be. Several dams punctuate the natural flow of water through over 2000kms of water course through several states. Pictured here, the wall is opened somewhat to allow water through the hydro electricity plant which generates power for the region
- [Beach Cockroach](https://deography.com/beach-cockroach/) - An interesting looking insect, with intricate brown wings folded neatly beneath a translucent shell, like a see-through cockroach.
- [Tiny Fly](https://deography.com/tiny-fly/) - Using the lens held backwards, I took this photo handheld while roaming through the bushland near Byron Bay's main beach.
- [Sheild Bug](https://deography.com/sheild-bug/) - We used to call them stink bugs at school, but I've recently heard them called sheild bugs as well which makes sense looking at them. I don't have enough reference material to classify this.
- [Unidentified Moth](https://deography.com/unidentified-moth-2/) - Moths are often extremely phototropic inverterbrates and can easily be found hovering around lights. You would have noticed the behaviour with your home's outdoor lights during the summer months. I found several of this apparently locally common species attracted to the camp light along with many other smaller moths and insects. Eventually a moth flew
- [Jewel](https://deography.com/jewel/) - A habitat photo. These little fern like leaves have short 2cm roots and they float on the surface of the water softly and dry.
- [Wetland Sunset](https://deography.com/wetland-sunset/) - The sun sets near Deniliquin at Gulpa State Forest, filled with canals and wetland chanels as part of the local water management. I was impressed by the number of sizable wetland habitat areas within the looming and quite dense bushland.
- [Tri Avian Corridor, Deniliquin.](https://deography.com/tri-avian-corridor-deniliquin/) - Tripod and remote switch ISO 400 to compensate for the overcast conditions and an aperture of 7.1, which I should have probably closed a touch to get the foreground in focus. It was a bit of a spot to get to but the view of the hide worked out well.
- [Bamboo](https://deography.com/bamboo/) - Bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world. It has been used for centuries to make all sorts of things, from bridges to instruments. The bamboo patch pictured above is well photographed as the entire patch is covered with graffiti. It would take hours so read it all, although I'm not sure how many
- [Moth](https://deography.com/moth/) - This moth was a little larger than the size of my hand and manically chased the torch head, buffering itself repeatedly against it. I used a lens reversed to get this photo of the detail in the moth's fur and wings.
- [Australian](https://deography.com/australian/) - Happy Australia Day everybody. I wanted to take a photo with a face that would transcend the time period the photo was taken in. I stayed on the river bank with the 300mm lens fully extended and took this which didn't turn out as sharp as I would have liked, but I like the iconic
- [Riverwater](https://deography.com/riverwater/) - Before she walked into the water, she paused for a moment. It's cold, she thought.
- [Highway 31](https://deography.com/highway-31/) - So many times I've found myself on the highway to or from Sydney having to stop the car amidst high speed traffic in order to capture a spectacular landscape or sudden vista lit by the vast and featureless sky. In this photo I had managed to stave off the urge to stop for 2 hours,
- [Fish Heads Cafe - Byron Bay](https://deography.com/fish-heads-cafe-byron-bay/) - You would be forgiven for not getting a little upset for seeing a small rectangular fish and chips cardboard box washed up on the shore or in between the rocks of the main beach at Byron Bay, an otherwise beautifully aesthetic natural place. Fish and chips on the beach as you watch the sunset with
- [Brown Lake - Stradbroke Island](https://deography.com/brown-lake-stradbroke-island/) - Stradbroke Island is an amazing place. The pristine beaches are in stark contrast to the mined inland core. When I walked through Brown Lake, a 'conservation area' of the island, I found it overrun with tadpoles and toads.
- [Stradbroke Island](https://deography.com/stradbroke-island/) - Cylinder beach was hard to leave. In the clear blue green water I floated there knowing that this was the furthest I would come, and that it was time to pack up and make the long journey home. Large schools of fish swam around us and sets of waves crashed into the shore as dolphins
- [Serenity](https://deography.com/serenity/) - After a long walk up and down the main beach I waded into the water and asked the fisherman if I could take a photo of him. He seemed surprised but didn't mind and was happy with the result when I showed him on the LCD preview screen. In the distance, a bushfire pours smoke
- [Stag](https://deography.com/stag/) - A quick stop on the side of the Hume Highway, across the road and into someone's paddock, I saw the most amazing light being cast across the paddock in the dusty air. A dead tree, or stag, will often become a refuge for nesting birds, reptiles or even mammals and are a vitally important port
- [King George River](https://deography.com/king-george-river/) - The King George river separates the Alpine National Park and the State forest near Mt Buller, a landscape punctuated with historic huts and pierced with lengthy 4wd tracks, inclines, river crossings, and mud flats. Many of the other drivers are friendly and helpful and the camping area at Pineapple Flats is usually well populated, although
- [Mt Buller](https://deography.com/mt-buller/) - In the high country are some remnant forestation areas or signs declaring how long certain woodland has been growing for. In others though you meet denuded hills and large lifeless stumps, cleared to ensure good views for all seasonal skiers, and what sweeping vistas they are.
- [Window](https://deography.com/window/) - The abandoned house on the Murray River always looks like a ''renovators dream'' from the outside ; a typical Australian cottage homestead perfectly located close to shore. For years I've walked or rode past it without stopping. On inspection, I don't think renovation is an option.
- [Kino (Eucalyptus Sap)](https://deography.com/kino-eucalyptus-sap/) - The blood red sap that collects around scarred gum trees is typical of the Australian eucalypt. Indigenous Australians used to crush and boil the sap for medicinal uses and certain insects and animals will even feed from it. The sap protects exposed wood to encourage bark similar to pus that helps skin to grow back
- [An Insect](https://deography.com/an-insect/) - Another reverse lens and fairly close crop in order to see this tiny creature I found in the alpine national park.
- [Fire Extinguisher](https://deography.com/fire-extinguisher/) - Dry Chem fire extinguishers are useful for class A, B and C fires and are an extremely effective for basic fire fighting. As they leave a fine powder of non flammable material over the extinguished area, they also decrease the risk of re-ignition.
- [Take Away Coffee](https://deography.com/take-away-coffee/) - The culture of coffee is not merely based on pretense or image. At the heart of it is a true love and appreciation for good coffee.
- [Above the Clouds](https://deography.com/above-the-clouds/) - Clouds as viewed from above during recent flight to Perth.
- [Nikki](https://deography.com/nikki/) - You can see more of Nikki's social photos here : http://elisadominiquerivera.fotopic.net/ However her artwork and film based photography are not yet on line although she will be exhibiting in Melbourne throughout July 2005.
- [Fremantle Docks](https://deography.com/fremantle-docks/) - I miss those western sunsets, even the industry set things off in this one.
- [Revenge of the Nerds](https://deography.com/revenge-of-the-nerds/) - I had no idea Revenge of the Nerds, although undeniably a great piece of 80's cinema, had enough depth to base an entire night of trivia and questions over. But, any excuse to hire this film again has got to be good. "Only one more time honey, I just want to make sure I've got
- [Double Rainbow](https://deography.com/double-rainbow/) - A double rainbow occurs when raindrops higher than those making the ''primary'' rainbow also refract sunlight down to the viewer. Although this secondary rainbow is only barely visible in this photo, the colour spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) is reversed.
- [Cold](https://deography.com/cold/) - Somedays the engine is hard to start, and it turns over slowly like a reluctant child. Sometimes in the cold, its hard to see. Against the weather, you have to chip away at the ice and brave the extremes, if only to achieve the smallest steps. But the important thing, is that you got moving
- [Poo Ponds](https://deography.com/poo-ponds/) - I told her I would take her somewhere special, a romantic stroll and a small picnic in a beautiful location. Fortunately she doesn't have a very good sense of smell, and the sewerage treatment plant was downwind.
- [Hume Weir Torrent](https://deography.com/hume-weir-torrent/) - After several days of torrential rain, the floodgates were opened literally at the damn wall that sits between Lake Hume and the Murray River. The powerful rumble could be discerned from a fair way away and the Hydroelectricity plant below hummed with the collective conduction of kinetic energy.
- [Pollen](https://deography.com/pollen/) - Finally, the sun is out again. Soon it will be spring and the hills will be covered in purple haze, and hay fever season will be upon us all. The seemingly innocuous yellow puffs, are in fact, under the microscope, barbed air-born thorns designed to facilitate the copulation and cross-pollensation of plants. Why plants need
- [Hubcap](https://deography.com/hubcap/) - Sunday with the volunteers, we learnt about many various facets of Road Crash Rescue and the extrication of people, dead or alive, from cars that have stopped suddenly, usually with the assistance of other fast moving, or very hard inanimate objects.
- [Golden Sunset](https://deography.com/golden-sunset/) - Exposed on the sky for added drama, another sunset over central Albury during the early spring.
- [Fire](https://deography.com/fire/) - Better than television, and infinitely more practical, fire is an element that is closely associated with both human endeavor and tragedy. The smallest sparks fly randomly from its apex as the coals are shifted, etching their trajectories into space, like real fire flies rising into the night. (Happy birthday Matthew!)
- [Spiders Eye](https://deography.com/spiders-eye/) - Spiders have different kinds of eyesight, but typically their eyes have evolved to accommodate for low light situations, and touch, taste, and tactile response form the primary hunting tools. Eyes like these detect forwards facing motion and while they can detect movement in extremely low light, the retina's are coarse and grainy producing poor resolution
- [Sundew - Drosera](https://deography.com/sundew-drosera/) - Sundews are a carnivorous plant whose sticky tendrils catch and dissolve small insects to supplement its diet, thus the tend to grow in the darker understory of the forest floor, although usually in moist conditions. Drosera (genus) are found throughout the world, although the one pictured here (about 3-4mm across) is probably a native dwarf
- [Harvest Moon](https://deography.com/harvest-moon/) - During the (northern) Autumn equinox, the Harvest moon rises just after sunset, thus affording farmers extra light with which to tend their crops. In Australia of course, the opposite is true with this Harvest moon captured rising around 9pm AEST. While rising, the haze and atmospheric distortion lend the satellite a yellow saturation which fades
- [Albury Manor House](https://deography.com/albury-manor-house/) - The tudor style A-frame manor house looks distinctively European and a little misplaced opposite Bunnings (purveyor of tools and timber, destroyer of the forests) and the Hume Highway. Several heritage class buildings fell to make way for the warehouse. I often wonder if old Italy had been as litigious as today whether the tower of
- [One Dollar Coin](https://deography.com/one-dollar-coin/) - This photo had no cropping applied and to get a full frame photo I used a 75-300mm lens fully extended with a 2x converter looking into a reversed 50mm prime lens. The "LIZ" is from the Queen's name "Elizabeth" that is written on the head side of the Australian one dollar coin to give you
- [Cirrus](https://deography.com/cirrus/) - I couldn't help but stop to take a photo of the clouds, so common here inland these sweeping, diverse cloudscapes that I never witnessed in the capital cities I'd lived in, they pass over us regularly each day. These cirrus clouds are an indication of dry air and are the highest of the cloud types,
- [Murray River](https://deography.com/murray-river-2/) - The Murray River is over 2500 kilometers long and stretches from South Australia to the southern east coast. Mark Twain compared it to the Mississippi when he visited in the 1800's. In recent years its level has been fairly low due to significant drought conditions which are, arguably normal Australian weather patterns exacerbated by global
- [Soulman O'Gaia](https://deography.com/soulman-ogaia/) - Soulman O'Gaia, is a roots musician who plays acoustic shows around the Northern Rivers and beyond. He is currently working on a new album for 2009 and I have been helping with the CD artwork, so more on that when it comes out! He was gracious enough to let me take this on the spot
- [Conspicuous](https://deography.com/conspicuous/) - By the light of the morning, the world is changed. Secrets in the night, suggestions in the found objects. Jesus walked on water, and turned water into wine, but those who drank too much also tempered the mighty tide in their own way.
- [Albury](https://deography.com/albury/) - In 1824, explorers Hume and Hovell's journey was briefly paused as they built a raft of sorts to cross the Murray river and continue. They forged a path then widely used for transport and stock between Sydney and Port Phillip bay, and Robert Brown founded the town. Paddle-steamers worked the river and the train line
- [Monument Hill](https://deography.com/monument-hill/) - Albury's war obelisk stands erect and proud in the misty night.
- [Asbestos](https://deography.com/asbestos/) - CAUTION : Material within contains asbestos : Refer to asbestos register. I am old enough to remember a few things like the cane at school and when cigarettes were advertised on television. I also remember asbestos, once a common building material you would see it in the roof or walls of existing rooms. The word
- [Halloween](https://deography.com/halloween/) - A halloween image, of my own effigy hanged for effect. I'd wanted a more dramatic doll/image and may pursue the idea in future.
- [Spider Orchid](https://deography.com/spider-orchid/) - This kind of Spider orchid only flowers during two weeks of the year, so I was happy to find them in full bloom. Tourists walked the path from Ingram's rock unawares of the evolutionary treasures dotted throughout the forest floor. About 35 mm across, the spider orchid pollination process does involve arachnids, but it is
- [Lady Beetle](https://deography.com/lady-beetle/) - Lady beetles are well known to many gardeners as predator insects and are welcomed as a natural form of pest control. Some species like the twenty-eight spotted variety only eat plants, however most eat aphids and other insect larvae.
- [The Web](https://deography.com/the-web/) - A spiders silk is made using proteins converted via special glands. There are different types of glands for different functions and types of web, and a single spider may have many glands in order to produce multi-threaded webs using combinations of sticky and non-sticky silk. While most spider webs are for catching insects, some have
- [Sun Orchid](https://deography.com/sun-orchid/) - I set out to find the Crimson Spider Orchid, and despite my best efforts, I was unable to locate them. The donkey orchids have passed and these sun orchids were in full bloom so it seems the end of the orchid season is near. In any case, my near seizures caused by hysterical sneezing and
- [Beechworth Chinese Cemetary](https://deography.com/beechworth-chinese-cemetary/) - During the goldrush era, Reidy Creek attracted more than 6000 people who worked up and down the water, digging and dredging for gold, diamonds, rubies, sapphires and more. Beechworth sustained the transient population of Australians, Irishmen, and a large contingent of Chinese. Their bodies were buried here and the Burning Towers were erected as their
- [Crusty Demons](https://deography.com/crusty-demons/) - Crusty Demons started 10 years ago when some crazy Americans headed into the desert with their dirt bikes and proceeded to video tape their efforts, going higher and wilder than most dirt bike riders of the time. Now, they tour the world, or at least, the brand tours the world and riders from the UK,
- [Crusty Demons](https://deography.com/crusty-demons-2/) - ''Mad Mike'' (pictured left) seemed to be one of the more experienced riders and during the two ''Expression Sessions'' of the night performed accurately and proficiently. As the light faded, the ability to take photos of the riders also dimmed, but I thought this shot reminded me of a scene in ET where the kids
- [Crusty Demons](https://deography.com/crusty-demons-3/) - I have so many photos its hard to choose, here is a montage of some of them from Saturday night including a backflip, a crazy variation and a burnout.
- [Ngan Girra](https://deography.com/ngan-girra/) - Each year in Albury around mid-November, local and regional native Australians gather at Mungabareena reserve on the banks of the Murray River to celebrate their culture and reconciliation. Traditionally tribes from NSW and VIC gathered here as a meeting place for trade and discussion. Pictured here, a woman performs during the welcome ceremony where Aboriginal
- [Ngan Girra](https://deography.com/ngan-girra-2/) - The dancers stomped the earth, jerked and swayed to the clap sticks and the rhythmic drone of the didgeridoo. Occasionally, the animation would stop for a moment as the dancers froze, muscles tensed and eyes wide, sometimes within a meter of the audience, staring intently at them. Pictured here, a dancer locks eyes with an
- [Ngan Girra](https://deography.com/ngan-girra-3/) - Mungabareena was a traditional meeting place for tribes from New South Wales and Victoria and is now the riverside venue for the Ngan Girra festival.
- [Streetlight](https://deography.com/streetlight/) - Taken at dusk, a light on the riverside reveals the faint shadows for generations of phototropic insects who have lived and died in its twilight. Many theories persist regarding this phenomena including that insects follow the path of the moonlight for evolved migratory reasons, or that light simply dazzles them. To further confuse the issue,
- [Lightning over Country Comfort](https://deography.com/lightning-over-country-comfort/) - Like a timely present from the skies, I watched the lightning drift closer. Ill-equipped but eager I tried to find a space in the car park in front of the bright street lighting and used a manual exposure to record the sky. It took about a hundred photos, but I got a couple of focussed
- [Lightning](https://deography.com/lightning-2/) - Another photo of tonight's storm, that raged overhead and slowly lumbered over me, eventually pelting me with thick and heavy hail which was so loud it drowned out the amplified band that was playing inside the club. I just can't get enough of lightning photography, and wish it would storm more regularly so I'd have
- [The Bentley](https://deography.com/the-bentley/) - The Bentley is a car not unlike the Rolls Royce, with an unmistakably air of english aristocracy. It thrived during its original production in the 1920's, the roaring 1920's as a symbol of excess and success, youth, glamour and power.
- [Hailstorm](https://deography.com/hailstorm/) - When using flash you can capture these ''orbs'' of light where the raindrops fall, usually in perfect little spheres. I used the same method to capture the heavy fall of hail and was thankfully protected by a small, high eave above me. The wind turned shortly after this photo and began to pelt me with
- [Scot Aird - My Left Boot](https://deography.com/scot-aird-my-left-boot/) - Scot Aird is the bassist for My Left Boot, a band made up of the other half of Trevor's House, which was fronted by Dallas Frasca and whose remaining members I convinced to play music with me in a band called The Uppercuts, all of whom will be playing at the Folk, Rhythm and Life
- [HDR Sunset](https://deography.com/hdr-sunset/) - This is my fist attempt at High Dynamic Range photo processing. I used the DSR's bracketing mode to take multiple exposures to under and over expose the photo. I wasn't happy with the way Photoshop's HDR merge looked so I tried myself using layers, blending modes and adjustment layers to distribute the level changes properly.
- [Digital Smoke (1440 x 900) Wallapaper)](https://deography.com/digital-smoke-1440-x-900-wallapaper/) - A small departure from the regular photography posts, here is a 1440 x 900 (widescreen) wallpaper I designed using Illustrator & Photoshop. It does however use one of my photos of a Meadow Argus butterfly. I used a few different techniques including illustrator shape blending, bezier curves, custom brushes with scatter effects and smart filters.
- [Sydney Morning Sun](https://deography.com/sydney-morning-sun/) - After being away from my hometown Sydney for over a decade, I've become the outsider again. No longer privy to the cultural underground I rely on the facile advice of the published guides. I ask for directions, and find solace in my cheap hotel room. The first city's pride is waning, and it's identity is
- [Riverside](https://deography.com/riverside/) - Taken while fishing in the morning as the sun refracts and glimmers on the rapidly moving riverside somewhere near Dederang.
- [Australian Grasses by Anna Passmore](https://deography.com/australian-grasses-by-anna-passmore/) - Over a year ago, the removalists left a large piece of chipboard they used as a ramp to move the piano into our house. It had been sitting there, propped up against the wall for all that time much to Anna's frustration. The frustration turned into rage when a strong wind blew the heavy wood
- [Racial Unrest in Albury, Australia](https://deography.com/racial-unrest-in-albury-australia/) - After September 11 in 2001, a circular peace symbol was spray-painted on the outer wall of a resident's home at the roundabout near the Mercy Hospital, a high traffic intersection, where it remained for over 4 years. Since that time, when the world was shocked at images coming from New York city of the attack
- [Wodonga SES](https://deography.com/wodonga-ses-2/) - A Wodonga State Emergency crew clean up after a windstorm bring a large silver birch tree down onto a driveway, blocking access and causing a hazard to others in the area. A team of chain-saw operators and other members to move wood and debris clean up after cutting the tree down to size. Heavy rain,
- [Wallaby Joey](https://deography.com/wallaby-joey/) - Marsupials have the ability to raise their young from the embryonic stages externally with their pouch and rear them this way well into adolescence. At this point, the pouch is stretched to its limits, often with large feet hanging out. Pictured here however, a baby joey looks on as its mother feeds at Oz.e Wildlife
- [North Head Beach Rocks, Murramarang National Park](https://deography.com/north-head-beach-rocks-murramarang-national-park/) - The overcast weather cast no shadows other than the one that gloomy light tends to cast on my photographic spirit. However, this proved advantageous for capturing the definition of the rocks along North Head beach in the Murramarang National Park near Batemans Bay. As erosion eats into to the cliff-face, large sulphur toned rocks smash
- [Snowy Mountains Sunset](https://deography.com/snowy-mountains-sunset/) - The Kosciuszko National Park surrounds several dams designed to generate hydro electricity by moving water westward rather than its natural course eastwards to the sea. This is considered a remarkable engineering feat and the hydro-electric scheme's official opening was conducted by Queen Elizabeth herself. A quick hello to Rob, the hitch-hiker I gave whiplash to
- [Beau](https://deography.com/beau/) - Telling me much later that he ''had water in his eye'' when this photo was taken, Beau is almost a cliche. He speaks quickly about superheroes and flies around the house at a million miles an hour, testing various objects at his height to see if they bounce, and insisting that several objects that don't,
- [The Uppercuts](https://deography.com/the-uppercuts/) - The Uppercuts are a rock trio from North East Victoria that I play guitar and scream in. After 11 months of song-writing and practice in a small shack in the bush near Stanley, The Uppercuts recorded their debut EP and did a small tour including Eldorado, Beechworth, Eden and Merimbula. This is the artwork that
- [Beautiful Melbourne](https://deography.com/beautiful-melbourne/) - (This is an older photo I really wanted to include in the gallery.) I didn't even notice what was written on the bin until later. Just beautiful.
- [Australian](https://deography.com/australian-2/) - Last year for Australia Day 2005, I uploaded a photo of a koori boy swimming in this same spot and wanted again to pay tribute to the native people that were displaced during the colonization of Australia. As I spoke to the parents of the children I had been photographing, I asked them how they
- [Juhu Beach, Mumbai India](https://deography.com/juhu-beach-mumbai-india/) - Young couples walk along the tide hand in hand, families pose for photos at the sea-side and others simply stroll its length as the sun sets on Mumbai's western coast. Juhu is not too far from the airport, so local hotels are often use in transit for travelers passing through town. The oily beach is
- [Urmila Matondkar, Bollywood, Mumbai India](https://deography.com/urmila-matondkar-bollywood-mumbai-india/) - Urmila Matondkar dashes dramatically from a car and rushes into the Hotel, shortly after the slicker-than-an-exxon-accident bad guy enters the building the prime minister has just arrived at. For these scenes several extras were placed in random positions around the place and chatted to each other casually as the stars pulled out their award winning
- [Kovalam Catamaran, Trivandrum India](https://deography.com/kovalam-catamaran-trivandrum-india/) - On Lighthouse beach each morning, groups of usually older fishermen, spend their morning casting nets or hauling them in, paddling out around the rocks or swimming around the reef to catch all manner of seafood. The younger generation of fisherman fish by night, with larger trawling boats. On this occasion we took a traditional catamaran
- [Saris at Sea, Trivandrum, India](https://deography.com/saris-at-sea-trivandrum-india/) - Groups and families often visit the seaside from the inland centers and while groups of westerners openly bathe and sunbake in revealing bikinis and shorts, the only flesh you will see from the Indians themselves are from the tanned fishermen. Women wade into the shallow waves in their saris or salwa kameez, splashing their faces
- [The Engrish of Narnia](https://deography.com/the-engrish-of-narnia/) - While traveling through South-east Asia, some (expensive and reputable) hotels gave us ''DVDs'' to watch on request. These were invariable 2-disc VCD's with the latest movies, some of them unreleased screeners, which were playable through the rooms DVD player. The subtitles for the Chronicles of Narnia were so amusing I had to freeze frame and
- [Giravaru Island, Maldives](https://deography.com/giravaru-island-maldives/) - Giravaru Island is where Maldives aboriginal people are descended from. In the 1960's when the islands population dropped below the 40 males required for attendance at the islands mosque, the people were relocated in Male, the nations capital and Giravaru was developed as a resort. This photo is a cliche, but the clarity and color
- [Hermit Crab, Giravaru, Maldive Islands](https://deography.com/hermit-crab-giravaru-maldive-islands/) - This little guy ducked into his shell when he saw me coming and refused to come out for a photo, so I picked him up which seemed to send it into a flurry of confusion as he stretched out to try and nip me. A beautiful little crustacean.
- [The Maldives Islands](https://deography.com/the-maldives-islands/) - 99% of the Islamic nation of the Maldives is water. Shot from the aircraft as we came in to land, the blue water and idyllic islands are definitely the jewels of the Indian ocean.
- [Giravaru Island - The Maldives](https://deography.com/giravaru-island-the-maldives/) - Giravaru Island is reasonably priced and not too far from the capital, Male so its a quick 30 minute speed boat trip to get there. The island runs day trips to other islands or activities but nothing is quite as rewarding as the snorkeling and diving from the very accessible house reef.
- [Starscape, Giravaru Island, The Maldives](https://deography.com/starscape-giravaru-island-the-maldives/) - Half of the stars in the sky were recognizable to my southern equator eyes, and on a clear night on the Indian ocean, far from the pollution of South East Asia, the stars glisten wonderfully. I can say with all honestly however, that they were nowhere near as clear and bright as the milky way
- [Cheap ($1) Underwater Photography](https://deography.com/cheap-1-underwater-photography/) - Snorkeling in a place like Maldives as an amateur photographer, without the necessary gear for underwater photography is very frustrating. Inevitably you buy a cheap disposable film camera which gives you blurry photos with washed out color you don't remember seeing at the time. (Your brain naturally adjusts to the spectrum shift underwater), but camera's
- [Diving Bubbles, The Maldives](https://deography.com/diving-bubbles-the-maldives/) - Just off the house reef, Giravaru Island, diving bubbles float to surface.
- [Trigger Fish, The Maldives](https://deography.com/trigger-fish-the-maldives/) - Snorkelers were warned of approaching this particular species during its breeding period.
- [Spot the Flounder, Giravaru Island The Maldives](https://deography.com/spot-the-flounder-giravaru-island-the-maldives/) - The flounder has evolved the shape of a regular fish, but with eyes on one side if its head, so as to lay flat against the sea floor with 360 vision and absolute camouflage. Further evidence that sometimes freaky mutations are good.
- [Control Break](https://deography.com/control-break/) - No photography here, just a quick collage done as a favor for a group of people I know ( www.fatuous.org ) who are organizing a party. If you are in Sydney and enjoy your music with breakbeats, check it out. The lineup includes - Toecutter (System Corrupt) Jase (Forigen Dub) Unsoundbwoy (Melbourne) Sakura (The collective)
- [Giravaru at Night - Maldive Islands](https://deography.com/giravaru-at-night-maldive-islands/) - The jetty at Giravaru island welcomes new guests and waves off those leaving, as well as ferrying day trippers to other nearby islands. On arrival our luggage was taken by a contingent of porters and we were taken directly to the bar where a free cocktail awaited while our room was prepared. The view of
- [Fishermen, The Maldives](https://deography.com/fishermen-the-maldives/) - The aging dhoni's engines leave oily residue over the water and traditional anchors tear through the coral reef, creating a problem for the livelihood of all Maldivians. On this fishing trip, we used basic line to drop bait 20 meters down onto the reef floor where we caught and ate a variety of fish.
- [Jama Masjid](https://deography.com/jama-masjid/) - I am posting this photo from my recent trip to India today after the news last night that Jama Masjid was bombed, and several people injured. The immediate area is always filled with scores of people, and the motives behind the bombing of the mosque are unclear. Associate Press writes -> ''The Jama Masjid is
- [Jama Masjid](https://deography.com/jama-masjid-2/) - Another photo of Jama Masjid, Delhi's grand mosque that was bombed last week by unknown assailants. 2 bombs were detonated within 30 minutes of each other, and specifically targeted muslim worshippers at the mosque.
- [Jama Masjid](https://deography.com/jama-masjid-3/) - Women and children splash themselves and even drink the holy water at the center of the square in Jama Masjid, a Delhi Mosque that was bombed last week.
- [Dylan Does Delhi - [Videoblog]](https://deography.com/dylan-does-delhi-videoblog/) - [ 49mb - Dylan_Does_Delhi.ipod.m4v] (Right click link and Save Target As...) This will signal the last of the India photos, they are a goldmine of memories and visual wonder that I love to look through but don't want to saturate the site with. Instead, I present to you ''Dylan Does Delhi'' a 9 minute, iPod
- [Angry Customer](https://deography.com/angry-customer/) - I wouldn't normally share this, but this was too funny! Listen to this small 412k MP3 recording of a customer complaint left on our answering machine at 5am in the morning. We are an internet service provider and the customer is flying of the handle at having discovered his children surfing for gay pornography on
- [Kiewa St - Quicktime VR](https://deography.com/kiewa-st-quicktime-vr/) - Click here for a 360 Quicktime VR rotation of Kiewa Street in Albury NSW. The file is 3 megabytes large.
- [Cappuccino](https://deography.com/cappuccino/) - The word Cappucino comes from the Capuchin order of Franciscan friars and was originally used to describe the colour of their robes. What this has to do with the foamy topped coffee is pretty tenuous though, so it was probably only adopted by chance. In any case, there is nothing better than a good coffee
- [Elizabeth Street Melbourne](https://deography.com/elizabeth-street-melbourne/) - Melbourne's cultural sensitivity, comedy, art, music, fashion and colour belie a sad, cold city where the despondent, hungry men and women of the streets beg or barter for spare change from men and women with iPods and pointy shoes. The bustling city grid knows no ends, but instead every road leads you to anonymous business
- [Alleyway - Flinders Street, Melbourne](https://deography.com/alleyway-flinders-street-melbourne/) - For every bright and inviting shop front there is an equal and opposite shop rear, where supplies come in and waste goes out to decorate these ubiquitous alleyways for as long as required. A late night rest stop, a homeless person's occasional bedroom or an urban art gallery, the alleyway is useful indeed.
- [Brenton Fyfield](https://deography.com/brenton-fyfield/) - Stepping into Violineri on Bridge road, Richmond is like stepping into a time warp. The musty smell of wood and lacquer and soft classical music greet you as the very friendly Brenton Fyfield sits at his workbench, making woodshavings while he lovingly repairs violins, cellos and their accessories. Single instruments, some worth over $15,000 alone,
- [Cello](https://deography.com/cello/) - The cello is one sexy instrument. Between the waif-like guitar curves, or the voluptuous girth of the double bass, is the womanly scale of the cello. Her voice isn't as shrill as the violin, or as masculine as the bass but is deep and warm, husky but familiar... like Scarlet Johanson, but much more vulnerable
- [Autumn Leaves](https://deography.com/autumn-leaves/) - Albury's deciduous european trees line many of the cities central streets blanketing them with thick piles of leaves each Autumn, a scene mostly associated with American or European streets where these trees naturally occur. Eucalyptus trees are often removed from human populated areas as they shed leaves all year and occasionally branches that come thundering
- [Countbouce - Phillip Norman - TZU](https://deography.com/countbouce-phillip-norman-tzu/) - TZU regularly pass through Albury, as many bands do on the road trip between Sydney and Melbourne, squeezing out a few shows through the rural heartland along the Hume highway, and never fail to impress or draw the local crowds. Pictured here, Phillip (Countbouce) screams whole-heartedly into the megaphone and both he and Joel (Joelistics)
- [Joelistics - Joel Ma - TZU](https://deography.com/joelistics-joel-ma-tzu/) - A skilled lyricist and performer, Joel Ma aka Joelistics fronts TZU with a solid stage presence and undeniable talent. While TZU's releases are excellent in themselves, they are quickly gaining a reputation as a must-see live act for their remarkable ability to get the party started.
- [Butterfingers](https://deography.com/butterfingers/) - Butterfingers live act crosses between fast lyrical lines to heavy pop punk and back again for a loud, fun show full of songs you secretly love. Yo Mama (is on the top of my things to do list), Jesus I was Evil, Everytime and I love work are just a few of their better known
- [The Highway Code](https://deography.com/the-highway-code/) - I like how the traffic light stands stoic, unmoving and dutiful in the tide of highway activity, streaming into the night. The Highway Code I'm not sure if anyone has ever written this down so here it is. I'm sure it changes from state to state, but you get the idea. ACTION - An oncoming
- [Don't Call Me Moonbeam (Video)](https://deography.com/dont-call-me-moonbeam-video/) - Ok I don't really play mandolin but here's a quick song I just wrote about why you shouldn't call your kids strange things. Frank, I'm looking at you. You Tube Link.
- [Wood Texture](https://deography.com/wood-texture/) - A passing shot, eyeing the afternoon light as it illuminates the texture from the side exxagurating the woods natural coarse texture. Levels adjusted in photoshop to bring out the deep browns.
- [Mac Book Pro](https://deography.com/mac-book-pro/) - The Mac Book Pro is the first wave of intel-powered notebooks released by Apple. According to last quarter earnings (early 2006) the Mac Book has fueled the company's 2nd largest profit ever despite the decline in iPod sales. As consumers become increasingly disilluioned with the microsoft status quo, the option to run windows as a
- [Mac Mini](https://deography.com/mac-mini/) - Pictured here, an Apple Mac Mini powers a name server and small website for a national ISP housed in its server facility amongst the cabling of the rack. As the Apple operating system OSX (Operating System 10) uses a BSD varient UNIX kernel, open source and commercial software such as BIND and Apache work natively.
- [Stencil Art - John Howard](https://deography.com/stencil-art-john-howard/) - Stencil art is a popular form of graffiti with the onset of comptuers, allowing artists to composite and design images in order to quickly spray them onto walls. This image of John Howard with a barcode motif reflects the growing feeling of totalitarian government in Australia.
- [Random Number Generator Human Influence Test](https://deography.com/random-number-generator-human-influence-test/) - Hi all, For my final assignment for a statistics subject this year at CSU, I am doing an online experiment to measure whether the power of the human mind can influence Random Number Generators (in this case a seeded random PHP function). This is similar to a series of tests that have been run at
- [TZU (Live)](https://deography.com/tzu-live/) - TZU, Good Buddha and Illzilla hype the Thursday night crowd at Sodens Hotel Albury as part of their Australian Tour. While TZUs recorded sound is slick and well produced, as a band they are well known for their live shows, stage presence and Joel's live impromtu freestyle skills.
- [Water off a (Pacific Black) Duck's Back](https://deography.com/water-off-a-pacific-black-ducks-back/) - When preening, ducks and geese pull their feathers through their bill, creating an interlocking effect across the feather not unlike velcro, that creates a water-repelling layer. Further to this, at the duck's rump exists a preen gland the duck will rub with its head, and then distribute the gland oil evenly across the rest of
- [Connaught Place, Delhi](https://deography.com/connaught-place-delhi/) - Connaught Place is a central business district of New Delhi, and is characteristically round and bisected into eighths forming a large confusing circle of shops and alleyways. The area is a hub of people, traffic and trains with a variety of shops from the roadside tobacco merchants to McDonalds.
- [Gorakhnath Temple, Gorakphur](https://deography.com/gorakhnath-temple-gorakphur/) - The Gorakphur region has many associations with Indias royals and famous heraldry, including King Rama. It was also the scene of civil unrest during Ghandi's protest movement. The gorakhnath temple (pictured) was built for the yogi Baba Gorakhnath, author of the first books on Yoga.
- [We are Human](https://deography.com/we-are-human/) - ''To spread filth is the nature of animal, We are Human.'' reads the sign, apparently without irony. The obvious of course, is that humans are animals. The sign is positioned at the area before the entry where everyone is required to take off their shoes, and mere meters away on the other side of the
- [Clothing Factory](https://deography.com/clothing-factory/) - At first glance, with western eyes, a factory such as this invokes the notion of sweatshop labour. In truth however, in a nation where millions of children live in slum conditions and severe poverty, learning a skill such as tailoring, and working in a stable factory such as this in conditions far greater than many
- [Boys](https://deography.com/boys/) - Two boys. I visited the village of the boy on the left and met his brother, a blind child in a lower-caste (dalit) village. Widowed, his mother lives with her aging mother and blind son in a small clay hut hardly tall enough to stand in. The Children of Mother Earth foundation identifies children such
- [Hindu Dog](https://deography.com/hindu-dog/) - This dog resembles at least, the common Indian wild dog (Cuon alpinus), sometimes known as Dholes. A pack animal, they communicate with whistles to coordinate predatory strikes on potential meals and waste no time devouring their victories. This domesticated dog however (probably not a Dhole), bears the typical Hindu red streak, often worn by Indian
- [Himalayas](https://deography.com/himalayas/) - Mount Gauri Shankar, Melungtse and Chugimago are 7154, 7181 and 6297 meters high respectively. These giant peaks, including Everest, were formed as two continents ''slammed'' into each other in the slow, geological sense, pushing the earth upwards. The ranges are still moving to this day by up to 2 cenimeters each year, and still growing
- [Lucknow Boy](https://deography.com/lucknow-boy/) - Perhaps in time this young man's story will be told. But for now I'll only describe a cheeky and confident boy who's short childhood is invisible in the warmth of his smile. (Children of Mother Earth Foundation - Lucknow)
- [Lucknow Boy](https://deography.com/lucknow-boy-2/) - If not for the scars that hint to a former, less fortunate time, this teenage boy is like any other, enjoying the company of his peers and the stability that the Children of Mother Earth foundation provides.
- [Fire Children](https://deography.com/fire-children/) - During the Indian winter, lighting small fires using cardboard, rubbish, twigs and still green branches is common among the poor where electricity, gas or other heating methods are not available. This contributes of course to the creeping fog that hovers over the continent and extends out to sea, separting the world's most religious country from
- [Monkey](https://deography.com/monkey/) - I apologise about the number of monkey photos I might be uploading in the near future, but the genetic similarity we have with them coupled with the fact that they don't occur in the Australian wild makes me especially fond of them. Looking into their eyes is nothing short of compelling.
- [Moonshine](https://deography.com/moonshine/) - I've seen the aurora australis only once in these skies. Being too close to the equator prevents such phenomena from occuring without large solar storms. The gentle drift of the clouds however, when captured on a long exposure, are hauntingly beautiful and are not without aesthetic merit themselves. I'll have to make do at least
- [Drought](https://deography.com/drought/) - As the waters receed, the earth cracks, lightning ignites the natural tinder and scorches the landscape during the harshest drought and the biggest fires Australian's have even known and environmental historians suggest could be the most severe in centuries. Pictured here, Albury's flood mitigation lagoon was only recently a small local breeding colony for swamphens,
- [Langur Sunset](https://deography.com/langur-sunset/) - Amongst the scrub surround the mountaintop monkey temple, Swayanabath, a group of monkeys sits atop the branches without much concern for the throng of people nearby watching with shared reverence. Monkeys are not common everywhere throughout Nepal and India, but in certain places like temples, the dogmatic practice of actually being kind to monkeys allows
- [Cicada Skin](https://deography.com/cicada-skin/) - Cicada's spend many years underground where they hatch from eggs and remain as infants to slowly grow there. Their metamorphosis is complete only after finally burrowing up from the soil and climbing onto a nearby tree or branch, then moulting. Slowly ripping apart the dry dead skin of their youth, they emerge as fully fledged
- [Grass Seeds](https://deography.com/grass-seeds/) - As the warm weather continues around the world, many countries watch as species flower sometimes weeks ahead of their usual schedule. Evolved to seed at seasonal cues, native grasses are no exception and the shifting weather pattern brings them to flower prematurely also. To their advantage however the seeds are released as the harsh dry
- [Morning Glory Bee](https://deography.com/morning-glory-bee/) - The short lived Morning Glory flowers but for a day, opening in the morning for bees to collect pollen and cross pollenate between them. Crawling into the narrow space to collect it, this bee cannot help but be covered, so easily spreading the pollen onwards to the other flowers. In this flower, the sun shone
- [Comet McNaught](https://deography.com/comet-mcnaught-2/) - After the last appearance I had to opportunity to see the comet in its full splendor from the Snowy Mountains, well away from city lights. The ridge however, stopped me from seeing the comet's head and to my further disappointment, after setting up the long exposure I watched as dark clouds slowly moved in over
- [Merimbula Sunset](https://deography.com/merimbula-sunset/) - A photo of a sunset, while cliched and overly familiar, is still a dynamic astronomical event. It's viewing is unique to this particular ''pale blue dot'' in the solar system and a constant muse for artists, poets, and lovers the entire world over.
- [My Desktop](https://deography.com/my-desktop/) - After reading a thread on TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) I decided to open many windows and use the ''All Windows'' function in Expose to show them all at once. In this screen view across two monitors all 260+ windows are still actively running. The website animations are still flashing and I even have a
- [Josephine - Sparkadia](https://deography.com/josephine-sparkadia/) - Sparkadia (http://www.myspace.com/sparkadia) are touring many Australian cities with Bertie Blackman and rumors are that their next album will be recorded overseas. Pictured here, Josephine, backlit on the stage at Sodens Hotel joins the band at one of their first live shows for the tour.
- [Lightning over Albury](https://deography.com/lightning-over-albury/) - The chances of being struck by lightning is around 1 in 79,000 whereas the chance of dying of heart disease is 1 in 5.
- [Lightning over Albury](https://deography.com/lightning-over-albury-2/) - Right now, somewhere on the earth lightning is pummeling the ground. By the time you finish reading this sentence lightning has hit the earth 200 times.
- [Wonga Wetlands Lightning](https://deography.com/wonga-wetlands-lightning/) - We got out of the car, we walked a few hundred meters and I stopped to take some awkward, unsuccessful photos of the storm by leaning on a tree. In moments the storm was upon as and large, cold drops of rain began to pelt the earth. Unknowingly, through sheer luck on my first photo,
- [Water Droplet](https://deography.com/water-droplet/) - The surface of a leaf is often waxy, so water molecules tend to connect to each other more readily than they would the leaf surface itself, resulting in beading through the surface tension of the outer layer of molecules. The effect is similar to the beading of water after you wax your car.
- [The Fly](https://deography.com/the-fly/) - Where would the world be without flies? Well for starters spider's wouldn't have anything to eat, but flies perhaps server a bigger purpose cleaning up rotten meat. As earths larger mammalian inhabitants cease to be, flies take the opportunity to lay their eggs into the corpse which explodes (almost literally) into a orgy of flesh
- [Imagination](https://deography.com/imagination/) - Imagination is the spark that ignites the fire of creativity. (Richard Laurence Peterson) I wanted a new wallpaper for my widescreen laptop, so I created this at 1440 x 990 using some lighting effects and a stock image of a Mackie audio mixing desk.
- [Supernova](https://deography.com/supernova/) - Spherical symmetry extends from the smallest quantities we know about, to the largest rings of the outer universe. If God exists, I'm sure god would have to be a big sphere. Apologies for the recent downturn, but my little photoblog is taking a back seat to university, home renovation, work and business. Updates will be
- [Australian Landscape](https://deography.com/australian-landscape/) - This is a very average photo of an orchard property that I applied a ''film'' technique to in post processing in order to give the image a surreal movie like quality. I hope to apply the same effect to some other shots in the future, it certainly has a wonderful feeling on an otherwise throughly
- [Echoes - Museum Opening Albury](https://deography.com/echoes-museum-opening-albury/) - Acts help to add colour By HOWARD JONES FIRE, music, poetry and puppetry delighted thousands of people at last night
- [Warby Ranges Panorama](https://deography.com/warby-ranges-panorama/) - This photo of the view from a 50 meter communications tower in the Warby Ranges looking south-east towards the snow capped mountains in the distance including Mt Bulla and Mt Buffulo. This photo is a composite of 8 vertical (portrait) photos merged together to create one large resolution sweeping vista. For your benefit dear reader,
- [7 months in 40 seconds](https://deography.com/7-months-in-40-seconds/) - 600 photos over 7 months, taken automatically by my laptop each time the lid was opened, compiled into a 40 second video. If your life flashes before your eyes when you die, I imagine mine might look something like this. Link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsncDuvgSxE
- [Kathmandu Panorama](https://deography.com/kathmandu-panorama/) - Again extending my apologies to the viewers! I've been neglecting you all, but the good news is my study will be over by the new year if everything goes to plan. In the meantime I might post some older photos I've not uploaded or post processed for various reasons. Here is an 8-photo stitch of
- [Child Poverty](https://deography.com/child-poverty/) - Recently I posted a video called ''the weight of the world'' here and on you tube, I was surprised to see its views increase rapidly and that a few people chose to start a dialog about world affairs, particularly topical American issues. A serious and shocking statistic raised in the video concerned child poverty and
- [Temple](https://deography.com/temple/) - In India the duality is stark. The modest and meagre share the street with the grand and extravagant.
- [Moon Dog](https://deography.com/moon-dog/) - An effect I've only seen a few times myself called a 'moon dog' appears as a wide bright halo around a bright, usually full moon. It occurs as light refracts around cirrus or cirrostratus clouds and this one was far too big to fit into my widest angle lens. It was a little hard to
- [Tahiti - Bora Bora Huts](https://deography.com/tahiti-bora-bora-huts/) - These kinds of views are common on the island of Bora Bora, where shallow aqua lagoon surrounds the entire tiny island and its fragment motus (smaller islands) around it. My cheesy home video might also give you an idea of the place. Enjoy!
- [Fractal Pineapple](https://deography.com/fractal-pineapple/) - Fractals are shapes that appear to repeat themselves at various scales, literally like a fraction of themselves, dividing into apparent infinity. Many flowers, fruit and vegetables have this quality, and the pineapple is no exception. This one is growing in the volcanic soils of Moorea, Tahiti at a pineapple farm near an agricultural school. It
- [Bora Bora](https://deography.com/bora-bora/) - This was the first thing I saw when I got off the bus for the pension we were staying at. Though it was a cheap affair at Robert et Tina, the surrounding area at Matira point was sublime light blue and picture perfect. click here for a google map to this unique place. The satellite
- [Very Small Hermit Crab](https://deography.com/very-small-hermit-crab/) - This has to be the smallest hermit crab I've ever seen! I had to be careful not to crush him accidentally in my fingertips. Apologies for the inactivity lately, my beloved camera is somewhere in the depths of Canon, Sydney after being sent away for repairs due to my general overuse while overseas. I think
- [Rainbow Eye](https://deography.com/rainbow-eye/) - Just a quick little photoshop I've seen many times but wanted to try myself. Adjustment layer with Black and White filter, then a masked layer for the iris slightly feathered with a rainbow gradient set to about 30% opacity and ''soft light'' blending.
- [Murray River Sunset](https://deography.com/murray-river-sunset-2/) - The colours of the Murray river are striking and the afternoon light is long and sincere. As it fades, the unforgiving heat makes way for bitter cold.
- [Graduation](https://deography.com/graduation/) - There is virtue in the pursuit of knowledge, and equal or greater virtue in its application. Thanks to everyone who helped me in various ways throughout my study, including you dear reader for returning here despite my long absence.
- [Bushfire Sunset](https://deography.com/bushfire-sunset/) - The sunsets have been remarkable lately with the fuel reduction back-burning around north-east Victoria. I must admit, I'm not sure why exactly this happens. Heat 'shimmering' or the classic mirage you see on a hot road, for example, is where the density of the air causes light to change speed or direction. I suspect something
- [Bridal Sari](https://deography.com/bridal-sari/) - This brief moment at a wedding I attended this weekend caught my eye. The ceremony mixed both western and Indian tradition, with the bride receiving a sari during proceedings. The groom held the sari high above her, and it's deep red silk contrasted amazingly against her fair skin and dress.
- [Self Portrait](https://deography.com/self-portrait/) - Sandman (aka Dream) has to be the coolest comic book character, nay, any character in all fiction. I highly recommend Neil Gaiman's Sandman series for anyone who hasn't had the chance to read them. So this self portrait is a little self indulgent, but then, so is Dream. The photo itself is very low resolution
- [Louella and Dylan](https://deography.com/louella-and-dylan/) - This photo was taken by Kylie Goldsmith, circa 1997! Ripped jeans, dreads, a feather... I should have been born in the 1960s. But you know what? I'm not embarrassed at all, as far as I'm concerned, Kylie took a really good photo. Slight levels adjustment, but otherwise untouched. It was taken on the last of
- [Richmond River Sunrise](https://deography.com/richmond-river-sunrise/) - I'm sorry about this really mediocre photo but I have an excuse! I've been so busy moving my entire life over 1000kms (From Albury to Ballina) I've not had a chance for much lately. I hope to share a great new theme to my portfolio (the ocean!) as I get settled into my new area
- [HDR Byron Bay](https://deography.com/hdr-byron-bay/) - Another attempt at HDR, this is a composite of 2 exposures of the view from Byron's main beach towards Mount Warning.
- [A girl (1920 x 1200 Wallpaper)](https://deography.com/a-girl-1920-x-1200-wallpaper/) - Photoshop, some custom brushes and a nice model (photo not mine). I've always like the look of ink splatters and think it works marvelously as hair in this kind of work. I haven't given up photography, just trying to get more familiar with the post processing tools. Hope you don't mind the departures!
- [Skennars Head](https://deography.com/skennars-head/) - Another attempt at High Dynamic Range photography, this photo was taken at the northern end of Skennars Head beach between Ballina and Lennox Head. 3 exposure's are combined using layer masks.
- [Sea and Sky](https://deography.com/sea-and-sky/) - The view of the distant horizon from Pat Morton lookout, Lennox Head. During this time of year hundreds of whales migrate north through this view including ''Migaloo'' the albino humpback whale who passed by cape Byron only days ago. For more information on Migaloo see http://www.migaloowhale.org/
- [HDR Lennox Head](https://deography.com/hdr-lennox-head/) - A high dynamic range composite of two exposures of the view from Pat Morton Lookout. Lennox Head is a national surfing reserve which means it has been ''recognised by National Surfing Reserves Australia and the New South Wales Department of Lands as [an] iconic site ... of environmental, cultural and historical significance to the Australian
- [Yacht](https://deography.com/yacht/) - A view from the canoe, of a good looking boat moored at a marina along the tidal Richmond River.
- [Byron Bay Sunset](https://deography.com/byron-bay-sunset-2/) - Three silhouettes, children I think, sit out in the low tide together and watch the sun set over the mountains past Cape Byron.
- [Floating Seagulls](https://deography.com/floating-seagulls/) - Seagulls float near motionlessly as tourists feed the seagulls from the air near fish heads cafe, Byron Bay.
- [Minyon Falls](https://deography.com/minyon-falls/) - The gem within Nightcap National Park, Minyon falls are a spectacular and easily accessible part of the Northern Rivers region. A short drive from Lismore, or Mullumbimby.
- [Sand Texure](https://deography.com/sand-texure/) - A simple sand texture, carved by water flowing from a higher pool on the beach back into the sea.
- [Lightning Storm](https://deography.com/lightning-storm/) - Lightning illuminates the night sky. It's a shame this bush was in the way, but the area was the highest vantage point I could find to park in the rain as the storm passed from south to north.
- [Lennox Lightning](https://deography.com/lennox-lightning/) - This shot was less successful but I thought the lightning was beautiful in and of itself anyway.
- [Golden Beach Water Texture](https://deography.com/golden-beach-water-texture/) - The wind and the water at low tide create geometric turbulence that stretch thinly over the golden sand at Byron Bay's main beach.
- [The Channon Markets](https://deography.com/the-channon-markets/) - A little bit of a HDR photo (2 exposures) of a typical scene at the Channon markets near Byron Bay. Full the full run down (including GPS maps) of the markets held on the second sunday of every month check out the deography blog post.
- [Cello Illustration](https://deography.com/cello-illustration/) - This image was done entirely in Adobe Illustrator using the pen tool and a bottle of a wine. In one layer I placed the original photo, and in a second layer I drew the lines themselves, adjusting the curves as I went. In a third layer I used simple lines with the pen or line
- [Moonrise - Byron Bay](https://deography.com/moonrise-byron-bay/) - Pictured here, the moon slowly rises over the main beach at Cape Byron glowing far brighter than the lighthouse in the middle of the frame.
- [Nightcap National Park Rainforest](https://deography.com/nightcap-national-park-rainforest/) - Taken from within Nightcap National Park on the way to Protestors Falls, the thick understory and cool, damp and dark ground are typical of the area. The dappled light usually means I have to push the ISO to 400 or more to take steady shots, although using a tripod and going back to 100 and
- [Lightning Storm over Ballina Marina](https://deography.com/lightning-storm-over-ballina-marina/) - Last night lightning storms ravaged parts of NSW and much of QLD with SES volunteers out in force to help clean up. In Ballina my network switch was destroyed suddenly after a power surge and several office computers also refused to power up this morning. Conditions were ideal however, for photography. With no rain, and
- [Subtropical Rainforest Canopy](https://deography.com/subtropical-rainforest-canopy/) - Nightcap National parks subtropical rainforest is apparently the biggest of it's kind in the world. The volcanic soils, heavy rain and warm temperature make for rich fertile areas and bangalow palms dominate the park with buttress root trees and many ferns.
- [Protestors Falls - Log](https://deography.com/protestors-falls-log/) - Though the falls themselves were nice to photograph, the cascades they create really sets off this picturesque area. It's hard to imagine this area was once ready for felling and complete destruction only to be saved by the actions of activists who protested and won.
- [Protestors Falls - Cascades](https://deography.com/protestors-falls-cascades/) - Though the falls themselves were nice to photograph, the cascades they create really sets off this picturesque area. It's hard to imagine this area was once ready for felling and complete destruction only to be saved by the actions of activists who protested and won.
- [Protestors Falls - The Falls](https://deography.com/protestors-falls-the-falls/) - Well I guess I've shown you everything except the falls themselves. Being a nice sunny day after a dry week they aren't especially plentiful, and it's very difficult to fit everything in at once. I can't show you the plunge pool, or the view from behind the falls, or the gentle cascades all in one
- [Cumulonimbus mammatus clouds](https://deography.com/cumulonimbus-mammatus-clouds/) - While not quite as dramatic as some examples on the internet of this relatively rare (?) cloud formation, I was ecstatic to see, if only for 10 minutes, my first Cumulonimbus mammatus clouds over Mullumbimby NSW last week. Lightning storms raged to the east of this formation which was isolated and brief.
- [Nature Will Win](https://deography.com/nature-will-win/) - Coastal shrubery grows around a rusty old pipe. A simple image which reminds me of mother nature's sometimes underestimated resistance against man's own destructive ubiquity.
- [Red Flowers](https://deography.com/red-flowers/) - It seems the PHP resize function I use to resize my photos drops the colour space information that the original JPG has. I'm not sure how to get around this, the camera shoots in sRGB and the colour is quite vivid on screen, but once resized it must reset to LCD colour or something default.
- [South Ballina Little Beach](https://deography.com/south-ballina-little-beach/) - I used to have to fly overseas for this kind of image. On a good day, when the wind is down, the water at the mouth of the Richmond River turns clear aqua. We found this tiny isolated white sand beach after canoeing across the mouth of the river to this section that connects to
- [Canoeing](https://deography.com/canoeing/) - Pictured here at Lake Ainsworth, near Lennox Head, a small naturally infused tea tree infused lake with deep black-red-brown water.
- [Circles in Nature](https://deography.com/circles-in-nature/) - I've always been fascinated with the shapes that define our physical world. The circle is both the most well known, and the least understood. In some senses, mathematically mystical but also structurally incredible. The circle is the shape of some of the smallest and largest things we can observe, and through it's ubiquity pervades our
- [Lake Ainsworth Water Texture](https://deography.com/lake-ainsworth-water-texture/) - Ripples in water reminds me of the way the impressionists applied paint to a canvas. Nothing particularly special about this photo, I just like the texture.
- [Amazing Storm Clouds](https://deography.com/amazing-storm-clouds/) - Tropical storms regularly bring rain, lightning, wind and thunder across the eastern cape of Australia, while mere kilometers away the rest of the state suffers the worst drought in recorded history. These clouds pictured are a small, insignificant corner I couldn't possibly fit into my widest lens for a cell that passed from one edge
- [Mount Warning](https://deography.com/mount-warning/) - Cameras don't have the same dynamic range as the human eye so an image like this appears much more dramatic by exposing for the lighter areas, plunging the darker ones into a shadowy darkness. Under the rainforest canopy it is remarkably cooler and darker due to the thick foliage and massive forest giants.
- [Fern and Moss](https://deography.com/fern-and-moss/) - If you download the original version of this with the sRGB colour profile it should be fairly representative of the rich emerald green of the sub tropical rainforest around Mount Warning.
- [Dallas Frasca and Her Gentleman](https://deography.com/dallas-frasca-and-her-gentleman/) - Australian blues and roots artist Dallas Frasca and Jeff Curran playing at the Ballina RSL Nov 13th 2008 supporting Xaviar Rudd. Be sure to check out her website at www.dallasfrasca.com
- [Guitar Hero - Song](https://deography.com/guitar-hero-song/) - Something a bit different for you today, a song I recorded in Logic Studio as a kind of parody of the computer game, Guitar Hero that has ensnared the attention of a few of my good friends. ''It's fun!'' they argue and after a few drinks on a friday night sure enough, out comes the
- [Levitation (Self Portrait)](https://deography.com/levitation-self-portrait/) - The way to a man's heart is through is stomach they say, so surely the path to nirvana begins in the kitchen. Somewhere between the pantry and the herb cupboard lies the universal truth that will set you free : there is no kitchen.
- [Massive Stormfront](https://deography.com/massive-stormfront/) - This beautifully distinct storm cell passed over me a few hours ago. The storms across Australia have literally stretched from the tip of far north Queensland to Hobart (the entire length of the country across the coast from top to bottom). They have caused devastation in Brisbane and Sydney. As the eye of this cell
- [Lightning Forks](https://deography.com/lightning-forks/) - Yesterdays storm was well reported in the media today as causing havoc around northern NSW and QLD for the second time in a week causing floods and devastation. As the storm front passed over I was immediately taken with the sudden and powerful wind sweeping across the ground. Within about a minute the rain and
- [Nautilus Shell (Isolated)](https://deography.com/nautilus-shell-isolated/) - I saw this at a market today and couldn't resist buying it. I've always liked the nautilus shell cross section ever since I read about natures golden ratio. That is, that this image can be divided into sections, each 0.618054 times smaller than the last and this ratio appears not only throughout nature but also
- [Richmond River Sunset](https://deography.com/richmond-river-sunset/) - For the third time in as many weeks, smoke burns near my house. One time it looked like a gigantic atomic cloud in the sky and since then I imagine there is some mad scientist in his shed nearby conducting explosive experiments Yahoo Serious style.
- [Patches Beach (Panorama)](https://deography.com/patches-beach-panorama/) - Avid readers will know that besides my attraction to lightning and astronomy, I have an unhealthy obsession with odd, or rare clouds. Storm fronts like this one are common here on the north coast, but the puffy mammatus clouds are not. I have some other shots of the mammatus regions of this image but this
- [Fiji Floods - Nadi - January 2009](https://deography.com/fiji-floods-nadi-january-2009/) - Fiji has just had 2 days of heavy unabated rain and the biggest flood in living memory. The area has been declared a disaster zone. There is no electricity, clean water etc and there is a 6pm curfew to reduce looting in the streets. Thankfully, a Fijian worker at the resort we are staying had
- [Hello World - (Song & Video)](https://deography.com/hello-world-song-video/) - A long time ago (1972), in a computer lab far far away (Bell Laboratories), Brian Kernighan used the words "hello world" to demonstrate a simple "B" program. Since then it has been used in countless computer tutorials as an example of a simple program across many different languages. This MP3 is free to download and
- [For Miles - Original Song](https://deography.com/for-miles-original-song/) - Here is a YouTube video of "For Miles" Original Song by Dylan O'Donnell. I wrote this a couple of days before posting it here and it is recorded in Logic Pro. Dylan O'Donnell - Lead & Backup Vocals, Guitar and Bass Anna O'Donnell - Backup Vocals & Violin Full Quality MP3 available to download here.
- [Long Forgotten Heart (Original Song)](https://deography.com/long-forgotten-heart-original-song/) - Written, recorded and mixed in about 4 hours today so it's pretty raw and yes, I am reading the lyrics off the screen not trying to pose for the camera. This is my first song written on my new banjo. It's a song about how the heart is an antiquated metaphor for feelings, which really
- [Ballina Giant Beach Foam](https://deography.com/ballina-giant-beach-foam/) - The stormy and windy conditions coupled with the debris and floodwaters that have recently washed down the Richmond River has whipped the ocean foam into a large, seething, ominous bubble bath that has all but closed the local beaches. Though it was receding when I took this photo, it was still waist deep and felt
- [Northern NSW Floods May 2009](https://deography.com/northern-nsw-floods-may-2009/) - It has been raining heavily for three days now, and despite a some sun the rain continues tonight. Wind felled trees and brought down power lines last night and Lismore and the surrounding towns have been declared a natural disaster area. In this photo, the high tide laps around the bottom of our house.
- [Self Portrait](https://deography.com/self-portrait-2/) - This is a technique I developed in photoshop using custom "splatter" brushes. This image is based on a photo I took a couple of years ago. I'd like to do more of this style or work and really like the natural abstract quality despite it being a completely digital artwork.
- [Piano Keys](https://deography.com/piano-keys/) - I took this photo for the iPhone application "Note Trainer" that I developed recently. I had to shoot it twice, because the first time I didn't duly consider having the octave from C to C visible in the shot. Also, the perspective had to be corrected in post processing, as the focal distance and lens
- [Lennox Head Double Rainbow (Panorama)](https://deography.com/lennox-head-double-rainbow-panorama/) - After a week of intensely wet weather along Northern NSW, the sun has been shining for the last few days. A double rainbow briefly formed over Lennox Head on Sunday connecting beautifully with the headland. I couldn't fit it all into frame so had to stitch (photomerge) 5 photos to create this image. The secondary
- [Forest Glade](https://deography.com/forest-glade/) - This is more an exercise in post processing than a particularly good photo or interesting subject. By adjusting the exposure, saturation and adding grain to an image you can get a very authentic "film" quality to a photo that can add to it's dramatic depth.
- [Ballina Bay](https://deography.com/ballina-bay/) - Another post processing experiment. Here a greatly exaggerated film effect that gives the image a dream like quality. I like the dappled light under the big tree that overlooks this small shore along Ballina's Richmond River.
- [Egret in Flight](https://deography.com/egret-in-flight/) - This photo of an egret (a great egret I think) flying was taken in low light on a cloudy day and is just a nice looking, if not grainy, photo that I liked the composition of when I saw it on screen. I'd scared it away of course, after creeping slowly closer to it at
- [Byron Bay Sunset (HDR)](https://deography.com/byron-bay-sunset-hdr/) - Although a tripod helps, High Dynamic Range photography is possible using multiple handheld exposures if you have a steady hand and align the layers before post processing. This HDR photo of the sun setting over Byron Bay's main beach is a combination of two handheld exposures.
- [Lightning Sunset](https://deography.com/lightning-sunset/) - After 39 degrees today the tropical thunderstorm that rolled overhead was surely welcome. Bloodthirsty mosquitoes and couldn't keep me off the deck in these conditions, low wind and rain and a flashy display over the sunset. This is about 4 exposures stacked so the eaves have that HDR feel about them. I didn't adjust the
- [Soulman O'Gaia](https://deography.com/soulman-ogaia-2/) - This is a digital artwork with an organic feeling using splatter and paint brushes in photoshop. The technique involves using a photo as a layer to "trace" with the various brushes, which I also create in layers. It is a manual process and can take a little while but the effect is very natural looking.
- [Tiny Grasshopper (or Locust?)](https://deography.com/tiny-grasshopper-or-locust/) - Apparently there is little difference between Grasshoppers and Locusts, and their migratory / swarming nature is the only true distinction we make. I suppose the term locust is like the term "weed" in that we chose to ascribe it to the species whose success we don't enjoy. At the end of the day, weeds are
- [Overexposed Lightning](https://deography.com/overexposed-lightning/) - Not the first one that got away. One of the difficulties with lightning photography is having the exposure set dark enough so that if you get a big strike, it doesn't blow out like in this photo. That means that some of the smaller, more subtle forks get lost in darkness and you end up
- [Starfish Mouth](https://deography.com/starfish-mouth/) - This is a close up photo of a long since dead starfish. This is less than 1cm in total and shows the structure and texture of the carbonate endoskeleton around the mouth. You might be surprised to learn that starfish also have microscopic eyes on the end of each arm that allows them to detect
- [Byron Bay Main Beach Sunset](https://deography.com/byron-bay-main-beach-sunset/) - It's a beautiful beach, with a unique bay, an iconic lighthouse and a wonderful community but my favourite feature is catching the smiles of passing strangers from anywhere. Even when they are walking alone, it's hard for them to suppress.
- [Tropical Lightning (Byron Bay)](https://deography.com/tropical-lightning-byron-bay/) - If I ever get struck by lightning and killed, I imagine my religious friends might consider my parting ironic in the face of my unbelief. Let it be known therefore, that one's chances of being killed by lightning are greatly increased by standing under it for hours with a metal tripod, camera and umbrella taking
- [The Office, DNA Digital](https://deography.com/the-office-dna-digital/) - When I'm not playing music or taking photos I have a day job, and spend my time in the DNA Digital / SmartClix office in Ballina where we convert coffee into websites. This office will shortly be closed and a new office will be opening in that sunny, bohemian, north coast paradise, Byron Bay! Stay
- [Australia's Most Eastern Point (Panorama)](https://deography.com/australias-most-eastern-point-panorama/) - This is the first in a series of panorama's I'll be posting. At this size it looks like a simple crop, but the original is a 44 megapixel photo-stitch you could print a billboard with. Great conditions today, the sky, water and scenery were all perfect, and I spent most of the day on a
- [Little Watego's Beach (Panorama)](https://deography.com/little-wategos-beach-panorama/) - Nestled into Australia's most Eastern point is Little Watego's Beach. As I post this photo tonight, a fire has only just destroyed at least two houses at Watego's, an area where houses don't sell for less than $1M. The larger Watego's beach is a favourite for celebrities, socialites and the generally wealthy.
- [Byron Bay Surf Grommet](https://deography.com/byron-bay-surf-grommet/) - This little dude was SHREDDING the pass last weekend. I don't know who he is, but when I was his age I was playing Dungeons & Dragons and learning BASIC programming, not ripping up the surf like a pro! Wow.
- [Byron Bay - The Pass (Panorama)](https://deography.com/byron-bay-the-pass-panorama/) - This is the last, and perhaps my favourite, from last weekends panorama (stitched photo) series. I love the low tide, the glassy blue surface, the swirling foam and the surfers anticipating the next gentle barrel coming in.
- [Pod of Bottlenose Dolphins](https://deography.com/pod-of-bottlenose-dolphins/) - To get you through the chilly, wet winter here is a photo from just over a month ago of a pod of bottlenose dolphins cruising past the Byron Bay Lighthouse. Dolphins are social animals forming loose groups whose individuals interchange between groups. They have culture as well with groups passing on habits and traits to
- [Growing Pains (Original Song) by Dylan O'Donnell](https://deography.com/growing-pains-original-song-by-dylan-odonnell/) - [YOUTUBE VIDEO LINK TO GROWING PAINS by DYLAN O'DONNELL - Here's a quick and dirty recording of a simple little 2 chord song I wrote and recorded this Sunday past. It's full of hiss and clicks and pops because of technical failures (my gear is dying). The footage in the video are timelapses I created
- [Backyard Maintenance](https://deography.com/backyard-maintenance/) - Just a fun little experiment, not very well executed but it did actually work, so I might try some others in future. To do this you just need a tripod and a timer (or friend to take the photos). Then layer and merge the exposures in post processing.
- [Horizon Illusion](https://deography.com/horizon-illusion/) - A friend of mine Matt, sits in silent contemplation at Australia's most easterly craggy rocks. Although "horizon illusion" typically refers to the effect where the moon is appears bigger when it's close to the horizon (it isn't), I've also thought that at higher vantage points, the watery horizon appears to paradoxically be above you. This
- [Beach Fishing](https://deography.com/beach-fishing/) - As the sun sets on North Beach, fisherman wade into the surf for the chance to catch jewfish or tailor. With Mt Warning in the distance and the rose-red light playing in the waves, these kinds of settings are difficult to photography poorly.
- [Pheasant Coucal (Centropus phasianinus)](https://deography.com/pheasant-coucal-centropus-phasianinus/) - Alone in the grass, mere metres away from a busy thoroughfare of noisy humans, this juvenile Pheasant Coucal chased and rummaged for some kind of living food in the long grass, seemingly uninhibited by me or others. Unlike other cuckoos, this species doesn't engage in the treacherously deceptive style of parenting they are so famous
- [World Record - Fire-twirling](https://deography.com/world-record-fire-twirling/) - At 8pm tonight (14th August, 2010) 110 fire-twirlers at the Arts Factory, Byron Bay lit their ''fire toys'' at once to break the record of 102 previously set by the same place. The record has been officially recognised by the Guinness book of records.
- [Wolfmother - Live](https://deography.com/wolfmother-live/) - 12 months after Wolfmother's final show at Splendour in the Grass 2010, lead singer, guitarist Andrew Stockdale returned to the same festival with new band (and album) after the former lineup split up due to "irreconcilable differences". Tighter and louder than ever, Wolfmother has managed to remain a strong, recognisable live act with a swag
- [iPhone 4 - Guitar Cam (Packaging Hack)](https://deography.com/iphone-4-guitar-cam-packaging-hack/) - Scissors, iPhone 4, its box + some duct tape is all you need to create a sweet guitar-cam! Just think of the cool guitar poses and band footage you'll be able to make with this baby! I take no responsibility for damage to your iPhone depending on how hard you rock out. As you can
- [Pixel](https://deography.com/pixel/) - If you've ever wondered what a pixel looks like close up, here is your answer. This photo is a drop of water on the screen of my iPad. Water droplets have a natural refraction that creates a magnifying-glass effect. You can see here the pixels are magnified so dramatically that their individual red-green-blue composites are
- [Tropical Storm](https://deography.com/tropical-storm/) - Anna and I chartered a small speedboat to take us out to some snorkelling hotspots on Aitutaki (Cook Islands) but were up against some pretty severe weather. Instead of calling off the trip, our captain tried to move around the cells as they passed over and we'd jump in for a quick swim where we
- [zen10 Monk Illustration](https://deography.com/zen10-monk-illustration/) - I'll probably be posting a bit of design stuff now and then (sorry photo nerds), as well as other stuff I'm into. This is a quick vector illustration I did today with a stock photo as a reference for Melbourne website design company zen10 who I do loads of work for. This was done with
- [Unique Business Card Design](https://deography.com/unique-business-card-design/) - I got given a terrible business card the other day that looked like a primary school craft project. It did however, have the guy's face on it. I saw him a few months later at the local hardware store and I remembered his face, his name, and his business! So, I wanted to try a
- [Lightning over North Byron Bay Railway Crossing](https://deography.com/lightning-over-north-byron-bay-railway-crossing/) - There's nothing like a perfect-conditions lightning storm to compel me to pickup the camera from the bottom of the closet and blow the dust off. I spent some time taking photos ON the railway track before I realised that probably isn't very smart during an electrical storm so I moved aside. This is a combination
- [Brisbane Night Traffic (Animation)](https://deography.com/brisbane-night-traffic-animation/) - So I got a new camera! A Nikon. Yes, I understand my Canon readers are unsubscribing in disgust right now. This animation is made from 12 of the 600+ frames I shot using the in-built intervalometer looking out of my hotel window. Using manual settings I set the shutter to 4 second exposures every 5
- [Milky Way GIF](https://deography.com/milky-way-gif/) - My first fleeting attempt at a time-lapse astrophotography animation. 30 second exposures for about 15 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised to find a galaxy (NGC2070, The Large Cloud Of Magellan) and shooting star clearly visible in the frame. It would be great to do something like this in 1080p HD over a couple of hours.
- [Baby Knitted Jumper](https://deography.com/baby-knitted-jumper/) - In this photo my son is wearing a knitted jumper his great grandmother knitted for me in 1978. It was one of the first items of clothing I ever wore, and it's nice to see something so small now fits my own baby - 33 years after it fit me.
- [Baby Foot](https://deography.com/baby-foot/) - I'm afraid you'll have to indulge me just a little longer with baby-themed photography. Like the hand reflex to grip, the baby's feet have a reflex to grab. Newborn monkeys share this reflex as it helps the infant primate cling to his mother's fur (and other things). We've long since lost the fur, but the
- [Eskimo Zen](https://deography.com/eskimo-zen/) - Temperatures have plummeted in Byron Bay to a chilly 16-20 degrees C this week. Eskimo babies are often placed inside the mother's extra large seal-skin hoods, to protect them from the cold. While we have seal's in Byron Bay, I'm certain the locals wouldn't appreciate me killing and skinning one to protect my child from
- [Resistance is Futile](https://deography.com/resistance-is-futile/) - I can't help myself! My baby boy is still almost the only thing I'm pointing the camera lens at these days. I think this may be my favourite photo of him so far, because it captures his friendly nature and his thoughtful glare. He also wrings his hands together a lot, and this photo was
- [Common House Gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus)](https://deography.com/common-house-gecko-hemidactylus-frenatus/) - Spring is in the air, and even the resident geckos have been getting busy. Just when you thought the torrent of baby photography was over too!
- [Mermaid](https://deography.com/mermaid/) - Here my lovely wife Anna does her best impression of a mermaid at the local Byron pool. An impression she's all to willing to convey, over and over, until I have to pull her from the water. I am still playing with the cheap underwater enclosure (Digipac) for the Nikon DSLR which is working pretty
- [Monterey Pine Trees, Golden Gate Park](https://deography.com/monterey-pine-trees-golden-gate-park/) - I spent several hours walking through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco today. I must say, it is a massive expanse of parkland for a city. I was hard pressed to walk the entire 5kms. Let's be honest, "park" is a bit of an understatement for this sized tract of woodland in the middle of
- [Space Shuttle Atlantis Exhibit](https://deography.com/space-shuttle-atlantis-exhibit/) - I grew up on the space shuttle. Not literally, that would be weird. But as a young boy in the 1980's my deep seated love of technology and science was firmly grounded in NASA's shuttle program. I watched as Challenger disintegrated in the sky, and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning
- [Lunar Eclipse 2014](https://deography.com/lunar-eclipse-2014/) - If you were standing on the moon looking back at earth while this was happening, you would see a red ring around the whole earth. You would be seeing every sunset and sunrise happening on earth, all at the same time. That is why the lunar eclipse is red.

## Pages

- [Home](https://deography.com/)
- [Let's hook up!](https://deography.com/lets-hook-up/) - Connect with me on - Byron Bay Observatory : Byron Bay Observatory YouTube : Star Stuff Video Series Instagram : https://instagram.com/dylan_odonnell_/ (Low res, but more behind the scenes / candid stuff) Facebook : http://facebook.com/DylanODonnell Twitter : Twitter You'll also find me writing on Celestron.com as part of Team Celestron : http://www.celestron.com/team-celestron/dylan-odonnell Some of my tutorials are articles
- [Yes, it's free.](https://deography.com/yes-its-free/) - Most of my photography here is Public Domain. https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ That means it's free for you to use, now and forever. You don't even have to credit me for it. The text accompanying the public domain images are also public domain. The exception are portraits which are marked (copyright) to protect the people in them. But
- [Noteable](https://deography.com/noteable/) - Sometimes my photos get featured or published in places which make me smile! If this happens to a photo I'll tag it here in this "notable" list. Let me know if you see one of my shots anywhere, I love seem them get around! Some networks and organisations that have published my work include :
- [Subscribe](https://deography.com/subscribe/) - Put your email in the box below to receive deography posts right in your email. The full post! You never even have to visit the website. Good old email. Good old, trusty, reliable email. You just can't beat it can you?
- [Unsubscribe](https://deography.com/unsubscribe/) - Don't go! Everybody leaves me! Oh god why? WHY??? Hah, I'm just kidding. I'm not a spammer or mentally insecure. Type your email below to Unsubscribe!
- [Subscribe via Email](https://deography.com/subscribe-via-email/) - [subscribe2]
- [Notable Photos](https://deography.com/notable-photos/)

## Categories

- [Video](https://deography.com/category/video/)
- [Astrophotography](https://deography.com/category/astrophotography/)
- [Manmade](https://deography.com/category/manmade/)
- [Portraits](https://deography.com/category/portraits/)
- [Species](https://deography.com/category/species/)
- [Landscape](https://deography.com/category/landscape/)
- [Architecture](https://deography.com/category/architecture/)
- [Art, Tech & Design](https://deography.com/category/art-tech-design/)
- [Music](https://deography.com/category/music/)
- [Flora](https://deography.com/category/flora/)
- [Weather](https://deography.com/category/weather/)
- [Notable](https://deography.com/category/notable/) - Work that has won accolades or been used somewhere cool. Anything that gets published somewhere worthwhile is mentioned here. And these are just the ones I know about – public domain means I don’t require credit or payment for my work.
- [Macro](https://deography.com/category/macro/)

## Tags

- [Rho Ophiuchi](https://deography.com/tag/rho-ophiuchi/)
- [New Zealand](https://deography.com/tag/new-zealand/)
- [Antares](https://deography.com/tag/antares/)
- [M8](https://deography.com/tag/m8/)
- [Lagoon Nebula](https://deography.com/tag/lagoon-nebula/)
- [cello](https://deography.com/tag/cello/)
- [strings](https://deography.com/tag/strings/)
- [m22](https://deography.com/tag/m22/)
- [globular cluster](https://deography.com/tag/globular-cluster/)
- [The Celestial Equator](https://deography.com/tag/the-celestial-equator/)
- [ngc 6357](https://deography.com/tag/ngc-6357/)
- [war and peace nebula](https://deography.com/tag/war-and-peace-nebula/)
- [australian water dragon](https://deography.com/tag/australian-water-dragon/)
- [astrophotography](https://deography.com/tag/astrophotography-2/)
- [self portrait](https://deography.com/tag/self-portrait/)
- [backyard](https://deography.com/tag/backyard/)
- [mars](https://deography.com/tag/mars/)
- [conjunction](https://deography.com/tag/conjunction/)
- [m24](https://deography.com/tag/m24/)
- [sagittarius](https://deography.com/tag/sagittarius/)
- [eagle](https://deography.com/tag/eagle/)
- [lagoon](https://deography.com/tag/lagoon/)
- [triffid](https://deography.com/tag/triffid/)
- [omega](https://deography.com/tag/omega/)
- [m23](https://deography.com/tag/m23/)
- [moon](https://deography.com/tag/moon/)
- [utopia](https://deography.com/tag/utopia/)
- [landscape](https://deography.com/tag/landscape-2/)
- [cloudy](https://deography.com/tag/cloudy/)
- [miniature](https://deography.com/tag/miniature/)
- [lunar](https://deography.com/tag/lunar/)
- [clavius](https://deography.com/tag/clavius/)
- [mare imbrium](https://deography.com/tag/mare-imbrium/)
- [postage stamp](https://deography.com/tag/postage-stamp/)
- [fallen astronaut](https://deography.com/tag/fallen-astronaut/)
- [m42](https://deography.com/tag/m42/)
- [orion](https://deography.com/tag/orion/)
- [sol](https://deography.com/tag/sol/)