If you were to visit one capital city in Australia to immerse yourself in photographically then Melbourne would be my first choice hands down. Much of the character of the city centre can be attributed to Robert Hoddle who in 1837 planned the layout of the streets in the original Melbourne City Centre and has become known as the Hoddle Grid. Today the City Centre is home to Melbourne’s famed alleyways and maze of arcades along with its distinct blend of contemporary and Victorian architecture all this is encompassed by beautifully maintained parks and gardens. The inner city has one of the best public transport systems in Australia incorporating the Melbourne Underground Rail Loop, trams run down all the main streets and out to St Kilda, ferries dock along the northbank of the Yarra at Federation Wharf and there is a water taxi service to Melbourne and Olympic Parks. All this makes for easy and cheap access to all the best locations for your photography. Staying in Melbourne is easy there is heaps of accommodation ranging from backpackers to quirky boutique hotels.
Places not to be left off a photographer’s itinerary to Melbourne would be a trip to St Kilda, there is so much interest and variety to be had for the photographer. The famed St Kilda Pier is always good for people, sunsets and panoramas. Old St Kilda has some fabulous well maintained heritage homes and a trip down Acland St is a must with it’s famed cake shops which will have you salivating not only to sample the wares but to capture some tasty images as well. Port Melbourne is fascinating with the remnants of the original pier making for great geometric images. It is still a hub for passenger and cargo vessels, which always make for interesting photography. In recent years it has been redeveloped with a mixture of apartment complexes and medium density housing. An early morning walk along the Yarra River is a great opportunity to capture some good moody images of the rowers and kayak paddlers as they head out for training. Shots around the boatsheds make for interesting photography if you hone in on parts of the boats and the character of the boatsheds. Take advantage of the bridges as the rowers pass underneath and shoot down the river capturing the patterns of the puddles made by the oars. The City Centre is best at night with the coloured lights and patterns made by the red tail lights of motor vehicles and trams as they rattle down the tracks. A good tripod is a must for night photography and once you have set up it is just a matter of waiting for the right moment. I find opposite Flinders Street Railway Station a great location and across the road you have Federation Square, which is always full of interesting characters. You can spend hours combing the laneways looking for hidden art works, but the grand daddy of laneway art is Hosier Lane, it is saturated with colourful masterpieces that will have your jaw dropping.
Using Melbourne as a base there are some great day trips and overnighters that are a must. Probably the best day trip is an early start to beat the traffic and head off down the Mornington Peninsular, there are more than 30 towns and villages along the coastlines and in the hinterland. These are loaded with photo opportunities, boutiques, antiques, cafes, galleries, gourmet shops and historic buildings. Frankston has a picturesque beach and some quaint colourful beach huts, which are a favourite of mine to photograph. Other notable hamlets include Hastings, Mornington, Portsea, Sorrento and Rye. Looking for an overnighter it is hard to go past a couple of days exploring the High Country. On my last trip to the High Country I concentrated on photographing the heritage huts built by the early gold diggers, bushrangers and cattlemen. The town of Mansfield has several historic buildings dating back to the 1850’s when it was a service centre for the gold mining industry and in the 1940’s as a stock route camp. At the junction of High and Highett Streets is a marble monument built in 1880 as a tribute to a group of constables killed by bushranger Ned Kelly. Bright is a village worth visiting especially in autumn to capture the splendour of the deciduous trees lining the Ovens River as it meanders through the town. Autumn colours always make for interesting photography and allow for plenty of scope to be creative and a good opportunity for some macro images.
STAN’S BEST TRAVEL TRIPODS
A tripod is a photographer’s best friend. It is the one item that I consider an essential for travel if you want to get some WOW images of cities at night or stunning sunsets/sunrises. If you want to shoot inside churches, museums, dimly light buildings or ancient ruins not using a tripod will result in images that are blurred and won’t stand up to enlarging.
When selecting a tripod it isn’t just about the smallest and lightest. Things to consider are carbon fibre legs are a must, rigidity at maximum height, closed length is important for packing and a ball head that has a 10kg payload rating that can support a SLR camera without creep.
The Manfrotto Befree Carbon Fibre Tripod is a fair choice weighing in at 1.1kg and a packed length of 40cm is impressive. The design doesn’t cut it for shooting with the legs flexing and a ball head that is on a diet and only capable of supporting a medium size SLR. Priced around the $495 mark it is a reasonable purchase and capable of doing the job.
The Gitzo Traveller is the Rolls Royce of travel tripods, with a packed length of 36.5cm and weighing 1.29kg makes it extremely travel friendly. Gitzo’s four section carbon leg tubes are amazingly stiff making supporting a 10kg payload a piece of cake. The 32mm ball head is large enough to support a full frame SLR. With a price tag around $1295 makes it a tripod for life and you won’t be disappointed.
AUTUMN TREES
This is Fawkner Park created in 1862, a massive green expanse with an area of 101 acres in the heart of Melbourne, popular at lunchtime with the workers and early mornings with the joggers. The autumn colours caught my eye on this occasion and I spent the best part of an hour wandering through the park taking heaps of images of the elm and oak trees, benches and meandering walkways. The massive bough growing out from this must be a 100yr old elm seemed to form a roof over the carpet of red and yellow leaves. I set my Nikon1 camera up on a tripod with an18mm lens, knowing that I was going to crop it out to a panorama format. The walkway leads the eye through the park and the sole walker in the distance adds some scale to the image.
Nikon 1 V3, 6.7-13mm f3.5-5.6 lens, ISO 160, 18mm focal length, f16 at 1/60sec, aperture priority, tripod.
RUSTIC SETTLER’S SHED
This rustic settlers shed is in the High Country just outside of Mansfield. It was a typical frosty, misty morning for this part of the country, which is why getting up early, is essential if you want images with mood. I had pulled over to explore this early homestead with several out buildings and some old fences lining the road in. Apart from the buildings there were some very old trees dotted over the property making for some good opportunities for some macro images of the beautifully coloured trunks. I particularly liked this shed because of its length, after some initial shots it was evident that something was lacking. This blossom tree next to the fence was perfect the shape allowed me to partly frame the shed and fill the sky, thus drawing the eye to the shed.
Nikon D800, 24-70mm f2.8G ED lens, ISO 100, 48mm focal length, f8 at 1/100sec, aperture priority.
LAMINGTONS
If food photography is your passion then Acland Street in St Kilda is the place to be with some of the best cake shops in the land. The array of superbly presented window fronts will captivate you for hours and have that shutter firing away. There are many ways to shoot these delicacies. In fact you could put together a nice little photo story on cake shops. Apart from taking images of the entire shop front it is better if you get inside and get the ambiance and smell of these delicious treats. I like zooming in on each cake, not too much though as it is best to include some of the other wares and using a wide aperture f2.8 render them out of focus. This still will add colour and flavour to your travel photography and bring relief from the more traditional images.
Nikon D800, 24-70mm f2.8G ED lens, ISO 200, 70mm focal length, f2.8 at 1/80sec, aperture priority.
BEACH HUTS
There are an abundance of locations in and around Melbourne to find these unique colourful beach huts. The most famous location is the huts lining Brighton Beach not far from St Kilda. During a day trip along the Mornington Peninsular I stopped at the seaside village of Frankston, a great place to spend a couple of hours fossicking around getting a variety of images including macro shots of starfish and shells. These huts were nestled into the hillside due to the high tides in this area. I took some panorama shots, which were nice but this closer image shows off the character of the huts and the wooded background softens the harshness of the beach sand.
Nikon 1 AW, 1Nikkor AW 11-27.5mm f3.5-5.6 lens, ISO 160, 29mm focal length, f5 at 1/1600sec, programme mode.
STREET ART
Cities all over the world these days proudly promote the work of their street artists and Melbourne has totally embraced the concept providing visitors with guided tours or maps if you prefer to go alone. I found the best way was to checkout all the locations during the day and go back at night to the ones that you want to photograph. Street art looks great at night and the shadows often hide unwanted distractions. You will definitely need your tripod and I carry a small torch to help with reading camera settings. The locations I concentrated on were Hosier Lane and a laneway known as Camouflage where everything has been painted over with colourful squiggles and tags. You can capture images of whole walls, but don’t forget to hone in on isolated parts of the art, these come up great and the detail is amazing.
Nikon D800, 24-70mm f2.8G ED lens, ISO 800, 24mm focal length, f8 at 1/3sec, aperture priority, tripod.
FLINDERS STREET STATION
This is probably the most photographed scene in Melbourne. So if you want it to standout from the thousand of other images then you are going to have to do something different. Shooting at night is a favourite of mine when I travel for several reasons, they always look colourful, interesting and the main reason is the light doesn’t change so you can take your time setting up. On this occasion I setup on the corner opposite. There were several things I had to consider with my camera settings to get the image I wanted. A focal length to fit the whole station plus a bit more, an
f-stop with some depth of field and a shutter speed to allow movement of trams but not too slow that the people were blurred. Once I had these in place it was just a matter of waiting and taking heaps of images as trams, cars and horse carriages passed by. I was very pleased with the composition and the vibrant colours of this image.
Nikon D800, 24-70mm f2.8G ED lens, ISO 800, 34mm focal length, f4.5 at 1/15sec, aperture priority, tripod.
