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From one moody coastal scenery to another on the other side of the world and much closer to home. One of my favourite locations in Western Australia, the granite coast of Torndirrup National Park in the south of the state. It has featured in my photography a few times previously and last year we have been able to travel there again. Our state has been lucky so far in Covid times. We have been able to travel around freely for most of the time with only very limited restrictions in place. With no overseas travel, I am glad to have had more time to explore new places in Western Australia and to return to some of my old favourites. This year will be much the same I think.
Every time we have been out here the conditions have been different. Always different clouds and light that change the character of this place. Sometimes it can get very windy, as it the nature of coastal locations, though it was quite calm that evening. As we were driving towards the national park, I could see that we most likely would not get much of a sunset, as the clouds were low and covered the horizon entirely. However, I could see some breaks in the clouds and I was hoping the late afternoon sunlight would shine through and illuminate the cliffs with beautiful warm glow.
Just as we arrived and I set up my camera and tripod, I noticed this scene developing in front of us. There was indeed light coming through the clouds and particularly one strong beam shining directly onto the little island in the distance. I thought for a moment about getting a longer lens out but decided against it and looked around for interesting foreground to work into the photo. There is no shortage of various rock formations and interesting boulders in this area and I was able to find something that worked for my idea and vision.
In addition to the light beam in the background, I also liked the softer, more dappled kind of light hitting the rocks immediately in the foreground. That set them nicely apart from the darker granite "wall" in the midground, which in turn added an element that aided separation between the front and back. That, in my opinion, increased the feeling of depth and added dimension to the entire scene and when I look at the photo I can clearly distinguish each part of the scene. They each have something interesting in themselves but they also work well together and do not get in each other's way. Also, you could almost follow a trace of the light through the frame. You can either start with the beam of sunlight at the top and and follow the light down and around towards the foreground rocks or you can do it in reverse as well. That made the image for me.
I almost missed the photo though, because when I was ready to take it, another tourist stopped by and started asking questions about cameras, tripods and photography in general. There must be some kind of Murphy's Law which states that just as the light gets perfect and one is about to take the image, someone will walk up to you and take all your attention away. I mean it all in joking terms of course. I am always happy to talk photography and have exchanged ideas with other photographers on many occasions. I did politely ask the person to wait a few minutes and once I knew I had the shot we could resume the conversation.
As the evening progressed, we hanged around after the light had disappeared to see if anything else would happen after sunset but this was as good as we got on the day. I was very happy to have come away with this image and to have spent a fine evening on the south coast surrounded by its amazing nature.
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