Summer so far has been sunny, hot and humid, building up to late afternoon thunderstorms often with torrential rain.

Early one Sunday we took a trip down to Greenfields Beach on Jervis Bay. Not many people were around, but someone had left behind a sandcastle decorated with twigs and stones, and a few brave souls were venturing into the water. Still icy cold I am assured.

Just as easy to lie on the beach, or potter around in the shallows taking photos.

Terrapin 6*6 on Kodak TMax 100 and stand developed for 60 minutes in Adonal (1:100)

Recently Todd Schlemmer a.k.a. The Schlem graciously printed and built for me a TerraPin 6*6 pinhole camera. This awesome camera with interchangeable 35mm and 50mm pinholes has been designed by Todd for 3D printing and can be found at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:495230

Whilst I was in the USA during November, Todd was able to post it locally to a friend of mine in Pasadena whilst he was in LA. It would have been great to meet, but it wasn’t meant to be this time.

On our journey back from the Los Angeles, we planned to spend a few days overcoming transpacific jet lag in Fiji, before the short flight back from Nadi to Sydney. It was hot, rainy, and windy, rather than hot and sunny. Not that it mattered, we were just happy to settle into Fijian time. Eat, sleep, and be happy. Everything happens at its own pace: even a terrapin…

Now that I know, I tread carefully in the dunes. Deep beneath I imagine could be a spice worm, that I know not to disturb. Coyote tracks seem to pass through melange traces left in the sands, but for all I know its path could lead deep into the desert for a searchers of truths.

I joke about having a Carlos Castaneda moment in the desert, or seeking out the inner Kwisatz Haderach that might yet have many thousands of years to come, for in my reality there is a presence in the dunes.

A presence in the dunes – Yashica A, Reala 100

Ripples – Yashica A, Reala 100

Waves – Yashica A, Reala 100

The dunes are places of mystery, places to be experienced, learn self truths, and to come closer to one’s own existence. It can be hot during the day and cold at night. A place…

Some days are strange. It is though nature is revealing its auspices and one must be nimble to catch the signs. I often travel with several cameras, and though I can set up my 4×5 fairly quickly, I will also have either a medium format or 35mm camera ready. This means I sometimes take multiple shots at the same scene, a good reference point later, but often find each is different or magical in its own right.

The day we arrived in Death Valley was one such strange day. Driving across Darwin Plateau I pulled over because of an odd cloud formation in the distance as we began our descent into Panamint Valley.

Crossing Darwin Plateau – TMax 100, Ektar 203mm f/7.7 lens

Not far along from this first stop, the views at Rainbow Canyon were immense and breathtaking. Ready for everything I had loaded Velvia 50 into my Olympus…

Listening to Ventura Highway I am always transported to an imagined road that might be in California somewhere. I want to be chewing on that piece of grass, overcome by the scent of sage brush walking along a prairie road, and feel fresh breezes blowing off peaks dusted with first snows.

Who knows whether there are alligator lizards in the air, but one thing for sure is that from the highs of Mt Whitney to the lows of Death Valley, I’ve been hit by purple rain.

No apologies! Yes, I know that aerochrome had a dubious historical past in its use by the military, (“and should have never been invented’), but it is in the playfulness of its colour, that other realities are subverted.

Whether these are photographic, or social mores, since the famous album covers of Hendrix, Zappa, and Donovan, aerochrome has also been used to suggest an alternative…

Not much seems to happen in Lone Pine. Trucks roll through town heading up the Owens Valley on Route 365. To the west lies the Alabama Hills and Mt Whitney. Over the ranges to the east, badlands and Death Valley. Up the valley to the north lies Big Pine, Bishop and some distant relatives. From all accounts they can stay distant.

Occasionally, which means quite frequently, over the last hundred years movie makers have come to town. The Alabama Hills near Lone Pine has been used in Westerns, to represent North India (you’re a better man than I Gungadin), alien landscapes, and I suspect even scenes from the Sound of Music could have been filmed using those marvelous snow capped peaks. Yes, folks sometimes the hills are alive, but mostly it is just pretty damn quiet, with just a few wannabee extras and lots of horses seeming to hang around…

During our recent trip to Death Valley I took a number of different cameras and a variety of films. I have no idea what the border security people thought of so many cameras, but all were very co-operative in not putting any of my film through the x-ray machines. Instead the boxes of sheets film and roll films were put through the chemical sniffer test too my relief.

This series was taken with my Yashica A and culled from 3 rolls of Fuji Neopan ACROS 100, which was stand developed in Adonal for an hour. These photos were taken in Death Valley NP at Mesquite Dunes, Dante’s View and in the old ghost town of Leadville on the Titus Canyon Road.

The dry channels and pools on the Death Valley floor seen from Dante’s View seems almost like a Miro painting. There is an other worldliness to this place that…

Spring might be one of my favourite times for photography. The bursts of flowers give life to windswept and desolate bushland. Often I will return to places visited only a week before to look for more flowers I may have missed, or that are coming into bloom. Some days I might shoot a roll walking in and another walking out.

Many of the flowers in the bush are tiny, but standing out from them is the waratah. Growing bright red and large, seemingly dancing to the eye on tall stems in woodlands, it is a delight to find this flower in the bush which is the emblem for New South Wales.

Photos were taken hand held with an Olympus OM-2 using a G. Zuiko 50mm f/1.4 lens with extension tubes on Fuji Superia 400.

Late afternoon the horses like to have a feed in the top paddock on the young green pick and clover. Meanwhile their home paddock gets a tidy, manure is collected, empty feeders are filled with hay, and the trough is filled with water.

On the wall of their shed hang toys, and out the back, posts for making gates for training, and tyres for stepping round. The old fence posts have weathered many seasons, and with the coming of summer the boys are losing their winter coats when brushed.

I reckon the horses are quite content.

Taken with Olympus OM-2 on Extreme 100 and stand developed in RO9 (1:100) for 60 minutes.

This morning I visited Barren Grounds Nature Reserve to finish off a roll of Ultrafine Xtreme 100, that I had started yesterday, in my recently gifted Olympus OM-2.

It is a most wonderful present from my father-in-law who is in his 90’s. The Olympus OM-2 had been his treasured SLR that he had bought in the 1970’s.He wanted me to have it as he knew I was upset at having my Toyo and Nikkor lenses stolen, and importantly, am also an Olympus user.

I visited a nearby battery shop, bought some SR44s, and the OM-2 came to life.

Seems to me that it is working like a dream. This series was taken using a G Zuiko 50mm f/1.4 lens with a 20mm extension tube, and stand developed over lunch in RO9 (1.100).

No tripod was used in the taking of these pictures.