Bill Hatcher Photography

Repeat photography at Wallaby Creek, Victoria

In February 2009 much of the forest north and east of Melbourne burned during what is called Black Saturday. The  forest of mountain ash eucalyptus in the highlands near Wallaby Creek was nearly killed to the last tree. Recently I had a chance to revist and photograph this forest after the fires. But the forest is regenerating in the curious way of mountain ash. New eucalyptus have sprouted from seeds dropped from the burned and dying trees. When the seeds germinated a few months after the fire the sprouts numbered 300 per square meter. Those sprouts  have now reached a height of 1.5 meters and number 80 per square meter. The trees will grow at this rapid rate for the next 80 years  before slowing. Perhaps offspring from the giant trees may once again  reach incredible heights.

This repeat photograph was of images I made eight years ago at Wallaby Creek. The assignment 8 years ago was to document an assessment of the mature mountain ash forest by a team of scientist. The survey also led to the measuring of several of the tallest trees in mainland Australia and the discovery that Wallaby Creek was the location of the tallest forest of flowering trees in the world. The photo being held up overlays the current burned forest. The prominent tree is a 90 meter giant called the Wallaby Giant. The Black Saturday fires killed all of Victorias known 90+ meter tall trees.

 

A year later the dead tree giants still stand, but with time they will fall to the ground victims of storms and decay. Much of the new growth will be crushed by the falling giants.

 

This is how Wallaby Creek, the forest of tall trees, looked before the fires.  Unless other tall trees are discovered, it will take 15 years before any tree in mainland Australia will break the magic barrier of 90 meters or 300 feet. It will take the trees in Wallaby Creek 100 years before they will again close in on this height. 

 
 

Live Web cam of Iceland eruption

I always enjoy looking at live camera feeds from remote positions around the world. The company Mila has several cameras directed on the eruption at Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland . You can click this link to view the eruption live.

 

 

 
 

The best cameras are...

I get this question all of the time and I have always looked at cameras and lenses as a tool like paints and brushes might be for another artist. So what is similar about the two photos below? I included these two photos  because they were both taken with the same camera lens. The bird photo was taken two weeks ago and the mountain photo ten years ago with Nikon's 80-400 f4-5.6 vr. It's an amazing modern piece of auto focus glass in a compact package. The photos of the birds were made just outside of my office window in Sydney. I am not normally a bird photographer, but I couldn't watch the antics of these two and not take some photos. So I grabbed my Nikon D-3 and the 80-400 zoom. While I was clicking away I thought about my experience using the lens  while on assignment for National Geographic to document climbing Denali. I used this lens with great results, but with an experience that was worlds apart from a Sydney suburb. 

Why talk about this at all?  Well for a couple of reasons. First I was reading a review of the new Lieca M-9 and there was a doubt raised if it is possible to become attached to todays plastic computer chip camera and lenses like you could with a classic non-digital Leica. I feel If it was a camera fresh from the store the answer would be no, but once that camera has joined you on a few expeditions and shot a few thousand frames I would say Yes! I don't mean that you become emotionally attached to the actual camera that makes the images, but you do associate those cameras and lenses with the memories of making particular images. A climbing friend of mind, when referring to his rope and climbing gear would have called this association good ju ju. I think positive experiences like making great photos lead to more great photos. The other reason I brought this up is I just lost all of my cameras and lenses in a robbery, including the wonderful 80-400 zoom that made these photos and thousands of other photos possible. The equipment will be replaced, but the new gear will be missing the pits caused from Iceland's volcanic grit, dings from Yosemite's big wall granite and  wear from day after day of shooting in Alsaka's Brooks Range with frozen fingers in other words the new gear will be missing some good ju ju.

So what are the best cameras? They are cameras that can awaken in you the memories of making some of your finest images. 

 Rainbow lorikeets, Turramurra, NSW Australia

 Climbers returning from a successful ascent of Denali, Alaska

 

The Human Face of Climate Change

I always enjoy seeing the background of how photographers go about making pictures for a story. Most of the time we only see the final results in magazines and rarely do you have a chance to see how photographers work in the field.  One of the biggest stories out there now is about climate change. Photographers Mathias Braschler and Monika Fisher have traveled to 21 countries in their pursuit to document climate change with their portrait project The Human Face of Climate Change. The Guardian reported about their project here I like the photos and this Guardian Weekend report tells the process of choosing the people and the locations for this story. I think it's fascinating. 

Will the iPad revitalize magazines and newspapers?

 

Take a look at this  video (here) that was posted recently on the Wired magazine web site. It's about the how Adobe and Wired are collaborating to create the new Wired magazine app for the Apple iPad coming out in April 2010. Many other magazines and Newspapers are also designing viewer apps for this new technology including the New York Times, GQ, Vanity Fair to name a few. These digital reader apps are very cool. It's also great that this Apple device may have a direct influence on every pro photographer and writer out there. I'll be excited to see if the iPad does to magazines what Television did to radio.

 

shooting video with a 35mm camera

With Nikon and Canon having introduced the first generation 35 mm cameras with video capabilities some still photographers are saying that we are at the threshold of a new revolution in photography. I have shot a number of one hour video documentaries for the US cable TV  OLN and took interest in the thought of a 35mm slr video camera. The slr video system would be compact, simple to use and be able to utilize a big range of inexpensive lenses compared to a pro HD video camera. From what I have read and seen of video shot on these cameras  like this movie short , by Canon shooter Vincent LaForet, the first generation cameras seem to work well. However, Shooting good narrative video will require some reeducation and  time in film school for still photographers.

In the coming future there is amazing potential for producing motion picture and other video and multimedia as web content. Web sites by the top magazines and newspapers all are full of multimedia and video shorts and new opportunities are opening up all the time.  I read a New York Times piece a couple of days ago, you can find here , about Italian film director Paolo Sorrentino. Sorrentino won the jury award at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and he has a reputation as Italy's "mad conductor"  filmmaker. This Times article describes how an Italian bank has financed three movie shorts  directed by Sorrentino that are shot exclusively for a web audience. I looked at a couple of these and really enjoyed the director's camera work. Here is one of the movie shorts Stella directed by Sorrentino .

I am not sure what expensive 35 mm film/video camera  system Sorrentino used for making this movie short, but for future aspiring web filmmakers the same technical results can be had with a $3,700 Canon 5D. The creative content, however, is priceless. 

It's not spring time in New Zealand

I haven't put up a post or photos in a couple of weeks because I've been out on my bike exploring the south Island of New Zealand. To be more Specific I did a bike tour from Dunedin to the town of Te Anau on the edge of Fiordland. I'll go into details about the trip when I post more photos with captions later this week. To say the least it was a spectacular nine days. I was joined by friends Dawn and Gavin, who I explored the North Island with last month. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post my intentions in New Zealand are to explore new country and spend time shooting anything I feel like. Photos on this bike tour are no different. It was great to spend time in the field and on bikes. I also learned the lesson again that when it's pissing rain and you know that ten minutes of shooting in a down pour will totally fog the lens of your camera you better keep shooting until the lens is fogged or you will miss the moment. This series of four photos were taken as we crossed over the Eyre Mountains. In the 3rd shot the camera is totally soaked, but then the wind came up, I wiped the camera with a chamois cloth and began riding  with the D-700 with the 24-120 lens dangling  from my neck. In 15 minutes the camera was dry again and I was able to shoot photo number four before it dumped on us again. Cool.

 

Gavin at the top of a hard mountain bike climb and the the summit pass.

Descending down the other side of the pass.

The rain is back and my camera is soaked, but there's a brief clearing

before the next wave of rain. I dry the camera for my next photo below.