Wé, Lifou

27th and last day of confinement.

Almost three years ago now, I had the honour to photograph my cousin’s wedding in Lifou. We spent five days in total to, not only, photograph the administrative, religious and traditional wedding but also photograph and visit this beautiful Loyalty Island, that is Lifou. We stayed, here, at the Drehu Village hotel in Wé, the capital of Lifou. I’ve got a few more photos over on my profiles Facebook, Instagram and Flickr if you’d like to see more of Lifou.

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The Drehu Village hotel offers a couple of suites and 28 bungalows. They’re clean, comfortable, spacious and quiet. The bar area, just off to the right of this photo, doubles as the breakfast area. The restaurant, to the left with the green and purple lights, serves delicious and beautifully presented meals made from fresh, local ingredients. And of course, a pool. The staff are kind and their services efficient. Different activities are also available along the gorgeous beach of Chateaubriand Bay, where the hotel is located. Nothing bad to say about this hotel, really. You can even get good deals all year round.

This is a HDR (High Dynamic Range) image comprising of five exposures of two to thirty seconds. They were taken with a great little point & shoot camera, the Panasonic Lumix LX100. I’d bought it, after I had all my gear stolen, just to have a small camera to shoot with while saving for a DSLR. And yes, I photographed the wedding with it. Back to the image, composition-wise, I should’ve framed to the right a touch to included more of the bar area. And also towards the end of blue hour for a more pleasing image with the complimenting colour in the sky. Apart from those things I’m quite happy with it and quite surprised at the quality of the end image. The five long exposures were blended and edited in Lightroom with a number of local adjustments. Clarity and highlights on the wood panels in the foreground and the swimming pool. Colour correction at the bar and the restaurant. And a bit of Defringe in the sky and the roofs. I’m pretty happy with this image.

The Panasonic Lumix LX100 has it’s limits but within them, it produces amazingly good images which means you can take great photos with it. It’s got full manual controls, a Leica lens and can shoot 4K video. This camera is great for someone who’s looking for a fairly compact, point & shoot system and would like to get off Auto and into Manual shooting. Or even someone who shoots Manual but wants a compact point & shoot camera. Looks pretty stylish too, in my opinion.

So, I hope everyone’s is dealing well with confinement and using this time to improve your skills in whatever you’re interested in or learning new skills. There’s no better time for it. Starting tomorrow, here in New Caledonia, we’re slowly coming out of auto-confinement. Great for morales and the economy. But, that doesn’t mean everything is back to normal. On the contrary, it is more important than ever to follow the strict measures or protection. The distance between each other, washing our hands regularly for at least 20 seconds, coughing or sneezing into our elbows and, if possible, wear a mask. Any mask. And please, protect yourself, those you love and others by staying safe at home.

PANASONIC LUMIX LX100

12.8 MP point and shoot camera with 4K video

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VANGUARD TRIPOD

Vanguard VEO 235AB tripod with TBH-50 ball head

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SANDISK MEMORY CARD

SanDisk Extreme Pro 128 GB class 10 SDXC memory card

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THINK TANK MEMORY CARD CASE

Think Tank Photo Pixel Pocket Rocket SD memory card case

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GIOTTO LENS CLEANING KIT

Giotto rocket air blower, fine dust brush, rounded & pointed tips cotton buds, microfibre cloth and cleaning solution

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WANDRD PRVKE

WANDRD PRVKE 31 lt. travel and camera backpack

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This photo shows the choppiness of the water that I mentioned in my last post. You can’t tell how windy it was down here at the Coogee Life Saving Club (Coogee Beach, Sydney, Australia) but you can see how rough the water was. Now that I think about it, I can’t remember seeing any surfers out. I’m not a surfer but I can guess it was because the waves were breaking very close to the shore.

With this photo I wanted to show motion in the water as well as a bit of drama in the waves. It was impossible to freeze the action of the white-wash and the splashes as well as getting motion in the foreground but I think I got a nice balance between the two with the half a second shutter speed (I don’t know why I closed down my aperture further though). I did bracket the exposure but I only used the normal one for this photo. It was enough for the results I was after.

The sun was going to pop it’s head over the horizon in about fifteen minutes and I left about twenty minutes after that. There weren’t any clouds in the sky and the colours disappeared quickly too so I packed up and left to get some breakfast. Coogee has so many great cafes and they open pretty early too. It took me longer to choose one than to eat my breakfast. Mmm so delicious!

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0.6 sec @ ƒ/22, 18 mm, ISO 100

I find it so hard to get up in the morning. But I did it. Headed down to Coogee Beach (Sydney, Australia) to shoot sunrise. I didn’t have any composition in mind but there’s plenty to shoot down there. I just needed a beautiful sunrise. I had shot here before a few years back so I wanted to find a composition elsewhere first but when I saw the waves smashing into the pool’s walls on the south end of the beach and over flowing it, I was just drawn back to it.

At first I used a fast shutter to capture the waves splashing into the air but there’s something about long exposures that give certain images a surreal look. So that’s what I tried here. I closed my aperture down further than I usually do to get a longer exposure. The chaos and drama the wind was causing in the water just disappeared to a calm and simplified scene. I wish there were more clouds in the sky, catching that morning light, I think it would have made for a moodier image. Sometimes less is best. Talking about the sky, because of the long exposure it was now blown out. I was bracketing my exposures so I knew I was able to recover it. Only needed two exposures, one for the sky and one for, well, the rest. I used Photoshop to blend and match the exposures then I jumped back into Lightroom to finish the edit. It was fairly quick and simple. Pity the photo is slightly out of focus though.

Ten minutes after I started shooting, people were arriving to take photos of the sunrise too. Some came with their smartphones, others with point and shoots and a couple with DSLRs but only one with a tripod. Lucky I arrived early. And no one impeded on my composition (Yoohoo!). The tripod dude and I left about twenty minutes after sunrise.

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6 sec @ ƒ/16, 18 mm, ISO 100