One Month Along the Sunda Arc of Indonesia

Rebecca and I reached home after our intriguing journey along the Sunda Arc of Indonesia (although she just flew out to China for a week to kickstart her PhD!). We started at the top of Sumatra and worked our way East through Java, Bali and Flores. The highlights of the journey included:

Following the prints of the Sumatran Tiger down from the summit of Mount Kerinci, Indonesia’s highest volcano;

Strapping on a loincloth to compare against the sago forged muscle tone of Mentawai shamans;

Tripping out to variations of the Hindu Ramayana epic with the ballet in Yogyakarta and 100-chanting-man Kecak dance in Ubud;

Being lazy and getting a pony to carry my sorry butt up to the crater of Mount Bromo;

Blowing cash on kopi luwak (cat shit coffee) on the Ijen Plateau;

Burning out my lungs and teeth attempting to lift 80 kg of sulphur in Mount Ijen’s acidic crater;

Jamming with the Batak youth at the Toba caldera charged on grass and jungle juice;

Trying not to look too tasty to the Komodo dragons on Rinca Island;

Hiring arguments with the local rip-off merchants around Balinese tourist attractions.

What an Exit 2009!

Judging by the weather I experienced at Apollo Bay on December 31, it was as if 2009 wasn’t prepared to fizzle. The day was blisteringly hot and the swell was small so I drove over Cape Otway to Castle Cove to check out the surf. Some hikers doing the Great Ocean Walk enquired if I was heading to Johanna because they’d run out of water and had physically expired for the day. Being in a similar situation on French Island just recently, I crammed them into my car. It must have been karma because the waves were magic at Johanna, I spent a good three hours in the water. I returned to the cabin for grilled hotdogs with my brother and his mate to watch the advancing storm front and lightning show cut up the glassy surface of the bay. I’ve been on the lookout for bulging mammatus clouds during this type of weather and the displayed cloudscape is the closest I think I’ve come.

Not wanting to attend the Falls Festival with Rebecca left me with a few days to wander. Starting out with a wrist compass until I found ribbons in a steep forest gully, I followed my way to the top of the recently discovered Mousetrap Falls Complex on Mount Sabine. The photograph displayed was taken of the upper cascade on the edge of a several metre drop of what is either called Oren Falls or Green Chasm Falls. I’ll return when there has been more rain because the flow was minimal. In heavy flows I don’t see myself getting back into this same position. I took a few shots, without the sunlight for a more balanced exposure, but preferred this extremely highlighted take on the subject for its nuance of secrecy.

So what did I learn about photography in 2009? Perhaps the most salient point I learnt is to not give too much away or accept too easily what people are trying to give away because, apart from it promoting imitation, imitators will often take it to the next level and do it much better. This comes in response to overshot locations, overused digital processing techniques and overbaked colour profiles. I also went back to basics with a Pentax 67, teaching myself to develop black and white film, thereby testing my patience with the mistakes that I made. I managed to meet up with a few local photographers to exchange ideas beyond the tide of compliments that are sometimes undesirably given and received (only because we tend to comment about something we’re in favour of). Freeing up time I had once spent on DeviantArt, RedBubble and Flickr to get ideas was also a good move because it enabled me to concentrate on developing my own. I can’t see myself ever going back.

This blog will be quiet for a month as I’ll be somewhere in either Sumatra, Java or Bali (hopefully not lost), so I think it only fair that I thank readers for the year passed. Hopefully, my continued exposure of Australian and Asian culture and its landscapes has been entertaining but ultimately taken with a grain of salt. It’s often so much more satisfying when you can nut it out and experience it for yourself…

Noojee Trestle Bridge

This restored trestle bridge is the only remaining of several that were used in transporting logged and sawn timber from Noojee to Warragul along a narrow gauge railway. These days, it carries only pedestrians and cyclists on the rail trail, but in its day (1919 – 1954) it must have been an impressive sight to see a steam train chugging along at such great heights above the gully.

These photographs completed the roll of 10 after shooting the Mt Baw Baw Snowgums and a couple of scenes near Tanjil Bren. Near evening, the reading from the metered prism of the Pentax 67 at f/4, one second, was one stop under for the top image. Needing the extended depth of field for the entire bridge to be in focus, I set the aperture to f/22 and extrapolated the time for a one minute exposure to count out with the cable release. Fortunately there was no wind because the daisies in the second image would’ve been all over the shop for the similar exposure time that I used.

Baw Baw Snowgums

This study of Mt Baw Baw’s snowgums (Eucalyptus pauciflora) in the mountain mist came after a ride I had been working towards completing the entire year. Mt Baw Baw is reputedly the toughest hillclimb in Australia for cycling. I’m not an incredibly strong rider, nor do I have good equipment but I’ve been training in the Dandenong and Otway Ranges most weekends in preparation. The climb from the gatehouse to the village took me just under an hour and is only 6 kms, rising 680 m vertically to give an average gradient of 11.3%. Some of the times listed on Cycle2Max are half of my own! Maybe if I didn’t do so much zig-zagging…

Not only does cycling keep my beer belly manageable, it also forces me to slow down and study my surroundings. A number of times I’ve encountered scenes on the road that I’ve revisited with my camera. When I was cycling up Baw Baw I was thinking the entire time of what I could photograph after the ordeal to block out the pain. When I hit the altitude level for snowgums, I knew they were going to be the focus of my day. With their tightly drawn mottled skin they make for a great study in black and white.

I tried a new film, Ilford Delta 100, and tapped the tank during development a bit more for this roll. The results are silky smooth. I’ve noticed the R09 One Shot developer solution foams significantly during agitation and I’m wondering whether it was responsible for the streaky blotches that plagued my previous rolls.

Rebecca – 日本からの写真

To celebrate finishing her undergraduate studies, my partner, Rebecca, headed to Japan for a couple of weeks to indulge herself the Nippon way. This included being naked in Spa World Onsen, slurping Kobe beef, wandering through autumn foliaged Kyoto temples, braving fugu, thumbing through a manga museum, imprisoning herself in a capsule hotel and completing all the Christmas shopping I was supposed to do.

I really enjoyed the photographs Rebecca came home with, so I’ve picked a few to display.