Roving-Eye Gallery update and newsletter #13 for November-December 2021

 

Hello to everyone and thank you to the new subscribers.. welcome aboard!

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With the latest update(s) just uploaded head to What's New! | Roving-Eye.com and you can scroll back month by month for an easy catch up for previous months too!

 

Happy New Year! I hope the Christmas season was kind to you and you are looking forward to 2022 and slowly putting behind us the many restrictions we have all had to face the past year in particular.

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I’ve summarised all the shots taken in 2021 with a video set to soothing music and nice smooth transition between images so head over to this link and I hope you enjoy watching it and if you feel so inclined a comment can be left there as well! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_pSoN7xDes&t=22s

 

November and December offered a wide range of scenes to be covered and while nature sure offered an awesome sequence of electrical fireworks I couldn’t resist slipping in a couple of shots of man-made fireworks with a local display here in the river.

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As I was also experimenting with some new time-lapse equipment I kayaked over the river channel and settled in on an island shoreline near the fireworks barge on the complete opposite side to town so I had plenty of peace and space and after setting up the timelapse equipment to run on it’s own I got down to doing a nice sunset long time exposure and captured something very unique and interesting such that I have included the resulting image in my next canvas store order!

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What I ended up getting were 2 cloud layers moving at 90 degrees to each other, so they left pleasing coloured streaks in a very contrasting way and in the middle of it a single unexpected firework was sent up, and as luck would have it the wide angle lens I was using just happened to have enough reach to include it in an aesthetic way with my cloud long exposure!

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A pretty unique look I have to say and just goes to show, yet again, that making an effort is worth it as you never know what luck might come your way!

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Also with November & December I have included more animal shots than I have in the past as part of my new policy of ensuring I capture some of the living content of the landscape as well as the landscape itself!

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To me I won’t knock back an opportunity if I see it.. and it won’t matter how many images of Koalas or Kangaroos and birdlife I might get in a year there is always room for one more!

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To date I have been using a decidedly ““budget” telephoto for such as animal shots because it wasn’t clear to me then how much I might, or might not, use it.. but with sales of such as the whale shots taken with it they alone paid for the original lens and with the new policy of including regular shots of wildlife I upgraded and added a better version telephoto lens, still not crazy top of the line, but decidedly more expensive still and was SO glad I did!

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Doing a side by side comparison of image sharpness I can happily report the new lens is chalk and cheese better and the nagging feeling some of my bird shots in the past had been a bit disappointingly soft this will now get banished to be a thing of the past and I look forward to even clearer and better shots from now on!

 

The 2022 Calendars certainly flew off the shelf with the A3 sold out and only a handful of A4 left with many people making multiple purchases to send to friends and family locally and overseas to countries such as Iceland, UK, Europe, Japan and NZ and these are just the ones I know about!

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It’s been wonderful to see how well received they were and I have a long email list to let people know when the 2023 calendar will be available since I will continue to make it a limited edition print one so it pays to jump on them fast!

 

With travel restrictions easing it is now possible to make some travel plans with greater surety and I look forward to sampling some very diverse locations of this wonderful country to create what I call the “Australia Wide” calendar so I hope there is as much interest in that as the Port Macquarie version!

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My aim is ambitious but still realistic in that I want to get classic Australian country and river scenes, deep desert, tropical islands and reefs to cover a wide range of interesting scenes well before the end of the year and calendar print cutoff time!

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In fact I have laid out an initial 2 year timetable based on the seasons to follow this year’s effort with more of the same but including some very remote locations as I establish a good working set of equipment and safe practices over the course of this year to enable me to launch into even harder and further destinations in the 2nd year!

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Don’t forget I’m very much on my own medically and technically for these longed for adventures so I need to run a tight ship or bike or car so good planning, equipping, testing and stepwise growth is the key to success no matter how close or how far I might be!

 

With 2022 I will ramp up my contributions showing up on Google Maps and Street view.. I think this is a great channel that benefits Roving-Eye as a business to be exposed to millions of map users and also for the map user to get some unique imagery from previously blank areas on the map!

 

So far I have got land and on the water working well to highlight tracks, mountains, rivers and coastlines and have now added aerial 360 photos to the mix so I will routinely send the drone up at every interesting opportunity to get an amazing viewpoint to share!

 

Last but not least I have confirmed it’s feasible to add aerial street view to what I do.. meaning you can navigate through the sky beyond “just” single photos! The applications will be amazing and I hope to have all the mounting logistics sorted during January now the concept has been proven and add that style too!

To see the growing list of locations covered please head over to On Google Maps and Street View | Roving-Eye.com

 

With this expansion and time needed for the travel this year and next to support it it may mean the newsletters might skip the odd month but the gallery updates will be chock full of interesting things I would expect so I hope you stick around to see it all and I greatly appreciate your subscribing and hope you are getting something from it all!

 

Take care and thank you for reading this far and sharing the journey!