20th February 2010 Seven mile beach

I first met these guys at a park in New Norfolk. This was our second meeting, at the beach.

Fergus is the one with Fonzie’s tail in his mouth. He grabs Fonzies tail so often that Fonzie seems indifferent to it.

Fonzie is an athlete and ball dog.  Fergus a socialite and a tail dog. If he isn’t occupied with chasing Fonzie’s tail, Fergus will be off making friends with whoever else is around.

Like all ball dogs, Fonzie has a knack of finding tennis balls. On the few occasions that he can’t find a tennis ball, he’ll come up with a substitute, like a pine cone.

Popularity: 1% [?]

4th April 2010 Wynyard

It was the second time that I had been to the Wynyard market. I spied this weird looking doll sitting behind someone’s stall – perhaps it was previously at the front and puttiing off customers?

Popularity: 1% [?]

3rd April 2010 Burnie

This photo has grown on me. It was a snap shot; so close and with a big lens, things happen quickly. I wish I had of got the full wing span.

It is an immature pacific gull; you can see two of them sitting behind the seagull below. They are big birds. The photo was taken from a wharf in Burnie.

The birds were hanging around for the possibility of a feed from the the fishermen – their unused bait or entrails of filleted fish.

The big piles in the background are woodchips. The woodchips used to be trees from beautiful areas such as the Tarkine rainforest.

Popularity: 1% [?]

14th June 2010 Coles Bay

We were walking along the beach into Coles Bay. Vanessa was trying to get Zed, her big Labrador, to carry a small log that would have been close to 10kg. It is a form of exercise that Zed likes.

From the other end of the beach, about 300 metres away, this fearless maniac looking dog came sprinting straight at us. I haven’t seen a dog run so fast since Ella, a whippet who used to live with me, was in her youth. He wasn’t wary in the least of Zed and Chai (Chai is another Labrador); he zoomed straight between them. He zoomed around like an elite athlete; Zed and Chai didn’t have a hope of keeping up.

Then he picked up the log that Zed was struggling with and sprinted back down the beach, 300 metres, as though the log weighed nothing.

Popularity: 1% [?]

14th June 2010 Coles Bay

Anyone who owns a dog will be familiar with this shot. Vanessa is ahead with two of her friends and Zed, the other labrador. I’m lagging behind taking photos. Chai is just on her way back to Vanessa. Chai and Zed have been running back every now and then to check on me. They (the dogs) would be much happier if we were all together in one group.

Popularity: 1% [?]

20th May 2010 Coles Bay

We went for a walk into the township of Coles Bay from Swanwick beach. It was a beautiful morning, but on the way back the clouds started looking ominous.

Changable weather is typical of Tasmania. The great thing about it is that it teaches you not to take good weather for granted and to make the most of the day.

Popularity: 1% [?]

22nd May 2010, Coles Bay

I lived for a while on the beaches between Cape Tribulation and Cooktown. This area is famous for the water coming right up to the trees at high tide – there are no beaches. But, at low tide there are huge expanses of muddy sand flats. The whole of the north of Australia seems like this; because the water is so shallow when the tide goes out, it goes out a long way.

At low tide on these beaches you would see a patchwork of blue and pink; two different types of soldier crab. There were so many, it was hard to walk without stepping on them. They moved together in large groups of hundreds, big patches of pink and blue moving across the sand.

This crab was at Swanwick beach in Coles Bay. Not as colourful or in the numbers of the Cape York Peninsula crabs, but otherwise similar. I started taking photos of them at about quarter to four; by four they had all buried themselves.

Popularity: 1% [?]

2nd June 2010 Lindisfarne

I always eyed off this pedestrian overpass as I drove under it as a possible good vantage point of Hobart, the Derwent river and the Derwent bridge.

The shot above is a crop from the shot below. These were at full zoom on my telephoto lens, 400mm equivalent. I kept the iso at 100, finding that noise reduction is better than high iso on my camera. The exposure time was 50 secs with another 50 secs for noise reduction; so one minute forty seconds all up.

Popularity: 5% [?]

5th June 2010, Castle Forbes Bay

It was just wet and miserable outside. I think these photos of Vanessa contemplating the rain and what to do for the day sum up everything

Popularity: 1% [?]

25th April 2010 Coles Bay

Father of The Muppet, partner in crime to Chai. Zed tries to relax, but gets harassed by Chai. Zed and Chai share a house with Vanessa.

His sexuality is often questioned, or worse some people just assume he is more of a girl. He greets you at the door with a big fluffy dice or some other sort of stuffed toy in his mouth – a pink panther is one of his favorites.

If I look outside I see a plush bedraggled teddy sprawled on a garden bench, and another one at the head of the track we take when we head off on an exploratory walk.

Sometimes the floor is covered with all his toys in contorted positions, little ones and big ones, some with torn limbs and their innards spilling out. It is like the aftermath of a deadly battle between cuddly and squeaky toys.

For other comic relief, Zed is the master of sleeping positions. One of the funniest is when he is on his back with his paws hanging in the air.

Popularity: 1% [?]