Since we left Augusta we have travelled East into the heart of Western Australia‘s forests. It’s hard to believe we will soon be crossing the Nullarbor which is named after its lack of trees. The native trees here are all types of eucalyptus but you would not know it looking at them as they vary from tall white barked trees to ones which resemble oak. This shot was taken as we cooked our diner on the free Barbecue in the National Park surrounding The Gloucester Tree which is a 61m tall tree which was regularly climbed to look out for fires. A job which is now done with light aircraft.

This image was accepted for Stock Photography at Shutterstock and is available for high resolution download here.

This lucky shot was taken on the way home from the Ferry Meadows firework display. The only reason the four figures are not blurred in this 1 second exposure was that they stopped for a moment while their friend in the centre took a shot. Anyone in the right place at the right time with the perfect light has the chance to capture a great shot. As you learn more about photography you can increase the frequency of capturing these images. If you are an amateur photographer you could benefit from selling your work online. It is no coincidence the rise of micro stock agencies has coincided with the increase of the photography hobbyist. I can understand why professional photographers would be concerned with current changes to the stock industry. Crowd sourcing images has inherent advantages. Stock photography sites never reject images without a reason and suggestions to improve your photography. If you can take criticism it can be an invaluable learning tool. Professional photographers would probably find rejection far harder to stomach especially if they had been used to selling their work for much more at traditional stock agencies. The image below greets you when you login to shutterstock as a submitter. It shows where your latest sales have come from. Interestingly none of them have sold in the countries they were taken in.

These are the Austrian Alps. It was taken on a family holiday in 2008. I used Camera RAW to do the heavy lifting then once in Photoshop I used masks to selectively adjust the colours in different areas of the image.

This is the Eden Project in Cornwall. The Image is an example of how you can simulate Tilt-shift photography in order to create the look of a miniature scene. Essentially you create a narrow band of focus to mimic the effect of angling the sensor/film. You can use this site to automatically make your own tilt shift images. It seems to work best with wide angle shots when you are looking down on a scene with variety of foreground and background. The Sandpit is a great example of a tilt-shift video in which they have speeded up the playback to add to the miniature effect.

It took 2 satellites 16 days to create the original image.  Fortunately it is in the public domain so It is fine to use it. Rather than the traditional Blue Marble I wanted to age the earth and give it an apocalyptic look. I used adjustment layers with masks to alter different areas of the planet. I then reduced the opacity of each layer until they looked suitably polluted or deforested.

This was shot under the miners bridge near Betws y Coed in Wales. I balanced the Camera on a rock and used a long exposure to get the water to look like that. I developed the image using Camera RAW 6.0 in Photoshop CS5. Once in Photoshop I did a few little tweaks to the colours but most of the work had been done by Camera RAW.

This is Kedleston Hall Bridge in Derbyshire. I chose this shot because it reminded me of an oil painting by John Constable. I used a curves layer to bring out the grass in the foreground and a levels layer to make the sky more dramatic. The black and white areas in the layer pallet show the masks which are used to ensure each effect only changes specific areas of the image.

This was taken in Wiltshire near Stonehenge. The image only needed some subtle adjustments to balance the greens and bring out the colour in the bark.

This was taken on the side of the road along the Hambleton peninsula. The panel below shows the layers used to develop the image.

I took this on a family holiday to Austria in 2008. This Panorama was created from three wide angle shots. I used various blending modes to build up the image.