This is the ghost town of Gwalia. One of many in the Goldfields. Gwalia was deserted overnight in 1963 when the pit closed down. Leaving an eerie atmosphere akin to Pompeii. It’s first mine manager was Herbert Hoover who later became 31st president of the United States. It seems strange to me these places have not regrown since the rise in gold prices have reopened many mines. The pull of the city’s on Australia’s youth and the efficiency of Australia’s super mines seem to keep the population forever declining. We are about to leave the goldfields to head West to Southern Cross before rejoining the ocean at Hopetoun.

This is what miners in Kalgoorlie call the baby truck. This one took a break from its 24/7 duty in the super pit to take part in the annual Christmas parade. The only reason its big brother did not make an appearance this year was it could not fit under the new power lines across the main street. There are 40 trucks like this each carrying 220 tonnes of rock with an average of 2g of gold per tonne. The drivers of these truck can earn £1000/day and they are always looking new drivers. The 500 meter deep Super pit at the edge of town has only recently restarted digging since the rise in the gold price has made it economically viable again. We spent an enjoyable 4 days in Kalgoorlie. We met some prospectors and have seen more nuggets of gold than you could imagine. We are now deep in the gold fields at a place called Niagara Dam. We had a close encounter with two Brumbies today and Karen also saw her first willy-willy this afternoon which she described as a perfect mini tornado about 6 foot tall and very load. Tomorrow we head for Leonora.

We have gone inland to the Goldfields of Western Australia. This train passed by our outback campsite last night pulling 135 cars full of ore from the Kalgoorlie mines. We celebrated Karen’s birthday by checking in to a powered campervan site in Kambalda with hot showers. Tomorrow she has been promised a shopping trip to the gem stone and gold capital of Western Australia. It’s a good thing I start work in three weeks.

This was taken on the way to the Stirling Range. Since then we stopped at the micro town of Borden and met a very helpful fellow traveller called Alan and his pet chihuahua Kira in a very fine custom made ’85 kombi. On the other hand we have seen and met dozens of Harley Davidson riders on their way back from a 1000 strong Rally in Margaret River. One thing they all have in common is the genuine friendliness of Australians. We took another detour yesterday to Bremer Bay to capture some stock shots and bumped in to a group of professional photographers called 90 degrees 5 shooting the same beaches. After quizzing them about how survive as a Photographer in Australia we headed back inland to Bravensthorpe. The landscapes in Australia are full of colour. Even the roadside offers many possibilities of Red, Green and Blue. These signs warning of Kangaroo, Emu, Wombat, Camel and some which I have yet to identify are all over the highways. The only thing we have hit so far are countless insects. We saw our first Emu and Snake yesterday but each encounter was too brief to capture. We are looking forward to arriving in Esperance on Thursday.

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

This is a 1987 Toyota Hiace which been converted to a Camperven by a company called Sunliner in Victoria. It’s been around Australia a few times (150,000 miles) and we are hoping it has one more trip left in her. I drove South from Perth yesterday to a place called Buffalo Beach. I am currently posting this blog in the passenger seat while Karen has her first go at the wheel on our way to Bunbury.

This was taken near Luxor in Egypt. The image was processed using Photoshops Camera RAW developer. The effect was created using the inbuilt split toning feature in Camera RAW. You access the panel by clicking on the icon which looks like an = sign after you open your RAW file. It’s useful to know when adjusting the saturation slider it acts just like an opacity slider. You can blend it between original image colour and the hues you have set for the highlights and shadows. The balance slider is really a midpoint. It defines the crossover between highlight and shadow. In this case a warm hue was added to the highlights to give the effect of sunset. A subtle blue was added to the shadows. Finally a vignetting was added.

This sunrise was taken on a balloon flight over the west bank of the Nile near Luxor in Egypt. In order to compensate for the cameras White Balance Guess a colour balance layer was used to bring back the sunrise colours. An advantage of using this method is the Highlights, Midtones and Shadows can be adjusted individually. This means you can control the colours in the dark foreground and the bright sky separately.

This is the Nile skyline in Egypt. To create some extra sparkle you can use a high pass layer set to hard light blend mode. Sharpening also works well to make the lights stand out. It works best if you sharpen at the very end of the process, after you have resized. If you sharpen an images at full resolution the effect will be reduced once you resize to a low resolution needed for web output.

The High Resolution version of this image was accepted at Shutterstock in a surprisingly fast 7hrs.

I decided to have a go at pimping this Lada from Cuba. If anybody knows the model please leave a comment. To process this image I used the same technique as Red Chevy. Orton Effect, Fractalius and Selective Desaturation.

This is a 1957 Chevrolet in Trinidad, Cuba. To process this image I used a similar technique as the Blue Chevy. Orton Effect on the car and de-sat and de-focus background. To add some extra sparkle I also added a subtle Fractalius layer.