We see some amazing sunsets from our home in the Tweed Valley. Here are a few recent ones, showing such variations in light and mood - as if we live in a place transformed into somewhere new each day!

Tags: Mt. Warning, Wollumbin, Sunset

In late October, I took my mother, Eleanor, down to Bellingen for a girls' trip away. We stayed at a lovely little Airbnb called "the Dairy Bales" near Thora, further up the beautiful river valley from Bellingen. It was the perfect time of year, with the silky oaks in flower and black cockatoos screeching as they feasted. The scenery was stunning, as you will see, and the cottage was truly delightful. And at last, I made it to The Promised Land! Yes that is a real place, near Glennifer and can be seen in the last photo below. Here are a few of my favourites from the stay:

Tags: bellingen, Thora, Airbnb

And just in case you are missing Mount Warning, here are a few gorgeous views from recent months. Its amazing how clouds and light completely transform each scene. Enjoy!

Tags: Mount Warning, Wollumbin, Photography, Tweed Valley

We got ourselves up early the other day to go out to Cram's Farm. Our aim: to capture some time-lapse sequences of the mist lifting over Clarrie Hall Dam to reveal Mount Warning and the beautiful hills around the dam. Well, that mist that we hoped would last long enough, stayed and persisted and wafted around and finally decided to lift around 9am.

In the meantime, we captured some very atmospheric shots of the shoreline and the birds coming and going. They were so close to monochrome that I pushed them a bit further, than added a bit of velvety warmth so they didn't feel so cold. What do you think of this approach? It’s a quieter series than we usually put out there, but the morning was lovely and quiet, just the honk of the moorhens, the clink of our metal mugs of chai and the click of the cameras doing the time-lapse.

Tags: Clarrie Hall Dam, Crams Farm, Mount Warning, Tweed Valley, Mist, Morning, Pelican

I've been working on some of our recent images of our view of Mount Warning - Wollumbin, that we see from our home. The variety of light conditions and formations of cloud and mist still amaze me. We try not to take it for granted, even though we see this everyday. Here are a few favourites include some black and white variations. What do you think?

Tags: Mount Warning photograph, Wollumbin, Black and white

Last month, we finally got around to something we’d been wanting to do for years. That is to photograph the dawn out at Fingal Rocks, also known as the Giants Causeway. Its an amazing example of geology on show. The columns of basalt rock were formed when lava flows from the Tweed Volcano cooled suddenly. Anyway we were suddenly inspired, so we went out the evening before to check out timing, access and angles. We were the only photographers, but there were plenty of couples holding hands as they watched the sunset. Very romantic, except for us who were scrambling over the rocks taking photos as usual. We stayed overnight at Kingscliff so that we could be there before dawn. We were surprised to find there were about 6 other photographers all vying for the best spots. It turned out they were an enthusiastic Flickr group who had come down from Brisbane with the same idea. So here are some of our favourites from the morning, plus one of Alan during the scouting process. One of these photos (the sunrise shot at the bottom) is going to be featured in a display at a new guests lounge at the Tweed Billabong Holiday Park, together with several other of our photos. More on that later!

Tags: Fingal heads, Fingal Rocks, NSW, Giants Causeway, landscape, Photography

This summer has brought us some amazing storms - but not much rain yet. Great for photography, not so good for the garden, even our rainforest is looking a bit subdued as it waits for some good soaking rain. Here are some recent sky and land-scapes. My favourite is the sunset with lightning - a very rare combination!

Tags: Storm, lightning, Mount Warning

We’ve been so fortunate to live with this amazing view of Mount Warning for 11 years now. Sometimes we take it for granted, at others it takes our breath away. Here are a few recent moments that we’ve captured over many different times of day. Looking out over the hushed valley as the moon sets is definitely an unforgettable experience. We will also be redoing our stock photography section of our photo cart soon as we hope to share these photos and all this beauty with a wider audience.

Brooding Sunset

Wrapped in Cloud

Into the Lava

Moonlight Rhapsody

Streaks of Cloud

Tags: Mount Warning photograph, Stock photography, Tweed Valley, Moon setting

We had been planning for a while to revisit the wild places of the Border Ranges with the aims of refreshing ourselves in the forests as well as an enjoyable day taking photos. Accompanied by our new friend (and fellow photography nut) Peter Bracher, we headed off from Uki at 4.30 am in order to catch the sunrise from the mountains. We were rewarded with the amazing display you see below. Here is a taste of what we witnessed and captured!

It was quite windy up on the edge of the caldera as you can see from the next photo:

We then delved into the more sheltered forests for the rest of the day, exploring the treasures large and tiny - from ancient antarctic beech trees to carpets of moss sparkling with jewels.
As they say in the kids books “tired but happy they wend their way home” - just stopping at Sphinx Rock Cafe for a great hot chocolate on the way.
Here are a few more images from the day:

Tags: Scenic, landscape, border ranges, Mount Warning, Sunrise, antartic beech, brindle creek