PHOTO: Tree Cathedral, Victoria, Australia


This is a photo of me photographing trees in the Alfred Nicholas garden located in the Dandenong ranges South-East of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. The photo was taken by my wife.

Recently my son and I decided to embark on a challenge: to take photographs of interesting subjects in difficult conditions (e.g. low light; rapidly varying light; fast moving water; etc). As part of our project we have also decided to challenge our "mental lens", which is still very aligned to photographing Europe and the UK where mountains, lakes, forests, castles, gardens, landscpaes are all very different to the environment presented in Australia.

Since migrating to Australia many years ago we have mistakenly thought that the environment offers limited opportunity for striking photography. But that is wrong. What we have had to do is adapt our vision to see the wonders that lie in front of our very eyes. Our work will be ongoing for quite some time as we explore the many interesting places on the very, very large island (yes - it's a continent, but it's only one country) of Australia.

Challenging oursleves with our photo projects forces us to look at and appreciate the world around us in different ways. For example: photographing the moon at different phases in its cycle, at different times of the day, and in different loctions has made us realise just how fast the movement of the earth and moon is. 

On one recent occasion just after sunset we were standing on a hilltop overlooking a valley whose horizon is covered in trees and we saw the start of the moonrise. The top of the yellow-orange moon peeked over the treetops on the horizon and we started readying the cameras. After only a few minutes we had gotten the settings we wanted on the cameras for aperture and shutter speed, and the tripods were leveled and rotated to face the right part of the sky, however, the moon had risen much higher and was in full view, and its colour had changed from yellow-orange to creamy white.

The earth, our solar system, and the universe we live in is truly a marvel of creation given to us by the ONE true God. My son and I look forward to better understanding this marvel.  


Image: "Tree Cathedral", Alfred Nicholas Garden, Dandenong Ranges, Victoria, Australia. Copyright - Michael Beaton

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