For a couple of years now I have had a side project called Best Aussie Online that I envisioned as being a showcase of Australias best websites to the world. Being a patriotic and proud Aussie I really believe that our great country has alot to offer the world, not only online but in the real world as well.

The site was doing OK, but not doing what I had hoped, as every website had to be entered manually, and I didnt have enough fingers and toes to really build up the content to the level I envisioned. So I started thinking about scrapping it completely and selling off the domain, but then the world decided to have a little bit of a meltdown.

When the Global Financial Crisis hit I started rethinking what my core vision for the site was and I started to think more locally. I really feel that for Australia to survive this ‘crisis’ its going to be up to the people of this country to put our foot down and put our money where our mouth is. As a nation we are great at pulling together in times of need and its up to us to look after Australian jobs and businesses by spending our money within Australia, purchasing not only Australian owned, but Australian made products and services. Thats the easiest way for us to help keep our jobs alive and stop manufacturing going offshore where it may be a little bit cheaper to produce.

With this I decided to do a knockdown and rebuild on the website and completely start from scratch. My main focus is now to showcase Aussie Websites to Australians and try and help people make informed decisions about spending their hard earned money within Australia. I know its a big task but I believe its what we need to do.

BestAussieOnline.com.au has now been revamped into an automatic submission directory where owners of Australian websites can list their Aussie websites for FREE within a standard listing, without reciprocal links, and with search engine followed backlinks. This is my way of giving back to the online community that has given so much to me in so many ways. There are no catches, will be minimal advertising and this really is a site by an Australian for all Australians as well as the world.

All submissions will be reviewed by my team before being accepted to keep the quality of the directory high. I plan to do a monthly showcase of noteworthy websites and or products and hope to give away a featured listing every month for the site of the month. Hopefully some sponsors will come on board as well and we can run some competitions to give away some Aussie products too.

Featured listings will be able to be purchased for a small fee and in time advertising spots will be able to be purchased as well. But as I said before advertising will be kept to a minimum, just to cover the costs of running the site and  to keep the annoyance factor for viewers down.

For all my fellow Aussie bloggers there is a dedicated category just for blogs. It will be broken up into subcategories that will hopefully cover all the topics that Aussies blog about. So make sure you head over to Best Aussie Online and list your blog for free. If I have missed any categories you can suggest more via the contact form and I will do my best to accomodate everyone.

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Just want to wish everyone a Merry Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 2009 has been a pretty exciting year workwise for me where unfortunately my real job has been so full on that I havent been taking as many photos as I would have liked, but my New Years resolution is to get out there and take more. We have a 4×4 on the way so there shall be plenty of trips away and I hope to really work on my landscape photography.

In this festive season make sure the camera never leaves your hand, the batteries are always charged and your memory cards have plenty of room.

For those of you getting out there between Xmas and New Years to photograph the fireworks dont forget to check out my tutorial on How To Photograph Fireworks. It might just come in handy.

For all the kids who want to check out Santas flight path over Australia on Christmas eve, Air services Australia is tracking his progress again this year. You can even check whether you made the naughty or nice list and have a look over santas sleigh.  The Aussie Santa Tracker is well worth a look. Just make sure your asleep in bed before he reaches your house.

As always the NORAD Santa Tracker is following santas progress from America.

I wish everyone a wonderful safe festive season and hope that 2010 will really be your best year ever.

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A new site has been launched by the Australia Day Council Of NSW called Aussievault.com.au that will record the opinions and multimedia contributions from all Australians who want to comment, submit images or films that will help shape the nation – past present or future.

Also being launched is ‘Living Australian 2010‘, the first photographic competition which will be housed on Aussievault.com.au. The ‘Living Australian’ campaign invites Australians to photograph a moment that represents how they are Lliving Australian’ through one or all four categories – My Landscape, My Life, My Sport and My Heroes.

The ‘Living Australian 2010’ national competition will be judged by Matt King from Getty Images, Brendan Read, Australia Day’s official photographer, Angelos Frangopoulos, CEO Sky News and Australia Day Council Member, Erika Jimenez, Director, Communication & Corporate Strategy for the Australia Day Council of NSW (ADCNSW), and ‘Living Australia’ celebrity judge Erin McNaught.

So get out there and start shooting, think Australian, live Australian and Im sure you will come up with a winner. You have until midnight 7th January 2010 to submit your photo(s). As with all photo competitions make sure you read the rules and are happy with them before you enter! Only submit one photo per category or you could be disqualified.

From the Website:

One lucky winner will receive a grand prize of over $6500 worth of prizes as well as money can’t buy opportunities

Part 1 – The Australia Day Experience

• $3000 in cash
• The Australia Day Council of New South Wales will contribute to flights to and from Sydney for Australia Day for 2 people (based in NSW and around Australia)
• 3 x nights accommodation for 2 people at the 5 star Hilton Hotel Sydney (from January 24, 25, 26)
• Opportunity to be an Australia Day 2010 Official Photographer – Cover the events as a photographer in the Sydney CBD, Hyde Park – which becomes Sydney’s biggest backyard, and Sydney Harbour – which becomes centre stage on Australia Day.
• Attend the official functions on Australia Day 2010 as a guest of ADCNSW – This includes the Australia Day Cruise on Sydney Harbour and attendance at the exclusive Premier’s State Reception at Darling Harbour.

Part 2 – Exposure for the winning images and a “money can’t buy” experience

• ‘A day in the life as a Getty Images photographer’ This will be an experience of a lifetime to work one day with a leading Getty Images photographer in the area of the winners choice, i.e. news, sport, entertainment or creative photography. The day’s internship must be taken up by the 31 December 2010.
• Exposure through Australia Day media coverage, on the website, in newsletters, and on digital screens for thousands of people to see.
• Photographs displayed on digital screens and printed images on display at Australia Day events.

Make sure you check out the paragraph titled License to use photographs:

You irrevocably grant to the ADCNSW, a perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide, transferable, non-exclusive licence (with the right to sub-licence) to reproduce, publish, communicate to the public, adapt, and otherwise exploit Your Material in all media whether known now or developed in the future (for example by displaying the entry on the ADCNSW website, the AUSSIEVAULT website, on any other website, publicly displaying your entry on a large format outdoor screens, or by communicating your entry to others by email, by mobile phone, by radio, television or print/online ).

You grant to the ADCNSW an irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free, transferable and worldwide non-exclusive license (which includes the right to sub-license) to authorise others to view and reproduce the Your Material for government, personal, commercial or in-house use. Current and future sponsors of ADCNSW may use Entrant Material in any way they choose.

If you are happy with all that then get submitting. The site will officially be launched on Monday 9th November, 2009 with an event on the Opera House Steps by Erin McNaught and Elka Whalan.

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Silhouetted Pelican

Just thought I’d share a random photo of a pelican.

Pelicans are interesting creatures. They always appear to just be cruising around, never in a hurry or upset by anything. For such a big bird, pelicans move very gracefully.

This silhouette of a pelican was taken on Lake Macquarie last summer at sunset.

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Viagra Falls

Been going through some old photos I have had lying around on the hard drive and came across a live shoot I did for the guys in Viagra Falls. If you want to see a great covers band go and check them out. Great muso’s with a wide variety of songs, they are something different with all three members playing their own instruments as well as sharing the drumkit around.

From the BIO…

Viagra Falls are:
-Adam Diver (Vocals, acoustic guitar, snare and kick drum)
-Richard Sain (Lead guitar, backing vocals, percussion and fx)
-Paul Diver (Vocals, bass guitar and cymbals)

The three members of Viagra Falls have performed in several bands together since early 90’s including the highly successful “come as you are” Nirvana Tribute and the Australian Metallica Show both of which toured extensively throughout Australia and New Zealand.
In the period of 1994 to 1997 they performed in such cities as Newcastle, Adelaide, Hobart, Canberra, Wellington, Rota Rua. All four corners of Sydney and headlines a new years eve show in Brisbane to over 7000 people.

The bands goal was to create a full and complete sounding trio without resorting to pre programmed music. The idea being “keep it totalling live” none of the monotonous and predictable drum machines or lifeless and faked backing music. Viagra Falls takes pride in reproducing every song they cover as close to the original version as possible both musically and vocally

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View down my street. Street lights are still on at 9:30

Woke up this morning to what I thought was a brilliant sunrise creating an orange glow around the curtains, but when I opened them I found it was a massive DUST STORM!! It was really bizzare to look at, as the wind is really cold but the only time I have ever seen the sky this colour was through the bushfires. At first it was hard to tell if there was a heavy miscoloured fog, or if a bushfire had been lit overnight with the lightning from last nights storm.

Dust Stom in Bolwarra Heights

Its amazing that this much dust can travel through the air to create such a blanket over the state. All over the news there are stories about Sydney and the dust down there. Ferries have been cancelled and international flights have been diverted to Brisbane. Never seen a dust storm like this

Sun Trying to shing through the Dust Storm

Theres so much dust that the sun cant even shine through properly. That little dot is the sun at 9:30 this morning.

View of the Dust Storm from my garage

I am now waiting to see how long it takes for all the greenies to get on the global warming band wagon. There will be the apocolyptic naysayers saying the end is nigh too but I just say its a really cool dust storm. Western NSW is so dry now from a low rainfall winter, that there is no ground coverage to hold the dirt in place. Once the winds picked up there was no chance for the dust to stay on the ground.

Hopefully we will never see a dust storm this bad again, well not in my lifetime anyway!

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Light Reflections on the water

After being on an extended break from photography I have managed not to post any articles on here for nearly 6 months now, I havent even picked up my camera. Its been killing me.

My reasons?? Well procrastination is a big one!!! But in all honesty, my new job has been flat out and spare time has been nearly non existent so unfortunately the blog has been neglected a bit. I am going to make a big effort over the next few months to get out and shoot regularly, because here in Maitland there are so many great photo opportunities, and I would love to share this great area with you

Going through my hard drive and clearing a bit of space I came across a heap of photos that I havent posted yet so in the mean time I am going to make a big effort to try  and post some of them and do more on a regular basis to get this blog up and happening again.

You may notice that I have increased my watermark size and placed it more prominently in the photo. Apologies, but due to people stealing my photos without credit or payment I have had to make a more distracting watermark to try and slow these pests down. All my photos are still available for sale as prints or for electronic media, without watermark of course!

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Belmore Bridge Maitland

As I write this article all flood warnings for Maitland and the Hunter Valley have been cancelled. Yesterday it was a different story though with the Hunter, Paterson and Williams Rivers all rising fast thanks to the massive drenching we got this week.

Our thoughts go out to all the victims caught up in the Bellingen floods as We escaped by the skin of our teeth, floodwaters lapped at the top of levee banks at some of the lower areas around Maitland.

While I was at work I managed to stop at a few places as I travelled around to get a few pics just to show people how high the waters had risen. Thefollowing photos were taken on the morning of 2nd April, 2009 and the Rivers still rose a little bit more afterwards.

At Hinton where the River usually breaks first, the water was just lapping at the top of the levee bank. It wouldnt have taken much more water upstream to make it go over

At Raymond Terrace where Williams River merges with the Hunter River the Boat ramp and park just inside the levee bank went under overnight.

The Dunmore Bridge at Woodville has just had repairs begun and all the workers were madly scrambling to get everything to high ground. When I drove past there were a few site sheds that had wet feet. The grass in the foreground is the levee bank that I am standing on, and didnt have too much more to go before it spilled over

Just out of Woodville this lake is usually a grassy low lying area. Whenever it rains everything jsut flows into it and becomes a lake

Taken from the Dungog side of Paterson looking towards the township, the Paterson River had engulfed these river flats and created this very serene lake. You can just see the rail bridge in the distance. It looks perfect as a skiing spot, just watchout for floating trees.

Taken from underneath the Paterson rail bridge

Tucker Park in Paterson, has now become Tucker Lake

Looking from the roadside towards historic Tocal Homestead just outside Paterson. Usually there is just a small dam in front of the house that has now become a lake. If the waters spill over from the Paterson River then this lake will rise up quite a bit more.

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Thats pretty good value and they print a great looking photo too.

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On a recent trip to Adelaide for work we ended up having to go south from the city to the Penola area for a job. I just cruised my way back and checked out the sights while I was there. Padthaway is a  major wine producing area with Vines Vines and more Vines for as far as the eyes can see. There are kilometres and kilometres of grape vines lining the Riddoch Highway. Some of the more well known names in the area that I saw are Seppelt, Lindemans, Hardys and Wynns.

Plantations of pine trees are huge in this area as well. Everything along this stretch of highway is done in masssive proportions. Forestry SA has huge tracts of land that are just planted out with pine trees. The good thing is that they also have areas planted with natives as well.

I was intrigued with the patterns created by the long rows of trees you see as you drive along the highway.

Naracoorte has some limestone caves you can trek through a few kilometres out of town. I didnt really have much time to stop and look so I grabbed a few photos of the sculptures that protect the entrance instead.

Murray Bridge – The first bridge to be built across the mighty Murray River.

Under the Murray Bridge

The tiny hamlet of Hahndorf is as big in character as the German hospitality you receive all through the town. I stopped at the German Arms hotel (above) for lunch and experienced the best German food and beer I have ever had. I ended getting the German Experience meal, which allows you to sample a whole swag of different foods on the one plate. The meals are massive and you wont leave unsatisfied. The rest of the town is full of trinket shops and cafes and german stores. Hahndorf is a definite visit for your next trip to Adelaide.

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