I was up at Caloundra (Sunshine Coast, Queensland) about a week ago and enjoyed watching the surfers dancing between the mainland and Bribie Island one sunset. Here’s one of my favourite images from that evening.

Kite surfing at sunset. Pic: Joanne Lane, www.visitedplanet.com

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Feel free to email Jo at [email protected] with your comments/thoughts/photo aspirations.  See and learn more at www.visitedplanet.com

I was going through images for a client yesterday and came across this one of a villa where I used to live and work in Certaldo, Tuscany. The beautiful Fattoria Bassetto is actually open for business as a guesthouse so feel free to stay and take your own shots of it.

What caught my eye at the time of taking the image was the light falling on the urn. We used to get some fantastic light there.

A sun kissed Tuscan villa, pic: Joanne Lane, www.visitedplanet.com

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Feel free to email Jo at [email protected] with your comments/thoughts/photo aspirations.  See and learn more at www.visitedplanet.com

VP PHOTO TIP 21: On grey, cloudy days you may want to use a reflector (a piece of paper or foil) to throw light into a subject, particularly eyes if you are shooting portraits

VP PHOTO TIP 22: Try to use natural light wherever possible instead of a flash for better effects. Revisit the location if you think it will be better at another time

VP PHOTO TIP 23: Think about contrasting colours to create better effects in your photos

VP PHOTO TIP 24: Think carefully about whether a photograph should be taken in landscape or portrait. Vertical photographs suggest action and are best used for sports and portraits. Whereas a horizontal format is better for subjects with less immediacy

VP PHOTO TIP 25: Similarly you may want to add an emotive value to a photograph by either tilting up or down on a subject. Looking up at someone suggests power, strength etc. Whereas looking down can make them seem small, insignificant, weak etc.

For other travel photography tips see:
part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

Visited Planet also has a photographic course offered by correspondence.

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Feel free to email

Jo at [email protected] with your comments/thoughts/photo aspirations.  See and learn more at www.visitedplanet.com

Chinchilla melons.

After a summer of devastating floods, storms and cyclones it was fantastic to celebrate with other Queenslanders at the mayhem of the bi-annual melon fest. With much of Queensland having had a tough time losing homes, crops and other property it seemed the best way to celebrate was with a bit of melon inspired madness.

The Chinchilla melon fest is one of those typical outback Australian events where there’s plenty of eccentric events and fun to join in. Simply sign up and be prepared to get messy as you take part in anything from the melon dash to melon bungy, melon skiing, melon spitting, melon eating and all things melon in general.

Read more

A friend came around the other day and said I should have entered some of my flood images to newspaper’s, magazines or other sources. Flattering comments of course but I must admit all images I took were taken in a rush and with mud-covered hands so I wouldn’t necessarily agree.

Anyway they insisted this image kind of summed up the whole working-bee effort of Brisbane on the days immediately after the flood, the weekend of January 15-16 when thousands of volunteers took to the streets to help flood-affected households.

Let me know what you think. I don’t like the pole sticking out of the man’s head and it probably would have been better cropped as a landscape image to show the mayhem around as well with trucks collecting rubbish, volunteers like worker ants buzzing all over neighbouring properties and so on.

The image is of my father.

Man amidst the mud during the cleanup after the Brisbane floods.

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Feel free to email Jo at [email protected] with your comments/thoughts/photo aspirations.  See and learn more at www.visitedplanet.com