New photography Images by Photographer Adam Monk

Lake Argyle is currently at record flood levels, again due to the massive wet season, and the water flowing out of the overflow spillway is enough to fill Mundaring Weir in Perth (one of Perth’s major water supply damns) every 8 minutes… which doesn’t mean that is actually a viable option for getting water to Perth, it is 2500 km after all… that’s a long and expensive way  to make a pipeline.

Spillway Creek in Flood, Lake argyle Damn in Kununurra

Shot on the Canon 5D Mk II with the 24mm f1.4 L lens and a 10 stop neutral Density Filter,  It’s a 10 shot panoramic stitch.

Pindan Cliffs of Gantheaume Point

While i was staying with Nigel Gaunt after the 7day Bungle Bungles photographic adventure tour in Broome Dave Bettini dropped in for a few days on his way through to many points East and North.  The 3 of us spent a few days Philosophising together about photography over a couple of Matso’s Ginger Beers, taking pictures around Gantheaume Point and hassling David about his latest purchase, a 60 megapixel Phase One… of which Nigel and I are extremely jealous! Read the rest of this entry »

A few more shots from the Bungle Bungles Journey, don’t forget to click on the images for a bigger view.

Striations carved out of solid rock by eons of water in Piccinini Creek

And some more reflections from the waterholes Read the rest of this entry »

Photographic Tour of the Bungle Bungles 2011

Still up in the tropical paradise  that is Broome enjoying the hospitality of Nigel and Helen.  My wife is flying up today for the second stage of the Kimberley adventure, so i’d better have a shave and change my shirt… after i put up some images from the recent  7 day photographic tour of the Bungle Bungles that we returned from a few days ago.

Piccinini Creek and the Bungle Bungles, Purnululu National Park

Bungle Bungles reflections

The massive wet season that has just concluded has affected Purnululu National Park as well, with the road in only opening up a few weeks ago, and the second campsite and half the gorges remaining closed still.  This meant we couldn’t make it into Echidna Chasm or the Mini Palms Gorge, cutting down some of the sights and lookouts we could get to within the park.

livingstonia Palms 100m up a sheer cliff face

To balance this up we went on a gruelling (but also stunningly beautiful) full day hike into Piccinini Creek Gorge.  Ironically, the one  who suggested the hike up the Gorge decided not to come in the end.  He missed out on some beautiful locations, but he also missed out on really sore feet that took 2 days to recover from! Read the rest of this entry »

Photography Tour 2011

Back in lovely Broome after a long drive of 1000km from Kununurra after the completeion of the 7day photographic tour of the Bungle Bungles I have just completed.  Time now to take stock, do the washing, download some pictures and write a blog entry or two.  Firstly a quick recap of the 7 day photographic tour of the Kimberley which concluded in Kununurra a little over a week ago.

Initially we intended to go across the Gibb River Rd from Broome to Kununurra on this 7 day photo tour, camping in many of the scenic locations along the way to photograph and swim in tropical waterholes.  That was plan A.  But, the record biggest ever wet, which has filled all the waterholes to overflowing, has also destroyed all the dirt roads making many of them still impassable.  Even Windjana Gorge, one of the most popular scenic spots in the west Kimberley, was inaccessible and shut until only a few days ago.

Fortunately we had a plan B (and indeed even a plan C), and as it turned out plan B proved to be an amazing experience that was unique and vastly differant to what most people would ever experience in the Kimberley, one i’m sure we will all remember.

Since the Gibb River Rd was not an option we headed South East out of Broome and straight to Jarlmadangah Aboriginal community.  Where TJ and Sarnold from the community acted as our guides for the time spent there.   They showed us many beautiful locations on their country and shared some of the stories and cultural significance with us all teaching us some of the importance that country has for Aboriginal people, perhaps planting the seed for better understanding between us. (Pictures from the previous blog entry are from Jarlmadangah)

After  2 nights at Jarlmadangah we took off on the main road and drove all the way round to the other end of the Gibb River Rd, which was open for a part of the way, to El Questro Station, one of my all time favourite locations in the Kimberley.  We remained camped at El Questro for  3 days, and i think we could really have stayed longer.  El Questro has an enormous number of beautiful locations and is a photographers paradise.

All these images were shot on the Canon 5D Mk II, and there are many more to come…

For all the latest Photographic Tours and Photographic workshops with Adam Monk click HERE>

I’ve spent the last 2 weeks weeks running around madly getting organised for the upcoming trip to the Kimberley, for the 7 day Kimberley photographic adventure tour and the 7day Bungle Bungles photographic adventure tour that i’m running later this month.

It’s amazing how much needs to be put in place to tear myself away from the gallery and all the business aspects that entails, let alone coping with a mad bathroom renovation in the middle of it!

As a result of all this my blog postings have suffered substantially over the last month or so, as you can clearly see…  I’ll have lots of new images to share from the Kimberley soon though, so i hope that will make up for it.  I did come across this image the other day while i was organising some folders, i think i had put it away for further consideration, then promptly forgot about it!

Stunning Sunset on the Fitzroy River, Mornington Station

This place is called Sir John Gorge…  I think its a silly name for a magical place, who is Sir John anyway?  why is this place name d after him and why does he deserve it?  I think it requires a majestic name that conveys the grandeur and the majesty… Majestic Gorge, or Red Rock Canyon… something like that.

Anyway, this is Sir John Gorge on Mornington Station, which i find to be one of the most beautiful parts of the Kimberley.  I plan to spend some time there shortly.

Shot on the Fuji GX617 with the Fujinon 90mm f5.6 lens

A while back i posted a new pano stitch image of the Pinnacles Desert at Cervantes in the North West of WA.  I made a 1.5m print of that image  a couple of days ago and next week (when i’m in the Kimberley) it will be on the wall in the gallery.

Pinnacles Stormlight 1

On the same day as that pano image i also shot some single frame shots around the Park, and i had a look through those this week and remembered how amazing the light was.  The day had been overcast with very little wind, so the clouds had some lovely shapes in them, but no directional light was getting through, which made a lot of the shapes of the limestone piers of the Pinnacles rather flat and two dimensional. This is lovely light for flowers or portraits (as the light is very even with no hard edges) but not so with a subject like the Pinnacles, which needs something a bit more dramatic Read the rest of this entry »

More aerial images from the Kimberley, this one also from last year.  This is what Mitchell falls, up on the Mitchell Plateau usually looks like in the dry season.  Its a spectacular waterfall that cascades over 4 tiers before dumping into the Mitchell River and flowing out to sea on the North Kimberley coast.

The Mitchell Falls in the dry season after a "normal" wet season.

Detail of Mitchell Falls

In this shot above and at left you can see the tiers of each shelf as the water flows over the edge.  Compare that to this shot by Dave Bettini, shot from a helicopter recently, after one of the biggest wet seasons ever to hit the Kimberley… It’s the same location, but there is so much water you can’t see the tiers on the falls at all, i can only imagine the noise it must be making!

I’ll be heading up to Mitchell falls straight after the Bungles Tour concludes at the end of May, i can only hope there is still so much water.

Another shot from the Margaret River region of the rarely sighted and almost legendary Blackwood River Nymph.  This was shot a few seconds after the previous image Read the rest of this entry »

We had an awesome sunset sky in Fremantle a couple of weeks back, i just thought i would share it with you.

Big Sky at South Beach Fremantle. Click on the image for a better view.

Normally a lovely sky makes a great backdrop to an image, helping to create the mood and adding Read the rest of this entry »