Thirty years ago at Easter 1985, assisted by wife Margaret I carried an English steel tripod, a Pentax 67 medium format camera, three lenses and three rolls of Fuji Provia 120 film to the top of Mount Toolbrunup in teh Stirling Ranges
We also carried our sleeping bags and a ground sheet and food for the evening. My first surprise was the top of Toolbrunup is not flattish like Bluff Knoll but pointy with no real room to camp. There was not enough space to erect our tent so we pulled our sleeping bags under the low bushes for protection from wind and moisture.
I'd planned this carefully, studying the locations of landforms and lakes and the magnetic direction of the sunrise. In particular I wanted to include Bluff Knoll in any landscape I was hoping to get the sunrise reflecting in the lakes. Male a plan and God is sure to have his say and provide you with a few challenges.
I was awake before dawn and snuggled into my down bag listening to small birds telling me it was time to get up. When I did expose my body to the mountain chill I saw to my disdainthere was no sunrise or lakes. The nocturnal cloud bank covered the entire scene. I stood, as in those religious biblical paintings, like Jesus in a sea of clouds.
Margaret declined to leave her sleeping bag despite my rapture about the scene. I laid on my stomach, shivering and took a frame of the cloud bank on the Pentax. The audible clunk sounded like a gunshot in the wilderness. Bluff Knoll poked his dark mysterious head through the cotton wool clouds. I drifted into a world of my own. Here alone on a mountain top with just my camera. The ache in my legs and back meant nothing for this experience.
I learned that what you get in life is sometimes not what you aimed for. It may be better or perhaps not as good. But its important to have an aim and to strive.
Mount Toolbrunup at 3451 feet is the second highest mountains in the Stirling Ranges.
Learn Landscape Techniques, Depth of Field, steepened perspective and aperture priority control in Practical Photography (Intermediate) at UWA Extesnion.
footnote: After scrambling over scree on the descent to the park we invited the wrath of the Park Ranger. We had left son and daughter alone in their own little tent for the night to fare for themselves. The ranger viewed them as 'abandoned' children and us as irresponsible parents. Margaret and I thought we were extending their education and preparing them for life. Little wonder they both ended up working for Outward Bound Australia!
We also carried our sleeping bags and a ground sheet and food for the evening. My first surprise was the top of Toolbrunup is not flattish like Bluff Knoll but pointy with no real room to camp. There was not enough space to erect our tent so we pulled our sleeping bags under the low bushes for protection from wind and moisture.
I'd planned this carefully, studying the locations of landforms and lakes and the magnetic direction of the sunrise. In particular I wanted to include Bluff Knoll in any landscape I was hoping to get the sunrise reflecting in the lakes. Male a plan and God is sure to have his say and provide you with a few challenges.
I was awake before dawn and snuggled into my down bag listening to small birds telling me it was time to get up. When I did expose my body to the mountain chill I saw to my disdainthere was no sunrise or lakes. The nocturnal cloud bank covered the entire scene. I stood, as in those religious biblical paintings, like Jesus in a sea of clouds.
Margaret declined to leave her sleeping bag despite my rapture about the scene. I laid on my stomach, shivering and took a frame of the cloud bank on the Pentax. The audible clunk sounded like a gunshot in the wilderness. Bluff Knoll poked his dark mysterious head through the cotton wool clouds. I drifted into a world of my own. Here alone on a mountain top with just my camera. The ache in my legs and back meant nothing for this experience.
I learned that what you get in life is sometimes not what you aimed for. It may be better or perhaps not as good. But its important to have an aim and to strive.
Mount Toolbrunup at 3451 feet is the second highest mountains in the Stirling Ranges.
Learn Landscape Techniques, Depth of Field, steepened perspective and aperture priority control in Practical Photography (Intermediate) at UWA Extesnion.
footnote: After scrambling over scree on the descent to the park we invited the wrath of the Park Ranger. We had left son and daughter alone in their own little tent for the night to fare for themselves. The ranger viewed them as 'abandoned' children and us as irresponsible parents. Margaret and I thought we were extending their education and preparing them for life. Little wonder they both ended up working for Outward Bound Australia!
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