Laura and Cooktown Infrareds

Far North Queensland, 13-19 July 2022
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Click on any image to see it larger (If you are on a PC at least). It makes a big difference for most images.

Links go to ordinary colour posts at the same location (for more information and context). Only three images have normal colour versions. If an image does not have a link, the preceding one applies..

The road into the Laura Bush Camp.

Laura Bush Camp Day 1.

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Cooktown fishermen (Endeavour River).

Cooktown and Rock Art.

Mouth of the Endeavour River from Grassy Hill Lookout.

Bunya Pine, Botanic Gardens.

Swamp views, Mulbabidgee.

Keating’s Lagoon (Mulbabidgee).

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Black Mountain or Kalkajaka.

View from Rex Range Lookout, looking north towards the Daintree.

Atherton Tablelands in Infrared

Nov21

Atherton Tablelands, Queensland, 8-10 August 2022
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Click on any image to see it larger (If you are on a PC at least).

Links go to ordinary colour posts at the same location (for more information and context). If an image does not have a link, the preceding one applies..

A camera with an infrared sensor in broad terms sees infrared, red and green instead of red green and blue. By default the image for my camera comes out in orange/ yellow tones that then requires processing. I am interested in where I can take it for creative effect.

Herberton.

Herberton and Tully Gorge.

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Grevillea Flower.

Big Millstream Falls.

Millaa Millaa Falls.

Rainforest and Sugar Gliders.

Zillie Falls.

Ellinjaa Falls.

Falls on Barron River near Dinner Falls.

Waterfalls and Striped Possums.

Same viewpoint but actually a different image as well as a different interpretation. The water shows a different shutter speed.

Dinner Falls.

Canberra to Yungaburra (IR)

Oct23

Canberra ACT to Yungaburra Queensland via Cairns, 7 August 2022
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Click on any image to see it larger (If you are on a PC at least).

These images from a plane journey from Canberra to Cairns and then by road from Cairns to Yungaburra in the Athertion Tablelands.

These are all infrared images. Since my previous post was about processing IR images in Capture One and I also mentioned processing in Lightroom and Photoshop, I indicate how I processed each image. PS is Photoshop, with modifications before and after in Lightroom, LR is Lightroom and C1 is Capture One. Not that that really tells you much except that you can get a whole range of results from any method.

10 mins from Canberra. Not clear exactly where. (PS)

I have been producing colour infrared images on and off since the early 1980s, which of course was at that time on film (and printing Cibachrome). I like the wild range of possibilities from the radical to the subtle. There are many other approaches to infrared images and I do not expect mine to be to everyone’s taste.

However, I showed these images to a visiting friend on my large computer monitor and he exclaimed “These are paintings!” and compared this image and two later from the Cairns/ Atherton Road to images by Sydney Nolan from the Red Desert series. Not something I had considered or was even aware of.

Make of these what you will. I make no claims and have no expectations. They are for me a creative challenge and a different world.

Lake Dalrymple below (west of Mackay, Queensland). Lake Upstart National Park in far distance. (LR)

Everything looks so different from the air.

Magnetic Island and Cape Cleveland. (LR)

Antivaxxers and Libertarians tell us you can’t believe any media, government or institution. Isn’t it a terrible thing that no-one tells us about the nuclear accidents that boil the land and turn the seas red.

Cape Pallarenda and Magnetic Island. (PS)

Day and night happen at the same time, as the sun turns into a moon.

Palm Islands (Esk Island, Brisk Island, Eclipse Reef, Great Palm Island). (LR)

It looks real but is it really?

Hinchinbrook Island (foreground) and Brook Islands. (LR)

The pastel shades of the released imagination.

Gould Island. Garden reef in front. (PS)

If I’d taken video footage from the air I could have made a blue movie.

Tull River. South Mission Beach in the distance. (LR)

The classic reddish colours of a Queensland autumn (though it’s actually winter).

Innisfail and Johnstone River. (LR)

As autumn fades, so do the colours.

Looking past Mulgrave River, Malbon Thompson Forest Reserve and Grey Peaks National Park to a distant view of Cape Grafton, Fitzroy Island and beyond. (LR)

We are getting closer to the tropics. You know the camera never lies so this is realistic colour.

Probably East Feluga/ Friday Pocket area. (LR)

And so is this. It’s not that I am wearing rose tinted glasses, the whole world has suddenly changed.

I think Maria Creek in the foreground; Barnard Island off the coast; Barrier Reef in the background. (PS)

The landscape is trying to turn into the Gambian flag. Perhaps we’re about to be invaded.

Just before landing at Cairns Airport. (PS)

Back to normal reality.

View from Cairns/ Atherton Tableland Road. (C1)

A desert landscape, maybe?

Cathedral Fig Tree (C1)

Needing some respite, I stopped for a while at the ancient Forest of Fangorn, not far from the Misty Mountains.

Cathedral Fig Tree (C1)

The weather was changing minute by minute.

Cathedral Fig Tree (C1).

The trees had much to say.

Cathedral Fig Tree (C1).

And dreams escaped to the sky.

Our welcoming committee to the Atherton Tablelands (C1).

And then our dreams were gathered up and returned to us by the Guardians of The Ether.

Cuba Monochromes 1 of 4 Havana

Oct27

1-12 September 2016, Cuba

Links go to posts with the colour versions of the images (where there may also be more information and context). If an image does not have a link, the preceding one applies. (Click on any image to see it larger).

People in a bar.

Arriving in Havana.

Basilica Menor de San Francisco de Asis.

Early Morning in Havana.

“Quiltrin Legitimate Cuban Fashion”.

La Catedral de la Virgin Maria de la Conceptión Immaculata de la Habana

Waiting for Godot perhaps?.

The door is probably a side entrance to the Cathedral.

Havana Stroll.

Simca 90A Aronde 1955-1958.

A rare occasion of a nubile young women carrying a large fork and riding a rooster.

The car is probably a 1946 Oldsmobile.

Havana Cars.

Oldsmobile, probably 1954..

1957 Ford Fairlane 500 convertible.

On the road towards town.

Afro-Cuban art of Salvador Gonzáles Escalona.

Callejón de Hamel.

Big Band performance.

Big Band in Havana.

Early morning Havana view.

Relics of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Ballistic Missile.

MIG 21.

Cannonballs at Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabana.

Havana from the fort on the north side of the harbour.

1953 Chevrolet.

René Peña.

1950 Chevrolet in the foreground; Fidel in the background.

Returning from dinner at night.

1953 Chevrolet.

More Havana Cars.

1951 Pontiac Continental.

Gran Teatro de Habana, or the Havana Opera House.

Havana to Topes de Collantes.

View from Opera House.

Foyer of Opera House.

Head in the Clouds (Lahad Datu to KK)

Aug18

14 May 2019, Lahad Datu, Sabah, to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

These are images from two flights, from Ladah Datu to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah and from Kota Kinabalu to Kuala Lumpur. They are all monochrome conversions of infrared images.

When leaving on the plane from Lahad Datu I was instructed by a stewardess that I was not allowed to take photographs out the window during takeoff because the camera is an electronic device. That has never happened to me previously and astonished me as the camera is hardly going to be sending out wifi signals. Consequently, most of these images are of clouds.

Not long before, we took off from Lahad Datu in Eastern Sabah.

We are flying over Sabah.

Rivers and mainly cleared land below here.

The clouds could be quite majestic though.

This is near Kota Kinabalu. We have landed and taken off again.

I was able to photograph clouds over the South China Sea for a while until the visibility closed right in.

Now we are over mainland Malaysia.

A small sea-front village.

Workers’ cottages, probably, beside the ubiquitous palm oil plantations.

Palm Oil plantations.

This was the last post of our trip to Sabah. You can see links to all the other posts in the Sabah Itinerary post.

Next, a return to the last few days in Havana in the Caribbean trip.

Sabah Monochromes

Aug11

3-14 May 2019, Sabah, Malaysia

Links go to posts with the colour versions of the images (where there may also be more information and context). If an image does not have a link, the preceding one applies.

Street markets, Kota Kinabalu.

from KK Markets (Kota Kinabalu).

Fish markets, Kota Kinabalu.

Fishing boat, Kota Kinabalu.

from KK Fishing Boats (Kota Kinabalu).

Egret, Kota Kinabalu Wetland Ramsar Site.

from Egrets – I’ve had a few….

Orchid, Mt Kinabalu Botanical Garden.

from Mount Kinabalu.

Common Tree Nymphs, Butterf;y Farm, Poring Hot Springs.

from Poring Hot Springs and Sabah Tea Plantation.

Sunset, Sabah Tea Plantation.

Scarlet-backed flowerpecker.

from Sepilok Day 1 – Giant Flying Squirrels.

Unidentified Butterfly.

from Sepilok Day 2 – Sun Bears and Orang Utans.

Sun Bear, Borneo Sun Bear Conservation Centre.

Native bees and hive, on the trunk of a tree.

Orangutan, Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre, Sepilok.

Wild orangutan, Sepilok.

Orangutans in nest high in trees, Sepilok.

Plantain squirrel, Sepilok.

Western Tarsier, Sepilok.

Pig-tailed macaques, Kinabatangan River.

from Kinabatangan River Day 1 – Pig Tailed Macaques.

Egret, Kinabatangan River

from Kinabatangan River Day 2 – Proboscis Monkeys.

Male Proboscis Monkey.

Wild orangutan and baby, Caves of Goomontong.

from Tabin Day 1.

Pig-tailed macaques, Tabin Wildlife Reserve.

from Tabin Day 1.

Monitor lizard.

Agamid lizard (draco genus).

from Tabin Day 2 – Clouded Leopard.

Crested serpent eagle.

White-crowned hornbill.

from Tabin Day 3 – Last day in Sabah.

Honey comb of the Giant Honey Bee (apis dosata).

Walking towards the mud volcano.

Buffy fish owl.

Sunset.

Tabin Day 3 – Last day in Sabah

Aug8

Tabin Wildlife Reserve, Sabah, 13 May 2019.

Gibbon.

I got up early this morning and the gibbons went across overhead again but the light wasn’t nearly as good as the previous day.

Gibbon.

White-crowned hornbill.

After breakfast we went for a drive and then for a walk to the mud volcano. This and the next few images were on the way there.

Honey comb of the Giant Honey Bee (apis dosata).

These bees make their honey combs on places like the underneath of branches to make it hard for the sun bears to access them. That texture you see is the comb covered in bees.

Female long-tailed parakeet.

As we passed another tree there was the head of a parrot appearing from a nesting hole on the trunk.

Some of our party walking along towards the mud volcano.

Mud volcano.

Bornean Rhino and Teetash.

This is the third-last Bornean Rhino in Sabah, which had died a couple of years before and was stuffed. This is an adult rhino and Teetash kindly volunteered to stand beside it so you can see how small it is. The Bornean Rhino is a subspecies of the Sumatran Rhino. There are less than 100 Sumatran Rhinos and likely no more than 15 Bornean Rhinos. The numbers are so small due to habitat loss. We were due to see the last male Bornean rhino in Sabah but he took ill a few days before we arrived and died shortly after we left. There is one female left in Sabah but she is not in good health.

There are three species of rhinoceros, the African, the Asian and the Sumatran. The Sumatran is more closely related to the extinct Woolly Rhinoceros of Europe (as shown in cave paintings) than the African or Asian rhinos. A distant and extinct rhino, Elasmotherium sibiricum, with a two-metre horn, is the likely source of the unicorn legend.

Elephant by elephant.

This is a painting by an Asian elephant. Borneo pygmy elephants are a subspecies that has been separated for 3,000 years. They may have been in Borneo for that long but it is likely they are actually surviving Javan elephants (otherwise extinct), given to the Sultan of Sulu (NE Sabah/ SE Philippines) around 1395. Compared to Asian elephants, they are smaller with relatively larger ears, longer tails and straighter tusks. They are threatened by habitat loss. There are 1,000 to 4,000 in Borneo, including some in Tabin but we did not see any. However, we did hear them in Sepilok. They have a group there but do not want human interaction as they are intending to return them to the wild.

Rhinoceros hornbill.

Not to be confused with Bornean rhinoceros which does not have a bill and are not known for their flying.

We are now in the late afternoon to evening, taking photographs again from the back of a truck.

A piece of grass in focus and the disappearing tip of the tail of a leopard cat, somewhat out of focus.

The previous night, I had a leopard cat in focus and lined up. Unfortunately I hesitated to adjust exposure and it was gone. Gaaah! So I was determined to find another one if I could. There it was this night, on the other side of the truck, but by the time I found it through my long telephoto lens, it was on its way and this was all I got.

Leopard cats are similar in size to domestic cats but more slender with longer legs. They are widespread in India, China, Japan and South East Asia and not under threat. The ones in Sabah are of the Sunda subspecies. The ones we saw were leaving the forest at night for the palm oil plantations, probably to hunt for rats.

Leopard cat.

However, Clive Moon, who was sitting beside me, did get a photograph of the leopard cat and he has very kindly allowed me to show it on this blog.

Buffy fish owl.

A disappearing sunset.

Water lilies.

On the last morning, I also went looking for gibbons but they were later than the previous two days and I did not wait around long enough so I missed them and took these photographs of lilies instead.

All of these photographs are completely normal images with normal colour, as certified by the Andaman Islander Institute of Normalcy (AIIN). Well, OK, maybe not all. That’s except for the four infrared images. You may be able to work out which they are.

25,000 Images

Just a note of trivia. There are now 25,000 images that you can access through this Blog. There are 14,555 in the blog itself and another 10,458 live music images from 1,001 performances that you can access through links on the All Performances page. The Honey comb of the Giant Honey Bee was image number 25,000. If I printed each of these images at A4 and laid them end to end, they would stretch nearly 7.5 kilometres.

This is also the last post from Sabah, except for some images from the plane and some monochromes.

Tabin Day 2 – Clouded Leopard

Jul28

Tabin Wildlife Reserve, Sabah, 12 May 2019.

Gibbon.

We were up very early in the morning and were able to observe a troupe of gibbons making their way past us, high in the trees, from tree to tree. These are Müeller’s gibbons, or North Borneo gibbons. Gibbons diverged from great apes around 17 million years ago and they live exclusively on fruit so do not need to descend from trees. They move by brachiation, swinging from branch to branch, for distances of up to 15 meters per swing, and can move at remarkable speeds, up to 55 km/hr.

Pygmy squirrel.

Crested serpent eagle.

After breakfast we went for a ride in a truck and then a walk in the rainforest.

Agamid lizard (draco genus).

Draco Cornutis (green flying lizard).

It is not apparent here, but this fellow has flaps under its body that allows it to glide from tree to tree.

Monitor lizard.

In the late afternoon we went for another ride in the truck, photographing with a long lens from the open tray.

Drongo.

Crested serpent eagle.

Rhinoceros hornbills.

Crested serpent eagle.

It was after dark when we came upon another group who had seen a clouded leopard. It had caught a civet and had settled down up a tree, behind the foliage. It wasn’t visible but we knew it was there so we waited. After about half an hour we caught a glimpse of a tail, which you may be able to see in the image above.

After nearly an hour, the clouded leopard moved and we were able to see it through the foliage.

This is the Borneo subspecies of the Sunda clouded leopard. The Sunda clouded leopard is endemic to Sumatra and Borneo, and separated from the mainland clouded leopard about three million years ago. Note also that the clouded leopard is not a subspecies of leopard. They are the sole members of the subfamily neofelis, whereas the subfamily panthera includes leopard, tiger, snow leopard, lion and jaguar. The Sunda clouded leopard is medium-sized, weighing 12 to 26kg. Its flexible ankle joints allow it to climb down trees head first and it has the longest tooth size to head size of any cat, perhaps to help it hold on to prey in trees. It is classified as vulnerable due to habitat loss as it is dependent on living in rainforest.

I didn’t see the clouded leopard’s head but Damien Esquerré did and has kindly allowed me to show you this photograph.

Our guides said it was the first one they had seen for five years.

Tabin Day 1

Jul21

Tabin Wildlife Reserve, Sabah, 11 May 2019.

Orangutan mother and baby.

On this day we travelled to Tabin Wildlife Reserve. On the way we stopped at the Caves of Goomontong, at a huge cave populated with bats and swiftlets. Lighting was fiendishly difficult there and I have no images to show you but on the walk back from the cave we encountered a wild orangutan mother and baby. It looks as though they might be in a zoo but they’re just sitting on the steps of an abandoned building.

Millipede.

Now we are in Tabin in the later morning and I think this millipede was on a rail outside our room. The difference between centipedes and millipedes is not the number of legs, it’s that centipedes have one pair of legs per segment whereas millipedes have two.

Pig-tailed macaques.

It is now the late afternoon. We might have been sitting around to escape the midday heat or it might have been raining. I can’t remember which. You expect to encounter rain each afternoon and perhaps in the evening in Sabah but we were lucky in this trip and that only happened in Tabin.

Pig-tailed Macaque.

We were photographing these images from the back of a small open truck.

Monitor lizard and with something, maybe an insect, in his mouth.

Tabin Wildlife Reserve is a large island in a sea of palm oil plantations. There is a lot of wildlife though most is secondary forest and it shows how much though not all of the wildlife will survive the largest trees being taken out, though the replacement of the forest for uses such as palm oil plantations is another matter. There is also a much smaller island of primary forest, but that is not open to humans.

Crested serpent eagle.

White-crowned hornbill.

Buffy fish owl.

We are now on a nighttime walk.

Stick insect (probably Haaniella echinate), endemic to Borneo.

Unidentified moth.

Kinabatangan River Day 2 – Proboscis Monkeys

Jul14

Kinabatangan River, Sabah, 10 May 2019.

These images are from two trips along the river in a boat, one in the early morning and one in the late afternoon. All the wildlife shots are from a considerable distance with a very long lens (420mm, full frame camera).

Oriental Pied Hornbill.

This is the most common Asian hornbill and the most adaptable to habitat loss, so is not considered threatened. Its distribution spreads over India and South-East Asia.

Blue-throated Bee Eater.

Egret.

Male Proboscis Monkey.

The male proboscis monkey is recognisable by his large nose, thought to aid in making calls.

Female Proboscis Monkey.

Proboscis monkeys are endemic to Borneo, and live in coastal areas close to water. They are quite large monkeys and are good swimmers, having partially webbed feet. They are classified as endangered due to habitat loss.

Female Proboscis Monkey.

Rhinocerous Hornbill.

Saltwater Crocodile.

Rhinocerous Hornbill.

The rhinocerous hornbill is a large hornbill with a wingspan of around a metre. It is endemic to Borneo, Sumatra, Java, the Malay Peninsula and Southern Thailand. It requires large tree hollows for nesting and is classified as vulnerable due to habitat loss. The females seals herself for nesting in a tree cavity sealed with mud and the male feeds her through a hole in the mud.