Since this is a travel and photography blog I thought I’d highlight a few of my favourite 2012 photos rather than write about the year. Visit my Flickr profile to see more photos from the past year.
My 2011 Xmas/2012 New Year family road trip holiday was to Narooma, a small town located on the far south coast of NSW. We saw lots of beautiful native birds in the area including Galah Cockatoo’s, Cormorants and Rainbow Lorikeets.
I came home late at night in early January after pub trivia and couldn’t resist taking a photo of the full moon with glowing clouds next to it. People liked the photo so much that it trended in Flickr’s best photos of the day, gathering 2247 views, 95 likes and 33 comments.
In May another photo of the moon proved popular, this time it was a “Supermoon”, an event where the moon is full at the same time that it is closest the Earth for the year.
It’s important to take time out regularly to pause and enjoy your local parks, gardens and flowers.
This pigeon must have been exhausted because it let me take these photos from as close to it’s eye as the camera could focus, barely a few cm away.
I have always wanted to take photos of pro surfers at close range so it was great to be able to get a press pass to the Australian Open of Surfing 2012 at Manly Beach and then a week later get to take photos of talented amateur surfers at Lennox Head near the NSW/Queensland border while I was on holidays.
I’ve been curious to see what the experience of paintballing is like so I took photos from the sidelines at a friends birthday party. While I can understand why some people enjoy it, paying to spend time doing something with a high chance of pain is not something that appeals to me.
Another experience which was crossed off my to do list was attending an airshow and taking photos of aerobatics displays. I spent the day with my friend Rob at Wings Over Illawarra 2012 in May and got spectacular photos of the Roulettes Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) aerobatic team.
It pays to have a camera with you at all times. If I hadn’t been carrying my Pentax K5 SLR at the time I wouldn’t have been able to take the spooky tunnel and urban rainbow photos below.
Mid-year I visited Vivid Sydney in the evening with my friend Matthew and we took some good light painting experimentation photos.
During winter I went on a trip to Charlotte Pass in the Snowy Mountains with an old friend from high school, it was a much needed break away from the internet and work.
In Mid-July the number of times my photos shared on Flickr had been viewed passed half a million. It’s interesting to recall that I didn’t join Flickr Pro until 3 years ago because I feared that people would copy my photos and use them without permission. By the 31st of December I should pass 2/3rds of a million views.
During the year I traveled for photography/journalism work to the Gold Coast for a journalism conference, Melbourne to cover an automotive story, USA researching stories while on holiday and Hong Kong for an aviation story.
During a work trip to the Central Coast to review some new Panasonic cameras I got to see a Veiled Chameleon.
Melbourne is renowned for it’s street art and I managed to sneak in a few hours of walking about to photograph some of it prior to writing an automotive story while visiting the city in late August.
From mid-September to Mid-October I traveled up the USA west coast from San Francisco, north via the Amtrak Coast Starlight train to Seattle, on the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry through the Inside Passage to Alaska, on the Alaska Railroad Aurora Train from Fairbanks to Anchorage and south to Santa Monica before flying home to Australia.
In late October I explored the Tamarama to Bondi Sculptures by the Sea walk.
In November I traveled to Hong Kong for almost a week to cover an aviation story and take photos of the city.
Now it’s December and it seems there’s an end of year celebration or christmas event on practically every day, Sydneysiders like to party.
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