2011 has been a busy year for me with many photography trips around the country, and print sales increasing and surpassing previous years.

I visited the South West region of Western Australia several times early in the year which rewarded me with some of my favourite photographs, including “Meelup Sunrise“, “Enchanted Skies“, and “Sugarloaf Rock“.

By far the biggest trip of the year began in July and came to an end in November. Over these few months I circumnavigated the country via road visiting, and photographing, many of Australia’s iconic landscapes.

Karijini National Park turned out to be my favourite location of the year. What an incredible place it is! I spent a week camping in the National Park with photographer friends, roaming through the gorges, cooling off in the many streams and pools found throughout the area, navigating precariously through mass amounts of spinifex, and of course photographing (a lot).

Pictured above is an example of the kind of landscape you should expect in Karijini; red rock, lush greenery, and very deep cracks in the earth. The photo pictured was taken at Oxer Lookout, a truly breathtaking lookout, which is atop the junction of 4 of Karijini’s main gorges.

After a bit of a hiatus from blogging and photographing, I have just returned from an epic, although short, trip to the South-West of Western Australia with something to share.

Sugarloaf Rock is one of my favourite spots to photograph around Dunsborough, and a few days ago I had the opportunity to photograph it at sunrise. It was windy as anything, but I was determined to get the shot. After scrambling around in the dark to find a composition, I found this angle and set up my gear. I fired off just a few frames and packed up my gear. This was one of those times when I was confident I had something special.

I also shot some photos of the surrounding areas – Meelup Beach, Wyadup Beach, Cape Naturaliste, Canal Rocks. These photographs will be uploaded to the galleries shortly.

Photo Details: Canon 5D Mk II + 17-40mm F4 L USM @ 35mm, 1 Second, f/14, ISO125

A few nights ago I witnessed one of the best sunsets I’ve seen for a long time.

Simon Beedle and I noticed some nice cloud in the sky a bit earlier in the afternoon so we headed towards Cottesloe Beach – taking an extremely long scenic route along the coast. We arrived at Cottesloe shortly before sunset. Initially we were unsure whether or not the sky was going to light up. There was some fairly thick cloud cover where the sky met the ocean. But, as the sun got closer to the horizon, the lower cloud burnt off and the sky turned a fiery red colour. Smoke from a nearby fire also caught the suns last light and helped us out a bit.

The light was gone as quick as it appeared, so I only got to fire off a couple of shots. It was extremely cold and windy so I tried to keep the exposure as short as possible, while still capturing a bit of motion in the water. I also had to underexpose the scene a bit to make sure I didn’t blow out the red channel.

Photo Details: Canon 5D Mk II + 17-40mm F4 L USM @ 40mm, 2.5 Seconds, f/18, ISO50

A couple of nights ago Simon Beedle and I took a drive around the Swan River and ended up at Matilda Bay to shoot the sunset. We had been watching these amazingly large, puffy white clouds all day, and new that we had to be in the right spot to photograph them.

We were not the only photographers with the idea that Matilda Bay was the right spot, as there were a few of us around with our tripods and large cameras. One of the other photographers turned out to be Mark Stothard, someone whose blog I have been reading for a while, so it was nice to meet him.

It was a tough composition, trying to capture the clouds in frame, while still having some kind of foreground interest…

As always, I’d love to hear your comments!