Rodney Campbell's Blog

Gerry, Suren and I headed out for an insanely early morning in the Royal National Park south of Sydney. Wake up for me was at 3:15AM before picking the others up on the way to Garie beach – we arrived just before 5AM (about 40 minutes before sunrise).

When we got out onto the sand we could see a large cluster of faint lights on the beach way up at the northern end of the beach. Throwing caution to the wind (we’re thinking perhaps some bizarre cult activity!) we decided to investigate. It wasn’t till we got much closer that we saw it was a huge area of surfboards sticking out of the sand with tiny lights at the base of each.

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

We met Chris Anderson – a young artist on a mission — to collect 1000 broken surfboards and display his art to raise awareness about a more sustainable approach to the way we manage waste. He had been collecting boards for over three years and it just happened that his display for the 1000 Surfboard Graveyard was on overnight.

We had no idea this was going to be on and we hadn’t intended to shoot sunrise just here however the 1000 Surfboard Graveyard was too interesting a subject not to make use of…

Almost half an hour before sunrise – thick moody clouds were on the horizon but a long exposure with the reverse grad brought out some colour and light

1000 Standing Before Dawn

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 30 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Board Graves

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 30 sec at f/11, ISO 110

Fifteen minutes before sunrise and I’ve moved to the other side of a small lagoon – shooting across past the 1000 surfboard graveyard towards where the sun would soon rise

Reflections at Dawn

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 24 mm, 3 sec at f/11, ISO 100

I found myself some foreground interest with these interesting looking tumbleweed things at the waters edge of this little inland lagoon just off the beach, along with some spidery plant thing just out in the water. A little gardening to remove some man made stuff I didn’t want and then getting down low to frame my shot looking back out east across the lagoon towards the sea. I liked how the surfboards sticking up from the sand looked like a row of jagged teeth on the horizon and then reflected in the calm waters of the lagoon. The chunky clouds in the sky and the moody colour they brought just a dozen minutes before sunrise was a bonus…

Dawns Teeth

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 24 mm, 8 sec at f/16, ISO 100

Less than ten minutes to sunrise and we were getting some lovely deep pastel colours in the sky mostly towards the south where there were few clouds

Boards and Pastels

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 4 sec at f/16, ISO 100

and one with more of the funky clouds in the sky…

Garie Boards

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 21 mm, 1/1 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Even after sunset (not that we could actually see the sun setting over to the right behind heavy banks of cloud) the crack in the sky above the city was still doing it’s magic.

I quickly setup for a pano at a longer focal length (35mm which is the longest I could do with the lens I had on at the time) and took a double set of long exposure frames in falling light.

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

Taking the best 6 frames into photoshop to stitch I was very happy with the result with this fantastic rip in the sky letting the last rays of twilight shine through above the city along with the windswept streaks of clouds blowing away from us over the city – sometimes nature shines

Cracks in Space

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 35 mm, 72.00 sec at f/11, ISO 200