I guess when people thing of photography in winter in Tasmania, they imagine snowy highland landscapes - a snow-capped Cradle Mountain, trees dusted with fresh snowfall and so on. For me, winter brings other possibilities - clarity, light ( and darkness ) and stillness. It's a season of bare branches reaching up to dramatic skies, urban landscapes laid bare, water like glass creating stunning reflections, atmospheric morning mists hovering over the city or engulfing it, wet streets at night...so many interesting photographic possibilities.
So I've been out in the cold quite a bit over the last week, trying to take advantage of some of these things, with, I must admit, varying degrees of success. It seems every time I've gone out thinking it was a nice still night with a bit of mist around, the wind picks up , blows away most of the mist and ruins the nice glassy water effect I was hoping for. But you cannot always get perfect conditions, and you just try and make the best of it and put up with frozen fingers for a while.
Although much of the mist had blown off the Derwent River, there was just enough around the zinc works to get some great effects with long exposures, as you can see in these photos.
Going underneath the bridge must be one of the coldest places in Hobart. I was there from 5 to almost 6 pm, but it felt much colder and darker than I had imagined with an icy breeze coming off the water. Nevertheless, I think it was worth it for some of the shots I got. When I got there I was able to just capture the last rays of the sun, forming an orange glow over the zinc works, which look a bit like they're on fire.
As it got darker, the Spectra, a great blue tractor beam shooting up into the heavens, became visible.
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