Well, it's been a bit longer than I'd like between posts but that's to be expected when getting ready to move countries. We're currently 'in-transit' with our move from Melbourne, Australia to our new home in Oxfordshire, U.K. enjoying a unique winter in Denver, Colorado, and the copious amount of food that comes in an average serving of food over here. Lord help me!

During November we were lucky to have one of our dearest friends from Brasil join us again for some travels in Australia; our first visitor from there who isn't family! As a little show of appreciation for her efforts to get down to Oz and see us we decided it'd be nice to take her down to Tasmania for a few days, and it was also a good excuse for us to see more of this wonderful part of Australia.

You may have seen an older post of mine here when we previously visited the south and central parts of Tasmania for my 30th birthday, where my wife gifted me the lovely XF16mm F1.4 from her, my friends and family. This time around we focused on checking out some parts of the north of Tasmania up in Launceston, Cradle Mountain, and Meander, as well as a few other spots. If you're someone who loves airbnb and plan to stay in Tasmania some time I cannot recommend strongly enough that you stay with Bodhi and Martin in Meander. They're just wonderful people to stay with and their immense property is full of adventures, one which I will talk about below!

As usual the Fujifilm kit came along for the ride including my new XF50-140 (still not sure if it suits me) and a recent acquisition of a tilt-adapter with an old Helios 55 F2, among many other parts of my kit. The X-T2 perfromed flawlessly throughout my travels of course ;)

So, let's just take a moment here to talk about how awesome it was staying at Bodhi and Martin's property in Meander. Aside from providing a beautiful homestead, expansive property to explore, facilities like a dojo and sauna, Martin also gave us private tours with one particular tour of his preserved old growth forest. Many years ago the native forest that their property backed onto was set to be cleared for logging, then planting of fast-growth trees for further logging and pulping for paper. Martin purchased a large portion of the forest that is abundant in native ferns, blackwood trees, oaks, and many other native flora and fauna in order to prevent this. Champion!

One night my wife discussed with Martin how she wanted to see the glow worms in a cave that was unfortunately flooded earlier in the year. With a little discussion Martin gave us a ripper story (you can go visit him to hear it) of how he came across some glow worms on his property in the old growth forest! Quick snap, we were off for a tour and before we knew it 4 of us were inside of a very large old tree looking up to a population of glow worms at sunset. MIND BLOWN! Our friend Sara was even luckier, as she got to bring a local critter back with her in the form of a leach on her ankle that was nice and fat after a 3 hour feed on her. Good times!

Metal heads.
To para-phrase a security guard at the photo barrier on this night "I F$%KIN hate this music! But... These gigs have the best behaved people. They drink tonnes of piss and spend heaps at the merch stands. Honestly, I'd rather get digitally f#$%ed by a giant than listen to this stuff."
Much love to this fella for being brutally honest and giving me a damned good laugh.

This gig served me up a pretty profound experience as a photographer. With no pressure of producing images other than for my own enjoyment and for all these fine bands to use should they want to, I got to experiment with some new goods, including the XF50-140 and an old Helios 44-2 F2 58mm with a tilt only adapter. This was also the first time I got to use my X-T2 properly in a live music environment, which was a bit of an overdue itch to scratch. So what made it a profound experience?

For just about my entire journey so far in photography a big part of it has been chasing that perfect, sharp, optically stellar image. An image that really isn't achievable since invariably I know I'd never be satisfied with the result. It's also quite closely linked to gear acquisition too. Undoubtedly, good gear enables great photos to be taken or discretion to be used when necessary, such as in the case of compact performers like my trusty XF35mm F2, a phenomenal ~50mm equivalent.
When I recently purchased an old Helios off of eBay ($80 for a nicely refurbished one) I didn't expect to get much more than an effect out of it that could be used from time to time for a bit of fun when combined with the tilt adapter too. I certainly didn't expect that on this occasion I would end up using it for more than 50% of my photos and come away with images that were so far from perfect they felt much closer to my perfect image than I could ever have expected.

See, the usual suspects in my Fujinon kit certainly got used and performed outstandingly. The XF16mm gave me those close wides and crowd shots with not a single focus issue, and the flexibility of the rear tilt screen of the X-T2 allowed way more freedom for me to compose with. The XF56mm 1.2 also worked outstandingly and provided me with low ISO shots due to its exceptional widest aperture. My newly acquired XF50-140 was the high performance best I expected it to be and served me particularly well when taking shots further back and elevated above the crowd. Using the image stabilization was a blast too in the face of some heavy moshing, providing some unique looks.

In light of these awesome modern lenses, using an old manual focus lens with a non-parallel focus  point (can be adjusted to straight) was an absolute jam and a lesson in taking control. I doubt many purists would be overly enthused towards a lens with no hood that gives wild flaring and soft-edges, but for me, the way these 'imperfections' come together in this combo feel so right. There's just something else about making an image that is flawed. An image where the main perceived subject isn't in focus. An image where it's overcome by floods of light and shadow in inconsistent ways. I guess what it also comes down to is creating a certain mood with imagery, which certainly suits the gloominess of the metal scene. Perhaps it's also the thrill of the chase when focusing manually, knowing that the shot could be 'missed'.

After some stern words from my brother Dan at Matsu Photography recently, I think this experience is the turning point for me in seeing the enjoyment of the journey rather than the unattainable end goal, where harsh self-criticism and comparison against other talents can tend to spoil the experience.
It must also be said that I sincerely appreciate all my brothers and fellow 'creative folk' in these phenomenal bands featured. If not for letting me have this experience but for creating incredible, inspiring music that provides a soundtrack in my life. Cheers to my Ormsbros in Psycopritc, Hollow World and Hadal Maw, and to the other fellas in Orpheus Omega, Blackhelm, and Naberus.