If you ever visit Dove Lake and Cradle Mountain in Tasmania, it's worth doing the walk around the lake.

There is some fantastic scenery as the track makes its way around the lake, and in some places, it's a wooden walkway bolted to the rock cliff, as shown in the photo below (with Cradle Mountain in the background).

walkway around Dove Lake

Cradle Mountain, Tasmania
Canon EOS 350D, 10-22mm @10mm, 1/25 sec, f/8, ISO200

Other sections of the track will take you through a temperate rainforest called the Ballroom Forest.

The walk is 6km, and takes approximately 2 hours (depending on how fit you are, how fast you walk, how frequently you stop to take photos, etc). It's a relatively easy walk, and is mostly flat.

Here are some photos from Michael and Kathryn's wedding, shot in December. It was a very hot day, but we had a lot of fun, despite the heat, and the two flower girls performed very well all day!

While in Sydney recently, some colleagues took me for a lunchtime walk through the national park that is located right behind our office.
It's part of Lane Cove National Park, and we walked through an area called Fairyland Park, which used to be an amusement park of sorts that closed in the 1970s.

Here's a few photos taken during that lunchtime walk.

leaves

Fairyland Park, North Ryde, NSW
Canon EOS 50D, 10-22mm @15mm, 1/30 sec, f/4, ISO200

Last night, I returned home after two weeks in Sydney. It was a work-related trip, but I was hoping to get out with my camera, as I have done on previous trips to Sydney.
However, it was pretty wet, with a lot of rain during the time I was in Sydney, including rain for most of the weekend I was there.

wet roads ... and a bridge!

Sydney, NSW
Canon EOS 50D, 10-22mm @22mm, 1/50 sec, f/6.3, ISO200

Despite the rain, I still spent some time wandering around the city on the weekend, and managed to get some photos.

The photo above shows a wet Sydney road, with the very recognisable structure of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the distance.

There is a saying which states that the eyes are the window to a person's soul. It is important to know how to handle people's eyes in portrait photography, as the way the eyes are represented in a photo can make or break the photo.

For example, Steve McCurry's Afghan Girl photo, which appeared on the cover of the June 1984 National Geographic Magazine, was named "the most recognised photograph" in the history of the magazine. This was primarily due to her piercing sea-green eyes, staring straight at the camera, resulting in a very striking and appealing portrait.



With portrait photography, it is important to ensure the eyes are in focus. This is particularly important if shooting with a large aperture, when the depth-of-focus is small.
A portrait with the eyes in focus will have more impact, will be more appealing, and the eyes will help draw the viewer into the image.

Samantha

Canon EOS 50D, 70-200mm f/4L @70mm, 1/640 sec, f/4, ISO200

To ensure your camera focuses on the eyes, configure it to use only one focus point, and compose the shot with this focus point on the eyes, half-press the shutter button to focus, and then re-compose and take the photo.