Years ago when I first bought decent camera gear, I could only afford one lens so I bought a 50mm fixed 1.4 lens to go with my Eos 10 (film camera).

For a long time it was a permanent fixture on my camera because I could never find anything else that was as good in low light, or produced the Bokeh that it was capable of. I think my brov is still in the midst of that addiction and often reminds me of the strength of a low f stop fixed lens.

Obviously it produces a very specific style of image so is not always suitable, or even useful for much of what I shoot these days.

I like to dig it out from time to time though, to remind me that photography gear can be very simple and yet still powerful, and just moving your feet and getting creative with one lens is always a good reminder of where it all started.

Picnic in Balmoral and a dusk wander…

I’ve been shooting Flo every week since we found out but decided to try something a bit different this week as she is visibly growing on an almost daily basis now!

Only a few that we are comfortable with posting, but happy with the results…

I heard about this place a while back but finally found out where it is.

The graf is by no means high quality, but what fascinated me was the layers upon layers of peoples efforts, all surrounded by an utterly trashed building that hasnt been in operation in 40+ years…

Loads more images after the jump…

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The winter swell has rolled in the last few days.

There were some solid 5ft sets today – not massive but certainly the biggest I have gone out in with the camera.

Still hating the lack of manual control over many of the settings on my u/w camera housing but learned a lot about shooting in such powerful water today.

1 hold down and a couple of near decapitations by surf boards but overall an epic morning in the water.

Supposed to be 5-7ft tomorrow…

The Telus WSSF just wrapped up in Whistler where it is still snowing today!

The event included the Pro Photographer Showdown which was won Blake Jorgenson who also won the Deep Winter Photo Challenge when we were in Whistler in January.

His winning slideshow can be viewed here (scroll to the bottom)

It is well worth a watch!

There was also an exhibit put on by Red Bull and Oakley featuring the best photos of the year from Powder and Snowboarder magazines as well as other events that friends of mine were involved with…Wish I could have been there…

All photos Copyright Blake Jorgenson as well as the original photographers.

There is a photographer called Joel Coleman who has a gallery/cafe space near my flat in Manly called Salt Motion. Every morning he is down the beach looking for images.

This morning while the rest of us were getting some exercise in the water and going to work, he was chasing dolphins round the bay…

Check out his site here…he just got back from a trip to the Solomon Islands – some really inspiring shots here…

Took the underwater housing in the water for the first time in a long while…
There was plenty going on under there…

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