I have been out to the Great Barrier Reef a few times and gee it really still does manage to wow!!!

I was fortunate enough to spend a few magnificent days up in Airlie Beach this last week and had a fabulous trip out to the reef where I did a helicopter flight up to Heart Reef.   The pilot and staff were fantastic taking the door off so I had amazing views and plenty of scope to shoot.

The images you see here are a brief selection of the day!

As one of China’s 4 sacred Buddhist peaks, Wutaishan is actually a collection of five peaks or plateaus that is home to in excess of 50 temples and monasteries.

Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009, Wutaishan is a great place to explore for a couple of days.

One of the things that stood out for me here was the level of decorative elements in the brasswork and exterior paintings/murals – both symbolic and intricate, they really set some of the temples here apart from the many, many others I have visited in China.

Sunrise from the east peak is a must.

There is nothing I love more as a traveller than hanging out at markets.  Always a hive of activity they are a place where you will find real life – real people doing real things!

Nowadays, people often talk about how the number of shots they take with a digital camera has increased substantially compared to the old film days.  Well in the markets of the ethnic minority areas of northern Vietnam back in 1999 I managed to easily burn through 8 or 10 rolls of film in a couple of hours.  Some fast and furious shutter clicking – which did seem a little obscene back then.

The colour of the traditional dress for the Flower Hmong was just brilliant with vibrant pinks, blues and greens, while the Black Hmong wore deep indigo and the Tay often wear a shirt (differing colours for various areas and tribes) with indigo trousers – the PaDi with the triangle style hats in the images also belong to the Tay ethnic group.

This gallery contains a collection of images originally shot using mostly Fuji Velvia colour slide film which have been digitally converted to black and white.    Most were taken at Can Cau and Muong Khong markets, with images in the fields shot on the outskirts of Bac Ha and the Black Hmong in the mountains outside of Sapa.

The colour images are gorgeous and are posted separately (click here to see), however I find it is easy to get lost in the vibrant colour.  The black and white allows me to appreciate the all the detail of the image – the people, the location and the traditional dress.

Yan’an in China’s north-west was a fantastic place for street photography.  This bizarre outpost was the Communist revolutionary capital with Mao Zedong basing his operations here for many years after the Long March which ended nearby.

Spending time here often felt like I had stepped into a totally different world – one that was very full-on but brimming with genuine raw appeal of a life that was rapidly disappearing in China’s larger centres.

These images were taken in 2001 in Yan’an using Ilford Delta black & white film.

To read more about Yan’an, click here to be taken to my travel blog – TheLazyTravelwriter.com

Jiuzhaigou is spectacular Chinese alpine scenery, a world heritage site and world biosphere protected area in mountainous northern Sichuan, peppered with brilliantly coloured lakes and waterfalls ensconced amongst dense forest.

I was totally blown away by this place when I first visited in 1997.   It was early October and the magnificence of fall was in full swing. The trees were all shades of crimson, orange and yellow contrasting beautifully against the jewel coloured lakes.

The images you see here were taken when I visited at the end of May 2002 and were shot using the gorgeous Fuji Velvia slide film -the impossibly green forests and brilliantly coloured, sparkling water that you see in the images is in my mind exactly how it looked – simply stunning!!!

The last gallery I posted contained a series of black and white images from the main very muddy street of Langmusi, China, taken back in 2001.

This inspired me to seek out some colour photos of Langmusi from my massive collection of film archives – this is what i found!   Taken on the 1st June 2002 on International Children’s Day, this festival attracted nomads from all over the grasslands for a day of singing, dancing, horse racing, boulder throwing and yak riding.

I was incredibly fortunate to experience this event with one of my groups and it was definitely worth arriving after 2am in the morning for.  We had broken down on the grasslands in the middle of Sichuan the previous day and had an 8 hour or so wait while the parts for the mini-vans were driven in.   I was tour leading at the time and my group handled the whole experience fantastically, especially since it was at my urging that we continued on into the night across the grassland as I had heard that the festival may be a possibility.   The road was terrible and it was a long slow trip but without a doubt it was all worth it in the end!

The vibrant colours in these images are due purely to the beautiful Fuiji Velvia slide film I was using in those days and gee, it really did produce amazing images.

Enjoy!

A few of my favourite lanscape images….

This time of year also sees fields of canola (rapeseed) in bloom carpeting the landscape in brilliant, vibrant yellow.

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These beautiful plants are in bloom around Melbourne at the moment adding a touch of glamour and gorgeousness to any garden.

The stunning dome and roof art inside this beautiful World Heritage site was one of those intoxicating subjects with an endless array of angles and detail to capture in one of Melbourne’s architectural icons.

The building was open as part of Melbourne’s open house 2011.

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