Stunning Detian Falls straddle the China, Vietnam border shining with brilliant, jewel-like colour.   Consisting of several tiers of water that gush over its edges, the falls stretch more than 200 metres and are surrounded by beautiful limestone karsts.  Water flow varies throughout the year, however regardless of the season I am sure they maintain their simple magnificence.

Marinas are fantastic places to get out and about with a camera!

The reflections, strong angular lines and repetition can give some great results.   This gallery of black & white images from the Airlie Beach marina also includes stormy views lingering in the skies above.

Enjoy!

I spent a few days relaxing amongst the beauty of the Whitsundays and Airlie Beach last week.

But it was not all magical sunshine and blue skies as fierce thunderstorms rolled over most nights, with the occasional daytime occurrence too making for sheer drama across the skies.   I love not only the fantastic cloud formations but the impact these fast approaching storms have on the landscape, intensifying  colour and turning the stunning turquoise seas wonderfully luminous.

Oh, and we also had a couple of superb sunsets!

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!

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!!!

A few of my favourite lanscape images….

These Koi were quite an incredible sight!

Hundreds of these goldfish of all sizes in a park pond in Nanning, descended through the murky green tinged waters to form an absolute feeding frenzy on the surface.    The noise of the furious splashing and squeals of delight from the watching crowds only adding to overall atmosphere.

I love stormy weather and the magnificent clouds and skies they create, yesterday was one of those days along Great Ocean Road on Australia’s southern edge.

As I am unfortunately not in China for this year’s holiday I thought I should drag a selection of last year’s shots out of the archive.

While often you see dragon boats racing up and down in straight lines, similar to a rowing regatta which is all very orderly and organised, the event I attended last year out in Hangzhou near Shanghai was pretty much the total opposite.

Boats raced around a tangle of streams within the Xixi wetlands in what seemed to me to be absolute disarray.   Rowing in sync to the pounding of drums and clashing of symbols, thousands of onlookers jam-packed into every possible vantage point and cheered as boats looked to randomly come up against each other in a challenge.   Fast and frantic action would ensue for an undefined period of time.

At least three boats capsized within an hour as the downward pressure of the crews furiously dragging their oars through the water resulted in some being unable to recover and ending up totally inundated.  There were also times when traffic just got all jammed up, it took a little while to clear things and get moving again but I guess this is typical of any form of transport in China!

To find out more on the history of this holiday, click here to check out the blog post I wrote after attending the event last year.

If you ever have the opportunity to get to one of these types of dragon boating festival events, persevere with the crowds and make the effort as it is definitely an entertaining event.

A few more images from yesterday morning’s wander along the foreshore of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra, with the Lens Baby Composer.     Gorgeous reflections of the Commonwealth Avenue bridge and bold, bare trees nearby were the both great subjects.

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