Sometimes it's easier to talk to the animals than photograph them

Animal photography is something I'm still learning. Photographing Australia's coast (it's the 13th anniversary of my flight today) seemed to be a lot simpler. Even though the plane was moving, the landscape wasn't.

With animals there can be a bit of a problem. They move. Just as I go to take the perfect shot, the animal decides to move, to eat, to play. And particularly with photographing animals at a zoo or wildlife park, there's the added bonus of glass or fence or bars as the case may be.

I've been attending a lot of conferences lately and with my Adelaide Zoo pass I've been able to gain free entry to the Melbourne Zoo and Sydney's Taronga Park Zoo. They're great places to practice animal and bird photography.

My success has been due to taking a lot of photos, using the camera's original lens and then changing over to the telephoto lens. I also walk around the zoo several times during the day to get the different light and to see the animals engaging in their normal behaviour.

If possible, I return to the zoo on another day when the weather can be different and I'm in time for keeper talks about the animals, animal feeding times and the variety of shows where the animals (e.g. the seals) perform.

You can see the results of the successful photos at http://www.digitalsgreat.blogspot.com.au/ with DVDs like "A day at the Zoo" and "A day at the Show" and interactive jigsaw puzzles like "African Animals" and "Birds".

However, Animal Photography: A Practical Guide, by Robert Maier, is something that would be handy to study before I venture out again.



Animal Photography: A Practical Guide

Check it out (as I will be doing) by clicking on the photo for more information and to buy.

Trains Are Terrific Especially As Jigsaw Puzzles

Trains and locomotives, whether steam or diesel seem to capture that spirit of adventure and take us back to a different time. The photos made into jigsaw puzzles of this exciting mode of travel are sure to bring back memories for people who love their train journeys.

In this new series of CDs there are 5 different photos which have been converted to jigsaws of 12, 24, 40, 104 and 260 pieces each, making a total of 25 jigsaw puzzles.

Trains Jigsaw Puzzles CD

Australia (incl. P&H) $29.00 AUD Overseas (incl. P&H) $33.00 AUD

These photos are of trains old and new, working and at rest. Sure to bring back memories for people who love trains and travel, especially throughout the USA in Alaska, Arizona and Colorado. There's the Alaska Railroad in Talkeetna, Alaska, the Grand Canyon Railway at the South Rim station, Arizona, the Verde Canyon Railroad, Arizona, a Santa Fe Railway caboose, Williams, Arizona, and the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, Colorado.

Puzzles are not printable, they're designed to be used on a personal computer or laptop or even on a large screen via a data projector.

Internet access is not required.

If you would like to try a sample of a jigsaw, email me at fran@franwest.com

Turning Negatives Into Positives: Hot Air Ballooning In The Flinders Ranges (Not!)

Turning negatives into positives is a tremendous habit to acquire. It's really looking on the bright side of life and finding what there is to be thankful for. The following newsletter reprint details what I did on "Outback Adventure" after the disappointment of having my hot air balloon flight over the Flinders Ranges cancelled.

Pilot your life newsletter no. 15: Turn negatives into positives

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Pilot Your Life #15: Turn negatives into positives

During my recent four wheel drive trip into South Australia’s Outback, I put into practice one of the tips I learnt on Oz Flight ’99, my flight around Australia’s coast.

I had to turn negatives into positives several times.

Staying at Rawnsley Park Station, in the Flinders Ranges, was going to give me another opportunity to fly in a hot air balloon. I rather like the serenity of floating with the breeze, like earlier in the year in Florida (see issue no. 9, March 2010).

In the evening before the flight, everything pointed to the right conditions for a balloon launch the next morning. We had to get up early and meet in front of the Woolshed Restaurant at 5.45am, while it was still dark. It was also very chilly so I had on my gloves, scarf and beanie (a sight to behold!).

The chief pilot wasn’t sounding very hopeful because even though there didn’t seem to be much wind at ground level, the small tester balloon, with a light attached, was floating up into the darkness quite rapidly. So the decision was made not to launch the balloons.

Very disappointing. It would have been a beautiful flight, seeing Wilpena Pound bathed in the early morning sunlight. That was the negative side, missing out on the flight. The positive side was that my cabin was only a few hundred metres away and I could go back to a warm bed. Others, unfortunately, had to drive back the 24 kilometres to their accommodation in Wilpena.

The most important positive was that the pilot had our safety in mind and chose not to fly (my kind of pilot – safety first, second and last). Later in the day, the pilots packed up their gear and headed back to Adelaide, with no hope of balloon flights later in the week. I’d previously booked another night at Rawnsley Park in a few days’ time just in case there was another opportunity to go ballooning. Not this trip, obviously.

However, I made the most of the situation since I was already up in time for the sunrise (like in issue no. 6, December 2009).

It was bitterly cold and my boots did get wet tramping through the dew-laden grass but it was worth it for what I heard and saw and photographed. The magpies were carolling away in the trees and in the distance was the faint bleating of sheep. An eagle was even soaring not far from Rawnsley Bluff.

As the sun gradually rose, the landscape changed from the windmill silhouetted against the night sky, to trees cloaked in gentle light and mist still clinging to the ranges. Not a bad start to the day as I chose to look on the bright side and turn a negative into a positive.

So, the next great tip for how to pilot your life (personal or business) is:

Turn negatives into positives.
In order to get rainbows
you have to put up with the rain.
Always look on the bright side of life…

Two of my presentation topics are:
Overcoming procrastination
Turning negatives into positives

Canyon Country Colossal As Jigsaw Puzzles

Utah's Canyon Country is coming soon as 25 interactive Jigsaw Puzzles on CD. The spectacular rock formations present photographers with such a wealth of material that it's hard to resist capturing them on film or digital flash card. The response to my photos has been so overwhelming that I've decided to make 5 of the photos into interactive jigsaws: Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park's Kolob Canyons, Red Canyon, Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse Point State Park.

Stay tuned!

Rainbow Bridge To Monument Valley: Making The Modern Old West

Rainbow Bridge To Monument Valley: Making The Modern Old West, by Thomas J. Harvey looks to be an interesting read if you can get past the cover. Stunning photo of one of the Mittens in Monument Valley.

I just had to visit Monument Valley after seeing the Red Bull Air Race on TV. No wonder so many movies have been made in this area. Flying over Rainbow Bridge in the early morning was also one of the highlights of my trip to the Southwest. Put this area on your bucket list. A bit of reading beforehand, like this book, wouldn't go astray to add to the appreciation of these significant places.



Rainbow Bridge to Monument Valley: Making the Modern Old West

The Colorado River Plateau is home to two of the best-known landscapes in the world: Rainbow Bridge in southern Utah and Monument Valley on the Utah-Arizona border. Twentieth-century popular culture made these places icons of the American West, and advertising continues to exploit their significance today. In "Rainbow Bridge to Monument Valley," Thomas J. Harvey artfully tells how Navajos and Anglo-Americans created fabrics of meaning out of this stunning desert landscape, space that western novelist Zane Grey called "the storehouse of unlived years," where a rugged, more authentic life beckoned.

Reviews
"Thomas J. Harvey's work on the Utah-Arizona border region . . . will stake out new intellectual terrain for scholars seeking to explore the relationship between geography, cultural nationalism, and Occidentalism in twentieth-century America. . . . Harvey shows quite clearly how layers of meaning continue to be attached to the region and how modern mythmaking is perpetuated."Carter Jones Meyer co-author of "Selling the Indian: Commercializing and Appropriating American Indian Cultures".

Australia's Coast Is Awesome As Jigsaw Puzzles

Australia's Coast jigsaw puzzles are great for viewing the coast from a different perspective. This time the photos for the jigsaws have been reproduced as dry brush stroke paintings, introducing a different element for enjoyment. All these aerial photos were taken during my flight around Australia's coast.

In this series of CDs there are 5 different photos which have been converted to jigsaws of 12, 24, 40, 104 and 260 pieces each, making a total of 25 jigsaw puzzles.

This range of puzzles can be used both by children with different skill levels and adults. Jigsaw puzzles are easy to do with the click of a mouse button and can be played over and over. Best of all, you can't lose any pieces.

Puzzles are not printable, they're designed to be used on a computer or laptop or even on a large screen via a data projector.

Internet access is not required.

Australia's Coast Jigsaw Puzzles CD

Australia (incl. P&H) $29.00 AUD Overseas (incl. P&H) $33.00 AUD

These photos are of Tasman Island, off the southeast coast of Tasmania, Point Nepean, on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, Cape Wiles, on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula, Disaster Bay (aptly named because of shipwrecks) in New South Wales, and the Useless Loop Salt Pans in the Shark Bay area of Western Australia.

If you would like to try a sample jigsaw to see how it works, email me at
fran@franwest.com.

Feeling Like A Small Cog In A Big Machine?

Welcome to issue no. 30 of Pilot your life. March 2012
You can read the full colour version or just read the text below.

Have you ever felt like you were a small cog in a big machine?

Pilot your life newsletter no. 30

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As I discovered on my trip to the UK last year, there are cogs and then there are other cogs.

In addition to my passion for flying, I also like travelling on trains, particularly when they’re in different countries. Not only do the trains vary but the terrain through which they travel can be very different too.

In Wales, the narrow gauge steam railways cooperatively market themselves as the Great Little Trains of Wales. One of the great little train journeys I went on was the Snowdon Mountain Railway which runs through Snowdonia National Park in the north of the country. The train departs the station in Llanberis and winds its way over 7.5 kilometres up the steep mountain slopes to reach the summit of Mount Snowdon at 3,560 feet (almost 1,200 metres).

Because of the steep terrain, the train can’t run on normal train tracks. It runs on a rack and pinion system designed by a Swiss engineer, Dr Roman Abt. Basically, each small locomotive has toothed pinions (cogwheels) which grab onto the rack, giving it traction for the ascent. During the descent, the rack and pinion system acts as a brake.

To climb up the mountain, the locomotive also runs with the chimney first and pushes the carriage up the steep incline. Everything is geared to reaching the summit (and returning) safely and working with nature.

Looking back at the photos I’d taken of this little train and its tracks got me thinking about cogs. For some people, the term “feeling like a small cog in a big machine” has a lot of negative connotations like powerlessness, lack of importance and being under valued.

However, this Welsh cog railway illustrates the positive side of cogs.

Cogs are part of a team.

Not only are they a valuable part of a team, they’re part of a successful team because the train reaches its goal, the summit of Mount Snowdon. They’re also extremely important because without them the train wouldn’t run at all. And they’re powerful too because they enable the train to ascend without slipping backwards and descend without speeding out of control down the mountainside.

The Snowdon Mountain Railway also puts into practice one of my own tips. It tackles everything in bite size pieces. There are no big powerful locomotives in the system. All that’s required is one small loco and one carriage. There are, however, quite a number of engines and carriages to take the thousands of visitors up to the summit and back.
A winning formula since 1896 and still going strong.

So what do you think is the logo of the Snowdon Mountain Railway? A cog of course. That’s how important cogs are.

So, if at any time you feel like a “small cog in the big machine” of life (or business) and you need a bit of inspiration, then just think of the wonderful cogs of Wales.

Here are another three tips for how to pilot your life (personal or business):

Turn negatives into positives.
Look on the bright side.

Teamwork is extremely powerful.
Together Everyone Achieves More.

Tackle everything in bite size pieces.
It’s easier to eat a block of chocolate a bite at a time
than it is to try and eat the whole block at once.