Gate Series 6: Lotsa locks, old gate but new posts
Yeah, I know. I am posting my gate pictures a bit out of order. First there was series 1 and 2 featuring the derelict Pickering Brook tennis courts, then I jumped to series 5 with the yellow flowers and the bearded gum trees, then back to series 4 with the flame trees, and now to series 6. I haven’t forgotten series 3. Confused? Hopefully I’m not.
This particular gate has caught my eye a few times for a couple of reasons. Firstly the gate itself is old and rusty, and yet the posts are relatively new—probably put up in the last three or four years I would say. But the land owner has purposely re-used this old style and rusting gate in his new fencing.
The other reason it caught my eye was because the property owner has put a couple of old tractors in the field more or less behind the gate.
Thirdly there is a row of what look like white gums just inside the fence.
So I finally actually stopped and took some shots. Over the last three or four weeks I find that I am getting good as this ‘actually stopping’ thing. I hope I can keep it up.
As you can see from the long shadows, this is late in the afternoon. It is about 5:30 p.m. The sun is only about 30 minutes away from setting. Also, just to add to the challenge, I am almost shooting into the sun. It is going down a little to the left.
I am not generally a fan of wide-angle shots but in this shot I have the lens at 24mm hence there is some fish-eye happening; with the support posts looking like they leaning over a bit. I could have removed the fish-eye effect in PSE (Photoshop Elements) but I decided to leave it as it was.
As always, because I might never stop for this gate again, I took a cluster of pictures and I really could not decide which one to be the feature picture.
Following is my other pick for the feature picture.
In this shot (above) I have knelt down and got the old tractor in the background through the gate. I could not move around to the right and get it in the middle of the gate because then I would be shooting directly into the setting sun. You can see light misting already starting to happen in the left of the picture.
It’s easy to see the first two padlocks but there is a third. You can see it behind the bottom padlock.
I think this is a little bit of joke by the property owner. That chain is so old and rusted that a good tug on it would likely break it apart. Also I am not sure that one of those locks is even doing anything. The hasp of the bottom padlock only loops through the hasp of the lock behind it. This doesn’t actually achieve any ‘locking’—so to speak.
The final picture in this series is a shot of the two tractors. Well, really a shot of the first tractor with the second tractor in the background.
This should also captures some of the white gums.
For this shot I braced myself on one of the fence posts and wound the zoom out to 78mm. I have also engaged Pentax’s awesome anti-shake mechanism.
I would loved to have been able to go into the property and take close up pictures of these two old tractors but I had to be satisfied with shooting from the fence. I have to say I am pretty happy with the performance of the lens.
Clicking any of the three the main pictures will open a 1920x1200 version from SmugMug, and seriously, to really ‘see’ the pictures you need to see the larger images from SmugMug.
For those that like the forensics here are the numbers for the first picture:
- ISO=400 (400 is the new 100)
- f11.0
- SS = 1/200
- Focal length = 24mm
For the second picture:
- ISO = 400
- f11
- SS = 1/320
- Focal length = 53mm
The last picture:
- ISO = 400
- f11
- SS = 1/250
- Focal length = 78mm
All pictures were taken with a Pentax K-3 with the 18 – 135 Pentax ED AL lens.
<< Edit, 7th Sept, 2014 >>
Just thought I would add this panorama style picture showing more of the fence structure. This also shows the row of trees disappearing off the right along the fence line.
Click the picture to see a 3840 x 1200 pixel version from SmugMug.
