Exploring the edges of Lake Frome in northern South Australia, an amazing mixture of textures and formations, even aboriginal culture.

The lake is part of the local Dreaming story told by the Adnyamathanha people explaining how the region’s geology and species originated.

According to this Dreaming story, Lake Frome was emptied of its water by the Rainbow Serpent Akurra when he ventured down Arkaroola Creek (which flows onto Lake Frome) to drink.

The snake drank all the water in the lake and returned to the ranges where it still sleeps.

Because of its significance the Adnyamathanha do not venture onto the lake’s surface.

From the air over the edges of the lake, its easy to relate to this legend when rain has recently fallen in the area.

©Copyright Peter MacDonald 2015. All Rights Reserved.

Aah, the morning sun, a favorite rock hole out of the breeze….the perfect place to prepare for the day ahead.

One of the many yellow footed rock wallabies that have grown in number around the Arkaroola waterhole in recent times.

They seem to be quite used to people. I made no attempt to hide my presence as it went about its business quite happily.

Nevertheless it was gone in an instant when it needed to.

©Copyright 2015 Peter MacDonald Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Experimenting with angles and light.

The window is about 5 minutes before there is a dramatic change in the landscape.

The Ridgetop track, Arkaroola as not often seen.

©Copyright 2015 Peter MacDonald Photography. All Rights Reserved.

The scrambled foothills of the Gammon Ranges. The Munyalana Valley on Wooltana Station to the left. The Gammons are just a small part of the larger Flinders Ranges.

©Copyright 2015 Peter MacDonald Photography. All Rights Reserved.

The dawn of a New Year…..

To everyone who follows the Sentimental Bloke, best wishes for a happy, peaceful and healthy year ahead.

The Freeling Heights, northern Flinders Ranges.

Fuji X-Pro, 35mm prime lens f11, 1/125 sec ISO 800. © Copyright 2014 Peter MacDonald Photography. All Rights Reserved.

On a clear day you can see for a hundred kilometres or more.  A real sense of space.

The vista taken in by tens of thousands of people over the last fifty years who bounce along in vehicles on Arkroola’s famous Ridgetop Tour.

The stark contrast of the mountains of the northern Flinders Ranges on the left. Wooltana cattle  station on the plains. The white buildings of the Beverley Uranium mine can be seen about three quarters of the way to the horizon and the salt of Lake Callabonna in the distance.

Siller Lookout..one of the most spectacular views in Australia.

©Copyright Peter MacDonald Photography 2014. All Rights Reserved

Photographers talk generally about the Golden Hour – that hour around  dawn or dusk when photography is at its best.

In this case it could be filtered down to just a few minutes after the sun has risen.

East Mt. Painter Gorge, in the Flinders Ranges, taken in those few precious minutes at a time when this was part of plans for a uranium mine.

The picture was part of a panorama which shows the whole majestic area. Unfortunately panoramas lose a lot of their impact on internet posts like this.

It is not often I get the chance to include people in a landscape, so I take the opportunity when it arises.

The touch of red from the artist’s hat is a nice splash of colour amongst the stark rockface and the reflections in the waterhole.

It’s been a hectic three months and it is not over yet.

I was back at Arkaroola shooting aerials after the successful workshop there a few weeks ago.

Because the window for that was so small, there was plenty of time to revisit one of my favourite places there…..Nooldoonooldoona waterhole

In looking through some of the photos I have taken over the last 6 months or so, often there’s a common theme.

Without a doubt there’s plenty of ridges throughout the hills and mountains of the ranges but the contrast between them can often be quite pronounced.

Lets start with the powerful, rugged volcanic and granite country of the northern Flinders Ranges.

No prizes for guessing where this is. Arkaroola, in the Sillers lookout area with the Freeling heights in the background.

I took this photograph at the height of the last drought.

It is of Arkaroola in the northern Flinders Ranges with Dinnertime Hill on the left and Mt Oliphant on the right.

It doesn’t look anything like this at the moment.

The regeneration of bushes, trees and all sorts of smaller plant life has been an explosion since the breaking of the drought.

However back in 2008 when this shot was taken, conditions were pretty terrible – so much so that the two mountains and much of the surrounding countryside had lost their vegetation cover.

The bare bones of this rugged terrain are totally exposed.

I have been working on a commission at Arkaroola in the northern Flinders Ranges recently. It required an afternoon shot, so mornings were free.

It was a chance to visit a really beautiful waterhole there.

I have taken photos of Arkaroola Waterhole previously in the morning light but when it has been nearly full. You can see one of the images here

Now well into summer the waterhole has contracted to where the water level is quite small.

However it has become an essential part of life for all the wildlife that live in the area.

Before the sun’s rays had reached the rocky crags surrounding the waterhole it wasn’t hard to spot yellow-footed rock wallabies.

I counted eight and took quite a few photos. I’ve used just two that show the little wallaby’s extra long tail – a very handy body part that enabled them to be so nimble across the rock slopes that are their home.

I’ve posted articles about yellow-footed rock wallabies before and how they are still considered endangered.

You can find that on the link here.

However actually photographing them at the water’s edge is a first for me.

Beautiful little creatures in a beautiful location.

Each year the Bureau of Meteorology puts out a calendar of spectacular weather scenes from around the country.

The 2013 Met Bureau calendar features a photos of mine of a dust storm over Arkaroola in the northern Flinders Ranges a few summers ago.

It is one of three pictures taken of the front at pretty close quarters. I had been hanging onto the shots in the hope I could make a triptych out of them. That’s if I could find a wall big enough to do them justice.

There’s a pretty good explanation of the actual storm and how it formed from a meteorological point of view by going to the Met Bureau site HERE where you can also purchase a copy of the calendar.

The photos does give a pretty good idea of the size of the storm. The hills and mountains of Arkaroola, which are quite substantial, appear almost dwarfed by the incoming front.

Having battled to get the spectacular Stubbs waterhole into perspective in the previous photograph, it is now easier to concentrate on the actually water hole without the massive rock face it sits beneath.

Nevertheless the other surrounding cliffs provide a wonderful setting for this waterhole.

Over the recent drought years this was a mostly dry and austere landscape. It’s amazing what good rains will do. The rocks seem redder, the trees and other vegetation very lush and green.

This is still the Arkaroola Creek at Stubbs, where it flows around to the right in the first picture.

With sand dunes and salt and tiny little towns the focus of my attention this past week, it was a bit of an effort to come back to these photographs but easier that starting on the process of dealing with over 1500 new photos.

The photograph is of Stubbs Waterhole along the Arkaroola Creek…..something I’ve photographed quite often but never satisfactorily.

The problem is the waterhole is small compared to the towering rock face is sits beneath.

Then of course there’s the position of the sun which is often putting flare all over the lens or its overhead, and washing out all the colours.

It was bit of a climb but worth the the effort. The cliff face turned out to be quite dramatic in the afternoon sun…..a sort of grotesque skull, if you have an overactive imagination like me.

One of the bonuses of the recent workshop at Arkaroola was coming across a really rare sight.

It’s an albino yellow-footed rock wallaby.

Numbers of these animals have been in decline for many years so an albino is a fairly rare creature.

Apart from having a striking resemblance to a stuffed toy, the albino is at least twice as big as a normal fully grown member of the species and possibly even bigger.

Typical yellow-foots are about the size seen in the photo here

The animal in the right hand corner of this photograph is probably an offspring of the albino which is a female and has a joey in the pouch.

Albino animals are usually very sensitive to sunlight and this wallaby is no different. It wasn’t until I noticed something different about her eyes that I magnified the picture and found that her eyelids and eye lashes had grown very large as protection again sunlight.

The albino seems to have adapted to her environment despite here generic handicap.

It is really nice to come away from a workshop with a nice shot in the bag.

Keith and Glenda are two lovely people who I had the pleasure of taking on a workshop at Arkaroola a few days ago.

I generally start at Bolla Bollana waterhole which transforms into something new at each visit.

After big rains weeks ago, the waterhole has been flushed out yet again

This photograph is a marked contrasted the the last one I took at Bolla Bollana a few months back. Different weather, different light and a steady stream of water flowing in.

A good place to pick up on good techniques for taking landscapes.

Shot at f22, ISO 200 at 1/6th sec. Circular polarising filter on tripod

I found this photo after a request for an image depicting the the Ridgetop Track at Arkaroola in the northern Flinders Ranges.

I wanted something that wasn’t just the usual shot of a Ridgetop tour vehicle going up Sillers lookout and I came across this,.

The Ridgetop tour has been running for over 40 years and many who follow the Sentimental Bloke will probably have been along this spectacular journey.

For those who haven’t, it’s almost a “bucket list” thing to do.

This photograph was taken in harsher times, in fact five years ago and I know there’s been an enormous burst of regrowth since the breaking of the drought.

I will be back here next week for a workshop and to shoot some new material.

Almost on the border between the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary and the Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park.

A painterly quality in a landscape is a bonus.

Often it is hard to achieve, but this one, I think, hits the mark.

For those that want the technical details the photograph was taken late afternoon a few weeks before Christmas. Canon 5D Mk II and a 28-300 mm f3.5-5.6L series zoom lens at f22, ISO 100, shutter speed 1/8th sec, focal length 235 mm on a tripod.

I’ve always thought Bolla Bollana waterhole on the Arkaroola Creek had a certain aura about it.

It is something that is very hard to illustrate.

I’ve taken and seen a lot of a few pictures of Bolla Bollana waterhole.

A couple of my efforts can be seen here and here but I don’t think I’ve ever got the essence of the place.

Perhaps with this one I’ve come fairly close.

The shot was taken on a quite overcast day.

I used a polarising filter to bring out the colours and to slow the shutter speed just enough to create a sheen on the water created by the gusting breeze.

f22, ISO 100, shutter speed 1.6 sec, focal length 135 mm, tripod