It was 45 degrees on my back porch this afternoon at 3 o’clock and it wasn’t much cooler when I took this photo last week.

This old tank has seen a few hot summers and temperatures sometimes in the 50s.

It was built in the 1870 as far as anyone can remember. Even today it is still in use on Nilpena station which backs onto the eastern shore of Lake Torrens.

The tank holds a substantial amount of water from the bore and it will probably see in a few more summers yet.

Photographing in extreme temperatures in outback Australia has some advantages. There seems to be more intense and unusual colours to capture when the days are long and extremely hot.

However it’s not recommended for the inexperienced or foolhardy.

I have a student new to photography whose pictures don’t have much life. The subjects are interesting but the pictures aren’t conveying that. The answer won’t lie in Photoshop or Lightroom but in what happens in the field.

How many times have you seen a fantastic panorama that’s just going to be the perfect picture, but after the shot is processed or printed, its flat and lifeless.

When taking a photo, the first thing to look for is the light, secondly colour and then the subject. Getting the light to fall from the right direction will make all the difference, if colour is the main feature then it has to be brought out.

The shot above is no world beater but its got interest. It a creek that’s flowing out of the Flinders Ranges and it’s about halfway to Lake Torrens.

In previous floods the waters have cut a bank about 4 to 5 metres high. The late afternoon sun really brings out the colours in the bank.

The big advantage here is that the sunlight is going across the picture from right to left, providing contrast and therefore a sense of depth.The water is a line leading the eye through the picture and another essential is a strong foreground.

Similar treatment for this section of the creek a few hundred metres further downstream and taken 30 minutes earlier.

I visited both these spots twice just before sunset. The first time I didn’t get all the elements to gel. This was on the second day.

Both were shot at f22 for maximum depth of field and a graduated neutral density filter was used to reduce the contrast from the sky so that the details of the bank and the creek were maximised.

Levels were the only adjustment made in Photoshop.

Shooting between sunrise and 10 or from 3pm to a little after sunset are the times when most of the elements will be in favour of the photographer.

Looking like the remnants of some long forgotten battlefield, the fence seems almost not to have a purpose.

It stretches out from the ashore of Lake Torrens, a giant salt lake in central South Australia that covers around 5,700 thousand square kilometres.

The lake is about 240 kilometres long, north to south.

However the fence does serve a purpose, stopping cattle, sheep or other animals from getting around it.

Venturing further out into the lake runs a real risk of breaking the surface of the salt and being caught in the thick black mud beneath.

It’s easy to tell, judging but the height of the embankment, that the waters dumped in this downpour are but a drop in the ocean.

The Brachina Overflow once more with the western wall of Wilpena Pound in the background.

A different perspective on the the flash flood that occurred a couple of days ago.

The Brachina Overflow flowing strongly.

It’s surprising just how much water can be dropped by a passing thunderstorm, gathered on all the slopes of the nearby ranges and sent hurling down towards Lake Torrens on the western plain.

I’m told most of this water did not make it to the lake….that it spread out and covered a wide area of grazing country.

In just a few hours the creek was just a trickle.

The muted colours of a recent sunset on sand dunes near Mt Deception, seen here in the background.

Mt Deception is not far from the mining town on Leigh Creek and is a major landmark in the area.

Recent strong spring winds have created unspoilt ripples all over the dunes here on Nilpena station.

They are miniature versions of the sand dunes in much of the desert country of northern South Australia.

You can see images of a couple of these types of dunes here and here.

As I have mentioned before, the desert dunes were originally formed by long and powerful wind storms in the last ice age.

Shot at f22, 1/4 Sec ISO 200 on tripod.

As I mentioned the location of the old fence in the previous post …..here’s the Nilpena Woolshed,

It was as hot as hell when this photograph was taken, around 50 degrees Celsius with a summer thunderstorm not too far off.

This is quite a substantial building…a hive of activity in it’s heyday. Nilpena Station doesn’t run sheep any more. It”s now exclusively a cattle station.

Pictures of the inside of the Nilpena wool shed can be seen here.

Some of the movie, the “Rabbit Proof Fence” were shot on Nilpena station, and in the nearby Flinders Ranges.

Day after day of overcast skies. Each year I say I’m not cut out for winter, the cold, the winds that seem to go right through you.

Still, every now and then there’s an opportunity that comes for a fleeting few minutes.

Top shot F 13 @ 1/160th sec ISO 200, Second shot f13 @ 1/100th sec ISO 200

There’s a third photo from the series over in the ‘Overflow’ section which can be accessed at the top of the page.

It’s still a recent memory….long years of drought.

People on the land and their cattle just hanging in there.

Lush pastures, fat cattle…..what a difference a drop or two of rain makes in AustraLia’s cattle country.

The railway siding at Parachilna, a small Outback town where the prairie meets the mountains and renowned for its pub and its spectacular sunsets.

The stone building has seen a century or more of sunsrises – not all perhaps as peaceful as this one.

The Blacksmith’s shop at Nilpena Station homestead is no longer in use. Neither is the old bullock drawn cart that stands beside it.

You might say shooting as close to the sun as possible without getting masses of lens flare is a particular vice of mine.

It’s hard to see the tell-tale refections when you are squinting into the view finder.

More shots end up in the trash bin than not. But occasionally there’s one that works.

A couple of months ago I was given a book that has inspired a greater interest for me in the many ruins and old buildings of the Outback.

It’s a collection of drawings, water colour and oil paintings of Outback homesteads, woodsheds and stockyards by South Australian artist Bruce Swann.

It was given to me by his son Phil and it turned out to be a better gift than he could have imagined.

His father was a stock auctioneer who travelled much of Outback Australia with his work. His greatest talent though, was drawing and painting the buildings and structures he saw in his travels. A lot of them have now become disused or ruins, others modernised or pulled down so it’s a good record of a changing world.

From time to time I come across the same buildings Bruce Swann drew decades ago and there’s now a link there for me to work with, for he’s caught the peace and beauty that is often associated with these old buildings or the sense of adversity in what is a hard and arid landscape.

There are at least four books that have been published of Swann’s work and some of his original drawings and painting are among some major collections here and overseas.

From the book “Swann’s Australia” I’ve taken these two water colours of the Nilpena Woolshed along with two of my own photographs.

No road where my Toyota goes quite often.

It’s already over 40 C and my vehicle is a long way off.

It’s 12 months since I was last on these dunes.

It was the wrong time of day for photography but I’m always looking for a location and I was told the recent strong winds had reshaped the dunes.

I received an enthusiastic reception. Flies by the hundreds, all dying of thirst and happy to see me.

Later in the day though, the famous sand dunes of Nilpena Station can turn on a little magic.

A common wild flower found in the Outback deserts of South Australia particularly around sand dunes.

Mostly seen after winter and in the cooler part spring when there’s been a bit of rain.

Already these are disappearing as the temperature hots up.

Mt Deception is off in the background and these blooms are many kilometres from any real road or track.

I’ve been lucky enough to get one of my images published in the latest edition of SA Life (August 09). It’s a a two-page spread of a photo I took late last year on the Nilpena Dunes, north of Parachilna.

SA Life is a quality publication so the colours from the dunes and the mountain in the background are pretty close to the original.

Nilpena and around Parachilna are well known for spectacular sunsets and they help to get some contrast between each of the dunes and on the ripple effect made by the wind.

The wind pushes the sand around quite a bit so you can come to this area regularly and there’ll usually be something different sculpted each time.

As the sun goes down the richness of colours increases too.

Looking West to East, the ABC Range and Mount Samuel are in the background. If you turned and faced north at this point Mt Deception would be easily seen.

I posted a shot of Mt Deception being drenched by a thunderstorm back in early June.

The dunes in this part of the Strzelecki Desert mingle with other interesting landscapes.

This is the Ediacaran area – so called because of the 640 million year old fossils that were discovered here by geologist, Doctor Reg Sprigg in 1946.

At the time they were thought to be the oldest in the world but since then, not much further south, even older ones have been found. Scientists from around the world now study the fossils that have been found in this area which recently has been added to the Commonwealth Heritage Register and is protected.

The rays of the afternoon sun further reveal the magic of the landscape. All the twists and distortions of what was once an ancient seabed and is now a desert make up the foothills of the Flinders.

Looking south from Mount Scott near Leigh Creek with Mount Alec, the highest peak in the Flinders Ranges central on the far horizon.

The deserts of the Australian Outback are known for their spectacular sand dunes and there’ve been plenty of photos taken of them over the years.

They run mostly north to south and were formed in the last ice age by howling winds, the strength of which we can only imagine. Howling winds played a major part in producing these photographs.

The dune is just east of Lake Torrens in the Strzelecki desert and there’d been really strong north-westerly winds for two days. Not a footprint in sight and the wind had created its own artwork with ripples and swirling designs.

The wind was still blowing on the afternoon I took these photos but two things happened as the sun sank into the western horizon.

First, the winds dropped and the fine mist of sand that was blowing on the top of the dune disappeared. And as last light approached, the colour of the sand reddened dramatically.

While there are many famous and much photographed dunes around Alice Springs, Birdsville and the Simpson Desert this one near Lake Torrens is equally spectacular but something of a hidden treasure.

The Explorer Edward John Eyre in 1840 named Mt. Deception. He was searching for an inland sea but this was as far as he got.

Lack of water and intolerable conditions drove him back.

Now after a decade of drought a passing thunderstorm drenches Mt. Deception in a welcome shower of rain.

Mt. Deception is 20 kilometres south-west of Leigh Creek