The photographic purist may well have spat this one straight back out on the basis of the skewed angle, or straightened and cropped it. However given the dramatic seas and sky, and the Olympus' very faithful capture of the colours and sharpness of the view, and indeed the fact that I thought that the angle actually suited the scene, I decided that I liked this one enough to use it as my PAD. (Even if said angle was unintentional and based on the strong sunlight from behind preventing me from seeing a sodding thing on the Olympus' display screen, and because I was on a rock ledge over a surging ocean with a howling gale blasting me at the time.) Upon reflection, I think I'd like to start playing with "unorthodox" angles anyway. Ah, the story, you want the story. And the reason for the title.
This was our first full day in Margaret River, a wine producing region some 3 hours drive south-ish of Perth. I had arranged for us to do a full day's tour, but one which proclaims itself as "The Tour For People Who Don't Do Tours". (Which sums it up pretty neatly, I'd add.) It's Sean Blocksidge's Margaret River Discovery Tour and if you find yourself in Margaret River, don't leave without getting yourself onto it. Seriously, don't. There's a maximum of 6 people per tour, so book early. There were four on our trip; us, and a pair of sisters from Ireland. (One works in the mining regions as an engineer, the other is still at university and was out here to visit.) They were great company on the trip, and as an added bonus I finally learnt how to pronounce Mairéad's name properly, accent and all. The person in the shot is the more senior of the sisters, and doubtless the wind and rainband and seas harked back to her Atlantic roots although in reality we're actually looking south here, toward the Southern Ocean and Antarctica beyond.
The tour started with a canoe along the Margaret River itself, a quick pit stop and coffee break, then a trip to some waterfalls to sample some of the local honeys and hear about the region's history (with plenty of that also in the commentary between locations), then lunch at a vineyard where you can of course sample the produce, then along a rough bush track to... here. Margaret River is in the middle of a (very) large peninsula which juts into the Indian Ocean. It runs from Cape Naturaliste in the north to Cape Leeuwin (Dutch for "Lion", named after an early Dutch ship that passed here many centuries ago) in the south. There is a walking trail which runs about 140km through it, for the most part hugging the coast. And we landed about half way along that.
After wandering along the track for a while we went out onto some rocks to take some pictures of us with the wind howling and the ocean surging, and yet still loving every minute of it. Go far enough to my right and you'll hit Africa. Keep going ahead where I'm looking and you'll hit Antarctica. Look out into ocean, and you'll often see whales migrating, though we were a couple of weeks early for that. Regardless, being in this wild and elemental part of the world is not something I'll soon forget.
The Olympus was only intended to be a backup camera so I had only my original 8 Gig memory card with it, and no spare. With the 24-105 out of the game (therefore taking the 40D with it) it had become my main camera and I was running low on space. After the tour I went into the Camera House store in town to get a 16 Gig card. It was an old style store in that the owner took the opportunity to have an extensive yarn about the E-P1 and what I liked and didn't like about it, as he hadn't sold many 4/3rds. It was good to come across a business run by someone who was clearly an enthusiast.
Less good when I went out and saw the "Business For Sale" sign, as is the case with so many specialist camera shops these days, for the reasons that we all know.
