No Wuckin' Furries Mate

Today was our last official day of shooting on the Lightroom Adventure: Tasmania. Winston, Matt, and I headed to an Australian Rules Football game in Ulverstone. It was a league match with Devonport and a blast. I think have a new favorite sport. I understand there's even a US league and a team in SF. AFL is kind of a full contact soccer meets rugby with lots of scoring and precious few penalties. The players wear no pads and never stop running. Next door there was a much quieter game of bowls going on. I left the footy to Winston, who is a sports photographer, and I stuck with the bowling.

After the game we drove home, stopping along the way at Cradle Mountain to look for wildlife. We found it in the rotund shape of a wombat. These peaceful little creatures are marsupials, but they seem to like humans, too. Winston took this shot of the wombat wobbling my way, which gave me a bit of a scare until Matt told me they only chewed on grass.

If you're in Tas, don't forget our little soirée tomorrow from 5-7p at the Henry Jones Art Hotel. We'll be auctioning the best prints (including a few of mine) to benefit the Save the Tasmanian Devil fund. And I'll be glad to hang out after for a final Cascade with anyone who cares to join me. I head for home on Monday and it's going to be sad to leave Tasmania. I'll take plenty of memories of a wonderful land and friendly people with me. If you'd like to see the photographers with whom I've been travelling, visit the Gallery on Mikkel's xyzadventures site. Or visit my photo gallery for my favorite shots and my new best friends, human and animal. I'm gonna miss you Tazzie!

Save The Devils

When I told people I was going to Tasmania often the first thing they'd say is "oh! the Tasmanian Devil!" Taz, the Warner Brother's cartoon character, while based on the real thing, lacks some of the charm of the actual Tasmanian Devils. They're small marsupials with pointy little teeth and a howling cry that no doubt inspired a fear of the devil in the first settlers on Tasmania. These little devils are carnivorous, but don't worry, they only eat things that are already dead. They're less of a threat to us than we are to them. But the biggest threat to the Devil these days is a virulent form of cancer that's wiped out half the population in just eight years. This cancer is spread during play and mating and is always fatal. Tasmanians have mounted an effort to save the Devil at www.tassiedevil.com.au. The prints we sell at our reception Sunday from 5-7p at the Henry Jones Art Hotel in Hobart will benefit the Save the Devil program. I took these pictures at Devils@Cradle. That's Chris, non-chalantly holding a 10-month-old devil. We were warned to keep our fingers away, but they do appear pretty cuddly.

This little guy isn't mad, he's just yawning. They do that when they get nervous. Believe it or not, the Devils (even these human raised fellas) are pretty shy. More pictures from our travels around Tazzie are up at the gallery at www.xyzadventures.com/galleries, and, of course, I've posted a ton more shots on my SmugMug page. We're off to see the rain forest, then tonight it's caves.

Packing My Kit

Getting ready for today's trip by boat to the Freycinet National Forest, on Tasmania's east coast.

Speak Softly And Carry A Big Camera Bag

I'm leaving tonight for Australia on the Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop Adventure 2008: Tasmania! My good friend Mikkel Aaland, author of O'Reilly's Lightroom Adventure is leading another photo expedition; this time it's to Tasmania with a bunch of the world's top photographers for the next edition of his book and he invited me to come. I couldn't resist even though I'm no photo pro. (They're billing me as a "special media guest.") I do apologize to my friends on the mainland - the itinerary is limited to Tassie: A week in Hobart and a week in the wild. Our Qantas flight does stopover for seven hours in Sydney, so thanks to Aussie Mike, we'll do an impromptu meetup at the Starbucks at Terminal 3, Sydney Airport, 11a-1p on Tuesday. (It's a 12-hour flight and we cross the International Date Line so even though I'm leaving Sunday night I won't arrive in Sydney until Tuesday morning!) If there are any fans in Hobart who want to set up a meet up on Thursday or Friday let me know. I'll be doing my radio show from Sea FM/Heart 107.3 Hobart Sunday and Monday morning 4-7a local time (Tasmania is UTC +11 but it'll be live in the States). The following week I won't have access to a studio so we'll air two shows I've recorded ahead of time with all new material. I'm bringing enough gear to equip a multimedia army.

• Canon 5D digital SLR with 24-105mm, 50mm f1.2, 70-200 f4, 180mm Macro, and Lensbaby 3G lenses
• Pentax K20D DSLR (my backup camera, on loan from Pentax) with 50mm Macro and16-200 Zoom lenses
• The new Canon HV30 Vixia Hi-Def Video Camera with wide angle converter and Canon shotgun mic
• HHB FlashMic flash audio recorder
• Marantz PMD-660 flash audio recorder with Shure SM-58 mic (as backup)
• Apple MacBook with 250GB internal and a 160GB external backup drive, equipped with Final Cut Express 4, Amadeus Pro, Adobe Photoshop CS3, and Lightroom

All this fits into my Lowepro CompuTrekker Plus AW backpack (it's huge) but I'm also bringing a Lowepro Slingshot 200 AW to carry into the field. And a change of underwear. Thank goodness I'm not going by ship. I think I'd sink it. There's a reason for all this gear. I'll be blogging the whole time I'm Down Under, including photos (on Smugmug and Flickr), audio (here), and video (on Smugmug and Viddler) so watch this space. Many of the other photographers will be blogging as well on the O'Reilly blog site.