Diverse and vast, Australia is a landscape photographers dream.
Magnetic Island, just off the coast of Townsville, Queensland, is a place I call home. I used to live there all the time... now I manage to get back 'home', a couple times a year. I love the place, for all it has year-round, but winter is my most favourite time; The sunsets. They are AMAZING.
Whether it's a simple iPhone snap, a basic 'auto' mode compact-camera shot, or a 'take 20 minutes to set up for one shot' complicated kind of shot (the kind I usually take) all of them are stunning. The main image above was one of those; using a large 600mm lens, I could isolate the far point of Horseshoe Bay. Then, using a drop-in 10-stop ND filter, I could take a long 30 second exposure to smooth out the water and the streaks of cane-fire smoke in the sky to create a painting, brush-stroke like image... Magical.
It's not my first sunset shot from HSB, and it won't be my last..!
Here are a few others from my last trip home too.
Although located just off the east coast of Queensland, Magnetic Island can still give a stunning sunset over water. This is taken at Westpoint, the area of the island closet to the mainland.
Ablaze afloat; A yacht sits in Horseshoe Bay, surrounded by the blazing orange sunset in the sky, and the reflected light in the water.