An afternoon on Lake Macquarie

I am so lucky to live in such a beautiful part of Australia!

Fantastic surf beaches to the east, picturesque rural countryside to the west, National Parks, large river systems flowing into a busy harbour and, Lake Macquarie.

Lake Macquarie is Australia's largest inland salt water lagoon at 110 square kilometres (42.5 square miles).  It is twice as large as Sydney Harbour and is apparently the largest salt water lake in the Southern Hemisphere.

I had wandered to the lake to get some photos of the boating activity.  First stop Toronto where there were a few sailing boats taking advantage of the stiff breeze.  From there I went further south to Belmont and then to Eleebana for the sunset.

It was a good afternoon although, a bushfire burning near the Teralba area was spreading it's smoke and haze across the lake in the distance.  I decided to make the most of this haze and convert some to black and white in the editing phase once I got the photos back home.

I also attempted to get photos of the water birds as they flew low over the lake, in amongst the boat masts.  Easier said than done but I did manage to get a few decent photos from that.  I shoot using only the one focus point and when the lens is maxed out to 300mm it is a little difficult to target a small moving object.

For a lot of these photos from my Canon 600D, I used a Canon EF 75-300mm zoom.

Photo editing in Nik Colour Efex Pro and Nik Silver Efex Pro.

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© Life with Jordy Photography, All Rights Reserved and

are not to be copied or used without permission.

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Managed to capture this Seagull as he flew through the moored boats at Belmont.

I was at Eleebana just on Sunset when I spied this fellow hunting in the shallows.

Using the midtones slider has lightened the background on this photo where the haze
from the bushfire smoke was drifting.  The black slider has brought up the water and boat wonderfully.

Zooming past the Belmont Wharf.

Not quite a sharp focus on the bird but lightening the background and playing with the black
slider has given  a silhouette look for the end of the wharf and the bird.  I added some 'digital
 grain' for a low light photo effect.

Burn tool used to create the vignette.

Small boats from the 16 Footers Club at Belmont making their way back home.  Because of the
haze from the bushfire, I decided to turn this to black & white and adjust the midtones to
lighten the background.  Once that was done I tweaked the black slider to bring out the 
boats a little.

From Toronto Jetty.

I could live on a Ketch like this.  Go north for the winter and south for the summer along the
Australian east coast.

Making the most of the beautiful afternoon.