JEREMY BRAITHWAITE PHOTOGRAPHY
Copyright ©Jeremy Braithwaite. All rights reserved.
PhotoTour Wildflowers of Western Australia Vol 2
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PhotoTour Wildflowers Of Western Australia Vol2 is a 180 page photographic
book which captures the 2016 wildflower season in Western Australia from
Perth to Esperance. Volume 1 covers Kalbarri in the north to Perth. The season
was the best in two decades according to some experts thanks to good rain in
April and May and consistent follow up rain in the months following.
WA contains more than 50% of Australia’s documented Biodiversity Hotspots
and the south west is listed as one of 34 in the world. Surrounded by desert the
plants and animals have evolved in isolation and many are unique to this
locality.
They make perfect photographic subjects with a huge range of colours, textures
and shapes. The book explores a natural beauty which simply takes your breath
away. It delves into detail and many of the flowers are shown much larger in
the book than they are in real life.
It therefore differs from the traditional flower book which is designed to help
the reader identify plants and species. The flowers are not identified in the
book and in many instances names are in the process of being changed as a
result of better identification techniques such as DNA. The purpose of the
book is to examine the natural beauty of the flowers and present it to the
reader so that they also can share in it.
The two volumes represent almost three months on the road in a 4WD and
caravan and over 16,000km. The photographs span early August to late
September. This is generally considered the peak season, but you can spot
flowers all year round.
The digital camera that was used to photograph the wildflowers was primarily a
Canon 5DsR and a Canon 100mm macro lens. A Canon 5D Mk3 was also used
and a variety of other lenses including a very wide angle 11-24mm zoom.
The 5DsR uses a 50mp sensor; each photograph is taken as a RAW image and
has a size of 8688 x 5792 pixels or 735mm x 490mm at 100% resolution. This
typically consumes around 70mb of storage. To fit the 8.5” square format of the
book each photograph has therefore been cropped to around a quarter of its
original size. This provides a scale of magnification beyond traditional
photography and this is reflected in many of the photographs in the book. It
was a common occurrence to spot things on the computer that had not been
seen through the viewfinder at the time of talking the photograph, particularly
insects.
The name PhotoTour will be used in a series of photographic books of which
this is the first.
It is hoped it provides some inspiration for people to travel to Western Australia
and experience the wildflower wonderland for themselves. Their friends will
not believe what they try to describe, until they show them the book.