I am finally making good on my threat to create a photo-essay from the images taken along my bicycle commute route.

I will be posting it in three instalments, the first of which can be found at https://www.rehmet.alt.za/2-wheels.

Today I received the following response from Sasha Sarago at Parks Victoria:

Hi Geoff

I apologise for the delayed response. I realised I had failed to send you a courtesy email to let you know I did receive your email upon my return from leave and have been investigating the matter since. I am currently working with my team to seek a favourable solution in relation to your concerns.  I endeavour to have a response to your query by next week.

Kind Regards

Sasha Sarago
Indigenous Tourism Officer
Tourism Partnerships Unit
Parks Victoria
Level 10,  535 Bourke St
Melbourne  VIC  3000

It is interesting to compare this to the response received by Ross Barnett recently.

This makes it rather unclear as to what the actual state of the review by Parks Victoria of their photography and filming policy is.

Using a flash doesn’t just help light up a dim or dark scene.  Using a flash to balance or overpower (yes! overpower) the sun allows the creation of effects all the way from the subtle to the extreme. You will find some fairly extensive discussions of this technique on sites like David Hobby’s blog.  He gives a very good coverage on the topic of balancing flash and sunlight. My first guess at setting the intensity of the speedlites (1/2 and 1/4 respectively) was totally off.  Fortunately I didn’t delete the file before I downloaded it. Even thought it was over-exposed by about 4 stops, the effect was actually quite interesting. The sun was bright enough to need an exposure of 1/500s to 1/1000s at f/8 in order to avoid over-exposing the background.  An exposure that short is well beyond the sync speed of any DSLR currently on the market – most can only manage maximum flash sync speed of 1/200s or 1/500s.  Flash sync at exposures that short are no problem for the Canon Powershot G11, which is what I used for all of these shots.

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The guys from the Bureau of Meteorology were not joking when they forecast a month’s worth of rain for 24 hours. 55mm of rain in 24 hours!

Now everything is waterlogged. Even the magpies are starting to look somewhat subdued. This one tried to seek refuge on our balcony.

Finally I have received a reply from Parks Victoria to acknowledge my earlier correspondence.  Co-incidentally, or maybe not, the email arrived a few minutes after a call by The Age journalist Geoff Strong to Parks Victoria.

Verbatim I will quote the reply, sent by Alysia Brandenburg:

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isn’t always good news.

It is now over a week since I emailed Parks Victoria to raise my concerns regarding the restrictions they place on photographers.

Here is my latest email to David Petty at Parks Victoria:

Dear David,

Regards,
Geoff Rehmet.

I can hear all the pessimists out there saying that I am just a lost voice in the wilderness.  Well, if hundreds or thousands more of us were bombarding Parks Victoria with complaints, and bringing their lack of response to our state MP’s attention, maybe something would start to happen!

As somebody who enjoys photography as a pastime, and because my wife has launched a wedding and portrait photography business, the increasing number of restrictions being placed on photographers are becoming an increasing annoyance and concern.  Photographers should not have to pay for access to areas to which the general public have access.  One example is where bodies, such as Parks Victoria insist on small scale landscape photographers paying for permits.  Parks Victoria are currently in the process of revising their permit regulations.  It will be interesting to see whether I get any response to my email to David Petty at Parks Victoria:

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