Photos

Valentine From Above

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Flying my drone at Valentine a couple of days ago. There wasn’t much of a sunset but there was still some nice colour around.

I’m having fun with the drone, it’s great for seeing locations in a new way. Valentine jetty is one of my favourite jetties around Lake Macquarie and photographing it from above really shows off how unique it is.

Photos © CJ Levinson 2023

2022 Favourites

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My 5 favourite photos from 2022 and a mix of my other favourites below.

Looking back on 2022, overall it was a good year for my photography. We had some absolutely stunning sunrises and sunsets throughout 2022 and they’re some of my very favourite landscape shots ever.

My food photography work continued to grow as well throughout 2022 and I branched out into a few new areas as well, including doing a wedding which was a good experience.

I found the year itself very challenging though, particularly around learning to live with Covid and the impact that would have on my photography. So far I’ve managed to avoid getting Covid, which I think is mostly a mix of luck, caution and having a fairly small social circle, but I have to be very careful and that’s led to me turning down opportunities I otherwise would have accepted. Luckily some of my other work has helped to offset that but it has been frustrating, particularly when a lot of people seem to be ”over” Covid and think everyone else should be too.

The abuse one gets for taking simple precautions like wearing a mask doesn’t help either.

The big event for me in 2022 was getting a cat! Tira was a cat I photographed for animal rescue and both I and my partner fell in love with her immediately. She’s a Siamese-mix and was badly treated before coming in to care so it took a long time for her to warm up to us. During the first couple of weeks she hid in our wardrobe and would barely eat and I was worried she might never settle. But now she’s turned in to a lap cat and loves playing and has helped to make our little flat feel more like a home. It’s amazing what a little patience and love can do. 

I also got a few new photography toys in 2022, the big one being a new camera system. I got a Fujifilm X-T3 as I wanted a smaller, lighter camera system for travelling and for non-professional work. I’ve really enjoyed it so far; the film-style dials and buttons are a lot of fun.

I also bought a drone which I’m just starting to learn to fly and I’m looking forward to the different kind of photos it will allow me to capture.

Thank you to everyone for continuing to support my photography throughout the past year and Happy New Year. May 2023 be a happy and healthy one for us all.

Photos © CJ Levinson 2022

Dr Morse’s Indian Root Pills Farm Shed

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The Dr Morse’s Indian Root Pills farm shed, on the way to Morpeth. Shooting it has been on my bucket list for a while, finally ticked it off yesterday.

It’s a recreation of the kind of advertising we used to see before the advent of billboards.

The pills were very popular in the late 1890s-1940s, and particularly here in Australia during the 1919 Influenza Pandemic.

Many homes had some of the pills and they claimed to purify the blood and cure many ailments, including everything from indigestion and headaches to “female ailments”.

There was no scientific basis to the pills at all and nor was there even a real Dr Morse; instead he was part of a fabricated backstory to make the pills sound more alluring.

Mid Coast Stories has some more info on it if you’re interested in finding out more.

Photos © CJ Levinson 2022

Sunset 13/10/2022

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Some pretty sunset colours from around Swansea Jetty on Thursday night.

The forecast had been predicting some colour in the sky but it was pretty overcast for most of the day and for a while I thought the forecast was going to be way off. Then boom!

Turned out to be one of the best skies of the year in the end.

Photos © CJ Levinson 2022