Kylie Gee's photos (KylieGee) show us the different and fascinating color and lights of Mother Earth. Gee is a landscape and weather photographer from Australia who captures everything Mother Earth has to offer; from lightning, clouds, sunrises and sometimes even the aurora. For Gee, photography is more than just taking a beautiful picture, instead it's her way of learning more about the planet we live on. Gee loves the solitude of being out in the middle of nowhere and being able to absorbs the tranquillity. For her, it's the little moment in photography that are completely unexpected that literally take your breath away.
I love photography because...
It constantly challenges me and I am always learning. There is so much more to capturing an image than simply pressing the shutter. I am a landscape and weather photographer and I capture everything from thunderstorms, lightning, sunsets, sunrises, the milky way and on a couple of occasions the aurora australis. For me it's not just about taking the photo - my insatiable appetite for learning entices me to want to know more about these natural phenomenon and understand how and why they occur. It absolutely blows my mind that what we witness as an aurora is the result of solar energy that has left the surface of the sun days beforehand and that the light we see as the milky way is light that has left another galaxy and taken years to arrive in our night sky.
I live in the Wheatbelt of Western Australia and when I first moved out here 8 years ago from the coast it was December and the landscape was dry, bare, the temperatures were mid 40's and the flies were almost unbearable. I thought 'OMG what have I done???" It wasn't long however before I realised this landscape was actually really stunning. Against a backdrop of gorgeous sunsets and incredible storm clouds it really takes on a unique beauty all of its own. The flies I've learned to cope with. I love that photography has enabled me to capture that and challenge others perceptions of the area. I think most of all what I love about photography is how it has really opened my eyes up to what a truly amazing world we live in.
My camera lets me...
My camera is my escape, it lets me tune out of my everyday life and gives balance to an otherwise hectic schedule. My camera has allowed me to take a step back from a very traumatic stage in my life by giving me something else to focus on and is a big player in the process of healing. I love the solitude of being out in the middle of nowhere and being able to absorb that tranquillity. I am a fairly shy person by nature and prefer my own company and for that reason I am most happiest when I am out shooting somewhere remote by myself. My camera also lets me express my creative and artistic side and allows me to put my spin on how I see the world around me. Turning a 'snapshot' into an image is a process which begins with visualising a scene, deciding how I want to interpret that to viewers and then capturing it. The final step in the process is post production using Lightroom and Photoshop to create the final image - that's the really fun part.
I find inspiration when...
I find inspiration when I head out to capture an event - be it a storm or sunset and find that I am in complete awe of the beauty in Mother Nature. Sometimes the sky looks pretty ordinary and I am about to pack up and then a small parting in the clouds allows light through and the whole scene transforms into something that is both breathtaking and awesome to witness. It's the small unexpected moments when you look up at the sky and go "Wow...that is just amazing!!" You just feel so good and so energised.
One of the photos I am most proud of is Aurora Australis from the Central Wheatbelt because...
I had only photographed an aurora once prior to this and when the forecast was for a KP 7 I thought there may be a slim chance I could capture it in camera from where I was. It is not often the aurora can be captured from as far north as the Central Wheatbelt so I didn't really expect much when I headed out. I drove out to the rock at 9pm and waited. As it was June the temperature had dipped to around 8C and my friend who came with me had decided she'd enough by midnight. After dropping her off at her place I spent a couple of hours at home by the fire, watching the solar monitor and waited. At 2:30am I headed back out to the rock and set up my camera - my first few frames revealed nothing but pretty soon I was seeing pinks show up across the horizon in frame. I would have to say I was pretty excited by that time and I was completely oblivious to the fact that the temperature had dropped to 2C. What I was completely unprepared for however was actually being able to see the Aurora with the naked eye. By 3:30am the KP index had hit 8! Standing alone on the top of a giant rock at 4am in the morning watching a faint pink glow extend up from the horizon while white beams danced across the horizon is truly an experience I will never forget. It was a perfect example of how patience and perseverance can produce the most incredible experience. Like I said before - it's the little moments in photography that are completely unexpected that literally take your breath away.
My favorite place to shoot is..
The Horrocks Beach Jetty because I spent most of my childhood fishing and swimming from this jetty that it is truly the one place in the world where I feel I am home. Having grown up living a stones throw from the beach has really inspired my love of all things outdoors and given me an appreciation for our beautiful Western Australian coast from an early age. I have been photographing the jetty forever and I love the different moods of the location created by changing weather conditions.
One of my favourite photos on viewbug is "Above the Clouds" by Frances Corusso
This incredible image makes me feel like I want to travel. The sense of scale and dimension in this image is what makes it stand out. The warm tones are in complete contrast to most images we see of the night sky. Being able to look down on the mountains and still have the milky way in the background is an extraordinary composition.
One of my favorite photographers on Viewbug is Scott McCook because:
This guys vision is extraordinary. I particularly like his night sky captures as they really convey our sense of place in the universe. With unique compositions Scott's ability to capture light within a scene and make that the focus is what makes his images really stand out for me. There is a sense of "Wow there really is a whole universe beyond our world!!!"
These are 3 quick tips I’d like to share with fellow photographers:
1. Always look behind you. That's where the magic could be happening. So often I have been focussed on the scene out in front waiting for that magic to happen only to look behind me and see that it's already happening.
2. If you make a mistake - learn from it. In the process of setting up my camera and composing a shot I have often overlooked small details and this has ultimately resulted in an epic fail. I once decided to reset my camera to the factory settings not realising this defaults the image format to jpeg. That evening we were treated to the most incredible lightning display I have witnessed and I was so excited to see the images that were coming up on the back of my camera. That was until I got home and realised I had captured them all in jpeg and not RAW files. Whilst all was not lost I found post processing these shots a nightmare and was extremely disappointed in the results. That was about 5 years ago and I have never to this day repeated that mistake. In fact it is part of my workflow now to check this setting.
3. Never give up. Whilst I have never really lost the passion or become bored of photography I have had occasions where the image I had visualised completely eluded me when it came to capturing it. I had a picture in my mind of the Milky Way setting over the salt lake near home - I tried on so many occasions to capture that image but there always seemed to be one element missing or something not quite right. Fortunately persistence paid off about a month ago when all the elements aligned and I was able to capture the image I wanted. With perfectly calm conditions, clear skies, the Milky Way setting not long after sunset and after several attempts at lighting the foreground evenly I was finally happy with the shot.
One photo that was difficult to shoot was "Night Sky over the Jetty"
This was a difficult one to shoot in terms of having all the elements coincide at the right time. I usually only get this location 4 or 5 times a year and it is a shot I've been wanting to capture for quite a few years. I have previously done composites where the sky and foreground images were captured at different locations however I really wanted to get this shot as a single image. Usually when I'm there it's either a full moon, or the tides are high, it's peak season and there are fisherman on the jetty or there is too much cloud or seaweed for a clean shot. On this particular occasion everything was how I needed it to be. Technically the main challenge was being able to retain enough detail in the jetty which was partly overexposed by the lights and still being able to capture detail in the milky way. My first attempts at exposing for the milky way resulted in large overexposed areas at the end of the jetty and in the water below it. Whilst this attempt is not perfect it's as close as I could get.
The tips and secrets behind this photo:
Research. Learn how best to capture each element individually. There are many excellent sites online that give great advice on camera settings, techniques and preparation required for the shot. Choose a composition and foreground beforehand and go out and practice the best settings to capture this. By getting this part right when all the elements align its just a matter of balancing them all out.
Plan ahead. Look at the moon phase in advance, decided when this will coincide with the milky way setting. Keep an eye on weather forecasts in advance and ask for local knowledge closer to the date on what the actual conditions are like. A shot like this is difficult to plan too far in advance as weather conditions are variable and things like seaweed accumulation can change from one day to the next.
Above all...Enjoy the experience and never give up!
