The annual wildflower season is in bloom across regional Western Australia and photographers are hitting the road in search of the perfect shot.<\/p>\n
Award-winning landscape astrophotographer Michael Goh said he had taken up to two years to get the perfect blend of night sky and blooms.<\/p>\n
But he says a recent trip to Coalseam Conservation Reserve in the state’s Midwest was a lucky mix of prior knowledge, a daytime scout of the area and a touch of technology.<\/p>\n
“There was one particular night-sky time lapse involving everlastings which actually took me two years to capture \u2026 because the first year I was one or two weeks too late for the everlastings specifically,” he said.<\/p>\n
“So the next year I thought, ‘I have to go back just a little bit earlier to catch them’.<\/p>\n
“Because of course it depends on \u2026 rainfall and many other things \u2026 as to whether you’ll actually get anything.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Michael Goh says planning is the key to taking a great image. (Supplied: Michael Goh)<\/p>\n
For his recent image showing the everlastings in the foreground and the Milky Way, he used a 2-minute shutter exposure to capture the night sky.<\/p>\n
“It’s a bit of a cheating one this one,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I actually have to confess, with this particular image \u2026 it is actually a bit of a blend of images because \u2026 I’ve actually taken the everlastings before it gets dark, then I take the other photo.”<\/p>\n
Mr Goh says the age and cost of equipment do not impede taking great photographs.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Katie Anne Thoars photographed these everlastings between Morawa and Mullewa in WA’s Midwest. (Supplied: Katie Anne Thoars)<\/p>\n
His cameras are between three and 12 years old.<\/p>\n
“Nowadays with phones the way they are, you could actually, if you were patient enough, I’m very sure you could take a similar photo,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Goh said planning was key to getting a great photo.<\/p>\n
He said you could only spot things you did not want in your photo, like rubbish bins, during daylight hours.<\/p>\n
“I always believe in scouting first, so just wander around the park and look for interesting sorts of flowers or [if] you’d like to have a tree in the background.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
White everlastings snapped by Jo Broadhurst near Morawa. (Supplied: Jo Broadhurst)<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately, you can’t get one of the fantastic birds to sit still for an hour or so while you take a photo.”<\/p>\n
Mr Goh said knowing your own equipment through practice and trial and error was also important.<\/p>\n
“I do a lot of experimenting … and saying, ‘Yeah, that’s not going to work when I’m out on the field.’<\/p>\n
“Knowing how to use your equipment is quite important.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The annual wildflower season is in bloom across regional Western Australia and photographers are hitting the road in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,69349,64,63,460,134,69350,69351,14805,34930,14803,8212,6771,63811,69348],"class_list":{"0":"post-93649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-astrophotography","12":"tag-au","13":"tag-australia","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-everlasting","17":"tag-flowers","18":"tag-milky-way","19":"tag-nature-photography","20":"tag-night-sky","21":"tag-photography","22":"tag-tourism","23":"tag-wheatbelt","24":"tag-wildflower"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}