Gold Coast Photo Tour
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On Sunday I went on a photo tour of the Gold Coast which I booked with Deluxe Coastal Photo Tours. When I started to plan our upcoming trip back to Europe I set myself a number of objectives to make the most out of the trip, one of which was to learn photography.
This will be our first trip back since emigrating in 2007 and it’s set to be epic. Besides time in our home towns visting family and friends, our itinerary includes London, Bath, Oxford and the Cotswolds in the UK; Venice; Grindelwald in the Swiss Alps; and Paris. We also have stopovers on Sentosa Island, Singapore on the way out, and Hong Kong on the way back. With that itinerary in mind I’ve been determined to take my Canon DSLR off automatic settings and learn what I need to in order to capture the best memories from the trip.
Up until now my main methods of learning have been from YouTube videos, podcasts, magazines and photography websites. Then the other week we were watching The Great South East on Channel 7 which included a feature on the full day Gold Coast photo tour. I immediately booked a spot.
At $99 this tour is excellent value. It was a very early start getting to Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast for the scheduled 6am kick-off. Burleigh Heads is at the southern tip of the Gold Coast, roughly a 80 min drive from home. The day started a beach Sunrise session. Unfortunately for us the weather has been crap lately and the clouds put pay to any dramatic sunrise shots.
After the beach session we went for breakfast which included a post-processing workshop using Adobe Lightroom. I've dabbled with Photoshop but i'm completely new to Lightroom so I found this really useful. Despite the weather which resulted in poor light conditions I think I managed to produce a few decent photo's, the best of which are above.
After breakfast we went to Natural Bridge in Springbrook National Park. I had never visited this part of the Gold Coast hinterland before and found it to be break-taking, again, despite the crappy weather.
A photo session here was followed by a picnic lunch and another change to do some more post-processing.
All in all the day was a great opportunity to put into practice some of the techniques I've been learning in an environment where I could get help and support from the tour organisers and fellow learners.