Outback Australia: Lake Austin

C&C appreciated please.

Some 650km (400mi) from the most remote city in the world there is an old and forgotten mining settlement in the most desolate of places: no fresh water, the earth is sharp rock, not a tree in site and did I mention the heat and cold?

Somehow, miners and their families used to live out a life in stone houses risking and losing their lives under the earth looking for a precious metal. I hope some of them made at least enough money to do well.

I spent part of a day alone in this wilderness in 44'C (110F) heat and that was enough.

Beautiful,... in a bleak way. It really captures the desolation. I would love to see a 180 degree pano from that spot.

Love it, shows the desolate nature of the place very well. It even looks hot. In the US, merchants always fared better than the miners.

Nice shot, I love the salmon pink colours/painterly feeling and I'm happy for you that you got cloud!

Nice. Big cloud and dry plain.

I must confess that I am a fraud. The sky in the original image was a disappointing blue. The cloudy sky is from a few thousand km away.

It's not being a fraud. We take pictures in an effort to produce the most beautiful rendering of a scene. Just because you were at that spot on a day that had no clouds, and the next day you might have had nice clouds, doesn't mean you can't add them to your image. If you are a fraud, then all of us who use PS, NIK, etc. to boost saturation, contrast, or brightness,... or to clone out a wind turbine,... are also 'frauds'.

Would you call Ansel Adams a fraud when he chose to use a printing paper that produced more contrast? Hardly. Photographers have ALWAYS used whatever controls were available to them to alter the rendering of a scene. We just have more 'tools' now.

Did ya get any closer shots of the settlement?

atexasphotog wrote in post #17009660
Did ya get any closer shots of the settlement?

The settlement was behind me and there are some stone buildings standing which I will post soon. Anything that was metal has been removed and either resold or reused somewhere else which was common practice. Out main building materials in this days was corrugated iron and wood. Easily transportable and recyclable. The downside is there isn't much left out there now in way of settlement infrastructure.

Haha, 44C and that sky didn't seem quite right. I didn't pick the swopped sky though.
Look forward to more, love the outback and the crumbling stone reminders of a tougher way of life.

coogee wrote in post #17010439
Haha, 44C and that sky didn't seem quite right. I didn't pick the swopped sky though.
Look forward to more, love the outback and the crumbling stone reminders of a tougher way of life.

The week after this we had 40'C and sky similar to this one.

Jon Clemens wrote in post #17009289
It's not being a fraud. We take pictures in an effort to produce the most beautiful rendering of a scene. Just because you were at that spot on a day that had no clouds, and the next day you might have had nice clouds, doesn't mean you can't add them to your image. If you are a fraud, then all of us who use PS, NIK, etc. to boost saturation, contrast, or brightness,... or to clone out a wind turbine,... are also 'frauds'.

Would you call Ansel Adams a fraud when he chose to use a printing paper that produced more contrast? Hardly. Photographers have ALWAYS used whatever controls were available to them to alter the rendering of a scene. We just have more 'tools' now.

Totally agree! No apology necessary.