This was taken at Nanarup, Western Australia, it was my first time there and there were less than ideal conditions.. but I’m really looking forward to heading back there and reshooting it!

I’ll have a few more images coming over the next couple of days.

Regards

Paul Pichugin

After covering quite a bit of ground we managed to find a nice hill directly in front of the storm, it was quite surreal coming out from under the storm where it was bucketing down with rain and fairly cool to out in the sun where it was close to 40 degrees celcius! We both hopped out of the car and started taking photos, watching the lightning hit, both of us had been discussing how to capture lightning during daylight.. neither of us had managed it before. I was really impressed with the cloud right on the front of the storm and was getting some images of it with the hills in the foreground:

As we were shooting there were a few lightning bolts.. it wasn’t until I got home much later that afternoon and checked out my images properly that I realised I had captured one of the bolts while shooting!

We kept exploring for the the morning and then headed home.. on the way home I got a few more shots.

There is a huge amount of lightning and storm activity inland at the moment, keeping an eye out on the radar to see if we get anything worth a trip to take photos of :)

Don’t forget to subscribe via email to my blog, that way you’ll not miss a photo I post!

Regards

Paul Pichugin

Thanks for driving today Adrian, was an awesome trip!

I’ll have a few more images up over the next few days, I’ve also got some news coming up shortly about the direction I’m headed with my photography!

Regards

Paul Pichugin

9 image stitch, Canon 5DmkII, Carl Zeiss 50mm f1.4

All comments appreciated

Regards

Paul Pichugin

We headed down to Mullalyup, Western Australia to Bec’s Grandpa’s place (http://willowsrest.com), it’s a lovely place set on 16 Acres of beautiful land. Mullalyup and the whole region is known for having very little light pollution at night, which makes it perfect for star gazing and astro-photography. I took the opportunity to set my camera up for an all night shoot last night.

I was very lucky to not only get perfectly clear skies all night, but also had the Lovejoy Comet come across the horizon and the International Space Station pass through my photos. I thought I had captured some aurora australis activity, but a check with the experts says it’s not.. so I’ve got no idea what the green and red banding is that is passing through my photos.

Here is a still frame from the night:

I also put together a stack of 890 images to come up with this image:

The main reason I setup though, was to capture enough to get some more footage for my time lapse project.. something I’m going to be working on majorly over the next 12-18 months.. I’ve got some great night shoots planned.. here is the video of the night:

Looking forward to capturing more footage like this.. and if anyone has any ideas on what the green and red is.. I’d love to hear them!

Regards

Paul Pichugin

The workshops were a lot of fun, other than the theory sessions, we got out on the farms for some practical sessions as well as doing some photo walks around town with the locals. Two years down the track the book is finally finished and made it on to 10 News!

So proud to have been able to play a small part in this project, if you are ever looking for somewhere unique to photograph, Mullewa is definitely a great place to stop in. Make sure you stop at the service station to have a chat and get some local knowledge!

Regards

Paul Pichugin

I’m going to be working on a project to capture these skies in a much better way over the next 12 months, I’m aiming to create a decent length movie showcasing the night skies from all over Western Australia. In the mean time this video is the cumulation of many nights outside. Over 10,000 photos were taken just to complete this short video. I’m sorry about the quality, I’m still working on my rendering settings and the export quality of my videos.

I highly recommend you view this video full screen :)

Regards

Paul Pichugin

I thought I’d add some of the people images I created while in Cambodia!

These 3 young boys were out in remote Cambodia, looking after some cattle. I photographed them on our return trip from a village where the medical team I was travelling with saw 187 patients in 3 hours!

As part of the medical team, we gave out prescription glasses to the villagers. They would try several pairs until they could see decently through them. It definitely made for some very interesting photos!

A mixture of Cambodian and Perth based volunteer doctors operating on a tumour this young boy had growing on his hand. It was quite amazing to see them operate in such average surroundings.

In the waiting line to see the doctors!

I’ll be away for the next week, so I’m not sure if I’ll have time to get any more photos dones, but I’ll still be working on the video of the trip! I’ll also be working on some of the stories I’ve briefly mentioned in this blog post.

Regards

Paul Pichugin

I know I’ve been a bit quiet over the last 2 weeks.. it’s been incredibly busy. Cambodia is an amazing country and I’ve already started planning my next 2 trips back there! I’ll have some more photos and videos from the trip on my blog shortly, I’ll also be posting up some thoughts and stories from my work with Awareness Cambodia, the orphanage and the medical clinics that they run. In the mean time here are some images from the end of my trip.

At the end of my trip to Cambodia, I headed down to Siem Reap with the group I was travelling with. Siem Reap is a very tourist orientated town, kind of like Cambodia’s version of Phuket.. minus the beaches. Not far outside of Siem Reap are the temples, the most famous one is known as Angkor Wat, I’ll have some images up from that over the next few weeks. Siem Reap was about a foot to 2 feet under water, yet it was business as usual for the locals! We were very fortunate to get to visit the Ta Prohm temple, as it had been flooded just the week before and 200 tourists had to be rescued from flash flooding.

Ta Prohm is famous for the trees that have overgrown a lot of the temple, there are many iconic images of one particular section, keeping that in mind, I explored elsewhere in the temple and managed to get a few images without hundreds of tourists in them!

All comments appreciated!

Regards

Paul Pichugin

On Friday I made the epic journey through Singapore and across to Phnom Penh. As we were approaching Phnom Penh the clouds cleared a little and we were able to see an overview of the area. Most of the low lying areas outside the main city are currently experiencing flooding as we’ve come during their wet season.

We’ve had a very full on day and a half already, yesterday we visited the Killing Fields and S21. Both were very intense and sobering experiences. The killing fields is an area no more than a couple of acres, the Khmer Rouge used the area as a mass killing and burial spot. At the peak of their regime they were “processing” over 300 people a day. In the middle of the grounds they have built a monument that has 17 levels just full of skulls that were dug up on the grounds.

As you walk around the grounds you constantly see teeth and bones coming up through the path because of the erosion caused by the rainfall. It really was quite hard to process it all. I have some photos, but will be unable to upload them until I get home.

We then journeyed back into Phnom Pehn to the genocide muesem, S21. The Khmer Rouge transformed a high school into an interrogation centre & processing area before people were transported tithe il ing fields. In the many rooms around the school you are confronted with not only the instruments of torture, but also photos of the people who were killed. The Khmer Rouge were quite proud of what they were doing and photographed the majority of people they killed. There are also photos of people being tortured.

It is quite bizarre to try. And comprehend that humans are capable of doing this to each other. What’s even more sobering is that it happened with many of ourown life times.

We’re now in a cafe having lunch before we head off to the orphanage in a very rural area. I’ll have no electricity and very little access to the outside world. I’ll have more updates next week along with some photos..

Regards

Paul Pichugin