Ah Tasmania, green skies one night, pink skies the next. A series of shots from Mortimer Bay & Lauderdale.

Mortimer Bay, South Arm – Sunset

Late winter produced a lot of dreary, grey evenings void of the spectacular colour that makes sunset photography so exciting. Early spring has already brought some stellar weather to Tasmania with clear skies and vibrant sunsets, not to mention a big full moon and the eerie green glow of the Aurora Australis.

Mortimer Bay, South Arm – Sunset

Mortimer Bay is one of many beaches on the South Arm Peninsula, around 40 minutes from Hobart. I have made this point before, but the waterways around Hobart really do lend themselves to some wonderful opportunities for sea & skyscape photography, with the silhouette of Mt Wellington an obvious landmark for framing & composition. Another advantage is that the skies to the south of Hobart are largely free from light pollution making this a great spot to keep in mind when considering a night sky shooting session.

Full Moon Rising, Lauderdale

After farewelling the sun, our other celestial neighbour started to appear over the eastern horizon. We pulled into a beach just out of Lauderdale to capture the scene, comple with this beautiful sparkling trail of bright yellowy-white light over the calm sea. I shot this image at f22, wanting to achieve the “starburst” effect around the bright full moon. A small aperture of course requires a long exposure, but I didn’t want to have the moon itself moving through the scene too much so I bumped the ISO up to 3200 for this image. Even then, the required shutter speed was 30 seconds, which was enough to provide a little detail in the sky around the moon and the hills on the horizon.