Macleod Morass
A place I keep coming back to.
A collection of landscape photographs from Macleod Morass near Bairnsdale, East Gippsland, Victoria, captured across changing seasons, weather and light.
The storm had been hanging over the morass for most of the afternoon. Then, briefly, the light broke through and lit up the far side of the wetland.
I went down to the morass early that morning and found the water covered in mist. The sun was just coming up, and for a while the whole place seemed to glow.
I came down before sunrise and waited for the light to reach the water. For a few minutes, the mist held the reflections almost perfectly still.
The Tree Martins were having a great time that morning, sweeping low over the water in the first light. I stood there watching them for a while before making this photograph.
I wanted to capture the way the morning sun was filtering through the mist, so I waited until the light fell directly behind the tree. It was one of those moments when the landscape seemed to change completely for a few minutes.
Low light meant that I needed a slower shutter speed to make the exposure. Rather than fight the movement, I decided to use it. I moved the camera deliberately as I made the exposure, turning an ordinary technical limitation into something quite different.
The sky looked almost unreal that morning. I remember standing there wondering whether the camera would actually capture what I was seeing.
The sky that morning was extraordinary. The colour was so intense that, looking across the morass, it felt less like East Gippsland and more like a landscape from another planet.
An afternoon view across Macleod Morass, with the boardwalk winding through the wetlands towards the farmland beyond. The low winter light catches the reeds and distant hills beneath a gathering sky.
An early winter morning at Macleod Morass, where mist settles across the wetlands and the boardwalk disappears into the stillness beyond.
There was a birdwatcher out on the boardwalk that afternoon, stopping occasionally to scan the wetlands with his binoculars. I liked the smallness of the figure against the landscape.
I was on my way out when the rainbow appeared. I stopped, pointed the camera at it and took the shot.
By the time I arrived, the rain was already falling across the other side of the morass. I stayed for a while watching the storm move across the landscape, with patches of light appearing between the clouds.
Winter light breaks through the clouds over Macleod Morass, illuminating the rolling farmland beyond the wetlands while the reeds and still water fill the foreground.
I've photographed this tree many times since I first started walking into the morass. In winter, when the leaves are gone, its shape becomes much more pronounced. This was one of those mornings when the colour behind it made me stop again.