Brisbane

Dark sunshine

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Little concrete windows The Australian state of Queensland is best known for bright colours, balmy weather, natural beauty – and the sunshine of its sub-title.

But I came home with some shots that defy this notion. We arrived in Brisbane during a relentlessly wet spell, while some of the city’s architectural features looked moody and overpowering, like the edifice of the University of Queensland’s main building in the photograph above.

The Eleanor Schonell Bridge, which provides a link to the St Lucia campus across the Brisbane River, looked imposing against a stormy sky. The Botanic Gardens’ hothouse was admittedly bathed in light, but has a space age quality in black and white.

The morning after a night in one of the city centre’s clusters of tower blocks was sodden, and the view to a neighbouring skyscraper proved bleak and daunting.

There are two sides to every story, even in the sub-tropics…

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Botanica

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We were waiting for the light to fade so we could see Brisbane shimmer from the vantage point of Mount Coot-tha.

As luck would have it, the Botanic Gardens are just further down the hill. They are packed with a huge variety of plants which thrive in the sub-tropical climate and a particularly moist, balmy autumn. The hothouse seemed almost a needless luxury.

I decided to switch over to my macro lens for this visit and was overwhelmed with natural details to capture as we wandered around this beautiful collection. 

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Resting water dragonThis chap was happily resting in a pile of wood chips as we walked around Brisbane’s Botanic Gardens. Australian Water Dragons are quite a common sight there – and will pose for photographs… Click to enlarge.

Awesome view

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G'day Brissie

Brisbane glitter

I’ve just returned from a trip to Australia, a country which is bursting with photographic riches. These are the final shots I captured before making the gruelling trip back to London.

This is Brisbane, seen from high above the city at Mount Coot-tha. Its tall, bristling centre stands proud during the day and glitters after dark – an awesome sight, as Australians would say.

The spot is a big tourist draw, lending me the chance to turn my lens on some of the many people who also came up to look out over Queensland’s capital.

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Night city colours

/ mikeosbornphoto / 12 Comments

My first attempt at digital art was quite a revelation. I realised that photographs could be totally recreated with some careful touches. They could be strikingly infused with colour or be pared back from a glaring night scene to a subtle watercolour.

For this set, I look night captures from three cities – London, Dubai and Brisbane – and applied similar techniques. The photos all begin their journey by being inverted, and are then subject to other effects.

This time I learnt that layer upon layer of effects can be applied, meaning the possibilities are very wide. This is experimentation, a work in progress, not to mention the birth of new pieces of work.

St Paul’s Cathedral in London features on three occasions. Photographically this is an astounding building, and can be recreated in numerous ways with the digital paintbox.

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Brisbane
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Red Brisbane dusk

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Red Brisbane dusk

This is a gentle golden hour view of the Australian city’s high-rise waterfront turned a deep scarlet with some careful flicks of the digital paintbrush.

The entire frame is transformed, lifted and recreated. In the coming days, I’ll share a gallery of night-time city shots from around the world which have all been given a new lease of life.

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