Rare View Photography

21/09/2024

Having a great week on the competition front. I received 3 Honourable Mentions from the International Photography Awards New York.

This comp is run by the Lucie Foundation which is a charitable organisation whose three-tiered mission is to honour master photographers, discover and cultivate emerging talent, and promote the appreciation of photography worldwide.

“Lucie” is derived from the Latin word “lux,” meaning “light,” acknowledging the role that light plays in photography.

The Annual Awards invite worldwide Professional, Amateur and Student photographers to submit entries in a multitude of categories which are then judged by over 80 editors, art directors, curators and buyers.

This is the 1st year I have entered and I confess I was initially a little disappointed at only receiving a few Honourable Mentions. Don't misunderstand, HM's are still a good result but most competitions award 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Top 10 (or Gold), Top 50 (Silver) Top 100-200 (Bronze) and then HM's. But when I checked out the overall results, I suddenly realised they award 1st, 2nd, 3rd and then about 20 to 40 HM's and that's it!

I received 2 Honourable Mentions out of the 33 awarded for the "Nature Astrophotography" category and 1 Honourable Mention out of the 39 awarded in the "Nature Landscape" category.

So now I'm ecstatic at the results 😁 given this a highly regarded international competition with an awards dinner in New York (but only for place winners 😞)

I then got some more good news but that is for another post. 🙂

07/09/2024

I've been a little quiet on social media lately because I've been putting together my 2025 New Zealand Tour in the background.

Well .....IT'S HERE!

My 10 day Mountains and Astro Tour is being co-hosted with Richard Tatti Nightscape Images as we travel the South Island capturing stunning landscape and breathtaking astro images. Your own room every night, Breakfast and Dinner, Milford Sound and Te Anau Glow Worm Cave Cruises and an optional private Glacier Flight where you'll land on the glacier for almost an hour of photography.

Details at https://rareview.photography/new-zealand-photography-tour-2025/

Check it out as my Tasmania tour filled in just 2 days and my 2024 New Zealand tour in just 2 weeks.

17/08/2024

On our Tassi Tour in April, our 2nd night at Cradle Mountain was heavy cloud and intermittent rain. So what do you do when the weather is crap? Pinky decided to have some fun 😁

09/08/2024

Another sneaky photo during a workshop. Pylonga and Tooborac are littered with huge granite boulders lying everywhere which makes for an interesting landscape and foreground.
This is a tracked sky using the new MSM Nomad blended with the foreground boulders. I was also using my new Newer LED light stick which gave more control over where the light fell.

Sony A7m3 with 20mm F1.8G. 1min tracked sky.

01/08/2024

I found this location by accident as I was driving to my intended destination (Never got there). It's hard to find windmills around here these days. This one was located on the property of an artist who was only to happy to give me permission.

The sky is a 16 tracked image panorama using my Benro Polaris which worked perfectly that night. The foreground is a 7 image panorama all using my Sony A7Rm5 and Sony 20mm G lens.

https://rareview.photography/astro-photography-workshops/

27/07/2024

While staying at beautiful Te Anau last year, I discovered this great little jetty just on the edge of town.

Another younger and more adventurous photographer was also there and got me to fire off his camera as he ran and jumped off the end into the bitingly cold water.

I'll stick with my warm pretty sunset thank you. 😊

📷 Sony Alpha 7Rm5
👀 Sony 24-70mm GM
⏱️ 6 sec
🔘 F14
🎞️ ISO 100

17/07/2024

I sneaked in a few shots from my last training workshop. This is a well proven location I have taken students to many times. It was a cold foggy night and I leant out all my lens heaters but it was still a challenging evening. Thankfully the fog completely surrounded us but rarely affected us so a great night with clear skies.

If you would like to learn how to do this, visit my website https://rareview.photography/astro-photography-workshops/

21/06/2024

I'm proud to announce the release of my feature length time-lapse video 'Nightscapes'. This a collection of various short time-lapse clips that I've shot at night and put together into a 5 min YouTube video. This is the 4th in my feature length videos. Best watched on the big screen if you can. Follow the YouTube link, turn the sound on and enjoy 😀
Levin Barrett

A feature length collection of Night Scape Timelapse videos. This is the 4th in my series of feature length videos being- Places I've Been- From the Flight D...

07/06/2024

Had a little excursion last night but never made it to my destination. I found this little gem alongside the road and never left. The shed is being built by a local artist using old materials. Should look great once finished.

Foreground image with single tracked sky using my new MSM Nomad. Neat little unit 👌.

If you'd like to learn how to do this, why not join one of my astro training workshops.
https://rareview.photography/astro-photography-workshops/

📷️Sony Alpha 7m3
👀Sony FE 20mm F1.8G
Foreground
⏱️ 15 secs
🔘 F4.5
🎞️ISO 640

Tracked Sky
⏱️ 60 secs
🔘 F2.0
🎞️ISO 640

01/06/2024

Another from the amazing 11th May Aurora. It's actually hard to select ones for processing from the 100's of incredible images I captured that night 🌙

Don't forget my Astro-photography-workshops. For details and dates
https://rareview.photography/astro-photography-workshops/

📷️Sony Alpha 7m3
👀Sony FE 14mm F1.8G
⏱️ 6 secs
🔘 F2.0
🎞️ISO 1000

29/05/2024

Now that I have PTGUI, I thought I'd redo the panorama for this Wanaka image 'Land of the Long White Cloud'. Although the differences will be barely noticeable here, it does have a better perspective for the MW arch. I've also been a bit more precise with the editing including a measure of star reduction. It's basically lifted it from a good quality to a competition quality image.

18 image panorama.

17/05/2024

Well this has never happened before! I received a bunch of emails last Friday telling me I had won various awards in the Australian Photography Magazine 2024 Landscape Awards. I was ecstatic and on Saturday morning was about to start putting it all up on social media when the Aurora alert went out for a KP9/GA5 magnetic superstorm. With short notice, I drove 3 hours to the Great Ocean Road and got the photos of a lifetime!

A week later once I have finally processed the images and Time-Lapse, I can now get back to my BIG announcement!

I placed in the Top 20 for Landscape Category and in the Top 70 for Urban Category. All the other entries scored Highly Commended. So I'm thrilled to bits and have been busting to tell somebody but an even bigger event took over. How's that for timing!

Only 3 places left on my New Zealand South Island Tour with Richard Tatti. Details at
https://rareview.photography/new-zealand-winter-explorer/

16/05/2024

After a snap decision to drive 3 hours to Bakers Oven, Great Ocean Rd in the hope of capturing the forecast KP9 aurora, I couldn't be happier with the results. Here's my take on this memorable night with my YouTube video of Time-lapse and images.
Enjoy.

PS. The last image was an 18 shot panorama manually stitched together in PTGUI over 6 hours then another 3 hours of Lightroom/ Photoshop processing (but no AI).

With little warning, I hastily drove 3 hours to the Bakers Oven on the Great Ocean Road in the hope of catching the forecast K9 level aurora. It was seriousl...

16/05/2024

A New Blog on Nightscape Composition and lots of updates - https://mailchi.mp/55cd2c28275a/httpsrareviewphotography-10321849

07/05/2024

Was out running an Astro-photography-workshop at a location I haven't been to for a few years. The area is known for massive granite boulders just lying exposed on the ground. It was fairly windy with some clouds initially but thankfully they blew through for the star trail. It was nice to get out for another astro fix.

Single Image-
📷️Sony Alpha 7m3
👀Sony FE 20mm F1.8G
⏱️ 30 secs
🔘 F1.8
🎞️ISO 1000

Star trail, 80 stacked 30 sec images.

19/04/2024

Another from Tessellated Pavement looking towards Eaglehawk Neck. At first we were hopeful that was Aurora in the sky but it was a green airglow that stayed with us all week.

6 shot panorama, landscape orientation shot bottom to top.

📷️Sony Alpha 7Rm5
👀Sony FE 20mm F1.8G
⏱️ 15 secs
🔘 F2.0
🎞️ISO 6400

Bottom image shot at 60secs ISO 3200 for brightness.

19/04/2024

This was the 1st night of our Rare View Tasmania tour - Tessellated Pavement. It was pretty hit and miss with the cloud but Richard Tatti wanted to have a look and I thought 'Why not' then a few others in the group thought 'why not'. Glad we did because with a bit of patience and timing we were successful.

7 horizontal image pano shot from top to bottom. Even managed to pick up some starlight reflections. The thin layer of high cloud made the stars naturally fuzzy and colourful.

Turned into the start of a great week.

📷️Sony Alpha 7Rm5
👀Sony FE 20mm F1.8G
⏱️ 15 secs
🔘 F2.0
🎞️ISO 4000

30/03/2024

As you all now, I have a great passion and enjoyment of astro photography and one of my greatest sources of inspiration and education was a young gentleman called Alyn Wallace. Although most of you may never have heard of him, he had over 148,000 YouTube followers and was arguably one of the most knowledgeable humans in this field.

Regrettably, news came through this morning of his sudden death and as word has spread through the social media circles, thousands upon thousands of comments mourning his passing have been flooding in. I for one will greatly miss his fortnightly videos and his wealth of knowledge and his willingness to share it generously and freely to the world. He was a giant in his field and the world is much diminished with his passing.

28/03/2024

Heading back to Tasmania next weekend to run my tour. Getting excited to see sunsets like this again. I honestly have barely added any saturation to this image and just a little curves to give it some depth. The rich colours are what was there on the day. Love Tassi.

While this tour is full. I still have 2 places left on my New Zealand Tour in October 24. Full details at
https://rareview.photography/new-zealand-winter-explorer/

25/03/2024

For this shot I have deliberately darkened down 'The Emu' to make it a bit more visible. It's beautifully aligned and upright at this time year making it easy the visualise.

The image was taken near Tooborac, Victoria.

Join my Astro Photography Training Workshops at
https://rareview.photography/astro-photography-workshops/

📷️Sony Alpha 7Rm5
👀Sony FE 20mm F1.8G
⏱️ 13 secs
🔘 F2.0
🎞️ISO 2500

22/03/2024

My wife was away for the weekend so I snuck out for a night with my other love - Astro Photography!

I tried a new location purely from searching Google Maps and saw it for the 1st time at 9pm that night. I normally go there first during the day to scout it out but this was a last minute thought. Thankfully it worked out well and even the mob of 20+ kangaroos agreed with me.

It was also my 1st sighting of the MW core for 2024. For my purest astro followers out there, yes I know I've been slack but I have been very busy with the astro course in America and finalising the Tasmanian astro tour in a fortnight so be gentle on me.

For my 2024 astro-photography-workshops visit my website at
https://rareview.photography/astro-photography-workshops/

Hope you enjoy the image.

📷️Sony Alpha 7Rm5
👀Sony FE 20mm F1.8G
⏱️ 13 secs
🔘 F2.0
🎞️ISO 2500

22/03/2024

Getting excited about my upcoming tour to Tasmania with Richard Tatti in 2 weeks. With Richard on board the focus is absolutely on Astro so fingers crossed for some clear nights. It's all good though with plenty of landscapes and seascapes to fill in the day hours.

While this tour is full, I still have 2 places left on my New Zealand Explorer Photo Tour in October. More details at
https://rareview.photography/new-zealand-winter-explorer/

📷️Sony Alpha 7Rm3
👀Sony FE 24-70 GM
⏱️6 secs
🔘F10
🎞️ISO 400

17/03/2024

Same location, just 8 years apart. I was first taken to Lindis Pass, New Zealand in 2018 and the area was covered in snow. In August 2023 when it snowed at Lake Tekapo and for my first time, Mt Cook Valley was under a metre of snow, there wasn't a flake of snow anywhere at Lindis Pass.

But there was a stunning afternoon with nice puffy white clouds floating by and a golden photo opportunity.

Join me on my October 2024 New Zealand Explorer Photo Tour. Details at
https://rareview.photography/new-zealand-winter-explorer/

📷 Sony Alpha 7Rm5
👀 Sony FE 24-70 GM
⏱️ 1/200 secs
🔘 Fstop - 16
🎞️ ISO 320

16/03/2024

While driving on our way to Wanaka last August, I saw this little gem and couldn't refuse the temptation. As they say, New Zealand is all about the journey, not the destination.

I still have 2 places left on the October 2024 New Zealand Photo Explorer Tour. 10 nights/11 days exploring the most amazing locations on the South Island. Our personal Glacier Flight with 45 mins on the Glacier, Milford Sound Cruise, Te Anau cruise and glow worms tour, Lake Tekapo Dark Sky Tour and your own private room every night.

Lots more info at
https://rareview.photography/new-zealand-winter-explorer/
14th -24th October 2024

09/03/2024

During my 2nd and final opportunity to shoot at Death Valley, we went to the only other location that was open due to the floods, Zabriskie Point. For whatever reason my Polaris just wouldn't work that night. Dozens of resets, different cables, different cameras, nothing could get it to align and track. At one stage it spun 720 degrees and almost ripped the cable out of the camera socket.

After 3 hours I literally threw it in the boot. If I continued with the Polaris I was never going to get a shot that night so I went old school and shot a panorama manually. While the winter milkyway lacks the colour of the core, it is still a sight we don't really see well in the Southern Hemisphere.

📷 Sony Alpha 7Rm5
👀 Sony FE20mm F1.8G
⏱️ 10 vertical images at 12 secs.
🔘 Fstop - 1.8
🎞️ ISO 3200

08/03/2024

Boy, did this photo take some effort! It's the final result from my advanced astro photography training course in Death Valley, USA. Captured with my Benro Polaris, this 2 row 20 shot tracked panorama was combined in photoshop using techniques I learnt during the course. Given I rarely used photoshop in the past it was a very steep learning curve.

Overall I probably spent 40 hrs on processing but only because I had to read my notes, watch a few videos, research photoshop help, try it on my image and after I finally completed each little step, write my own notes on what I did for future use. Now that I have the knowledge, hopefully it will only take 20hrs next time.

However, I have to say, I'm ecstatic with the result. It looks pitiful in instagram but on my 32inch calibrated monitor, it's just stunning. The final image is 8.16GB and could easily look awesome on a Billboard. Not sure I'll go that far though 😁. Maybe just a local competition. Thanks to for the tuition and great week.

I'm also pleased to release my 2024 Astro Training Workshops. For more info and bookings,
follow the link in my bio or on my insta Ads when you see one.

Have a great long weekend and stay cool 😎

📷 Sony Alpha 7Rm5
👀 Sony FE20mm F1.8G
⏱️ Sky 10 images at 90 sec
⏱️ Ground 10 images at 20 sec
🔘 Fstop - 2.2/1.8
🎞️ ISO 800/6400

Denoised in DXO, Blended and processed in Photoshop, final adjustments in Lightroom Classic

24/02/2024

The Northern Hemisphere Winter Milky Way setting over The View hotel where I stayed in Monument Valley.

19/02/2024

Finally got to my 1st image from America! This star trail was taken at the West Mitten Butte in Monument Valley, Utah. Monument Valley is an astonishing landscape 5500ft above sea level. It is a Navajo reservation established in 1958 and the site of several movies including 5 by John Wayne from 1939 to 1956.

However, access is very restricted as they close the entrance at 2:30pm and you must be out by 5pm. Therefore the ONLY way to get sunset or astro photos is to hire a Navajo guide for $220 USD, which I did. My guide was well experienced with photographers and took me to some perfect places so it worked out well but a far cry from what I'm used to in Australia where you simply show up.

The most noticeable thing and difference with this star trail (although barely noticeable in this reduced size image) is there is 1 non-trailing star in the centre, Polaris or The North Star. In the Southern Hemisphere it is dark empty sky but the northerners have it so easy to find north and polar align images. Very Jealous!

📷 Sony Alpha 7Rm5
👀 Sony FE20mm F1.8G
📥 60 stacked star trail images + 1 foreground

14/02/2024

What a long but amazing day. 5am start getting some shots in the snow at Grand Canyon, 4 hr drive to Monument Valley, an afternoon/ sunset tour followed by a truly stunning astro night with an Indian guide till 1am. It's a night I'll remember forever shooting from inside an enormous Hogan (open cave) at the northern hemisphere skies. The slept like the dead. Great Day.😀😁😁

10/02/2024

This is the famous Bad Water Basin, a normally dry salt bed with unique hexagonal patterns in the salt. However the entire Death Valley is flooded after very heavy rains with most roads to attractions closed. The weather is still quite showery and we've only had opportunity for 1 shoot so far. Still, gotta make the most of the situation with a good selfie. 😅🤣🤣