Getting home in the Brisbane floods

[Ray]

You must all have heard of the recent floods in various parts of  Australia. My experience was confined to Brisbane. The following shots describe my attempt tp reach the house of my ex-wife (it's strange how some blokes still feel a sense of responsibility towards their ex-wives).

There are no shots of spectacular disasters here, just my experience of crossing the major blockage on the only access road to my ex-wife's property.

The flood caused many roads to be impassable. I found myself possibly stranded with the only option to spend the night in the car.

After a third attempt to cross the flooded road shown in the following photos, I learned that an non-government individual, of his own initiative, without payment, took his own fishing boat to the location of this flooded road in order to ferry people across the flood so they could reach their homes.

The policeman was very vague about the situation, but I parked my car well above the flood line, grabbed my D700 with 14-24 lens, and umbrella, and headed towards the flooded part of the road.

The photos tell the story. Comments on composition and style are invited.

I walked 4Kms in the rain to reach the house, but that's another story.

[tokengirl]

The photos do tell the story, which is what's important here.

My problem with the series (and it is definitely MY problem, you might not care), is that each photo in the series is a different aspect ratio and it makes it feel like it's not a set and is lacking consistency.  While I certainly understand that the circumstances may not have left you with a lot of compositional choices, this business of having different aspect ratios in the set looks sloppy to me.

[stamper]

I think these images could have been taken with a P&S camera, therefore you shouldn't have risked a d700 and a good lens? I don't think the images are what you normally see, quality wise  from a d700 but obviously the conditions weren't the best. Your compositional skills would have been hampered by the conditions.

[John R Smith]

The best one for me is #3, On The Boat. A good strong composition, very dynamic, with a lot of tension and human drama. I can well imagine a picture editor using that one.

John

[francois]

#3 is also the best for me although I like #4 a lot.

[Ray]

The photos do tell the story, which is what's important here.

My problem with the series (and it is definitely MY problem, you might not care), is that each photo in the series is a different aspect ratio and it makes it feel like it's not a set and is lacking consistency.  While I certainly understand that the circumstances may not have left you with a lot of compositional choices, this business of having different aspect ratios in the set looks sloppy to me.

I see your point. If these were to be a tetratych (is there such a word?) it would be better if they were all the same size, perhaps like this:

[Ray]

I think these images could have been taken with a P&S camera, therefore you shouldn't have risked a d700 and a good lens? I don't think the images are what you normally see, quality wise  from a d700 but obviously the conditions weren't the best. Your compositional skills would have been hampered by the conditions.

The choice was between leaving the D700 in the car parked above the floods, for an indeterminate number of days, or taking it with me. The umbrella protected it from most of the rain.

Some of these shots were taken at 14mm (#1 & #3). I don't think there's any P&S camera with a lens as wide as 14mm (35mm equivalent).

[candide]

The best one for me is #3, On The Boat. A good strong composition, very dynamic, with a lot of tension and human drama. I can well imagine a picture editor using that one.

+1

[Ray]

Thank you. I also prefer #3, followed by #4. However I think #1 can be improved with cropping, as below. The second shot here is the scene that greeted me from the rear deck, after walking 4Kms in the rain. My partner was stuck in another suburb for the following few days, and I was stuck in her house with no car, no power and a flat battery in the mobile phone. Freedom at last  .

The second shot below appears more alarming than it actually was, hence the title.