Feel It Still

September 27, 2020

Two trees jut out of a canola field near Merriwa, NSW.

Last year I went to Merriwa at the tail end of the canola season in the hopes of witnessing a countryside rolling in gold. We'd heard word there was still heaps around, so we drove out of town to a place recommended to us by the local visitor centre… and there was nothing.

We spent some time driving around, looking for somewhere, anywhere, to shoot, but kept coming up empty handed. Eventually we hailed down a farmer puttering along the road in his tractor to see if he had any inside knowledge, but instead he told us what we already knew (but weren’t willing to accept).

It had all been harvested or gone to seed.

Luckily I'd headed out of town in the other direction earlier that morning before anyone else arrived and found three fields in vibrant and colourful, so it was there we went.

Why didn't we just go there straightaway? Because we were enamoured with the idea of fields stretching out into the horizon filled with colour under blue sky filled with white fluffy clouds.

As it turns out, you don't actually need an endless horizon when you're shooting with a longer lens. Instead, you can get a bit lower and shoot up to get the idea that there is canola as far as the eye can see.

This image is proof of that. It was shot with my 80-400mm at about 310mm, and is a panorama consisting of 4 photos.

I acknowledge the Wiradjuri people as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land and waters on which I took this photo.

The details for this image are:

• Nikon D750 with Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G VR

• Sirui W-1204 tripod with K-20x Ball Head⁣

• 1/200s

• f/5.6

• ISO50