Silver awards for Jeremy's golden images
Jeremy.Billett
by Adam Hourigan
Adam Hourigan Chief Photographer Worked his only job at The Daily Examiner since 1995. Keen photographer, and trained classical pianist in very spare time.
22nd Nov 2017 4:00 AM
FOR photographer Jeremy Billett, some shots can take a few hours, while some can come and go in an instant.
Two of his landscape images have won a Silver award in the national Focus Photography competition, and Mr Billett said the photos were taken around the area over the past few months.
His image of a tree lit by orange hues was taken near Woodford Island near a cane fire, and Mr Billett said the image came from good timing and a lucky location.
"I was trying to capture the colour and smoke with a long exposure and one of the fields was right next to a single tree, and in the dark with the fire going the only light was from the bright orange glow of the burn through the smoke and it just spilled out onto the tree perfectly, with a wash of smoke blowing over the top," he said.
"I got the shot and a few minutes later the wind changed and blew all the smoke back the other way."
His image of three trees in a burning paddock came from a photographic trip through the Richmond Valley, and shows that persistence is often the key to a good landscape shot.
"I was out from 5am to 10pm on this day driving between Coraki, Kyogle, Urbenville, and Bonalbo," he said.
"I had a handful of photos from everywhere but was near Unumgar just before sunset waiting to get a photo of Mt Lindesay and a cattle farmer started burning off one of his fields on my way past.
"I pulled over and spent an hour there as the burn came through and got a great image of the three trees surrounded by smoke."
Mr Billett said he asked fellow photographer Duncan Fawkes in Yamba for some feedback on the colour image, and with some of his advice and additional processing it turned out to be a great black and white
The cane fire image placed 30th in the Landscape division, and the trees 20th in the black and white division, out of thousands of entries from across the nation.
The full list of winners can be seen at http://comp.focusphotographers.org and more of Mr Billett's work is at https://billett.com.au.