Blue Lotus Water Garden
First trip with the Bendigo Camera Club for 2024 and it’s to the Blue Lotus Water Garden which is close to a three hour drive away. But totally worth the trip! After doing a little research on the place I decided that I’d take my medium sized back so I can carry the EM1 MK3 with two lenses. My go to 8-25mm f/4 and the 40-150mm 2.8 with my new MC-20 2x teleconverter for the extra reach and some close to macro capabilities. This left a little room still to carry some water, snacks, GoPro, spare batteries and few other odds and ends.
I’d not looked at what the temperature was for the day. I was prepared for it to be a little over 30 degrees as it was in Bendigo but just over half way there the clouds covered the sun and the hovered just over the mountains. When we arrived the temperature was just 17, fantastic for walking around for a few hours!
After entering we were free to explore the grounds. I first had my 40-150 with the 2x telecoverter on and was looking for some reflections of flowers on the water. This did not last long as the wide angle landscape was calling out and I quickly switched to my 8-25 to capture the environment and include the cloud covered mountains in the background as much as I could. This is the lens that stayed on most of the time with a few swaps back to the telephoto combo for some close up and macro style photos.
With only three hours to shoot I made sure to capture as much as I could with the wide angle lens before the sun burnt away the clouds. We got lucky, the clouds managed to stay close to the end of our visit, only 30min or so at the end included some harsh light and shadows which made for a great change to the area for a different type of photography.
This was my first visit to the gardens. I don’t recall every hearing about it before.
Below you can watch a quick video from my time there, the video contains some of the images in the gallery below. I hope you enjoy.
A selection of my captures from my time at the Blue Lotus Water Gardens.
