Part of being terminally ill with cancer, I've learnt, is getting pain medication right. Since his operation to drain the fluid from his lungs last week, Dad's been in considerable pain, which has seemed terribly unfair. Finally, the palliative team (in response to Mum's call) sorted out some slow release tablets that seems to have done the trick. Yesterday Dad even went out to lunch with a mate and then late in the afternoon, he suggested going out to Bells Beach to take some photos of the dam and forest beyond. It was a place we thought he could take photos from the car or walk just the couple of metres to the fenceline.

Dad's got a Sony A1 camera with a heap of different lens, including this - I think 200 - I forgot, but it's great for bird photos (such as the one he took below) and long distance photos. I've got his old A6300, which is lighter and also can fit his lens - they're both mirrorless cameras.

I'm not great at the mirrorless camera - or photography in general. I just don't practice a lot, and tend to use my phone as I'm not keen on post editing either. However, Dad's been forcing me out and inspiring me, and it's a good way for us to hang out and him to teach me some last minute things before he goes. I think the subject matter was pretty hard, but I had fun learning and working on my composition. I liked this one with the blurred grass in the foreground, shot at f4 and focussing on the dam. Some post editing would straighten up that horizon!

This one's a little more edited. Dad's been teaching me about shooting and editing with the histogram in view. I've always known about it but just have never really looked into it.

We were also using his big lens to spy on the kangaroos. At dawn and dusk there's usually scores of them in paddocks all around. You might have read posts where I've hit them with my van. They're big buggers and can cause some real damage.

Although these aren't particularly well focussed as we didn't have a tripod and were shooting across quite a distance, they are quite cool, especially if you're reading this post from another country. We kinda take them for granted as we see them all the time. I really want to take his bigger lens out to a reservoir where there are heaps of them, and use the tripod to get better shots. I saw an amazing shot of a roo the other day with beautiful bikoh both in the background and foreground, with perfect sharp focus on the roo's eyes. It was all in very cold, wintery tones of greys and blues, with the grey roo in the centre. He must have had eye auto focus which Dad is always encouraging me to use.

Look at their darling fluffy ears! The first photo is quintessentially coastal to me with the big sea behind.

Can you see the magpie in the shot? They are all on high alert as we called out to them to let them know we were there, and so they'd raise their heads from eating grass. They are so muscular, and the boys have ridiculously huge balls. You can see the sunlight glinting off them in the shot below. Again, they aren't expert shots, just snaps to capture them with the larger lens. I'm sure you don't want a close up of roo balls - or do you?

Oh - you didn't think I was really shooting roos, did you?