When thinking about Day 5’s challenge I recalled the wonderful solitude as I sat alone on the banks of the Finke River in Australia’s Northern Territory just a year or so ago.

The Finke is believed by many to be the oldest river in the world. It has been dated as between 100 and 340 million years old. It is also one of the driest rivers in Australia’s outback and seldom carries water. However, when it does, its flow is enormous as it drains vast areas of country.

It’s nearly  2000 klms from my place to the Finke River crossing so I haven’t got time to duck up there and grab a photo for today’s assignment.

So, instead, I pulled out the following image I had taken when there last. By pure chance the photo  also included an example of the use of the rule of thirds.

I subscribe to the idea that the rules of photography are there to be broken so I seldom follow the ‘rule of thirds’ intentionally when I compose an image.

But back to my yarn, as I drove across the Finke’s dry river bed on the track that follows the Old Ghan Railway Line  I was tickled to see this old bike frame stuck in the sand beside the road.

After I made this image I stopped for a while on the other side of the river in perfect solitude, just to appreciate my surroundings and to wonder who left the old bike beside the road and how long it had been there.

So, here it is, my ‘Solitude & Rule of Thirds’ image for today:

The photograph was taken about 10.30 am in strong sunlight. As I wanted a good depth of field, I chose f16 as my aperture with 1/200 sec shutter speed at ISO 200. I used a 24-120 zoom lens with the lens set at 40mm.