A couple of years ago I did a short video where I demonstrated some techniques that utilised the Nik suite of plug-ins for processing photographs with ice and snow. Specifically, how you use the Tonal Contrast filter in Color-EFX Pro to ensure you had both tone and contrast in your snow and ice (without tone and texture in snow and ice all you have is a flat white scene). Google (who owns Nik) has more or less abandoned the entire Nik suite in recent times (and updates have been non-existent) so I have likewise abandoned Nik and switched over to the Luminar plugin by MacPhun. As a result of this switch I wanted to demonstrate how you can not only achieve the same effect as the Tonal Contrast filter in Nik with the Luminar suite, but actually have even more control over the results. As an added bonus the Luminar plug-in also runs a lot faster than the old Nik plug in. The short video below demonstrates how to achieve wonderful texture and tone in your snow and ice in just a few steps. Just click on the image below to watch the video.
Category: Media
Media news including interviews, awards, print publications and articles
A Guide on How to Choose the Right Photographic Expedition to Antarctica
Over the last few months Extraordinary Vision magazine has published a series of articles I penned on how to choose the right photographic expedition to Antarctica to best suit your needs. I have subsequently had quite a few emails from photographers looking to travel to Antarctica who wanted to let me know how helpful they found the articles. In order to make it easy to access this series of articles in one place I have now added them as a single online PDF guide that can be downloaded from my website at www.jholko.com and directly as a PDF Guide. Happy Polar travels!
Melrakki Wins The Prestigious Benny Trophy at the Premiere Print Awards in the USA 2017
In some very exciting news I learned a few days ago that my Limited Edition book Melrakki (now sold out as the Limited Edition) has just won best in category for digital printing as well as the the prestigious Benny Award at the Premiere Print Awards held by the Printing Industry of America. The Premier Print award goes to those print companies who demonstrate a unique ability to create visual masterpieces. The entry represents the unique partnership between designer, and printer, need and creativity, technology and craft. Of the more than 2,200 entries received Melrakki was chosen as exemplifying the highest standards in the printing industry! This new award follows straight on from the news that Melrakki also won Gold at the National Australian Print Awards a few weeks ago. It has been a great couple of weeks!
The entry edition for the both the Premiere Print Awards and the Australian Print Awards was produced by Nulab in Melbourne after extensive consultation on specialised custom finishes to ensure an absolute no compromise deluxe limited edition with the highest possible quality and finish. The final edition includes a hand bevelled glass cover, with leather spine with deluxe lay-flat album pages. Each page in the album represents the pinnacle of digital printing and matches the subtleties and nuances of the original fine-art inkjet prints.
I am absolutely thrilled with these results and I want to thank Michael Warshall and his amazing team at Nulab again for all of their efforts in the production of this super deluxe limited edition. Originally produced as a single one off edition just for both these awards we have decided to make this super deluxe limited edition available for sale in the limited quantity of just five (5) copies (the first edition is already sold). The remaining four will be made available for sale on my website over the coming weeks. Each of these four editions will be hand signed, numbered and include a 20″ x 30″ fine art print from the book printed on Moab Somerset Museum Rag. Each edition comes in a presentation box. For existing owners of the Limited Edition there will be an upgrade offer to upgrade your copy to this new edition if you so desire. The remaining four editions will be sold on a first come, first served basis.
Semi-Finalist: Nature’s Best Photography 2017
I was very pleased to receive notification a few days ago whilst I was travelling back to Australia that I have had several of my photographs selected as a finalist images in Natures Best Photography 2017 competition. This is the seventh year in a row I have had my photography in the semi-finals and am honoured to have had my photographs selected again (last year I was also highly commended in the Polar Passion category). I can’t share which photographs have been selected at this point in the judging, but will post the images up as soon as the final judging is complete. In the meantime please enjoy this recent photograph from my Svalbard in Winter snow mobile expedition. 
I will also have some more news in the next few days about the super deluxe limited edition Melrakki Book that will be limited to just five copies.
Melrakki Limited Edition Book Sold Out
Melrakki Limited Edition is now Sold Out. My sincere thanks to all of you who purchased a copy of this book that documented my time photographing Arctic Fox across three years in winter in the north of Iceland. As this book was limited edition it will no longer be available in this hardcover form. However, calendars for the coming 2018 year of the Melrakki project are now available for sale on my website and there may be a future open edition soft cover book of the project.
www.WILDNATUREPHOTOTRAVEL.com 