Category: Landscape Photographs

Landscape Photographs from around the World

Travel Photographer of the Year : Highly Commended

Posted in Iceland, Landscape Photographs, Media, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography, Uncategorized2 Comments

The winning entrants into the Travel Photographer of the Year 2012 competition were announced yesterday and I am very pleased to report that the photograph I chose to enter into the competition (‘Blue Berg’) was ‘Highly Commended’ with third place in the ‘Single Shot Water Category’. Those of you who may be familiar with my photography will no doubt recognise this photograph as it was also awarded with a Gold Award at the 2011 Australian Professional Photography awards and also won the Extreme Environment Photograph of the Year People’s Choice Award in 2011. I had not planned to enter this photograph in any further competitions but was inspired to do so by the category title: ‘Single Shot Water’ and its description ‘Water in one of its many forms. An image which encapsulates water as a liquid, solid or vapour’.

The winning prints (including my own) from Travel Photographer of the Year 2012 will be exhibited at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in London from 12th July to 18th August 2013. Unfortunately, I will miss the exhibition in London by a single day as I need to be in Iceland for my 2013 Summer workshop; which commences on the 12th of July. I then head straight from Iceland to Svalbard and the Arctic to lead two expeditions (The Jewels of the Arctic) that take in the very best of Svalbard, Spitsbergen and Greenland. I will transit back through London in early September and thus will sadly miss the exhibition. If you are able to make it please let me know what you thought.

Footnote: What inspired me to enter the Travel Photographer of the Year competition was that it is one of the few photographic competitions today that still judges the ‘print’ rather than a compressed jpeg. I wrote recently of my disillusionment with so many of the photography competitions that market themselves today and that make their judgements solely on a compressed jpeg file. Call me ‘old school’; but the craft of producing a beautiful fine art print is one of the most enjoyable aspects of photography for me and is how I prefer to have my work judged.

Ice Sanctuary – Photo of the Month December 2012

Posted in Antarctica, Landscape Photographs, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography1 Comment

The photograph of the month for December is from Wilhemina Bay in Antarctica. Some of the most beautiful and unusual icebergs we encountered on my last expedition to Antarctica were found in both the Gerlache Strait and Wilhemnia Bay. This particular photograph was taken in Wilhemina Bay as we slowly cruised the area looking for icebergs. We were fortunate to encounter more or less continual snow fall with dark brooding skies during much of our time in these areas which proved simply wonderful for photography. I will be heading back to both Wilhemina Bay and the Gerlache Strait on my November 2013 Antarctic Expedition with my good friend Daniel Bergmann. There are still a few places available on this expedition if you would like to join me.

2012 International Loupe Awards and Photography Competitions

Posted in Antarctica, Landscape Photographs, Media, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography, Uncategorized, Wildlife Photographs8 Comments

The 2012 International Loupe Awards are now in the final stages of judging and if you entered any images into the competition you may have already received an email with your results. If you did enter this year I wish you all the very best and hope you do well. This is the third year I have entered the Loupe Awards (formally known as the Aperture Awards) and I feel it will also be my last. There are now so many online photography competitions that I have decided next year to enter only those competitions that actually judge the final ‘printed image’ (rather than on screen jpegs). In 2013 this will include the Australian Professional Photography Awards, the Victorian Professional Photography Awards and the International Travel Photographer of the Year Award. There may well be more competitions out there that do judge the ‘print’ that I am not aware of but I am going to limit myself to just these three. My decision to abandon the remainder of the competitions is multi-fold and is something I have been pondering for some time. I  have found over the last twelve months that I just do not have sufficient time to devote to these competitions in order to ensure I am conforming with the all the different rules. Secondly the cost to enter many of these competitions has become excessive and I feel that the spirit of the competition in many cases has become lost in the revenue generation machine. Thirdly, more and more of these competitions are proving nothing more than ‘rights grab’ attempts and I feel these particular competitions are muddying the waters for the legitimate ones. Finally the sheer number of photographic competitions has diluted the market and I feel somewhat devalued photography by turning it into a competitive sport. I do not view photography as a competitive sport with my peers where the aim is to out score them. I enter photographic competitions because I want to better my own photography and to continually raise the standard of my work. I am in essence competing against myself and the results I received in the last competition.

Whilst the International Loupe Awards are not a rights grab attempt they have become excessively expensive to enter in my opinion. As a result, this year I decided to enter only two images into the awards.  The first photograph was from my last Antarctica expedition and the second from my summer Iceland workshop earlier this year. I chose these particular photographs as I felt they were somewhat striking and more likely to get the judges attention and stand out from the crowd. It seems I managed to split the judges with two of them scoring the image from Antarctica in the 90’s (including a 95 Platinum Award) and another at a Bronze of 77. Unfortunately the lower score did pull down the average and resulted in a solid Silver Award; which is still a result I am very pleased with. Silver in the Loupe Awards is regarded as a high quality image worthy of recognition in the competition. More importantly for me it tells me my work is consistent since I have consistently received Gold and Silver awards in three years I have been participating. I have no idea as yet what my second entry into the Loupe Awards this year has scored as I have not yet received notification via email.

My decision to abandon the International Loupe Awards next year has nothing whatsoever to do with the Silver Award this particular image scored; or indeed any score any of my work has ever received. Since I have received my share of Gold and Silver awards in the Loupe Awards I feel I have gone as far as I can with this competition and the judging of jpeg files on back lit monitors. I really do not feel like I have completed an image until I have made a print and held it in my hands and as such if I am going to have my work judged in competition my preference is for it to be on what I consider to be the ultimate output – The Print.

Capture Australia the Annual 2012 Features Antarctic Images

Posted in Antarctica, Landscape Photographs, Media, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Hot on the heals of finding one of my favourite Antarctica images was photograph of the day at National Geographic’s website I discovered that Capture Magazine (Australia’s top selling Pro Photography magazine) also picked up two photographs from the same trip and featured them in their Annual which was released last week. This is the second year in a row Capture has featured my photography in the landscape section as part of their Special Annual edition. This time it was ‘Fortress’; which won a Silver with Distinction at the Australian Professional Photography Awards (APPA) earlier this year and HMAS Penguin Pool. Following on the theme from my last blog post both these images were shot from the deck of the Ocean Nova as we cruised slowly past these most unusual icebergs.

ICELAND IN WINTER UPDATE

The 2nd Iceland Winter Workshop from March 22nd – March 31st next year that I am co-leading with my good friends Andy Bigs and Daniel Bergmann is now sold out. We are looking forward to frozen waterfalls, icebergs, glaciers, geothermal features and with a little luck the spectacular northern lights (Aurora). It is going to be an amazing trip and I am very much looking forward to it. If you were interested in attending, but missed out on this trip you can still drop me an email to be put on the waiting list or to pre-register your interest for 2014.

Mountain of Fury – Ushuaia South America

Posted in Landscape Photographs, News and Updates, Photographs, South America, Uncategorized1 Comment

One of the real joys of ship based photography is to stand on the ship’s deck with a camera and watch (and photograph) the scene slowly roll past as you cruise along. Many of my best photographs from Antarctica were made this way – including ‘Penguins Adrift in Snow Storm‘ which was recently featured as photograph of the day on National Geographic’s website. Unlike land based photography, shooting from ship requires absolutely no strenuous walking or hiking (and obviously no tripod) – except perhaps to the bar for the odd drink or the occasional shore excursion via zodiac. All that is really required is a little patience and perhaps a decent pair of sea legs if the swell is up to help keep your balance. Even then, it is amazing how easy it is to brace yourself against the ship to create a stable shooting platform. In point of fact, shooting from ship is actually far easier than helicopter.

During my last Antarctica expedition my good friend Martyn and I spent a lot of time shooting side-by-side as we cruised slowly up the Beagle Channel toward the Drake Passage and Antarctica. Flanked by the Andes mountain range the scenery was truly spectacular with jagged mountain peaks, swirling clouds and dramatic light. Conveniently our trip departed late afternoon from Ushuaia (as most trips do) and we were fortunate to be treated to some lovely dramatic and moody light. As a photographer who searches for the dramatic and portentous this was truly food for the soul and I can vividly recall dashing from one side of the ship to the other with a huge grin on my face in an effort to drink it all in.

Although I had chartered a helicopter with one of the other people on the trip to fly over the Andes mountains the day before; ironically I actually ended up prefering those images I shot from the deck of the ship. One of my favourites being this photograph which is highly evocative of the jagged and precipitous peaks that comprise the Andes Mountains and the dramatic clouds that are constantly swirling around the peaks and summits.A higher resolution version of this photograph can be seen on my website in the South America Portfolio. I am looking forward to cruising up the Beagle Channel again next year on my next Antarctica Expedition with my co-leader Daniel Bergmann and I will most definitely be out on deck armed with cameras as we sail slowly past the spectacular Andes Mountains on our way to the last great frontier – Antarctica.