I was very pleased to learn last night that the Council has purchased my photograph ‘Portrait of a Skipper‘ for inclusion in their permanent art collection. ‘Portrait of a Skipper’ was a portrait photograph of Damien Skipper – one of the resident artists at Montsalvat in Eltham and was part of the 2010 Nillumbik Prize. It was a photograph I very much enjoyed working on and I am thrilled to see it included in the Councils permanent art collection.
Category: Landscape Photographs
Landscape Photographs from around the World
Iceland – Whats in Josh’s Bags?
For the travelling Landscape, Nature and Wilderness photographer there are some significant international travel hurdles to overcome. Not the least of which is the ‘light weight’ carry on restrictions enforced by pretty much all the airlines nowadays (I don’t know anyone who is willing to check their expensive camera gear in general baggage). To this end I have spent the better part of this evening balancing out my photographic equipment between my two camera bags to meet the individual ‘carry-on’ bag weight limits, but yet maintain a reasonable sense of order for working in the field. A task that is not as easy as it might first sound, but I pretty much have it sorted now. I posted a full equipment list in an earlier post HERE. My Canon 1DSMK3 is in my Lowe Pro Nature Trekker bag with the 24mm F1.4L MKII lens attached. This bag also holds the 17mm TSE F4 lens, the 50mm F1.2L lens, a 1.4 MKII Tele-extender, a macro extension tube, the Canon S90 Point and Shoot, all of my graduated filters, adapters and polarisers, spare battery, lens hoods, rocket blower and other accessories such as memory cards and bubble level. It tips the scales right on the 8 kilogram limit. The second smaller Lowe Pro bag has my 70-200 F2.8L IS and 300mm F2.8L IS lens along with my RRS Ball-head. The Canon 85mm F1.2L MKII lens is staying at home. My tripod is going inside my main luggage suitcase. Worst case, if the airlines loose my luggage I can always buy another tripod in Iceland and use my RRS ball-head which I carried on board.
New Zealand – Fox Glacier by Helicopter
The definite highlight from my trip to the South Island of New Zealand just on a year ago was the helicopter flights over Fox Glacier and the Southern Alps. A helicopter ride is far and away the best way to see, experience and photograph both Fox Glacier and the Southern Alps. Whilst you can walk up to the Glacier (and even climb on sections) most of the glaciers slowly moving mass is generally just to unstable, too difficult to traverse and too dangerous to access in any other way except by helicopter. Not to mention its otherwise impossible to get these kind of shots from ground level. This photograph was taken over Fox Glacier leaning out (but well strapped in!) with the door off for better visibility during one of the many passes we did over the seracs and crevasses. Although quite hard to tell in this small jpeg the scale of the ice wall running through the frame is immense and that crevasse seemingly bottomless. A higher resolution version of this photograph is on my portfolio website at www.jholko.com in the New Zealand section. At this stage I am likely heading back to the South Island of New Zealand early next year and will definitely be returning to Fox Glacier for more aerial photography.
Footprints on Mars – Processing in Lightroom 2.7 Video
In response to a few emails I have had asking me how I went about processing this photograph – ‘Footprints on Mars‘
I have put together a short video on the steps I took in Lightroom 2.7. I have subsequently upgraded to Lightroom 3.0; but the processing remains the same (the sharpening for this photograph is slightly different in 3.0). The video is quite large (over 100 megabytes and runs just under fifteen minutes) in order to keep decent quality to clearly see the steps and difference pre and post processing. You will need to right click on this LINK ‘save as’ to download the video file. Enjoy.
Mount Buffalo – Valley View
I have blogged before that the road up to Mount Buffalo in the Victorian high Country is one of my favourite drives in the country. I enjoyed it all over again last week whilst on holidays with the family at Bright, Mount Buffalo, Mount Hotham and Falls Creek. It has been a bumper start to the snow season this year and there was a good covering on the summit slopes as well as some lower areas with the help of snow making equipment. Temperatures were cool during the day on Saturday hovering around -2 on the top of Hotham; but the sun was out and it was glorious to be out ‘in it’. Sunday was much warmer around 8 degrees (although it felt a lot hotter chasing the kids in the snow!) I did not get a lot of opportunity for serious landscape photography as I spent most of my time on the toboggans with the kids. I did however, manage to sneak away early one morning in the dark and fog to capture a nice sunrise across the fog filled valley from the Mount Buffalo road.
www.WILDNATUREPHOTOTRAVEL.com 