Buckland Valley

Posted in Australia, Landscape Photographs, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography, Uncategorized1 Comment

Sometimes a photograph presents itself even when you think the day might be a lost cause. Which, is exactly what happened to me this morning. I had set the alarm the evening before to get up just before five AM to drive up to the top of Mount Buffalo to photograph first light on Lake Catani. Unfortunately it turned out to be ‘just one of those mornings’ when there was too much low cloud in combination with the wrong atmospheric conditions for any colour or decent light. As the sun came up it was buried behind layers of clouds and instead of the transparent soft light of a rosy dawn it just got lighter – bugger.

Somewhat despondent I packed up all my gear for the forty five minute drive back down the mountain with a view to salvaging the morning with a nice cooked breakfast (it seemed the decent thing to do!). I rounded a bend on the trip back down a good twenty five minutes or so after sunrise, just as the sun broke through the thick layers of cloud and threw a warrm glow into the morning fog in the valley. I slammed on the brakes, grabbed my camera and had time to squeeze off just two frames before it disappeared into cold grey monotones; which it stayed for the rest of the day. Sometimes in landscape it just lasts for a few seconds.  And much like air travel, landscape photography can be hours of sheer boredom… followed by ten seconds of sheer panic (during landing) when the light is right. The joys of landscape photography.

New Zealand – Fire Fall

Posted in Landscape Photographs, New Zealand, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography, Uncategorized1 Comment

Continuing in the same vane as my previous post and indeed from the same helicopter-shoot this photograph was taken within a couple of minutes of ‘Last Light’. With one side of the Southern Alps completely ensconced in cloud and the sun setting the heavy moisture laden clouds began to spill over the mountains. With the warm orange light of sunset it created a fire fall of cloud and light that was both spectacular and beautiful. Nature at its best.

New Zealand – Last Light on the Southern Alps

Posted in Landscape Photographs, New Zealand, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography, Uncategorized3 Comments

This photograph was taken from a chartered helicopter flight with the doors off (for better photography) at an altitude of approximately eleven thousand feet just as the sun was sinking below the horizon. Mount Tasman can be seen on the left and it’s taller brother Mount Cook (the tallest mountain in New Zealand) to its right. Fox Glacier can be seen in the lower right hand corner of the frame. There is something quite magical and elusive about Alpine Glow. The normal crisp clean whites of the snow and ice are cast in pink and mauve hues that add a wonderful dimensionality and colour that exists for only a few brief minutes when the conditions are perfect. I was very fortunate to be in this spectacular location with perfect weather in the dead of winter and to be able to photograph a wonderful example of Alpine Glow.This photograph was technically quite challenging. The light levels were already very low which meant punching the camera’s ISO right up to 800 in order to keep a shutter speed of at least 1/400th of a second. Shutter speeds of at least 1/400th of a second are needed to avoid any camera shake as a result of the helicopters vibration. I find the Canon EOS 1DSMK3 excellent up to ISO800 so was able to capture this image and apply minimal noise reduction in post processing and achieve an extremely clean tack sharp photograph.

Apples New iPad – A New Tool for Photographers?

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The rumours have been flying for months and we knew it was coming… And now its finally here (we’ll it has been announced and will be here soon) – Apple’s new iPad. If you have not seen the press release head on over to Mac Rumors and have a look at the video.

But is it a new tool for digital  photographers? Michael Reichmamn over at my favourite photographic website the Luminous Landscape has a good article on the new iPad and gives his impression and thoughts as well. Well worth a read.

Time will tell, but my initial impression is this is probably not a tool for most serious digital photographers.

One of the biggest disappointments for me is the new iPad wont run Adobe’s Lightroom or Photoshop (the full versions anyway); which makes it pretty useless for anything except showing a portfolio of images to clients. A task which works perfectly well on my macbook pro (or any laptop for that matter) without any issues (as well as running my image editing software).

In terms of view of using for preview of captured images…. I can ‘sort’ of see this in the field… but in the studio… forget it. A nice big 26″+ monitor is what the client wants to see images on – not a 10″ screen.

The new iPad for me is going to be a great tool for browsing the web and email – unfortunately, I don’t need yet another tool for this purpose. I already have an iPhone, a MacBook Pro and a Mac Pro; all of which serve this function. I dont even know if it will be as good as a kindle for reading books as I prefer the ‘kindle’ style of paper like screen.

Time may well prove me wrong.. but initially.. I can’t see this a tool that will be all that useful for the majority of digital photographers. Or rather, it is not a tool that is going to add anything that is not already widely available in a good laptop.

You Yangs Victoria

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This photograph was taken back in Summer 2008 just outside the You Yangs National Park in Victoria Australia. This relatively small park is often overlooked by landscape photographers given its close proximity to Melbourne; but scattered amongst the granite boulders and gum trees lie many potential photographs. What I really like about this photograph is the juxtaposition of the quintessential (somewhat cliche’) dead gum tree to the line of blue sky through the brewing clouds. The blue sky leads the eye deep into the photograph and adds a dimensionality and balance to the photograph that would have otherwise have been missing – and most likely otherwise resulted in a flat and boring photograph. Taken in the height of summer this is text book Australian drought conditions. This photograph has also been featured on the Channel Two News Weather segment in Melbourne.