While managing to remain relatively hidden and “off the beaten track”, Mono Lake (and its Tufa State Natural Reserve) has managed to capture the imagination of photographers from all round the world for many years – those keen to explore beyond the obvious nearby locations such as Yosemite National Park and Death Valley. My first encounter of this other-worldly destination (above) was very much a “drive-by” on a road trip nearly two decades ago (from […]
The elation at making it through the storms and into Yosemite National Park in the deep winter snow soon fades as you start focusing on the next challenge in a few day’s time: Getting back out again. Awesome though it was to be surrounded by deep walls of ploughed snow on the one remaining open road in and out of the park, you know you’re only one storm away from being trapped in the valley […]
Why would anyone go to the hottest recorded place on the planet to photograph locations 282ft below sea level? The answer is simple : Because Death Valley’s landscapes are absolutely mind-blowing. Step out of your air conditioned car and you’re instantly hit with the wall of arid heat that awaits all visitors to this seemingly barren land. With red STOP signs in every direction, warning of the dangers of walking after 10am (and the importance […]
That feeling you get, when you’ve finally made it to a viewpoint that looks out one of the most spectacular landscapes in the world – is simply indescribable. Landing in to Santiago, Chile (following a cheeky upgrade on the long flight from London), there was no doubt this was only the start of a very long journey for Mark and I as we looked at the route for the rest of the day. Having made […]
It’s a rare thing these days, finding solitude in the world combined with a stunning natural phenomenon; the result of an “Instagram generation” of which we’re all now seemingly members – where the “selfie” and “tick-box” is often more important than witnessing the event itself. While I stood in the thick snow of Yosemite National Park, in the shadow of El Capitan and Horsetail Falls, I couldn’t help but wonder how it must have felt […]
Sometimes it’s great to just have a bit of time to experiment and play with a new way of seeing the world. When 95% of your photography is capturing the outdoors or images for commercial clients, a few hours in the studio with some new toys to play with can open the mind (and shutter) to something very different indeed. Whether you hear it referred to as “water drop” photography or “splash” photography, we’re generally […]
Lensballs, glass ball photography, rabbit-holes – regardless of the name given to this style of photography, it’s seemingly becoming more and more popular with each passing day. As someone who’s more inclined to shoot literal scenes of landscapes and cityscapes, it’s often good to try something completely different, just to mix up the thought process a little. And that’s exactly what shooting with a glass ball did for me over the past few months. Every […]
It’s not a secret any more! The Phase One IQ4 150MP Infinity Platform ships at the end of this month, and for the past week I’ve had the honour of being their focus in the latest marketing campaign. With all of the “pre-launch” out of the way, it’s now time to focus on what’s really important, the “why” of what makes this new camera system so special. In the latest email newsletters, Phase One have […]
While many now focus purely on drones and helicopters to get some spectacular shots of our cities from above, I’m yet to find a long exposure image (in either scenario) that can be enlarged to a size much bigger than a phone screen. It’s obviously not a problem for social media posts, but how about when we want to print or display a cityscape at night in high resolution? For that, our trusty man-made balconies, […]
151 million pixels of pure medium format perfection, combined with the most advanced camera system in the world – all revealed inside today’s announcement and hardware release from the amazing guys at Phase One in Copenhagen. For sure, the IQ4 150MP tech specs are impressive: A Back Side-Illuminated (BSI) sensor capable of capturing unsurpassed levels of detail onto dual storage cards, coupled with lenses that can resolve incredible resolutions in a camera package that now […]
While eclipses of all sorts happen throughout each year – from “blood moons” to annular solar eclipses, total eclipses and every partial one in between, this year’s lunar eclipse promised something special: the longest lunar eclipse in the 21st century. So the call from Rollei came – could I come across and be involved in their live shoot on Instagram, capturing the spectacle from Hamburg? Well, why not…? With a few days’ preparation beforehand and […]
Light pollution: Increasingly a challenge for city dwellers and photographers alike. Those deep, dark skies that I’m lucky enough to see full of stars out in the countryside are becoming an endangered species in their own right as the world’s population continues to rise and urban areas inevitably expand. The problem is, with all that light bouncing around, our view of the night sky (and ability to capture it) continues to diminish on a daily […]
Updated – only 24 hours to go before entries close at 23:59, 23rd April 2018 (CEST)! Once again, Phase One have pulled some huge prizes out of the bag for their latest Capture One Pro competition, and all you have to do to win is show them an image which is really special to you as a photographer… The top prize? An all-inclusive workshop with me, to your choice of either California or Shanghai later […]
It’s one of landscape photography’s “big ticks” – that shot of the fishermans cottages in the shadow of Lofoten’s mountain range in Hamnøy; one of the archipelago’s tiny islands connected by bridges that span for miles across the region. I have to admit, it’s been a place I’d been wanting to shoot for a while, so when the opportunity arose to test some new equipment in low temperatures, it was pretty high up there on […]
There’s a new kid on the block – well, triplets, actually : The Rollei Lion Rock Mark II series of tripods, with three different heights and capacities of up to 20kg, 25kg and 30kg. So, having used tripods from Manfrotto, Really Right Stuff, Gitzo and many others – after years of them trying to convince me to switch from my existing “old favourites”, could this finally be “the one”? Last year, I was lucky enough […]
So here we are again, stood on top of an historic building, looking out over the city of Boston just after sunset. What a view, and what a night. It wasn’t the night I’d been planning, to be fair – this was supposed to be a really quick trip to capture the snow that had fallen over Cape Cod – checking out Race Point Lighthouse for the first time and seeing how some new equipment […]
Glass filters are an essential part of many landscape photograpers’ kit bags, but what happens when there simply isn’t the perfect filter for the scene before your eyes?
Paul guides you through how Capure One’s advanced masks and dynamic range recovery tools can help bring that image back to exactly what you saw.
Surrounded in prior secrecy, today marks the launch of Phase One’s latest version of (in my opinion) the best raw image processor available today – Capture One 11. But beyond the fantastic new features, this launch is a little more special from my perspective – as my Dubai photographs are being used as one of the Press Pack’s “hero series” of images. So what do we get in the new version of this phenomenal image […]
