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 […]
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 […]
There’s a new kid on the block – well, triplets, actually : The Rollei Lion Rock Mark II series of tripods, made by FotoPro, 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Well, the news is now official – the brand new lineup of Phase One & Capture One Brand Ambassadors has landed, and I’m very pleased to be counted among this amazing group of 13 photographers from around the world. With the website launched this month, we’re bringing an entirely new presence to the post-production software space with a mix of photographers who use Phase One hardware as well as those who utilise cameras from other […]
Stepping out onto the scorching hot ground of the Red Sand Desert, I was reminded (rather cheerily) by our guide of the one thing I should be grateful for in this midday sun : “at least it’s not last month, it was at least 10 degrees C hotter!”. It was quite a contrast to where I’d been sat just hours before, being looked after in BA’s Concorde Room at London Heathrow – getting pampered (in […]
When you’ve been testing a new series of filters for a while, it’s easy to forget that one day they’ll actually become real-life products – that is, until the final versions arrive in their shiny new packaging at your door. Say hello to the brand new “Mark II” Rollei square photographic filters, and finally I can talk about some of the amazing features on these German-engineered sheets of glass. And they’re not just any glass, they’re now […]
Chicago. “The Windy City” – home to some of the finest architecture, food and (now!) baseball teams in the USA. Stood on the rooftop of the Carbide and Carbon Building, now the home of Chicago’s Hard Rock Hotel, it’s easy to see why people are so fascinated with this city – looking out across the skyscrapers, neighbourhoods and river as it weaves its way through the juxtaposition of historic stone buildings and sleek modern towers. And what […]
(Don’t) Look down! At around 1,000ft above the ground, Menara Kuala Lumpur (or the “KL Tower” as it’s also known) isn’t a record-breaker by any means, but hey – it’s still the highest place you can get to across the city. My usual plan when shooting nightscapes tends to specifically exclude photography from the iconic towers for one simple reason : that icon can’t be in the shot if you’re stood on it to take the photo! This […]
This week saw the arrival of Harmony of the Seas into Southampton – the largest cruise ship in the world – but this ship also contains something extra special: 9 of my images from around the USA in ultra-large format. What started as a small project with a few images onboard one of Royal Caribbean’s other ships – Anthem of the Seas – turned into a huge display of my work at up to 10 metres […]
The sudden realisation that you’ve been back in the UK for over 6 months now, and are yet to capture any shots of London hit me a few weeks ago. An easy fix, for sure, but it also dawned on me that I was missing some standard “stock shots” of the city at night. It was time to put that right… London, to me, will always have with it a certain air of excitement. As a […]
Have you ever seen a still photograph of a cityscape move? Here’s your opportunity! Together with the guys at ToInspire, we’re pulling together each of my collections into a promo-reel, starting with cityscapes, “out of this | world”. Creating moving images from still shots isn’t the easiest thing in the world, and a lot of painstaking pixel-level work goes in to every single photograph to get the effect just right while still keeping as much of the […]
Ah, Venice. The Bride of the Sea, City of Bridges, City of Light, City of Water and Serenissima. A stunning place to just force yourself to get lost with no maps and wander around the winding streets, waterways, alleys and ancient buildings exploring an area that is so set back in time, it’s as close to arriving in a Shakespearean novel as you can get. My last visit to Venice had resulted in quite a few “learning […]
There’s always that one shot, for every photographer out there – “the one” that just keeps getting away, the one that’s never quite right when you click the button, or the one that’s impossible to find the right conditions to capture. For me, that shot has been the same for over 9 years now: San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in the fog. Finally, one random winter’s afternoon, I managed to break that spell – and shoot […]
We did it! Opening the world’s most exclusive gallery – pr@hf – on the luxury island resort of PER AQUUM Huvafen Fushi is something we’re really proud of, and it’s now all set to grow in its brand new home. As the first ever photographic gallery that must be accessed by seaplane or speedboat, there’s something really cool about the new space, and guests are loving what we’ve managed to deliver. But I thought I’d take […]
Some call it a “Black Friday Sale”; Others call it a moment of madness; I call it “giving something back” (as you’ll read more about below). However, regardless of the reason, you’re not reading the title wrong – You can download, for free, one of my latest digital images for personal use. 😉 Proudly presenting… “Curtain Call”: Clicking the image above, or clicking here, will download the lower-resolution version (suitable for desktop backgrounds, 3,000 x 2,000 px). Clicking on this […]
Well, that wasn’t a bad little “haul” – 6 images credited in this year’s Epson Pano Awards 2015 🙂 On the list of award-winning images, some of my favourites: “Alone“, gaining a silver award, along with “Reveal” from New Zealand, “Bonsai” from California, “Settle” from New Zealand, “The Morning After” from Sydney and “Financial Freedom” from New York. I guess that makes it a truly International spread of awards, and adds to some of the fantastic […]
Well, that’s it! After 3 long years being based in Shanghai, this is one of the last images I captured of this amazing skyline. In the illuminated cityscapes I’ve now shot so many times, it’s easy to forget about all the problems, issues, health effects and frustrations that come as a downside to living in such a rapidly expanding metropolis – at least the view’s amazing! But stood on top of yet another amazing rooftop location, I […]
“Malaysia, truly Asia” – The jingle on the TV ad, plane intro’s and travel programmes that I’ve been hearing for years and years really did come true last week – and not only for all the good reasons they intended… I’m sat writing this blog beneath bright blue skies and a fresh breeze in Bali – and with all of that above me, it’s too easy to forget the horrendous conditions I left behind in Kuala Lumpur last […]
“Welcome to W Doha, we saw you had a good flight” – was my welcome as I entered this amazing hotel. Granted, W Hotels are unique in the way they really take time to get to know their guests, but I was still surprised. “Oh, we saw your instagram post”, was the response when I looked back at him slightly puzzled. Ahhhh, I get it… Entering in to the lobby (or “Living Room” in W speak), you’re […]
Of course, witnessing that sunset was a special moment in itself – but being up here on the rooftop of the Jin Mao Tower, the home of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Shanghai, was especially significant for me. Soon, I would be leaving Shanghai – a place I’ve called home for 3 years now – and this was a return to the very first building I’d ever visited in Asia. Stood up on the roof with my […]
Tokyo – what a truly amazing place. Full of modern innovation, side by side with centuries of culture and history. It’s one of my favourite cities in the world, and despite visiting a few times (I’ve climbed Mount Fuji twice now!) – it was another tick off the list to head back there and capture an iconic image of the skyline before I leave Asia for a while. The standard stereotypes can actually be pretty accurate […]
