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Paul Reiffer – Iconic Photography | Amazing Destinations
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358 30
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Artificial UN-intelligence is ruining our view of the world. 🤮There, I said it.People keep pumping “AI” as a progression for photography. It may well be in Photoshop-ography, but in CAPTURING the world that is actually before our eyes, I call absolute and utter B.S. 🤬This shot, during the midnight sun season in Iceland - wasn’t planned. I’d left my “proper camera” in the car, and just had my Canon with me. (Which was dripping after shooting for only a few seconds!).It was the first time in 4 days that the sun had actually appeared, but that was the FUN of it - chasing that light. ☀️I mean, even when it did, it wasn’t clear enough to co-operate with a sunflare - but it was the exploring, the trying, the “seeing what you can make from these ingredients” - THAT’s the fun of photography.So enter the joy of AI - Artificial Intelligence.First, with my old software hat on, what most of the industry is selling right now ISN’T actually any form of real A.I. I won’t get bogged down with it, but I call BS on >50% of software out there purporting to hold some form of evolving intelligence.Second, WHY would we want to “replace the sky with one click” or “automatically enhance a sunset”?Isn’t a real sunset incredible enough for us?Isn’t a foggy sky JUST as impressive as a set of "simpsons-clouds” - IF you’re willing to take the time to capture it well?And WHY would you let some piece of software like Skylum’s “Luminar” absolutely trash what is a perfectly impressive scene in the first place?Photography is as much about the experience of shooting as it is the final result. If our world is turning to software to “enhance” every experience - then how awful have our experiences become? Or even, how numb have WE become? 😔Keep it real folks - stop following the pied piper over that cliff of one-click-photo-destruction.And yes, that third image is a raw screenshot of what Luminar’s “AI” wanted to do to “enhance” my image. 🤦‍♂️#Photoshopography #Luminar #RealityCheck #TakeItDontFakeIt #WhatISeeRightNow #Waterfall #MidnightSun #Iceland #PaulReiffer #Software #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Unintelligent #ImageEnhancer
428 7
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What is it with me and things that appear from the water…? 🇳🇿There are two big reasons to visit Moeraki - the first is photographic:If you can avoid the tour-bus-crowds of (well, idiots) jumping all over the Moeraki Boulders with duelling selfie sticks - and instead spend time just appreciating the fact that these perfectly spherical rocks were formed purely by nature over millions of years - you’ll find it an amazing place to just sit and “be”.While Maori legend has them pegged as eel baskets, washed up from an old sailing canoe wreck, in reality we know they’re a geological feature which is evolving as the shoreline exposes more through sea erosion.The first time I tried to find them, I (quite obviously, now) didn’t realise they were SO far out that the tide would completely cover them up.🤦‍♂️Three of us hunted for ages on the beach that night with head-torches on, getting wet with each wave - searching for them in a place we didn’t know. I’d say it was one of my more stupid moments in photography - the fact that none of us thought they might be under the water at that point speaks volumes for our collective brain-power that night.😂Turns out, the next morning, things were easier - when the big lightbulb in the sky came on AND the tide was out. “Ohhh!” - Yeah, that moment.The boulders are pretty cool on their own - but couple them with some amazing skies, some glass filters and/or an epic early morning sunrise, and they become - quite literally - “rock-stars”.So on to the second reason:If only the busloads of drive-by's took the time to actually visit the town of Moeraki, instead of their 10 minutes on the boulders, they’d find one of the most amazing places on the south-island’s coastline. This place is a great community, a true jewel of a location to spend a day or two, just exploring - watching the fresh fish get landed each day.And after that...Go to Fleur’s Place.👍That’s all. Just go. ;-)#Moeraki #MoerakiBoulders #MoerakiBeach #SelfieGeneration #Mystery #Boulders #PureNewZealand #PureNZ #Landscape #Seascape #FineArtPrints #PaulReiffer #PhaseOne #BTS #BehindTheScenes #StoryOfTheShot #Sunrise #CrackOfDawn #NZMustDo #NZMustSee
539 22
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I’d love to say I remember taking this shot... 🤔🇳🇿📷(PS - I *did* say I love these trees, right…?)I mean, I absolutely DID take this shot, and I’ll never *forget* it - but the fact remains, I wasn’t THERE when it was being taken.Sure, I pressed the shutter button right at the moment when the early morning light fell perfectly over the mountains. 🌄And then ran.You see, we’d had an upfront agreement in our campervan: You absolutely COULD use the toilet, but whoever used it first then had to clean it for the entire trip - and once used, anyone else was free to as well.Which sounded like a great idea, until the repercussions of my pizza selection the previous night caught up with me. It turns out a “seafood pizza” that “smelt a little fishier than normal" in a very dark restaurant (a restaurant I love, but not on this occasion) might not have been the best idea.But the light was SO good. (Gurgle)And the willow trees looked amazing. (Gurgle-rumble)And it was getting better by the minute. (Click-Wayne-And-Mark-Look-After-My-Camera-Run-Forrest-Run-Where-The-Hell-Is-A-Public-Restroom?!) 😳 🏃8-10 minutes later, I returned.I’d found the bathroom (as it happens, in my panic, it turns out there was a ladies sign on the outside - oops - but hey, nobody was awake) and all was well again.…in fact, all was EPIC, when I looked at the back of my camera.The bird had left my kit alone, Mark & Wayne enjoyed their laughter for the next 6.2 hours, and I’d somehow, incredibly, managed to get the shot I wanted in a minute-plus exposure while not actually being there for 99% of the time. Even more remarkably, @NatGeo thought so too.See? It’s not all “right place, right time” easy fun – sometimes life throws us lemons……on a seafood pizza. 🍕And for this shot, I’d do it all over again.#Glenorchy #WaterBoundWillows #WillowTrees #Winter #LakeWakatipu #Queenstown #PaulReiffer #NewZealand #YourShotPhotographer #NatGeoTravel
767 24
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People ask where the title for “the morning after” came from…Sydney Opera House sunrise, captured at 5am the morning after Christmas.I guess the initial answer is obvious - it was the morning after a day of eating, drinking, presents and weirdly (when you’re from the UK) spending Christmas in shorts at the beach.Wide awake at 3:00am with jetlag – well, “I may as well go and shoot”.I packed up my kit with a sigh - for every sunrise shot of this icon that I’d attempted to date, all I’d managed to capture was yet more floating rust-buckets of pollution-generating mobile buffets. (cruise ships)Now of course, “to each their own” - but even checking the (very helpful) port schedule, I was thwarted every morning by ships that wanted to hover in front of the Opera House for passengers to see it at sunrise (regardless of planned dock time).As I often say, nobody owns the view, but I DON’T accept the damage that cruise ships are doing to our planet and the places they visit.“But they help the local economy!” - NO, they don’t. People explore no more than 500m on foot from the ship, and then (more often than not) head back onboard for their “free” food. “It’s a great way to see the world!” - NO, it’s not. I like to choose how many DAYS, not hours, I spend somewhere to really explore. “It’s meant I’ve visited X number of countries!” - NO, you haven’t. You’ve visited X number of PORTS and sat on a vapid bus tour to where they earn the most money. “It’s better for the environment!” - NO, it’s not. I won’t quote all the numbers, but even with the recent “clean-up years”, cruise ships are a disgrace in terms of pollution and waste. “But it’s SO cheap with all the unlimited food!” – Ah, now we’re getting there 😉Anyway, I digress - it’s just rather frustrating that it took until the morning after Christmas Day (with NO sailings) to get this shot of Circular Quay without a cruise ship anywhere in sight.COVID may have damaged this industry pretty heavily, and for those whose livelihoods are affected - I feel for you.…but I know our skylines all around the world are looking a LOT better these days without these things obliterating them.
500 9
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"The Three Witches" - as I unaffectionately decided to call them. ❄️ 📷 🇳🇿In part, because these water-bound willow trees seemed to put a spell on my fingers this winter’s morning - causing them to slowly go numb, then be in constant pain, and then to swell up like red balloons when we finally got back to the heat of the camper van. 🚌In another way, however, it was because they seem to have put a spell on me that means I can’t help but return whenever I’m within 100 miles of Glenorchy.At the end of the day, they’re “just a row of willow trees” near the wharf. In winter, they look spooky and eerily dead - in summer, they bloom, fully alive and well.Catch the season wrong and you’ll find the place you want to stand to catch them is underwater. 💧Catch it just right - and the freezing morning mist means these perfectly placed branches get surrounded in a mysterious haze, out on the perfectly still lake ahead of you.Yeah, it can be painful shooting in the freezing cold - but looking back on this (the first image I ever shot of them all those years ago) and the countless times I’ve since returned - in my head, it must have been worth it for some reason.Or maybe it’s witchcraft 🤔 😜 🧙‍♀️(PS - No, it’s not witchcraft, don’t be daft, there’s no such thing. It’s because I’m a stubborn mule who’s never quite happy with at least one element in ever shot…!)(PPS - It MIGHT also have something to do with finding a source of *epic* New Zealand pies nearby)#Glenorchy #ThreeWitches #WaterBoundWillows #WillowTrees #Winter #Frost #LakeWakatipu #Queenstown #Frozen #Ice ##NewZealand #PureNZ #NZMustSee #LongExposure #PureNewZealand #PaulReiffer #FineArtPrint #Landscape #LimitedEdition #PhaseOne #Morning #BTS #BehindTheScenes #StoryOfTheShot #Winter #NZTrip #NZMustDo #GlenorchyNZ
736 22
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“Did the sky REALLY look like that?”… 📷 🤔…No. It looked BETTER. 😎Aoraki/Mt Cook, New Zealand 🇳🇿 🏔So bombarded are we with fake images, “sky replacement” tools (I mean, *seriously* people?!) and one-click filters - we sometimes forget to appreciate how amazing the world really is *without* any “post-processing”.In reality, there is no such thing as an “unprocessed image” - so-called “raw” digital files HAVE been processed by the camera - and even film, the film itself, the developing of it in chemicals, the paper - it’s all a form of post-processing at the end of the day. 🎞But there is such a thing as an AUTHENTIC image. One that reflects what you saw at the time - how it felt to be there - a picture that represents the essence of a place.And to be able to shoot that type of image, we need to be spending 80%+ of our time looking at the scene - NOT at the camera.All too often, I see people so focused on getting the shot to look amazing, they forget to look at how stunning the actual view was in the first place.Watching the sun rise over the Southern Alps as the icebergs that had broken off the Tasman Glacier floated on by - *that* was the special part of this trip, not just the image itself. 🧊Yes, the clouds were epic. Yes, the view was amazing. Yes, the glacial water was that topaz blue.But none of that, on screen in a JPG, can ever quite compare to how much more special those things are when you’re stood right there - watching it all perform in front of our eyes. The best I can do is give you a glimpse of it through an image - and hopefully that’s what I managed to achieve here. 🙏So, no - the sky didn’t look quite like that. It looked a whole lot better in real life!#MtCook #Tasman #NewZealand #PureNZ #NZMustSee #LongExposure #AorakiMountCook #Aoraki #PureNewZealand #PaulReiffer #FineArtPrint #Landscape #LimitedEdition #PhaseOne #PinkSky #Sunrise #BTS #BehindTheScenes #StoryOfTheShot #Winter #NZTrip #NZMustDo

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