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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
A couple of weeks ago, after landing back to London Heathrow, my phone informed me that I’d been “mentioned” on an unknown app called “Steller“. As is normally the case with this kind of thing, I initially brushed it off as an invite to yet another useless social media/networking tool that will likely disappear after I’ve put effort into using it. However, something grabbed my attention with this one: It listed a company that I’d recently photographed for and […]
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 […]
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 […]
At the time of writing, this is literally the highest platform that a Phase One system has ever been in the world – pretty cool! Being able to capture the view below in 80 megapixels of definition is amazing, and the level of detail I managed to record (despite the circumstances you’ll soon read about below!) still surprises me. This might even become my new desktop background for little while 😉 Looking down on two of the world’s tallest […]
My first visit to Beijing was a bit of a mixed bag – on the one hand, it would have been “rude not to” visit the capital city, given I’ve been living so close in Shanghai. On the other, it didn’t really impress me as much as I’d expected. Given the effort it took in order to get there, I also wasn’t keen to repeat the visit. However, a random “empty weekend” and a chat […]
It’s every photographer’s nightmare: “That email” from somebody telling you they’ve seen your work published in a place you didn’t know about. Usually this results in a sunken heart, some stern letters and frustration that yet another person has taken your work without permission. So, when I clicked the message from Joey yesterday, it was not only a huge relief – but also a pleasant surprise. It seems an agency I’ve been working with has […]
It doesn’t matter how many rooftops I’ve photographed from, whenever I’m in a new city I always get that “wow” moment when I look across the skyline for the first time – and this was no exception. From the top of a building (which was, in fairness, extremely tall in its own right!), I set up on the ledge and started clicking. Sadly, jpeg compression doesn’t do this image enough justice on-screen, but the tones of the sky and detail in […]
“Venezia” – print available to buy now What an awesome sight – being up before dawn on one of the first vaporetto (water bus) services across to Piazza San Marco (or “St. Mark’s Square” as we know it in English) and capturing San Giorgio in the distance as the gondolas moved gracefully in the tide, lapping the side of the lagoon. But Venice had a little surprise up its sleeve for me – just waiting […]
I’m rapidly becoming a huge fan of Sydney. This was the first place I ever visited in Australia, and while there are obviously many more beautiful places across the country to see, Sydney will always be the place that impressed me first. My visit earlier in 2014 gave me the chance to shoot some unique (lucky!) images of the Opera House at sunrise as well as overnight during Chinese New Year – but this time, my trip […]
You may not be aware, but 2015 is the International Year of Light (or “IYL 2015”) – a global initiative adopted by the United Nations and UNESCO to raise awareness of how light and optical technologies can promote sustainable development and provide solutions to worldwide challenges in energy, education, agriculture, communications and health. Along with over 100 scientific bodies spanning countries all around the world, SPIE organised a photo contest some time ago, and to my […]
What an amazing view – and what a privilege to be able to photograph it during a one-off event at such a special hotel location. I’ve always been a fan of the Shangri-La in Sydney, the views from the Horizon Club floor and Altitude/Blu Bar at the top of the hotel are simply the best panoramas you can get of the harbour. But this was an unexpected (and very gratefully received) honour to be allowed up onto the […]
“The City that Never Sleeps”, “Gotham City”, “The Big Apple”, “Empire City”, “The City of Dreams”, “New Amsterdam”, “The Melting Pot” – to everyone that visits or lives in this incredible city, the place leaves a lasting memory that means something different. One thing that is common to all who visit or wake up in this amazing place is the sheer sense of wonder as you look out over the skyline – and that’s what […]
It’s been a long time in the planning, but we’ve finally managed to pull together an itinerary that allows me to take 6-8 people “out on the road” for a journey across some of the most distinctive and impressive landscape views available in the USA. I’ll be offering an Asia workshop later in the year too, but for now it’s all about California with my “Going from Hot to Gold” photography workshop in May 2015! […]
It’s the one thing I promised myself I would never do after I upgraded my equipment from my Canon gear to a Phase One Medium Format system : re-shooting a cityscape I had already captured. But the lure of Shanghai’s rooftops on a clear night was just too strong, and here I found myself shooting “Shanghai Calling 2” with my 645DF+ and iQ280 digital back. Now, before I go any further, let my just clarify […]
This is Auckland, but not as we know it 🙂 This is the “Tiny Planet” version of my cityscape from New Zealand in June this year – and while only a bit of fun, I think it looks rather cool! Spending a week or so resting at Huvafen Fushi, I finally had time to start playing with some Apps I downloaded a long while ago. While there are much better (and higher resolution) ways of […]
Shanghai really is a city that needs to be seen from above to be appreciated. The problem is that getting up there in the more traditional way (in a helicopter) simply isn’t possible – so there is a growing movement of photographers who (ahem) “access” rooftops with key vantage points across the city. It’s not a risk-free process by any means, but when you get up there and can look down at the pace of things […]