Make the effort
Sometimes you just have to make the effort to get the shot. For me the early mornings are really hard; this explains how few sunrise shots I have! The morning light often has the blue-ish look to it where as sunset has a golden glow. Of course these days we tools like Photoshop and [...]
Glorious Sunset
I almost this one; I was driving around in an unfamiliar place, trying to find the sea. I could see the Sun falling into the horizon. Time was running out! After a few wrong turns and couple of dead-ends, I found the sea. I had literally minutes to spare. There’s no thrill like “sunset chasing” [...]
Fisherman at Sunset
The sun was setting, the last few minutes of light but still enough time to capture this fun moment; Man and Boy against the sea! While I was at the beach taking wide-angle shots, I kept my eye on this fisherman. Waiting to see if there was any action taking place… I was just [...]
One More Look
Just one more shot, just one more moment. It’s easy to take the shot or shots, figure you’ve got what you came for and just walk away. I was doing just that when I thought I’d turn and look one more time. You know what’s its like; when you cant help yourself, the beauty [...]
My Kind of Water
This is my kind of water! The sun was setting behind me here and there were some great scenes to be had. It’s hard to look away from the glow of the sun but I often find that behind is where the best shot can be found. I suppose that sometimes that’s for the simple [...]
Going back to old familiar places.
Most of us don’t spend our days travelling the world, seeing new places every day of the week. I’m not sure I would want to do this if I could anyway. I prefer the comforts of home with the odd trip now and then. This means that most of my locations and scenes are from [...]
Good to the last moment
It’s true that taking photographs at sunset and sunrise time, is probably the best time of day to take landscapes. The shadows are longer, the contrast greater and colours look magical. It’s easy to take that great photo and then pack-up, head for home but did you know that the few moments after the sun [...]
Dead Centre?
The spelling of the word centre needs its own blog post! Composition is one of those things that can make or break a picture. To my mind it doesn’t just happen; you understand and follow the “rules” to create that photo that sticks out. And not in a kind of sore thumb way either! For [...]
Tips for Shooting Landscapes
Today Canon NZ asked on Twitter for “what is your top landscape tip”. Well, that got me thinking and here is a quick list of tips that I could think of: Focus 1/3 of the way into the scene Use a circular polarizer filter to reduce haze and reflections (depends on time of day and [...]
Picking the right caption
Is the hardest part of photography, coming-up with a caption for the picture? Sometimes it sure feels that way! This image is a good example of confusing photograph description. The caption describes the feeling I had when I took it as opposed to a literal description of what it portrays. The full moon seemed to [...]
Lord of the Rings mountain
I’m working on a series of photos based on a “Lord of the Rings” kind of theme. This one seems to fit nicely into that; the gloom of the mountain and the sense of impending disaster. Actually, its just a volcano with some cool clouds above it but I can imagine, right? The [...]
Last Walk of the Day
I love to try and capture the last few moments of daylight, the time when you can just make-out shapes and objects. Here we have a dog owner scurrying home with his dog. There is a chill in the air and the warmth of the fire is calling. This photo was taken hand-held; pretty tricky [...]
Things are getting better
I’m having some fun with using my 70-200mm telephoto to take some landscape shots. It’s really interesting to see the compression effect you get using these longer lenses. The weather was pretty gloomy when I took this one but there was just enough light breaking through… Then the light broke through Back in post-processing, [...]
Searchlight on the sea
You have to wait. You have to take the time to catch that moment. In life where so much is “on demand” you find that in waiting for a sunset; you are not in control. You wait for it. You come to it. This is one of those sunsets; the weather looked a bit bleak [...]
