After waking up early for a dawn shoot, I was a little dejected by the lackluster weather. However, using a Lee Filter Big Stopper to slow the scene down and generate movement in the clouds, whilst making the sea turn more glassy.
The delicate orange glow below the morning clouds, behind the pillar of land at Ladram Bay in Devon made for a rather haunting scene.
On my last trip to Peru, a few years ago, I was trekking in the Andes surrounding Cusco in the south central mountains of the country. The area is awash with Inca ruins, including Machu Picchu. I hired a motorbike for the day and drove around the city, hoping to find something interesting, when I stumbled across this place. I have no idea where it was but there were no tourists there, just a few llamas.
The shot below was taken on a trek around Huaraz, north from Lima in the Andes, close to Chimbote. I was pretty high when I took this shot, around 4500m above sea level. Both shots were taken on my Noblex 612 film camera.
Early yesterday morning, I stood opposite the London Eye to watch the dawn of a new day in London. The shot above is a panorama of four shots stitched together of the south side of the River Thames. The image is almost 18k pixels in width.
The shot below was taken a few moments before that, as the first light of day broke behind the Wheel. The maintenance team still had the red lights on the wheel switched on and the so too for the Marriott County Hall Hotel.
I have visited Iceland a few times. This was from my most recent trip there, when I cycled round the island. This was one of the rare days when it did not rain. I was around 300km east of Reykjavik when I took this shot. The wind was with me that day and I covered over 100 miles.
This next shot was a couple of days out of Egilsstaðir, close to Hoffell if I recall correctly. Just a mile or two away from the road where I was cycling, was this the view I was treated to, of a glacier positioned on the edge of Vatnajökull National Park.
A few years ago, I was out in Iceland just before Christmas, in search of the aurora borealis. Iceland sits just beneath the Arctic Circle but still enjoys some spectacular natural winter light shows. However, on this occasion, I was not fortunate enough to see one.
Instead, I journeyed to Vatnajökull, the largest and most voluminous ice cap in Iceland in this pimped out LandRover. We were high on the glacier when I took this shot and in the midst of total whiteout. Our driver recommended that we did not venture more than 5m from the truck else we might be lost forever in the Icelandic winter wilderness. It was well below zero and short term exposure would be enough to cause anyone serious issues.
The following day, I headed to the famous Blue Lagoon. You can see the sun creeping over the mountain in the background. It was close to midday when I took this shot to put the daylight hours in perspective.
Still in the Canadian Rockies, I tried to shoot the famous Moraine Lake, situated close to Lake Louise, a few times but to no avail. In the end, it took me three attempts to capture this dawn scene. First time, I wondered into the forest jutting out into the lake on the right. I was spooked by a bear and decided a shot was not worth a mauling. The second attempt was marred by terrible weather. Third time lucky. The light lasted about 5 minutes before clouding over.
The solitude of the morning was somewhat dispensed with when I was interviewed by a Japanese film crew, who turned up too late to capture the dawn and wanted to use my photographs.
I was staying in a small motel in Banff and had scouted this location out the previous day. The light was falling to my right on the lakeside but I loved the dawn vanilla skies above the mountain on the other side of the lake.
A few years ago, I was in the Canadian Rockies, travelling around Banff and Jasper National Parks. The shot for today was taken from an observation platform above Peyto Lake. It was not a great time of day to be shooting as it was close to midday but this really made the turquoise colour of the lake stand out all the more against the lush green of the surround forest, greyness of the mountain face and deep blue of the sky.
This was taken a few miles away, along the river bank above a raging torrent below. You can make out a young girl relaxing by the river, wearing red, to give you a size perspective of the scene.
A shot from the archives. This one was taken in Iceland when I cycle around the island. I had made my way around the peninsula and had to back track through the mountains. Ahead of me, the clouds loomed ominously above the range I had to cycle through. Needless to say, I was soaked in the mother of all storms.
Just over a week later, I was on the other side of the island. The omnipresent clouds parted momentarily as I passed an abandoned house. Soon afterwards, the rain fell and the clouds closed in. If you can overlook the bad weather (these were taken in the height of the Icelandic summer) and the relentless winds, cycling around this rock in the middle of the Atlantic was a fantastic expedition.
Last week I was in Gothenburg for business as is usual in my role. After work, I headed over to the south side of the river to grab some end of day shots. This one is of the north side, called Lindholmen, where our new office is located.
This version really does not do the shot justice as this is the result of stitching 5 images together and cropping some of the scene to either side of the image.
All Terrain Photography 