mountains

Shot for the Day (30 October 2017)

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After trekking a few miles from a small car park at Huisinis, which itself was at the end of a long single track B road, I camped in a very isolated position, looking over at the Isle of Scarp.

The following morning, I awoke at 3.20am and walked a further 2 miles, to the end of the peninsula, to watch the majesty of the sun rising over the horizon in absolute solitude. The warm, golden light reflected on the rocks in front of me, silhouetting the distant mountains.  This image was a long exposure (201 seconds) as I wanted to soften the choppy waters and elongate the few clouds on the horizon.

Shot for the Day (30 March 2017)

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High in the Andes, the deep blue skies can be deceptive. This was mid-morning and the lake in front of me was frozen.  At night, the temperature regularly dropped to -20 Celsius.   It was also breathless here as I was standing at over 4,200m altitude.

If you like desolate, abandoned places, the Atacama Desert is the place for you.

Shot for the Day (20 March 2017)

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I was standing on the edge of Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake at a dizzy altitude of 3,811 m, when the girl in this photograph approached me and asked if I would take a picture of her.  This was in 2003, so this shot was on 120 film, certainly well before the widespread usage of digital cameras. I doubt she will ever see this image, unless she somehow managed to find my blog.

If you ever decide to see South America, I strongly recommend that you visit Lake Titicaca, on the border of Peru and Bolivia. The lake is beautiful, with the Andes scraping the sky behind them in the distance.

Shot for the Day (14 March 2017)

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High on the altiplano between Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, the sky is an impossibly deep blue.  The car pulling up was my driver, who played a prank and drove off when I was talking too many photos.  It gave the scene a sense of scale, which was perfect. I ended up asking him to do this a few times over the 4 day trip, much to his bemusement.

Shot for the Day (29 November 2016)

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Strange shapes in the desert. Whilst crossing the Atacama desert in Bolivia, I passed through the Salar de Uyuni salt flats.  In the vastness of the white desert, strange shapes were cut into the floor.  Blocks of salt were extracted and left in the sun to dry before being removed and sold.  The remaining angular shapes were gradually filled with the water that lingered beneath the surface.

In the wet season, the floor of the salt flats becomes flooded and the looks like an impossibly huge mirror, making it hard to know which is heaven and earth.

Shot for the Day (12 October 2016)

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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.

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Shot for the Day (16 September 2016)

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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.

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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.

Shot for the Day (11 August 2016)

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A few years ago, I was in the US to shoot a TV commercial for VW.  I took a couple of days out after 5 days of filming and wondered over to Death Valley.  I was incredibly lucky to be there as the weather turn from bone dry to stormy.  This is a short while before the heavens open and flooded many of the roads in the National Park.

Shot for the Day (10 June 2015)

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Moon Valley in Chile, close to San Pedro de Atacama, very much lives up to its name.  Trekking in the heat of the day at 4000m altitude, in the altiplano, literally took one’s breath away.

I took this shot in the mid afternoon, as the shadows of the canyon cast increasingly longer trails across the exposed spikes of the rock outcrops, akin to the vertebrae of the valley jutting out of the ground.