Loch island light
Crepuscular rays silhouetting the rocky peninsula of Ploc an Rubha, Wester Ross, Scotland. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
If there’s one image that exemplifies my basic photographic philosophy of ‘be there’, this is it. I’d been driving around the remote north west Highlands for a few days, climbing the odd mountain as the weather lifted then scrambling back down in white-outs as it kicked me off for my presumptuousness. My Landrover was leaking like the unrefined sieve that it is, dripping freezing rain onto my neck but I was determined to explore the rugged coastline between Gairloch and Ullapool (great Youth Hostel, friendly staff, highly recommended) when I wound round the road hugging Loch Ewe to see this wonderful sight developing out of the passenger window. I threw the cursed truck into the ditch (there’s no-one else on the road so you can stop where you like, a rare pleasure in the crowded and micro-managed UK) jumped out, got instantly soaked, jumped back in again to change lenses etc., then grabbed this shot as the sunlight illuminated the dramatic Inverewe Gardens landscape, carefully wiping the water drops from the graduated neutral density filter between sections.
Two minutes later the clouds closed in again and the heavenly light was gone. Sometimes you just need a bit of luck, but you always need to ‘be there’.
Click on the image to buy it as royalty free stock from just $1.
1/320 second, f6.3, ISO200 85mm
7374 x 2500 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Weltzeituhr, tram and Fernsehtum, Berlin
The soaring spire of Fernesehturm overlooking a characteristic yellow tram and the modernist atomic sculpture of the Weltzeituhr in Alexanderplatz. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
Three iconic symbols of eastern Berlin in one compact image – how’s that for value for money?
Any European misguidedly feeling any pangs of ostalgie will certainly get their retro-modernist longings catered for in Alexanderplatz. The huge square in the heart of old East Berlin has some terrific concrete brutalist architecture as well as the iconic World Time Clock constructed by Eric John in 1969 that shows the time in cities around the world (as the name suggests, natch) with a distinctly communist bias. The landmark is now a popular meeting place for locals and indeed I did have to wait 20 minutes for a bunch of Berliners to bugger off before I could take this picture.
Towering above the square and the curved roof of the eponymous railway station is the monumental Fernesehturm (television tower) space needle with its spherical observation deck. You get a terrific view over the whole of Berlin and the surrounding countryside from the top, though the glass has a polarising tint that ruins photos through it – you have been warned! The entrance is on the northern side, not through the TV studio that overlooks the fountains below it, as I discovered with my inimitable German as they pushed me back out the door…
Click on the image to buy it as royalty free stock from just $1.
1/125 second, f14, ISO200 20mm
2848 x 4288 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
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