The roaring cascades of Fjallfoss Dynjandi waterfalls, Vestfirðir, Iceland
Getting a sense of scale of the torrents in the remote Westfjords of Iceland. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
Once you’ve got over the sense of awe that these magnificent waterfalls, far in the northern wilderness of Iceland’s Arctic Circle landscape, induce in any visitor, as a photographer you’ve got to figure out a way of illustrating the thundering vastness of this natural phenomenon. The images I’d seen of this location before coming here didn’t prepare me for how huge these falls are, since they’d failed to convey any sense of the scale of them. Luckily I had my portable scale-giving device beside me, who’s happy to work for sweets and treats and I soon had her installed in various (safe) positions around the mountainside. Hopefully this gives you an idea of how high these rocky cliffs and falls are.
To get this far north in Iceland requires a bit of a drive if you’re travelling from Reykjavík. Many of the roads away from the N1 hringvegur ringroad are unpaved which, given the extraordinary cost of car hire in Iceland, means a few days of bumpy riding in a Nissan Micra entirely unsuited to the lava desert terrain and a nervous few minutes back at the rental counter when you return it as you wait for the verdict on the damage you’ve done. The locals have huge off road vehicles with balloon tyres that wouldn’t look out of place on the surface of the moon.
Click on the images to buy them as low cost royalty free stock.
Top image: 1/250 second, f9, ISO200 24mm 10000 x 4084 pixels.
Left image: 1/250 second, f10, ISO200 70mm 4000 x 13000 pixels.
Please don’t steal these images, it’s how I make my living.
Grassland airstrip, yurt and biplane, Inner Mongolia, China
.
Panoramic view across rural airfield, windsock and yurt terminal in the vast open spaces north of Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
After the choking chimneys, coal mines and endless streams of trucks clogging the Yellow River valley, it’s a remarkable breath of fresh air when you cross the mountains into the sweeping grasslands of northern Inner Mongolia. You get a sense that the China you’d become familiar with is ending and there’s an endless prairie of sandy grass stretching over the horizon all the way to Siberia.
The yurt with its single, surly occupant, serves as simple terminal for this remote landing strip, marked by flags that flutter endlessly in the never ending wind. I presume the ancient Russian biplane brings Chinese tourists from Beijing to experience the Mongolian grasslands and stay in the rough and ready ger (as they’re called locally) holiday camp. A sort of Mongolian Butlins where the usp is you get to see the stars at night. I bet there’s still a KTV though.
Click on the image to buy it as low cost royalty free stock.
1/200 second, f9, ISO200 24mm
10000 x 3665 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Sunburst on Lake District mountain pass
.
Sunlight flaring over the narrow winding ribbon of the Wrynose Pass, Langdale Pikes and traditional dry stone wall, Lake District National Park, Cumbria, UK. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
Despite being chock full of picturesque scenery, I find the Lake District quite hard to get great pictures in. First, of course, is the weather. I’ve been there three times already this year and have only got great light on a couple of days. It rains. A lot. Seathwaite, just on the other side of these peaks, is the wettest place in England, and you can tell from the lush pasture that this valley sees its fair share too. It can get very hazy and on a weekend the roads are almost gridlocked with daytrippers. But when the light goes in your favour, it can be the most glorious place to be. This was one of those days.
Although a common sight throughout the British Isles (and therefore almost invisible to the indigenous population), dry stone walls seem to hold a special attraction for overseas visitors who find their simple charm and construction on impossibly steep slopes fascinating. I remember reading a quote from a postcard photographer when I was younger saying ‘dry stone walls and sheep always sell well. If I could get a shot of a sheep on a wall, I’d be rich.’ I always keep an eye out for that rock climbing sheep, but I’ve not found it yet.
Click on the image to buy it as low cost royalty free stock.
1/125 second, f13, ISO200 24mm
10000 x 3679 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Bows and arrows of outrageous fortune
Children playing with toy bow and arrows in the forest. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
Every Wednesday I get the comic shuffle. This involves an eager seven year old dancing around my legs demanding, pleading and begging for me to buy them the latest edition of the Beano. Now to those readers outside the British Isles, this will mean nothing. My compatriots however will know exactly what I’m talking about, since there can be barely anyone who spent their childhood here, boy, girl, black, white, rich or poor who wasn’t raised reading this anarchic British institution. There are scruffy piles of them all over my house now from the bathroom to the garden and everywhere inbetween, since they are apparently sacred objects that cannot be thrown away or recycled after reading but must be stockpiled in case of an imaginary shortage of bad puns and excruciating jokes with which to torture parents.
So, you ask, what has this got to do with this picture? Well, most weeks the Beano comes with a ‘free’ gift (they put the price up when one’s sellotaped to the outside) of fantastically poor quality but whose Chinese plasticiness is irresistible to anyone under the age of 10. Fed up being menaced by the bow and arrow set on last week’s cover I decided to try to turn these toys to my advantage and set up the shot above. Not many children were harmed in the making of this picture, but large amounts of Easter egg chocolate were required as bribes.
Click on the image to buy it as low cost royalty free stock.
1/125 second, f6.3, ISO200 50mm
14440 x 3000 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Mountaineers exploring white wilderness
Climbers trekking through the crisp snowy landscape of the Brecon Beacons National Park, Wales, UK. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
Like many places on this crowded island, these mountains can be overrun with garishly coloured kit junkies and locals in flip flops up from the valleys below come a sunny summer weekend or bank holiday. But midweek in winter is a different story. The deep snow and freezing wind chill keeps all but the most committed off the high ridges – this pair were the only other people I saw on this remote ridge and I had to get my camera out in a hurry to catch them trudging through the monochrome landscape.
Later, as I often do round here, I passed the sweating army recruits in last stages of their basic training yomping over the icy cols laden with humongous rucksacks and assault rifles. The rural farm boy leaders were grinning with elation at being in front, the poor pasty urban teenagers bringing up the rear crying with exhaustion as fierce sergeants with neatly clipped moustaches bellowed in their ears. I would have taken photos but I didn’t fancy being on the receiving end of a tongue lashing myself. Plus, they were armed.
Click on the image to buy it as low cost royalty free stock.
1/125 second, f10, ISO200 20mm
6502 x 3400 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
p.s. As I don’t have a links column on this blog, I can’t easily offer readers links to other sites. So I don’t. However I’m so impressed by this guy’s efforts to dig himself out of a big (and I mean BIG) hole, that I’m going to encourage you to follow his progress. He shows a remarkable lack of self pity and a huge amount of determination couple with straight forward common sense advice. I wish him luck. Read his blog and I defy you not to be impressed with his efforts:
Snow summit sunburst, Lake District, UK
Sunlight flaring over the crisp white cornices and rocky ridges of Helvellyn, Cumbria. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
Ever since I first clambered along this famous ridge as a child with my father I’ve wanted to climb it in winter in the snow. Usually, the inclement weather of the English Lake District prevents it during the short visits I’ve made in the years since, with mist, rain, wind or (more usually) lack of snow in our globally warmed winters frustrating my efforts. But finally, this year my one day stop off on the way to Scotland coincided with fresh snowfall and a beautiful blue sky day to photograph this terrific trail. In the half size blow-up of the right hand image you can see a couple of mountaineers carefully picking their way down it – on rocky crags like this you never know whether you’re stepping onto firm ground or an ankle snapping crevice filled with soft powder. Trekking poles and long ice axes suddenly become much more useful.
In the top image under the deep blue skies you can see the distant shores of Ullswater, the fells of Martindale Common and the snowy summits of High Raise and High Street whilst the escarpment and round sides of St. Sunday Crag curve off under the bright sun. A rare wonderful weather day in a truly magnificent location.
Click on either image to buy them as low cost royalty free stock.
Top image: 1/250 second, f11, ISO200 20mm 11833 x 3000 pixels.
Right image: 1/500 second, f10, ISO200 50mm 4000 x 10000 pixels.
Please don’t steal these images, it’s how I make my living.
Sunlight in the glen, Highlands, Scotland
Rays of light illuminating the dramatic pyramidal peak of Stob Coire Raineach, Glencoe, Scotland. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
I know I’ve been remiss in posting entries recently, but in my defense I have been busy shooting images like this one in Scotland, UK and in Seville, Spain (more on that next time). Winter is also the time when I try and work through some of the huge backlog I build up over the more photogenic summer months, but I’ll never get it all done. Who knows what masterpieces lie undiscovered? Stop laughing at the back.
Anyway, I could go on once again about the necessity for patience in this job to wait for the light to favour you, but I imagine I’ve mentioned it on just about every other post so I won’t bore you with it ad infinitum other than to say I waited 5 hours – 5 HOURS IN THE RAIN – for this to happen. God, I was bored. There, I feel better now I’ve got that off my chest.
The Highland mountains always look better with a bit of snow on them I think; in the summer you can safely clamber all over them without danger of avalanche or hypothermia, but they tend to be a rather boring uniform green with odd splash of purple heather if you’re lucky. So we climb in the cold and wait. And hope. And sometimes you are rewarded with scenes of magnificent, wind-whipped beauty that make this remote landscape one of the most stunning landscapes in Europe.
Go see for yourself, but don’t say I didn’t warn you about the rain.
Click on the image to buy it as low cost royalty free stock.
1/125, f6.3, ISO200 20mm
6600 x 3232 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
The last freeminers, Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire
Coal mining camp deep in the forest. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
There aren’t many advantages to being born in the Hundred of St Briavels. Although it’s a beautiful landscape full of dense woodland, steep hills and narrow damp valleys, good work is hard to find, sophisticated entertainment is thin on the ground and the rich accent is likely to provoke affection but not intellectual respect. However, if you’re a man and you’ve worked underground for a year and a day, you earn the right to become a freeminer yourself, choosing a gale where you think you might strike lucky after grovelling to the forest Deputy Gaveller, your new semi-feudal overlord, who will collect a slice of your earnings for payment to the Queen just as they have done for the past 700 years.
Unfortunately this historic tradition is dying out, not because of lack of coal – there’s plenty of seams still to be exploited under the green canopies – but because the health authority closed the last maternity ward within the boundaries of the forest. No more local-born men, no more freeminers.
Click on the image to buy it as low cost royalty free stock.
1/125, f4, ISO200 28mm
7426 x 3034 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
View to blue
Child sat on mountain top looking over green patchwork landscape under blue panoramic skies. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
In order to balance my domestic responsibilities with the professional, I sometimes have to combine them. Luckily for me that means I get to enjoy the company of this model in some glorious and not so glorious places. When I was a child, my father dragged me over mountains despite my plainly stated desire to sit in front of the television the entire weekend and now I find the pattern repeating itself. It’s for your own good! You’ll thank me when you’re older! It can only be a matter of time before I start saying ‘when you’ve got your own house, you can do what you like’ and ‘what do you mean you don’t know what time you’ll be back?’. I guess the love of exploring seeps into your bones even if you try to resist. That’s my plan for child rearing anyway. Tonight I’m dragging them out of school to watch Barack Obama’s inauguration and last night I made them watch MLK’s I have a dream speech on YouTube as a primer. They’ll thank me when they’re older…
This landscape is also the setting for my favourite book of last year, Resistance, a beautifully written piece of prose by the poet Owen Sheer. As well as making me drag reluctant assistants up the steep escarpments of the Black Mountains, it also inspired me to schlep over to Hereford Cathedral to view the Mappa Mundi, a fantastically bonkers piece of illustrated medieval map making. You’ll have to read the book to see how that’s relevant. I heartily recommend it.
Click on the image to buy it as low cost royalty free stock.
1/125, f13, ISO200 20mm
7250 × 2810 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Sunset over Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire, Wales
The orange light of the setting sun illuminating the ocean cloudscape above Skomer Island off the Pembrokeshire coast of Wales, UK. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
As usual, this beautiful, tranquil scene of calming, zen-like nature at its most spectacular belies the frantic truth of its taking. Late, weighed down by equipment and having to bribe, cajole and keep a close eye on my companion to make sure she didn’t fall off the steep cliffs of this rugged coastline (more on her in the next post), I just managed to get set up as the sun dipped below the cloud layer, washing the surf and shore in a warm glow of golden light. Phew. Here, have a biscuit. Don’t go to close the edge! No, I won’t be long, I promise. Yes, you can watch television when we get back. Here, take my coat if you’re cold… NOT NOW! If you’ve got kids you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Skomer Island, a dramatic rocky outcrop separated from the mainland by Jack Sound, a thrashing race of treacherous water full of ship wrecks and seals, is a bird spotter’s paradise with Puffins, Shearwaters and Kittiwakes nesting on its remote cliffs. You can catch a boat from Martin’s Haven and roam over the unspoilt landscape looking for wildlife and signs of its prehistoric inhabitants. Just don’t miss the last boat back.
Click on the image to buy it as low cost royalty free stock.
1/125, f6.7, ISO200 28mm
7500 × 2312 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Vivid red poppy field panorama
Bright red field of wild poppies filling a rolling hillside with spring colour. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
In the summer I like to wander round my local Cotswold landscape on my bike ostensibly searching for locations and images but actually pretending I’m in a Tour de France breakaway leaving the peloton in my dust. Despite the occasional surges of self-righteous fury as I pass through another village of agricultural workers’ cottages transformed into twee hamlets of shiny Range Rovers and golden retrievers by affluent Londoners searching for some rural idyll that never existed I periodically come across a serendipitous vista that justifies carrying a big camera bag that ruins my svelte, slip streamed profile.
Usually a wide meadow of lush green pasture, this hillside had been transformed into a blaze of riotous colour as these delicate Corn Poppies (Papaver rhoeas) filled this flowering field from hedgerow to hedgerow. Since this species creates a long term soil seed bank that is activated when the ground is disturbed, the farmer must have ploughed the field the year before to allow these beautiful blooms to germinate. As I was shooting, an old local told me that she hadn’t seen this field blossom in this way for twenty years. The next year I returned to this location on the off chance that it had happened again and found the same field filled with a completely different wild flower, ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare):
Just as beautiful and just as temporary. I wonder what will grow there this year…
Click on the images to buy them as low cost royalty free stock.
Top image: 1/160, f11, ISO200 20mm 9869 × 1982 pixels.
Bottom image: 1/160, f16 ISO200 20mm 9999 x 4140 pixels.
Please don’t steal these images, it’s how I make my living.
Glasonbury Tor, Somerset, UK
The roofless ruins of St. Michael’s Tower on top of Glastonbury Tor overlooking the Somerset Levels and Glastonbury. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
This distinctive local landmark is all that remains of the medieval St. Michael’s Church, the rest destroyed during Henry VIII’s smashing of the Catholic church’s grip on power in 16th Century England. He also had the last Abbot of the town’s Abbey, Richard Whiting, gorily executed on the summit. Here, as for centuries past, cattle graze the steep conical slopes munching their way around the terraced hillside. Before the boggy marshes of the surrounding Somerset Levels were drained the Tor would have been an valuable island of pasture rising high out of the wetlands. If sea levels continue to rise, it could be again.
From the summit you get a terrific view over the surrounding landscape and as the Mendips rear up on the horizon if you look carefully you can see the dramatic slash of Cheddar Gorge cut into the escarpment. Glastonbury itself attracts huge numbers of fruit-loops from around the world to cuddle crystals and charge their chakras. You can’t walk along the street without being run over by a rainbow jumper wearing vegan. It’s worse than Stroud. There’s some kind of concert thing on nearby too I think, but no-one seemed to know anything about it.
Click on the image to buy it as royalty free stock from just $1.
1/125, f6.7, ISO200 20mm
7200 x 2584 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
I’m off on location for the next 10 days, so unless international data roaming charges on the iPhone are miraculously lowered to realistic levels there will now follow a short hiatus.
Up, up and away in my beautiful balloon
Brightly colored hot air balloon envelope over patchwork quilt rural landscape. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
Okay, so it’s not my balloon. These things don’t pack down small or launch on a whim. But they do make the most fantastic platform to take aerial photographs from. Once you get used to leaning right over the edge of the basket with only a bit of woven willow between you and the ground far below it’s an amazingly tranquil experience. The first time I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have such a peaceful evening to fly, then I realised it was because we were travelling at the exact same speed as the wind, so there’s not even the slightest breeze. And because you need good clear conditions, when you do eventually get off the ground you’re guaranteed a great view. Coupled with the slow speed, open air basket and ability to travel much lower and quieter than powered vehicles, hot air balloon flights can produce fantastic images. It’s just a pity you can’t steer them.
This colorful balloon was flying me over the pretty Cotswold villages and patchwork quilt of farmland and rolling hills as low, late afternoon sunlight cast long shadows on the picturesque landscape. This dramatic vertical panorama was made from 5 or 6 original images composited together to make a view of about 160°. There were a couple more to add to the top but I was too close to avoid parallax errors.
Click on the image to buy it as royalty free stock from just $1.
1/125 second, f9, ISO200 20mm
4047 x 12974 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.