Awesome Iceland

I’d wanted to go to Iceland for a long time, so when an opportunity came along, I decided it was fate!  I tagged along on a photography workshop run by Tatra Photography.  The solitude of landscape photography can sometimes drive me crazy so it’s lovely to share experiences with other photographers sometimes.

The landscape reminded me a lot of the Western Isles (A group of Islands off the West coast of Scotland) and in particular, South Uist. From the road, one side is flat and you can see out to sea and the other is mountainous. We only explored a tiny area of Iceland and had I been there on my own, there are certain locations that I would definitely have spent more time at….oh well, I’ll just have to go back.

To be honest – and I don’t say this lightly – but some of the places we visited were truly awe inspiring.  The Jokulsarlon lagoon is one of these places.  Massive iceburgs fill a lagoon – different sizes, shapes and textures.  I had to just look for a long time to make sense of the shapes before me and decide on a composition.  This is my favourite. I used a 10 stop ND filter to enhance the colours and make the surface of the water more mirror like.  I was very lucky as I hadn’t realised how much the iceburgs move so I count myself lucky that it all came together in this photograph and didn’t end up blurred!

The Icebergs leave the lagoon and the tide carries them down onto a black beach.  It’s another amazing scene.  Black sand and crystal clear ice. Simply stunning.  Another place I am itching to go back to already.

When we first arrived, there were smaller ice sculptures strewn across the sand as far as I could see.  But as the tide turned, massive iceburgs began to arrive. Different colours, shapes and textures. It really was a case of the landscape changing on a minute-by-minute basis. I was continuously looking for new subjects and compositions. Amazing.

This blog wouldn’t be complete without me mentioning the Aurora Borealis which we were lucky to see two nights in a row.  I didn’t know what to expect and it’s really hard to describe, but you see a light appear and as you watch, the colour gets more intense.  Sometimes it then disappears, but sometimes it snakes across the sky fading in and out in different areas above you.  At times, the Northern lights filled the sky and I just had to watch so that I would remember it forever.

These photographs are from the first night. The display lasted for an incredible 4-5 hours and I feel so lucky to have seen them give such a beautiful and awe inspiring show.

Please visit my flickr page to see more photographs from Iceland.

Thanks for stopping by

Cath

Variety is the spice of life

I love the peace and calming nature of landscape photography.  I find it very relaxing and enjoy just taking in my surroundings.  But sometimes it’s great to swap that for the noise and speed of aviation photography.  The two subjects couldn’t be more different.

Photographing jets involves a different set of photographic skills and camera set up.  TV instead of AV, tracking focus instead of one shot and the skill which always takes me a while to get back into the swing of is …panning. Panning has to be spot on to achieve sharp results.

I find the most challenging aircraft to photograph are those that fly really fast but have a propeller such as the Spitfire and Hurricane.

This is because you need to use a slower shutter speed (1/160th sec) to get a nice blur on the propellers but panning technique has to be perfect to get a sharp aircraft. If you don’t capture propeller blur, then the aircraft look like they could fall out of the sky which just looks a bit rubbish.  I’ve lost count of the number of shots i’ve deleted because they’re not sharp enough.  Having said that it’s a great feeling when I achieve a great shot.

These are a few of my favourites from RIAT on the 16th July 2011 (The Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford, Gloucestershire, UK).

Please visit my flickr page to see more pics from RIAT and some other airshows I’ve been to:

www.flickr.com/photos/cathevans/

Thanks for stopping by

Cath

Hi and welcome to my blog that’s not really a blog….more a place for me to write random thoughts, articles and post a few pics.

If you’re reading this, then thanks very much for visiting and I hope you keep popping back… and please do, because this is very much an irregular blog type thing.  The likelihood is that I won’t be posting every week and maybe not even every month because I might be away on a shoot. Alternatively I might post twice in one week because I’m stuck in the office, so please pop back and don’t be offended if there’s no new content, one day you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

Please feel free to leave comments…preferably nice ones!

Thanks for stopping by

Cath