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One of those times when you think the colors wouldn’t come but still you give it a shot ..With stormy clouds around and with epic landscapes and intense hiking you want to definitely capture a scene like this..This spring in California is definitely one of the best greens I have seen
It was a Saturday afternoon and Christmas was upon us. Like all self respecting landscape photographers I'd done the only sensible thing you can do at these times and shunned the town centre festive shopping chaos in favour of something altogether more soothing for the soul. After all, I'd already done my Christmas shopping. Well, sort of. It had involved the purchase of a sturdy carbon fibre tripod, which I knew I would find more rewarding than socks. I really don't need any more socks. I'm good for socks. Thanks for asking.
Holywell Bay, 12 miles or so from home is one of my favourite retreats. In winter at low tide, the huge beach is quite empty and the foreground changes every time I visit. Sometimes there's a river running across the scene in front of you, yet on other occasions it peters out to the right this composition, spreading out like a big sandy delta on its way to the sea. I love not knowing what such a familiar friend is going to look like on each new meeting. It's a bit like knowing somebody who can't stop changing their hairstyle from one week to the next.
On this occasion it was windy. Very windy. I'd had a notion of trying to catch the sand being blown straight at me across the beach with a shutter time that would need the tripod. Picking my spot I set the tripod up and turned to unzip my bag to bring out the camera. Turning round, the tripod was lying on its side, blown off its feet by a heavy gust of Atlantic air. At times I was also finding it hard to stay on my feet, almost finding myself lying beside the abandoned length of carbon fibre on the sand more than once. I started to wonder whether the trip had been worth the effort when it was clear that my plan wasn't going to work.
And then the light came down through an opening in the clouds and bounced right off the beach in front of me. It didn't last for long - it never does when it looks like this, but it's the light I love the most that I always hope for at the edge of a storm.
Happy Sunday everyone.
A tranquil riverside scene unfolds beneath a clear blue sky, where shallow water flows gently over smooth, sunlit stones. Lush green trees frame the river on both sides, their reflections shimmering on the calm surface. Dappled light filters through the foliage, creating a peaceful contrast of shadow and warmth. The landscape feels quiet and undisturbed, capturing a perfect moment of natural serenity along a woodland riverbank.
#riverwalk #naturephotography #landscapephotography #riverside #forestviews #calmwaters #reflectiongram #outdooradventures #naturelovers #scenicviews #wanderlust #earthfocus #discoverearth #peacefulplaces #riverlife #woodland #summerdays #waterreflection #getoutside #exploremore #beautifuldestinations #serenity #rocksandwater #greenescape #hikingviews #countryside #wildandfree #travelgram #sunnyvibes #landscape_lovers
“Oh no here we go again. He’s finally lost it. Three shots already uploaded from that infernal ridge walk and yet he still manages to find another one to rattle on about!” is what you might be thinking. I’m starting to have the same thoughts myself. It doesn’t help that I’ve done so little photography since that adventure. Ok so there’s a van related wild camp caper on Dartmoor the week before last to report tales of yet to come, but I’m still to work those raw files into shape. The thing is, that afternoon on the high ground of the Brecon Beacons in South Wales brought one composition after another as the landscape gradually revealed new secrets with each phase of the trek. All of them taken with a lens that really deserves a bit more love in return for its efforts. This one brought the peaks of Fan y Big, Cribyn, Pen y Fan and Corn Du into a single frame, with an illuminated bonus foreground designed by the icy architects of this landscape to offset the four dark shrouds behind.
Like so many of us I started out with a modest assembly of tools for my induction into this world that we share. A midrange camera, a couple of reasonably price lenses sourced from your favourite auction site, a cheap tripod, an even cheaper bag and some very inexpensive filters that would be better suited as coasters for tea cups. And then I got carried away – a sorry tale of obsession, a descent of the senses so steep as to be matched only by the plummeting bank balance as a full frame camera and professional lenses were added to the bag, itself replaced by a new model of course. The cheap filters gave way to the same set that Nigel Danson swears by, and then of course a carbon fibre tripod was a must wasn’t it? Not long ago I looked at the collection, did some mental arithmetic, and decided it was best not to mention the final score to my better half, who has far more modest tastes. A new pair of knitting needles is as racy as she gets when it comes to freeing up budget for luxuries. When people take her to task on her innate sense of thrift, with metronomic consistency she replies with “how do you think I managed to retire in my fifties on what I was earning?” She has a point. You become so much wealthier by desiring less in life.
But in that bagful of precious things lies the lens that so often gets overlooked – only really brought into use at moments when lugging the others around is going to prove challenging. I think of it as my adventuring lens. After all I’d have needed a team of sherpas to roll my 100-400mm lens up the first slope of Fan y Big on a series of felled tree trunks if I’d wanted to take it with me. So for long arduous treks, the lightweight lens with the huge focal length gets its day in the sun; and the rain too for that matter. I used it a lot that day as you may already be aware from a surfeit of previous posts. When I uploaded the raw files from the hike onto my computer at home my first reaction was one of enormous disappointment – so many of them were fuzzy and grainy and I found myself heading down the familiarly dangerous route of eBay as I blamed the lens once more for its inadequacies, while stubbornly ignoring my own shortcomings. Misplaced vainglory is such an unattractive web in which to entangle oneself.
Eventually, after much soul searching and further experimenting at 300mm on the tripod in my living room I concluded that the maligned lens was entirely free of blame – it was me who was at fault. I resolved to learn to use it properly and stop poring over alternatives on the internet each time I fail. In fact it went to Dartmoor with me so you’ll be able to judge for yourself which one of us has performance issues to come to terms with in due course. I think we both know already it’s me and not the lens.
I’m sitting at my laptop in the aforementioned van, where the strains of the annual music festival that take place on the estate across the road from us are drifting across the trees towards me on the gentlest of summer evening breaths. It might be Razorlight; it might be Goldie Looking Chain I can hear, but this year the neighbours don’t appear to have been invited to the party in atonement for the interruption to our weekend peace so I’ve really no idea. I’ve moved on from indignation to indifference now. We didn’t really want to go anyway. At least it’s nearly over and it’s Bank Holiday Monday tomorrow with its stay of execution from the real world for one more day.
This might be the last image I post from that ridge walk, but the trouble is there’s at least one more of them jumping up and down in the shadows waving its arms about if I can drag another tale out of the adventure. For now I’ll work harder at familiarising myself with that lens.
Step 1. Drive to the Travelodge at the old Severn Bridge after work on Thursday evening. On the way make a mental note that you don't need to order large chips from Francines at Launceston if you pass that way again. The portions are very generous and a medium serving would still have been plenty. Take so long trying to finish them that Lee eventually decides to start driving while you're still having your tea.
Step 2. Discover quite early that it takes even longer to cross Wales from Chepstow at its South East corner to Anglesey in the North West than even your most conservative estimates allowed for. Everyone knows that the more beautiful a place is, the longer it takes to pass through it. A brunch stop at Rhayader and a couple of very brief interruptions to get out of the car and stare at the wilderness with a huge grin on your face don't really account for the 175 mile journey taking more than 7 hours. My goodness Wales is a gorgeous country though.
Step 3. Arrive at Newborough Beach and discover that it costs a fiver to park there. Step 3a. Discover a while later that your mate Chris, who you haven't seen for more than 30 years has a key to the place, a perk of living nearby.
Step 4. Don't hang around wondering what Dave and Lee have got so excited about on the beach and head directly across it for Llandwyn Island and Twr Mawr Lighthouse before the mountains of Snowdonia disappear into the distant clouds for the evening, taking the backdrop you planned along with them. Now that's a brisk walk if ever you feel the need.
Step 5. Struggle to make any sense of the subject you came here to photograph. The light isn't helping, but the strong winds that precede the arrival of Storm Ciara seem almost deliberately obstructive. Wonder why landscape photography is always so infernally difficult.
Step 6. Give up on the lighthouse and wander around Llandwyn Island with a general feeling of deflation and little sense of direction. Discover a new composition. Notice that the outline of Snowdonia still hangs about vaguely in the background. Set the tripod up and form a human windbreak. I don't often do the sea without a six stop filter attached.
Step 7. Forget to tell the other two about this engaging scene accidentally on purpose. Discover later that Dave found it for himself in any case and managed an Explore with the result. Underhandedness never pays off.
Amazing stromy scenes from the winter trip to Utah this season…It was completely like a painting there
"Are you doing a late one?" Katie stood at my office door in her coat, signalling that it was time to go. It's the first time she's worn a coat in months, which tells a story in itself. Ever since Lockdown started in the UK, or at least so it seems, the weather has been unusually good. Even in March, when we were first instructed to work from home it was nice enough to sit outside without a coat on. March is usually a bitter and blustery month in the UK. April is often only marginally better for that matter. But apart from a below average June, the summer has seemed longer this year. Until today it has at any rate.
"No, I'm coming with you," I replied. It was already nearly 6pm. I wasn't in the middle of anything and our boss had already left, so there was nobody to look heroically pious in front of. I switched off my computer and followed her out of the building. We look after each other like that as left unchecked we're both likely to carry on working until the caretakers throw us out during the crazy autumn term. Sometimes I think someone should bash our heads together and knock some sense into us - all this unpaid overtime doesn't impress anyone, although it does just about keep our heads above water.
Today had started wet, then been bright, and rained again before the evening sun filtered through the clouds - a recipe for the soft grainy warm yellow light that I saw on the slopes of Carn Brea as I drove home. Although it was just about an hour until sunset, I knew there was time to change quickly, hoping that everything was in the bag and head to Wheal Coates, the nearest coastal focal point on the map. I arrived to a blast of a distinctly chilly onshore breeze coming in from the north and immediately put my raincoat on over the one I was already wearing and tried to reconcile the conditions to the sweltering heat that had found me switching on the office fan just two days earlier. Still, when you can stand and gaze all the way along the coast down to St Ives and beyond just an hour after leaving work, a bit of fresh weather seems a small price to pay.
In my last post I talked about my routine of planning and preparing a shot, often waiting happily for an hour or more before even reaching for the camera. Today there was no time to reach for the unwritten textbook in my head as I hastily assembled the camera on the tripod to catch the yellow path over the sea reach the sunbeams bursting from low cloud on the horizon. Things weren't helped when it dawned on me that I'd left my glasses in the car, bringing instead my Ray Bans. Right now I was up there with Stevie Wonder in the looking cool stakes, but I only had a very small advantage over him in discerning what was happening on the three inch screen in front of me. It's not the first time I've done this when I've been in a bit of a hurry to get to a location.
Normally I stay well after sunset, most of the way through the blue hour watching the light fall and the colours fade into the darkness, but this evening it was too cold to hang around and gaze at nature's beauty. I headed home, to soon be passed by an escaped horse running in the direction of St Agnes, followed at a judicious distance by a conscientious driver with her hazard lights on. When I got home I phoned the police for the first time in my life to report the antics of our equine friend. They already knew and were on the way. Hope they got there in time to lead it to safety.
A beautiful storm was brewing behind these unique landscapes and the light was just super moody and was lovely to experience..It was super windy and took a lot of time to remove dust spots during the edit
Is photography art? Of course, like painting, photography is able to engage, inspire and evoke emotions in the recipient.
In the other hand, Yann Arthus-Bertrand said: “The earth is art; the photographer is only a witness.” I'm as a fine art photographer trying to capture most iconic landmarks in a unique and fresh way to inspire you to see this beautiful world we live in.
Seeing through the lens the abstract and wonderful world of Antelope Canyon, you can understand how the light reflects off the walls, filling the shadows, and the colors radiate holiness from the rocks. The captivating beauty of these sandstone canyons awakens the senses and inspires the spirit. The whole scene has a magical glow created by the light of the canyon.
Smooth, sensuous lines and vibrant abstract colors make this canyon a stunning and astonishing shooting location.
The red light of the canyon casts a glow that only the camera can capture. It's like another world in the frame. The canyon looks like it was carved out by a Master craftsman. So it really is, and this amazing masterpiece revealed to our admiring eyes!
What do you see in this masterpiece of nature and what feelings does it evoke in you?
It's a joy to share my favorite images with you as an art form and to bring peaceful feelings and good memories to your home. I do any kind of art prints and you can check it here: www.etsy.com/shop/AlexDahovPhoto
This would be greatly appreciated, and thank you for supporting the local arts.
Wheal Coates was busier than I’d have liked it to be. It is the start of half term I suppose, and on the previous day I’d already witnessed the evidence of a massed cavalcade of fun seekers heading along the A30 towards our far flung corner of the country as I’d tried to make my own short journey east towards a wet and windy Ladock Wood. The approach to Wheal Coates entails a stretch of single lane tarmac where it’s normal to have to pull in for the odd passing car and exchange of the quintessentially British “thank you” waves as you make your way along it. Even in summer I generally only have to stop a couple of times. Yesterday no less than ten cars decided to travel in the opposite direction as I tried to make progress along it. I even had to reverse twice. One of the beneficiaries of my generosity didn’t even bother to wave. Quietly unimpressed I continued.
When I arrived in the small car park it seemed even more full than at any time I saw it in July or August. A father chided his son for unidentifiable reasons as they approached the car right next to where I had parked. I decided to stay put until their squabble was done and they were on the way to wherever they were going as the latest of the bands of rains that had been passing throughout the day came straight over us. At least the light looked promising. Finally deciding it was safe to leave the car without involuntarily joining anyone else’s domestic troubles I headed down the main path, taking a right hand turn to a place where I fancied I’d find some space to myself.
Unfortunately, the spot I settled on for my composition guaranteed that the isolation I always look for wasn’t going to happen. Wheal Coates always attracts both locals and visitors along its web of clifftop paths, and I’d set my tripod up next to the South West Coast Path itself. I’d arrived with the intention of looking for some strong foreground interest to work with my wide angle lens, but was immediately drawn to the spray drifting over huge rocks in the sea a few miles along the coast, which found me reaching for the telephoto instead. Within moments the light changed for the better and the girl in the wellies, accompanied by an older companion with a dog yards behind her strolled into the scene. As the opportunity to catch a moment thudded somewhere between my ears it struck me that I only wanted a single figure in the foreground, and with the camera off the tripod I had to go for a quick, handheld composition before the rest of the party joined her. I soon forgot the shot as the light intensified with a dark bluish cloud complementing the sunlit orange tones in the foreground heather – that almost sounds as if I know what I’m on about.
The stream of humans continued, a young chap engaging me on the subject of art and photography before racing off to find his easel so he could paint St Agnes Beacon. Later I was joined by another local photographer, who asked if he could set up next to me. I learned to my surprise that he was a dairy farmer with a herd of 400 cows and lived next to Ladock Wood, the scene of my previous photo taken a day earlier. I was amazed that he found time for any hobbies at all. I think he was too. Sadly for him he’d missed the best of the light, the sun sinking behind a bank of ominous slate grey cumulus and with no apparent intention of reappearing for the rest of the evening.
And so I returned home to review my images, deciding that this one with the sea spray spreading over the cliffs was the one to share with you. The trouble was that it wasn’t level – I often struggle with horizons – and when I tried to straighten it the girl in the wellies ended up right at the edge of the frame. So I had to move her. Not bodily you understand – we hadn’t been properly introduced and there’s a pandemic on as you’re probably aware. I’d never tried this before and in truth my Photoshop skills are more or less non-existent. But somehow I blundered my way through yet another hack and lifted her up and moved her five yards along the path. I’d rather not have done this, but very occasionally you just have to. It doesn’t seem to be that much of an untruth when some people routinely use sky replacement tools in their final images – although I should add there’s nothing wrong with that if it’s what works for you. It's all about choice - it's just that I won't be doing it because to me, photos are about moments, memories and feelings.
Content that she was now more comfortably positioned I looked closer into the image and saw people everywhere. Usually I prefer to cull unwanted participants in my images, but as I was about to hit the content aware fill command on the first group I hesitated. They were part of the story after all, I reasoned. And so they’ve stayed just where I found them - enjoying a Sunday stroll on a wind blown Cornish clifftop.
"One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs
And the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls"--Saeb-e-Tabrizi
The title of Khaled Hosseini's book A Thousand Splendid Suns is based on this poem by the 17th century Persia poet Tabrizi...
Hot Creek, Mammoth Lakes
There are certain places which is totally worth going repeatedly till you get the perfect shot..It was 15F and my camera stopped working and had to head it in my vehicle and get it working in this cold and ended up seeing one of the best scenes ever you can imagine in this friggin cold...Winter just gets magical in the eastern sierras if you get lucky
Also one of the fellow photographer did help in getting someone to stand there in the cold
: I was half-expecting a very small, very polite gentleman to poke his head out and offer me tea and seed cake. There’s something about a moss-covered hollow that makes you realize the world is much more magical than we give it credit for. No sign of Bilbo yet, but I’m staying for second breakfast just in case. ☕️🍄
The quaint village of Vernazza in Cinque Terre is known for its picturesque scenery and charming atmosphere. This stunning seascape photograph captures the beauty of Vernazza at sunset, with the soft purple hues of the sky perfectly complementing the tranquil blue waters. With its colorful buildings and peaceful seaside location, Vernazza is a true gem of the Italian Riviera. This photograph is a perfect reminder of the tranquility and beauty that Vernazza has to offer.
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