Landscapes

If I take photos of local mountains and stuff, a lot of the time, they are actually landsCapes, because of where I live: Cape Town. So, landsCapes… Capes.

Geddit?

Fortuitously, that’s not what this post is about. This post is about the recently announced Landscape Photographer of the Year 2017 awards in the UK, “showcasing Britain’s eclectic landscapes”, and being reported about in The Guardian.

Now obviously, all the images that they’ve given us in the article are really good, they’re unlikely to lob an Owen Crompton in there or anything, so having looked at the brief, I’ve chosen a couple of my favourites which fit it nicely to share here. Click through on the link above if you want to see the rest. It’s not rocket science, folks.

First up, George Robertson’s The Cauldron, the industrial landscape of Grangemouth in Stirlingshire. It won the “Urban” category:

And then, about 150km south of there, across the border into civilisation (although you might not think it by comparing the images), Ken Rennie’s The Raven. (That being the name of the boat in the photograph.)

Quite glorious, both. And a reminder that while South Africa and other countries may have the natural features, the outstanding beauty and the drama on an altogether more impressive scale, the UK can still have its moments.

Winter Landscape Photography Tips

Yes, I’m aware that it’s not winter in South Africa, but it’s very wintery here and if you are here, you might need to take some landscape pictures to record just how wintery it is right now. Fortunately, 500px has all the hints and tips you need to to take the perfect winter lanscape photograph. Unfortunately, much like their previous tutorials, it does seem to be advantageous to live in Scandinavia as a starting point. This effort of the Lofoten Islands by Stian Klo refers:

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Sadly, we’re fresh out of fjords here right now.
Still, while out on the hunt for snow this morning in the hills above Sheffield, I did get this, which I quite like:

It would probably look even better if I hadn’t just juxtaposed it with the best example of a professional landscape photographer’s winter landscape photography like I just did. Honest.

But it was bleak up there at Redmires this morning, so there wasn’t much opportunity to get much else as the wet, cold, near-horizontally blown snow closed in and chilled the kids towards an ugly and early hypothermic death. They’re not used to those sort of temperatures and I have to admit that I was struggling to hold the camera (or anything else) in the face of the icy blast. It wasn’t even nice snow – it was wet and heavy – but that didn’t bother them. They’ve never seen anything like it before and it was fascinating to watch their reactions.

As for my winter landscape photography, it’s back to the drawing board – and the holiday home in Norway – for me.
(Although in the meantime, I continue to update this Flickr set.)

23 Landscape Photography Tips From A Pro

Incoming from 500px, the photography sharing site that my stuff really isn’t anywhere near good enough for: “23 Landscape Photography Tips From A Pro“, the Pro in question being Moldovan Iurie Belegurschi:

…whose own jaw-dropping landscapes never fails [sic] to amaze us.

Indeed, because yes, he’s pretty good:

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But the advice is less helpful – and yes, I’m being a bit cynical here, but aside from the motivational stuff (“Start with a vision”, “It’s not easy”, “Never stop learning” etc etc), it does seem it does seem to fall, basically, into three broad categories:

  1. Become a full-time photographer
  2. Move to Iceland, and
  3. Buy expensive equipment.

I’d wager that at least two, if not all three of those, are somewhat beyond the bounds of possibility for the majority of my readership.
That said, if you can do it (like Iurie did), then perhaps you too could produce stuff like this:

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Stunning. And do go and have a look at the rest of his stuff, if only because Iceland.

For the rest of us, it’s equally(?) beautiful Cape Town, with our flimsy tripods and our point-and-shoots. And the hope that one day we get especially lucky.

Photo credits: Iurie Belegurschi