More Iceland

I've mentioned this before, but I really strongly recommended Alessandra Meniconzi's website. Actually, to be brutally honest, strictly speaking I recommend her photos, because the website has greatly overgrown the size that iPhoto can gracefully support, and, to be frank Alessandra, you need to sort it out :-)

But anyway, try starting here, then explore the rest of the Iceland pages. One photo, for me, really stands out as a work of inventive genius. On the road to Patreksfjörður in the West Fjords, there is an abandoned beached fishing boat. It is interesting but not really photogenic. But Alessandra has photographed it from behind a rain streaked car window, giving it a strange, magical air. In that weather most people would not even stop - but she has seen a brilliant opportunity.

I believe some of these photos will be published in due course...something to look forward to. Then maybe she can sort out the web site!

Website: Nature's Reflection

I'm starting a new "Recommended web sites" category today with a link to photography website Nature's Reflection. The site features photography and commentary from Zürich-based environmental scientist Catherine Cunningham. Clearly a keen mountaineer as well as a committed environmentalist, Catherine has gathered a series of thought-provoking (and just plain gorgeous) nature photographs. Apart from the aesthetic value, which is where most of us stop, she also uses her photography in parallel with her scientific work, to illustrate the real world effects of the processes her work postulates. This seems to be an effective way both of introducing the general public to the hard facts of climate change and other environmental processes, but also to add a holistic element to the science.

In any case, the photography stands on its own feet, and I recommend that you take a look.

Infrared with the E-1 (again)

A few weeks back I was photographing the basalt cliffs at Arnastapi in Iceland. I wanted to try to get a long exposure, to get that silky, ethereal look to the sea, but at ISO 100, fully stopped down, with a ND 4 and polariser filter, I still was not getting long enough exposures.

It then occurred to me that there was another approach. Since the E-1 is very insensitive to infrared, it needs very long exposure times to record anything at all. So I put a blocking IR filter on, set the exposure to the maximum (1 minute), aperture at f8, and waited. The results were quite good.

basalt cliffs at Arnastapi, West Iceland

A longer exposure would have been possible, stopped down further, but this needs the BULB setting and didn't have a cable release (used to have one...broke it). With the noise reduction turned on (vital in such cases), each exposure in any case takes two minutes, and in strong winds this gets pretty tricky...and if somebody is waiting for you, well two minutes is quite enough!