Most of my portfolio comes from my travels across the planet, be it frozen wastelands, volcanoes or mineral lakes so toxic that NASA scientists research them in order to further their understanding of how alien life might exist “out there”. So it is easy to forget just how beautiful the UK is.
The sun eventually dips below the mountains as storm clouds move in. Windermere may be the most popular lake in the Lake District but I prefer the quietness of Coniston Water. [Click to enlarge]
Whilst I loved my most recent trip after evenings of critiquing the same photographs over and over again, I need a break and something else to look at.
So, it was time for a trip down memory lane and back to the trip that made me lose interest in architectural work and fall in love with landscape: Chile. Specifically this is El Tatio, the World’s highest geyser field at a lack-of-oxygen-headache-inducing 4,300 metres up in the Andes. At 5AM in the morning it is on the chilly side too and so wrapping up warm is definitely recommended.
This is an image that was completely lost in my Adobe Lightroom catalogue until now but, simply of curiousity I decided to go through all the images I took, not just the ones I had selected at the time.
I rather like it and it may have just become my favourite image from Chile. I’m so fickle…
A couple debate heading closer to the geysers at El Tatio, Northern Chile.
With the third of my five part trip review almost complete I’ve realised that it will be another epic read. So this week’s photo post is short and simple.
![Tree stump in Lake Afdera, northern Ethiopia. [Click to enlarge!]](http://davehoggan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MG_0957.jpg)
Tree stump in Lake Afdera, northern Ethiopia. [Click to enlarge!]
I had guessed right the night before and I could see the sun about to rise above the hills on the other side of the lake. I grabbed the tripod, walked what must have been all of eight-steps to the lake’s edge and after the usual test shots managed to get a few I liked in the pre-dawn pinkish glow. Job done.
I had seen a tree stump further along the shore the evening before when we had first arrived and thought at the time that it might make an interesting subject against the stillness of the early morning lake surface. The light was changing fast – literally by the second at this time of day – so it was a mad dash to get over to it and set up the shot to see if what I saw in my mind could be translated into a photograph.
Now I’m back home I’ve had a chance to work through the shortlist of images and I’ve hit a bit of a problem with this shot. When I first saw the tree stump the image in my mind was the tree stump in high contrast, almost black and white. It is a simple, restful image and, as I seem to favour, it has lots of negative space it in – the top two-thirds in fact. The image at the top most closely resembles the image in my mind. But the image below is one of the several I took I took but without the high key adjustments – it has a much warmer feel to it. I say warmer – as you can see the colour is more pastel – but pastel is still warmer than white. I like it, as much as the ‘original’ intent above, albeit for different reasons. I can’t choose both, but I can’t choose one over the other either.
![Tree stump in Lake Afdera, northern Ethiopia in the natural dawn light . [Click to enlarge!]](http://davehoggan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MG_0955-2.jpg)
Tree stump in Lake Afdera, northern Ethiopia in the natural dawn light . [Click to enlarge!]
![The original shot of the tree stump [Click to enlarge!]](http://davehoggan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MG_0948.jpg)
The original shot of the tree stump [Click to enlarge!]
It’s beginning to get chilly here in the UK and so the annual panic over snow is about to start. With that in mind I thought it would be nice to post an image that embodied warmth.
I’m in the middle of writing up the third part of the review (days 4 through 6) of the trip to Ethiopia – the days where we were at the Erta Ale lava lake – and so I’m not going into details today but it is essentially it is a hole 47 kilometres deep and full of molten lava. The level of the lava can rise or fall a few metres but not enough to make a difference to the temperature when you stand close of the rim, which is hot. Very hot. The fun starts when there’s gas in the upwell as it turns the usually gently bubbling, boiling rock surface into something even more spectacular: A Stombolian eruption.
There’s a convenient, but easily climbable peak not too far back from the lake and this gives a great downward view of not only the lake but the whole caldera. This was the third and last day that we were at the lake before heading further north to Dalol and nature had been kind by putting on frequent displays of Stombolian eruptions, lasting up to two minutes at a time. After spending much of the day at ground level trying to capture video and time lapses of the activity, I and one of the other photographers on the trip decided to head up here to gain a different perspective. I was up here with the intent of setting up a panoramic shot but when looking down one of the eruptions started.
This was very much an opportunistic shot. I didn’t have time to frame the shot nor to zoom in so the resulting image captured the moment, but not ideally. In fact I initially dismissed the image as unusable in the forthcoming gallery, but then realised that whilst it may not make it into the final 25 images it still tells a story and gives a great idea of just how ‘up close and personal’ you can get with a volcano.
There has been a significant amount of cropping of the original image – enough that this wouldn’t print well at A3+. Other that that I have only made clarity and vibrance adjustments.
Oh, definitely click the image to enlarge!
![Erta Ale can have moments of breath-taking wonder... [Click to enlarge!]](http://davehoggan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/MG_15011.jpg)
Erta Ale can have moments of breath-taking wonder… [Click to enlarge!]
After taking my first deliberate ‘selfie’ in Iceland against a backdrop of the stunning Skogafoss waterfall that was less about being a selfie and more about the sheer immensity of nature, I knew I was going to take another selfie in Ethiopia. And I knew precisely where too.
The volcano at Erta Ale – ‘smoking mountain’ in the local Afar dialect – is an unusual phenomenon. One of only six known lava lakes and the oldest having been present since 1906 it is the result of a hole descending 47 kilometres into the Earth at a place where three tectonic plates are slowly ripping the African continent apart. The resulting upwell of magma isn’t pressurised under a cap as is the case with normal volcanoes and so rather than violent and explosive eruptions the lava displays far more gracefully.
But lava is lava and as benign as Erta Ale appears the lava is a distinctly warm 1200°C. The lake also passes through cycles of activity and by the third day of our visit there was a significant rise in the amount of gas in the upwell resulting is some pretty spectacular eruptions. One of the side effects of the eruptions was the occasional lava bomb being thrown into the air and that is not something you want heading your way: Even if they are small, they are still molten rock and will burn through you like a hot knife through butter. It is one of the reasons that you do not stand at the very edge of the crater, the other being that the edges are so brittle and fragile that they collapse at the slightest provocation. Over the years several tourists have died here, our guide Enku himself losing one, simply as they ignored the advice they were given.
I knew I wanted a silhouette shot where I was as close to the edge as I could be so I stood out against the glow of the lake. I also knew that I didn’t want to die either so I headed off with Enku to find an appropriate spot. As a trained geologist, having worked for a number of mining and exploration companies, he could read the rise and fall of the edge and decided that here, at about one metre, was the closest it was safe to approach. Even then he was less than keen about spending time this close and I remember being a little disappointed that a nice Strombolian eruption didn’t occur as I stood there. But, even at a metre back from the edge, the heat was intense – over 60°C if the readings earlier in the day were correct – and waves of poisonous hydrogen sulphide were buffeting me. I had to be quick.
So it was a bit of a surprise when I finally got round to taking a proper look at my photographs today to find my selfie had been photobombed by a surprise guest lying at my feet…
Well, if you’re going to visit one of the more unique places on the planet, you’re going to take a selfie, aren’t you…? [Click to enlarge]
Just because I travel with the specific aim of photography doesn’t mean I don’t have fun And today’s image was definitely involved a lot of fun
Beware, icebergs can bite back… [Click to enlarge!]
As mentioned Jökulsárlón is a lake that has formed at the base of Vatnajökull – Europe’s largest glacier – and more specifically at the base of Breiðamerkurjökull, an outlet glacier. There are many complex processes linking these three entities but in essence Vatnajökull is highland ice cap where erosion, glacial motion, snow fall and gravity result in the edges of the ice cap spilling downhill forming what are known as outlet glaciers or glacial tongues. Eventually the outlet glacier meets warm air, ground, or both and collapse under their own immense weight into icebergs – a process referred to as calving. But words and the science behind them are definitely nothing compared to the sight itself.
I can understand why Jökulsárlón is so popular – thousands of icebergs at the foot of an awe-inspiring glacier – I would have been awestruck too had I not been to Antarctica. Alas however, I have been and so, as impressive as the lagoon is, it left me a little, well, cold.
One of the interesting things about Jökulsárlón is that it vents out via a narrow estuary on to the very top of the North Atlantic and because of this there is a natural tide that pulls the icebergs out to sea. Get there early in the morning after low tide and you’ll be greeted with a sea full of icebergs. It is not a time to go for a swim – some of the larger icebergs can weigh upwards of a 100 tonnes but the power of the North Atlantic tosses them around as if they weighed nothing. The incoming tide also pushes some of the icebergs back onto the beach, grounding them on the black sand. It is truly stunning: A landscape of only black, blue and white. Alas, if you are taking a coach trip out of the capital, you won’t get to see this marvel of nature – as the waves beat rhythmically against the beach and the temperature rises, the mighty icebergs melt and by evening only small lumps remain, the largest the size of a pet dog.
I found myself on Jökulsárlón beach several times trying to do justice to what nature had designed. As can be seen from this image – and the rest in the gallery – the best angles are side on to the sea shooting along the beach. All well and good and I had even bought Wellington boots for this very purpose, which were 1100 miles away back in the UK as I couldn’t get everything into the suitcase! So I ended up playing chicken with the Atlantic: Set up the tripod just out of reach of the waves and begin the task of trying to capture the right shape of wave on the beach at the right time (which is tricky with multi-second exposures), all the while keeping an eye open on the waves coming in to the side of me. Of course, just as soon as I would get in to the swing of things, a rogue wave would come hurtling in and it would be a mad dash out of its path, often having to leave the camera behind perched on the tripod and hoping that there would be camera to return to. Over the course of my visits I discovered a list of handy tips, the hard way.
First, don’t set up the tripod with a thigh-high iceberg right behind you and between you and safety as, when an incoming wave means it time to make a dash for it, the iceberg is somewhat less bothered. You learn a lot about momentum, high centre of gravity, pivot points and just how big a bruise a iceberg can make by crashing full speed into one.
Second, just because you find a nice, solid feeling iceberg you can stand on to raise yourself above the level of the incoming wave, don’t get smug. Given a big enough wave that solid feeling iceberg suddenly becomes far less solid and the thing about ice is that it isn’t exactly a high friction surface.
Third, no matter how far up on the beach you leave your camera backpack out of harm’s way, it won’t be enough. The tide is coming in and you’re engrossed in trying to capture the perfect moment. You end up relying on the goodwill of others to either shout a warning that your backpack is about to get a good wash, or to move it for you.
Fourth, no matter how much you rinse the sand off your tripod after a session you’ll still take half the beach home with you. By the end of the trip my lovely carbon fibre Feisol was making alarming grating noises. Luckily John over at Feisol’s UK distributor was brilliant and had the tripod serviced and back in my hands within a week.
But the biggest thing I learned on my days to the beach was that, despite the bruises and the soaking wet feet, I was having more fun than I’d had in years.
Oh, and not to leave my wellingtons at home again…
Today I’m looking at the second of the alternative top five images from my travels in 2014. These are alternative only in that I’ve already posted about my top five and I like these for completely different reasons.
One reason to avoid coach tours: When they’ve left you have the whole place to yourself… [click to enlarge!]
But, and it may be something that I shouldn’t publicly admit, but I did begin to feel a sense of the blasé setting in at some point. Yes, as impressive as Iceland is I did eventually inwardly exclaim “Not another waterfall!” That’s OK though, there are a lot of them.
To simplify Iceland’s geography down to its absolute basics, there is a central snow-capped glacial highland region surrounded by lowlands. As winter gives way to spring the glaciers begin the long thaw and water flows in the one direction gravity permits: down. The result is hundreds of waterfalls – literally hundreds – of every conceivable size and shape and even those visitors travelling on a time budget will see at least a few waterfalls if they head out of Reykjavik along Route 1.
One of the most popular of these along the south western coast is Skogafoss. It is popular for a variety of reasons but here’s two. First it is, relatively speaking, close to Reykjavik so even those on a city weekend break can take an organised day trip out to see it. At approximately 200km from the capital you’ll see –and stop at – other sites along the way giving you a full and rewarding day out.
The second reason for its popularity is that it is truly impressive. At 60 metres high its sheer power has a palpable physical effect on you. I visited Skogafoss a couple of times and can attest to how it affects your senses. It is loud. It is big. It is wet and cold. There are no safety barriers preventing you from walking right up to the water pool at its base – although let me know if you try. I got to about 30 metres before the force of the falling water pushed through the waterproofs I was wearing – ones which survived Antarctica – and drenched me to the core. Yes, you don’t just visit Skogafoss, you experience it.
This image captures another aspect of the country I became aware of. Like the majority of the sights in Iceland the falls are free and publicly accessible and if you are prepared to spend a little longer or arrive a little earlier, you’ll spend a lot of time alone with nature. The coach parties beat a rhythmic drum. They arrive, people spill out and get their photographs before the cold gets too much and they get back on board the coach. Maybe a few intrepid tourists take the pathway to the top, but usually not. The coach then disappears leaving about twenty minutes before the next one arrives.
And this image reminds me of all those in-between moments…
Maybe it is age or maybe just being too pre-occupied with other things right now but my grand plan to reveal my top five images of 2014 hit a bit of a snag yesterday when I suddenly realised that I’ve already posted about them over the past few months! I could of course just run through them again, but where is the fun in that. So I’m going to try again and this post about my second top five. Technically that would make them part of my top ten, but – and this is hard to explain – they are not images six to ten. They are a top five of their own in my mind. So, with that cleared up…
Fimmvörðuháls is not a place that has global recognition, but it could have been a very different story…
Back in 2010 Iceland, which hitherto the World at large had only modest interest in, suddenly found itself a bit of a media darling. The fact the you know exactly why is proof of that, but just in case you have forgotten, it was the year that a rather unimpressive volcano had a minor eruption and – only due to a freak sequence of events – did it have global implications. Yes, Eyjafjallajökull become the household word that no-one mentioned, although only because no-one could pronounce it. At some point an inspired American presenter referred to it as E-15 (‘E’ followed by an unfathomable combination of 15 characters) and the name stuck. So it was rather obvious that, on the travels along the southern coast, I wasn’t not going to see it if I could.
The thing that most people do not know – and I only knew as I researched it – is that there were three eruptions at Eyjafjallajökull in 2010 each with a few weeks of each other. The first took place slightly off centre at the mountain pass of Fimmvörðuháls and was fairly uneventful – even referred to as a ‘tourist eruption’ by the guides – due to the fact that you could pretty much stand around and watch the eruption. It was the second eruption that caused the chaos. You still can’t get to the site of the second eruption, the area being not only officially out-of-bounds, but also because it is geologically unstable and hence not worth the risk. But the site of the first eruption is a different story.
It may have been a ‘tourist eruption, but the ground still steams as the hot ground hot evaporates off the snow. We were hiking up to Magni, one of the two new craters that had been formed and this is the view that greeted us upon out arrival. It is not particularly high up – only 1200 metres or so, but the mountain pass of Fimmvörðuháls sits between two glacial caps and the surrounding peaks cause weather fronts to back up as they struggle to climb over the high ground. The pass is also part of the popular three (or four) day hike between Skógar to the south and Þórsmörk (Thorsmork) to the north. The weather was closing in again rapidly and we were just getting ready to head back down when a group of intrepid hikers were making their way along the path en route to Þórsmörk.
This image really sums up one of the aspects of my photographs I most like: It is spartan. I am not keen on ‘busy’ images, I like negative space and how a few details can convey a feeling or a mood. The old adage is that a picture can convey a thousand words, but often you only need a few to make a point. It is this aspect of my work I am keen to develope.
I do envy that they got to stay and experience the power and beauty of nature whilst we had to return down the mountain.
As I’m not going to be around over the Christmas period, I thought I’d share the five images taken this year that I am most happy of.
The idea came to me whilst on a train home at the end of a 61 hour work week: I was fighting not to fall asleep and so began going through some photographs on my iPad in an effort to stay awake. It worked as I found myself flicking back and forth between images trying to decide which I liked more.
I thought I’d share my choice of top five over the course of the week. I hope you enjoy them.
Tel Aviv – June 2014
Is the dog keeping up with the man, or the man with the dog? I’ll never know for sure but the question keeps making me smile…
This image was taken in Tel Aviv in early June. I was on a training course at the headquarters of one of our vendors. The days were long and we didn’t finish before 6PM each evening which, considering that sunset was just before 8PM, meant heading straight to the local push bike rental station and a mad dash across central Tel Aviv to the beach in the hope of a hour of photography.
If you ever visit Tel Aviv – and you should as it is a great city – the beach is a must: A long golden ribbon of sand stretching from the wall of Old Jaffa to the chic bars and restaurant by the harbour. What I loved about it most was the rhythm – the palpable thrum – of humanity that could be found along its length. The old, the young and the in-between. The athletic, the office worker, the card sharks, the musicians, the friends and the lovers. Everyone was making use of the beach and, as I have described it before, for me it was the heart of the city.
One of the nice things is the beach is also west-facing, so if you like the whole ‘sun setting over the sea’ thing then you’re in luck. But I was after something a little more – well to be honest I don’t know what I really wanted, but something that summed up Tel Aviv. And there was only one thing: Youthfulness. Not of body, but of spirit.
I found a great spot up near the harbour and it seemed that it was a popular path to get down to the beach. It had this great reflection of light coming off the cobbled stones so I set up an waited for the right moment but it became obvious that I may have chosen the wrong spot as there was a near constant flow of people either heading to, or coming back from, the beach. The resulting images were a mass of ill-defined silhouettes with no focus and no real story. Still I waited and people became curious as to why I was sitting in the middle of a path, camera on tripod and not actually taking photographs. So conversations ensued luck was wished. Then it happened.
A young couple appeared over the crest of the path carrying surfboards. It was what I had been waiting for – the essence of Tel Aviv in my mind. There were very few people around and I had a clear definition of them in silhouette (I love shooting people in silhouette). They knew I was photographing them and so we got talking and they liked the image so email addresses were exchanged.
I stuck around a bit longer and I was just thinking of moving on as the light was fading when these two appeared over the crest. It made me smile even as I pressed the shutter. And it made me smile again yesterday after a long and tiring week.
My sister and her husband are keen cooks and I’m sure there isn’t a cook book or kitchen utensil yet invented that they do not own – a fact that has made Christmas shopping for them more difficult as each year passes. So this year I’ve tried a different approach and agreed to take three photographs related to food. It’s a lot more personal and, well, seeing my work hanging on someone else’s walls is always nice. The problem is that it is a new field of photography for me.
So far I’ve had a couple of none-too-successful attempts although I have some ideas on the look I’m after. But as I was lying there on my sofa waiting for the rain to stop so I could walk over to the supermarket to stock up on more fruit and veg for the project, I found my gaze settling on one of the old plants in the living room that has been in the house as long as I have.
It took about a dozen shots and thirty minutes to end up with this shot. Naturally side lit from the living room window the camera was tripod mounted with a 100mm macro lens. The first few suffered from framing and focus errors – so I moved the camera, stopped down to f/11 and a 4 second exposure. The background was slightly distracting – a very dark outline of an Ikea Benno CD tower – so I put the camera on a 10 second timer, hit the shutter and rushed round in time to hold up a black velvet backdrop. It didn’t take long to get a shot I was happy with.
There was very little to do in Lightroom: a touch of clarity adjustment, vibrance and tweaked the tone curved to reduce the highlights and bring some details back into the left-hand side of the flower. Then a spot of dodging on the lower leaf to bring back some punch that was lost when tweaking the tone curve.
Of course, it doesn’t move me closer to capturing the present for my sister and her husband, but it does remind me that there is always something of beauty to photograph – even when stuck indoors on a dark and rainy winter’s day.
