While on Norfolk Island a couple of weeks ago doing my annual workshop there, my third coffee table book was launched. This beautiful hard cover book is a celebration of the Island with over 140 photographs that I have taken there in recent years. It is my first totally digital image book and I am ecstatic at the result. My good friend Sorrel Wilby, who loves the Island with a passion and who currently still lives there with her family, wrote the forward for the book. Sorrel also introduced the publications launch on the Sunday afternoon and was well attended by local business people and friends. The Island administrator His honour Gary Hardgrave and his wife Lorraine also attended the function and were very impressed by the quality of the book and ended up buying some limited edition prints as well. The Norfolk Island book will most likely be given as gifts to all official’s and dignitaries who visit the Island. To Obtain your copy you can order directly through the Norfolk Island Travel Centre for only $59.00 There is a special postage offer until the end of October at half price for only $8.00 standard post or $10.00 for express post. Order your copy today!

Just back from another very successful Norfolk Island photographic workshop. I had a lovely bunch of participants, who got on so well with each other and maybe its because there were 8 ladies and only one guy!! who knows… but we had a fantastic week with the weather turning on its charm once again. It rained at night or early in the morning, leaving everything damp and fresh. Fluffy white clouds billowed past us on their way through the South Pacific ocean and nearly every single morning gave us all a delightful display of colours in the sky. I usually get lovely feedback from my workshops, but one particular lady who is relatively new to photography expressed it this way….   Hi Ian, Thank you for a wonderful photographic opportunity. It was a great 8 days in delightful company and Norfolk Island is even more beautiful than I had imagined. Thanks to your knowledge of the Island we were able to experience everything in the best light available and, as you have taught us, light is everything. The tour exceeded my expectations and your ability as a teacher meant that I feel my knowledge as a photographer has improved immensely. Certainly I can see the difference between the photos taken on the first day and the images on the last day. Looking forward to having the opportunity to tour with you again and you will certainly receive a most positive endorsement from me.   Cheers Wendy.  What a great endorsement: and I always appreciate the fact and I also get real satisfaction that my participants receive something of real value out of these workshops… I will be running another one here again in late August 2016… If you haven’t been, then perhaps it’s time to join me here on this magical South Pacific Island.

I wanted to feature some of my recent photographs that have been published in British magazines of late. As I have only just returned from Great Britain, this has been the first opportunity to scan and get them ready to insert into my diary. I will add these all to my In print section as well. It was nice to be asked by the BBC in their 100th Special Issue of Countryfile to have a double page spread. the other photographic features are from Britain’s largest photo magazine, Digital Photographer and one of my desert sunsets was used for a Tamron advert featuring Travel Landscapes.

   The Front cover of the BBC COUNTRYFILE magazine the 100th Special Issue. The photo used was of the Stour river from the old bridge at a village called Sturminster Newton in Dorset. The photo was a dawn shot I did last year one morning in summer… very very early!!  The other articles set out below are from recent Digital Photographer issues. It was pleasing to be asked my thoughts on being a workshop leader and the magazine featured me along with two English workshop leaders who run Photographic Landscape workshops along similar lines to me.

I am totally hooked on using this new offering from the Sigma corp. I am also becoming very biased toward the lenses in general, this company is producing and this latest one added to my collection is no exception. I have featured a few photo’s taken with this lens on this blog when I first purchased the Lens, but now after having visited the Shetland Islands and having put it through its paces, I just absolutely love what this lens can do and the quality of the results. The Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sports is a versatile 4x telephoto zoom lens for full-frame DSLR cameras, and APS-C sensor cameras with an effective increase in focal length. The Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sports features a rounded 9 blade diaphragm which creates an attractive blur to the out of focus areas of the image,  It has built-in optical image stabilisation with an accelerometer for improved vertical and horizontal panning, an Hyper Sonic Motor for fast and quiet autofocusing, a zoom lock switch that can be locked at any focal length, manual override (MO) which is activated by rotating the focus ring while using autofocus, water and oil-repellent coating on the front and rear lenses, and dust and splash-proof construction. My good friend Ewen Bell has a real way with words and he also recently purchased the same Lens to use on our workshops in Scotland. So, read his take on what this Lens is capable of and his feelings about its quality and the conclusion he came to.

http://photographyfortravellers.com/article.php?story=1225

the first few images posted here show the ability of the lens and what the results are, all hand held, some on a rocking boat and in the most trying circumstances. It’s a beautiful piece of equipment indeed! The final few images I took of Ewen using the Lens on our workshops in both the Scottish Highlands and on the Shetland Islands.

The full PDF containing all the information for the Workshop/tour to New Zealand south Island in April/May 2016 is now available. you can download this PDF here Southern Lightscapes New Zealand Information Package 2016

There are limited places available on this amazing and diverse tour. If you require any more information just email me!  The workshop includes a two day foray up into the spectacular Mount Cook area and is inclusive of  a close-up boat trip to see the floating Icebergs. An exciting and wonderful tour is planned with superior accommodations, full breakfasts, most dinners and other inclusions. we travel in our own coach with personal driver.

The workshop through Scotland with my good friend Ewen Bell and 11 participants was a truly amazing landscape, coastal-scape and light experience. The Scottish weather is unpredictable at the best of times and we were favoured with mostly very lovely light and cloud formations and sunshine… even on the notorious bad weather Isle of Skye! I can say this with some authority as on all my previous vists to Scotland, this was the best weather I have personally experienced. There was in fact, a magic moment every single day! I have not had much time to myself to look at the many images I took and so I have just posted a few of the images that I have had time to process.  I have added some of my panoramas taken during the trip at the bottom of this posting too.  A big thank-you to all the participants, no illness, or injuries to speak of and basically just a wonderful time together!

I wanted to share the last two evenings I ventured out to the coastline in Dorset last week. The first evening I slogged the 40 minutes hike there from the carpark and then back again in the dark to and from Dancing Ledge. Its a real scramble down to the water’s edge, let me tell you, with the last 12 feet a sheer drop and only precarious toe holds to get you back up again with your gear and tripod. I have since learned that some local landscape photographer’s take a long ladder with them so they can climb down! It’s an amazing place for both the sunrise and sunset and I chose the latter because at this time of the year I am not too keen to get up at 4am to be at this spot in time for the dawn!  The second evening I ventured out ( I had watched the clouds and weather so as not to waste my effort) I went with my son-in-law Matt to Kimmeridge bay. We knew that the tide would be in so we opted for shooting the lovely cloud formations and using Clavells tower as a subject. The light was soft and warm with a tinge of colour and so we managed to get some really nice images.

A week spent up in the North part of the Devon coastline right near Exmoor National park proved to be a wonderful time. I wanted to do some personal photography as well as spend some time with my family and this area of England is truly superb. The weather was lovely, indeed it was very balmy most days with clouds in the early part of the day giving way to sunny skies towards afternoon. Early summer in Southern England is just wonderful with the woodlands so green and the vibrancy of the wildflowers. Some spots I chose to photograph, I ended up there again and the effort of getting up at 4.30 am well worth it. Let me tell you though, you cannot keep up the early rises for too long, so I made the choice to make the effort twice in the week I was there and luckily the mornings I chose were really really good for early light photography. I also spent some time in the woodlands of Exmoor and even spent some time photographing the wild ponies that roam the moors. Posted below are just a few of the images taken through the week that I have had time to process. The four panoramas shown here are all 7 image stitches taken on the vertical and represent over 220 degree views.

The past few days have been ones of incredible Light and beauty. Dorset is a magnificent green area of rolling hills and gorgeous scenery at the best of times, but when the light is right it really is spectacular. I spent a very early morning just after dawn near a village called Stokeford and after trudging through dewy long grass and over a few fences I found a place I had discovered before. A somewhat derelict fence-line with snarled old trees and shadowed grass with bluebells. I got there so early I woke up a flock of sheep on the other side of the fence! A couple of days later we all headed up to a magnificent area right on the border with Devon, a place known as Lewesdon hill. The national trust own the land and its a wonderful place for bluebells in spring and also for its Autumn colours.(That will have to be another time) It also happens to be the highest spot in Dorset, at a touch over 945 feet you can see the coast of Devon seven miles away. We had a lovely few hours here and used the opportunity to not only photograph the landscape, but shoot a few frames of the grandchildren. To finish the day with a colourful flourish, there was an incredible dusk on the Wareham quay! Just perfect.