During our PODAS photography workshop in Tuscany we did take time to visit villages and cities so we could get a real feel of the Tuscany Landscape. One of these cities is Siena an absolutely beautiful old city that has a giant square or plaza. They are famous for the cathedral there as well as horse races. The above image was made by taking a number of images with the Fuji Pro X 1 and stitching them together.
So many places to shoot images that are keepers in Tuscany. This image was made from a spot we found along the side of the road. we were looking down into this valley and just as were getting the cameras ready the whole valley lit up. I immediately rush and started shooting. The results are perfect. Very different shooting here but a new experience that has it challenges. I love it.
I am totally in love with Tuscany. It’s a very different kind of landscape as it is big and broad and lacks a lot of foreground that I am so used to using in typical landscape shots. So, I rely on light and the composition to keep the eye moving in the right direction. This is some magic light. After an early morning sunrise shoot we were driving down the road and there was great light lighting up the hillside through breaks in the clouds. Made with the Phase One IQ160 camera with a 240mm lens.
While photographing in Death Valley I visited the Artist Pallet are to shoot sunset. There on the side of the road was this motorcycle guy leaning back on his bike watching the mountains light up in all the magic they do. I went p to take pictures and I started talking to this guy. Turns out he has been cruising the highways for 17 years. everything he owns or needs is packed on the back of this bike. I asked if he would pose for some shots and he was more than cooperative. This is the result of the shot. I did some post work on this image in Photoshop to make it a bit different.
I have been and will be in Tuscany all week. I am leading a Phase One PODAS worksop tour. The weather has been excellent, the group great and the photography fantastic. I’ll be posting a lot of images over the coming weeks, but for now please enjoy this image of trees.
I am in Tuscany now and before I start posting what I am sure will be a ton of great Tuscany images, I wanted to share an image from what I consider to be America’s Tuscany, the Palouse. This was made on one of those morning at sunrise with storms rolling in. The scene changed every few minutes and I feel this image has just so much going on in it.
I have been re-working some of my images using the update Capture One software 7.. I basically take images I worked on previously and run them back through the processor and they now come out even better. This is one of those images. It was shot on an IQ180 in New Zealand last December. I love the greens and details I was able to pull out of this shot. This was magical location.
You have seen an earlier post of the ice cave in Iceland in color. This a BW conversion I made using a new technique I am working on perfecting. While it doesn’t have all the brilliant blues the original has the BW does have a lot of tonality and detail.
The last two days have been very busy prepping for the PODAS Tuscany workshop that officially kicks off on April 21st. Tuscany is a landscape photographers dream. The villages and landscapes are exceptional. Tuscany also takes on a whole new look at dawn and sunset. This will be where we spend most of our time focusing our photography. We have early morning shoots as well as sunset shoots planned from Sunday through next Saturday. I’ll be posting images as often as I can so you can share our adventure through Tuscany. Please come back often and visit. For now I’ll leave you with the sunrise shot taken yesterday. Made with the NEW IQ260 and 240mm lens. This is turning out to me my favorite combination. The 240mm lens is one of the best lenses I have eve used. The sharpness and contrast is second to none. It’s going to be a long week and we have a great team and attendees from all over the world.
My last Iceland trip resulted in some very monochromatic images. It was kind of a grey trip and it didn’t provide a lot of color. So, this is another shot I made and then turned into BW sepia. It’s different with a kind of gritty feel and look.