Photography, Techniques and Whereabouts of Kevin Raber
I have been working on a personal project for the last two years and I am now at the editing and selection stage. This is a project of square format images made as double exposures. Lots of fun and something different. I’ll show a major selection of these at my gallery at the end of April. I’ll share more over the coming weeks.
I always like this image. I have been going through my files of the last few years prepping images for an online store. It’s a good exercise and every photographer should do it. This is one from one og=f my Italy trips. It tells its own story. Lonely trees, big field and giant sky with magnificent clouds. Shot with a long lens from a distance only makes it stand out even more.
I was running a workshop in the southwest part of China and on one of our lunch breaks we stopped at this very rustic restaurant. When I say rustic, I mean they were killing chickens and then making our lunch. This part of China was very different from what you see in the east with the big cities. Even the hotel rooms were rustic and it was freezing cold at night and the only heat was a heating pad under the sheets of the worst bed I ever slept in. Anyway, back to the image. After lunch, a few of the guys on the workshop decided it was time for a smoke and they were kind enough to let me shoot a few images. I liked the light coming in from behind and the way it illuminates the smoke. They tried to get me to smoke with them but just the second-hand smoke was enough to knock me out. Interesting experience to say the least. This was shot on an Olympus MK 5 camera.
I love design and abstracts of buildings. Looking for and photographing these kind of shots is something I look forward to when visiting small and large cities. This is image, is the well know Opera House in Sydney Australia. It’s an amazing building and very iconic. I have done a lot of images of this building and the ones I have that are different work best for me. I converted this to black and white and like the subtle tonality and angles. Hope you enjoy it.
This was a fun shot to do. We were in Iceland and it was windy and cold. We visited this location where the surf was just exploding on very rough rocks. The sun was breaking through the clouds and adding nice color. I dragged the shutter a bit to emphasize the breaking surf. While were there one photographer got a bit too cocky and got close to the edge. A big wave came up and knocked him and his tripod over and almost washed him out with the wave. I see this kind of thing a lot in Iceland. Everything from weather to waves is unpredictable in Iceland. Word to the wise, be careful.
There is so much to photograph in Antarctica. This image was made as we were cruising. I saw the grey sky and the blue of the icebergs as they floated in the sea. I must admit I saturated the blue a bit for effect but I like it and especially the way it contrasts with the background. This was shot with a long lens handheld from a moving ship. the Fuji XT-2 with the 100-400mm lens allowed me a long reach to get this image.
I really enjoy doing panorama photos. Not only do they make large files that I can print large but they also allow a viewer to see a lot more in an image than a traditional single shot frame does. There are a lot of photographers that make a big point out of doing perfect panoramas using special rigs and aligning the nodel points to perfection. While I do that sometimes most of the time I just don’t the gear or the time. As a matter of fact a lot of time I can really good panos just by panning the camera handheld. And, that’s exactly what I did with this image. I was on a moving ship traveling through the Lemaire Channel. It’s a most amazing place in Antarctica and while you can get great single frame images I saw an opportunity and thought I’d give it a shot by doing a handheld pano while the ship was moving. The water was calm and the sunrise was just happening. A gorgeous, moment is the only way to describe it. So I did two series of pans and one turned out. Photoshop where I did the stitching together of the images, was brilliant at compensating for the movement of the ship and thus this is the image I ended up with. The channel can be seen from one end to the other.
I really love Italy and especially Tuscany. The Dolomites are another favorite part of Italy I visit often. This was shot one morning early as the sun was coming up and I caught the fog in the valley. Made with a Phase One camera and an IQ180 camera, it’s kind of an iconic shot of Tuscany. I softened it a little bit to add to the feel of the picture.
Have you ever been under a glacier? I have and it is scary and cool at the same time. One of the best places to explore ice cave is in Iceland in the winter. Ice caves are the space between a bottom of the glacier and the earth the glacier is moving on. In the summer time there is usually a massive amount of water running through these caves from melt off but in the winter everything is frozen and as a result, you can explore these caves (carefully of course). The best way to see these ice caves is with a guide who knows the caves and where it is safe and not safe. This image was made in a cave where you had to crawl in many places. I loved this giant ice pillar. This image was shot with a Phase One camera and the exposure was several minutes. It is very dark in these caves and only a small amount of light filters through the glacier itself. I highly recommend this experience but only if you are not claustrophobic.
It has been a good year with moments of great sadness and wonderful happiness. Life goes on and sometimes we find strength from our losses and sadness. This was my case this year. I look forward to 2017. I am blessed to have a career I love. A wife I am totally in love with and our kids who we are very proud of and love dearly. This photograph was made by our friend Hans Strand an outstanding photographer from Sweeden who was on our trip to South Georgia Island and Antarctica. I wish all of my readers a happy holiday and a great new year.