© 2020 Nomadict. All rights reserved.
The fascinating perspective
of an artist
Vol. 3
Nomadict Art Gallery
At Nomadict we have a vision, a passion, and that is to share the invaluable stories of landscape photographers and adventurers. The many photographers and travelers we have met since the foundation of Nomadict in 2017, have been a great source of inspiration for us to create our first printed magazine and today we celebrate a unique moment with six of them.
Below you will find 6 special prints captured by 6 photographers we have felt truly inspired by during the past years. Each of the prints presented, by the way, is part of Nomadict’s May GIVEAWAY. We would like to invite you to participate and be part of this special moment as well!
We will now introduce you to the photographers and the 6 prints carefully selected for the GIVEAWAY. Get ready to be inspired by their unique pieces of art as we discover their artistic perspective!
My dog and I were the first to go out on this cold, early winter day in Davos, where I am living. My dog loves it when it is cold, windy, and stormy, and he’s the happiest when it’s snowing too. All was white after the heavy snowfall the night before and as we were the first, it felt like we were the only ones in this white world. It was so quiet – silence dominated the landscape. The mood was unique and the moment was breathtaking; the scenery seemed so different covered in snow, eliminating everything but the shapes and structures.
I know this place very well, and I knew that two hours later, it wouldn’t look the same anymore. The peace would have been taken over by people who want to enjoy the winter atmosphere and some skiing. Davos is famous because of that, and also because of the WEF. The river passing through the region, a 30 km river called “Landwasser”, was almost frozen and contrasted with the bright white of the snow.
"I took this river as the heading line for my photo - naturally, my eyes followed the river to the wonderful “Dischmatal” valley in the end."
I found this to be a very photogenic scene because of the minimalism, the contrast, the mood, and the natural guidance of the eye through the landscape without any deflection.
As the scene was so noiseless and clean, not having even a footprint in the snow, I didn’t have to do much editing to this photo. I worked out the highlights, the contrast, and the leading line, and I emphasized the dark blue because of the moody atmosphere. I wanted to translate the moment into the picture – a silent mood without distractions. The photo should transmit the same; clarity, simplicity, and a great atmosphere.
With this photo I learned, again – Less is More.
This photo was taken at the Canary Islands. I had just moved to Europe after quitting my job and having no backup job, I found myself touring the islands while searching for my next job. On this trip, I spent a lot of time in Tenerife and La Palma. The latter is my favorite island of the Canary Islands as it seems to have it all. Black sand beaches, volcanic peaks, cloud inversions… I think I can say that Roque de los Muchachos is my favorite place of all of the canary islands.
On one of these endless days of exploration, whether it was an island or the job market, I went to Pico de las Nieves in Gran Canaria. It was a surprisingly peaceful moment at an otherwise very busy spot. The main view and most popular shot from this spot is of Mt Teide towering over Tenerife far off in the distance. Although incredibly beautiful, I felt the need to compose something new, something different from the common perspective.
"In particular, I wanted to use the peacefulness of the moment to convey that through photography. I felt that the rays piercing through the clouds and thin fog created a breathtaking scene, highlighting the trees and the layers of the sloping mountains. In my opinion, this made a perfect subject."
When it comes to the post production, I didn’t need to do much as I left the edit very natural. There’s almost no color grading done to it, except warming up some of the sun rays using selective gradients and temperature tools. The natural colors were beautiful and I just added a slight brightness to the shadows in the center of the image. Actually, the most vital aspect for me in editing this shot was to know when to stop.
Along the creation of this photo I regularly thought to myself how important it is to learn to look for beauty in views, things, places, where you don’t necessarily see beauty in the first place. Now, this place is incredible, it wasn’t hard to see the beauty there, but the majority of the photos are showing Mt. Teide and ignore the rest of the hills in the surrounding. I tried to create a composition that didn’t turn down the beauty of Mt.Teide but instead create one where the grandness of Pico de las Nieves stands out.
As with everything in life, the most popular is the most obvious, self-evident. And for a reason. But that doesn’t mean that the less popular are less valuable or less beautiful. On the contrary, it’s amazing when you are the one recognizing it and shining light on it.
I have a great interest in traveling, of course, and the north especially attracts me strongly, especially where the mountains prevail and there’s an absence of mass tourism. After some investigation and seeing the visual content of great photographers, I decided to visit the Faroe Islands.
Before traveling I collected a lot of information about the place and its history so I could plan ahead and get to know all the places of my greatest interest. As I wouldn’t be able to stay as I would want, I really had to be efficient and make the most of my time.
In October 2019 I traveled to the Island. When I arrived, I encountered a very welcoming population and a vast nature. Moving around the island is quite easy; you can cross the different islands by car in a relatively small amount of time. One of my destinations would be Gjógv.
"While discovering the island of Eysturoy, I found myself driving on the scenic road of Funningsfjørður. It was unquestionable; I had to stop here."
I was amazed to see the size of the fjord. The landscape awoke contradictory feelings within me. Feelings of greatness and smallness at the same time. Of isolation though surrounded and accompanied by infinite beauty. What a dream to have this view all for myself; the magnitude of the mountains, the small houses on its foot, almost unaware of the complexity and rush in the rest of the world. For a moment I forgot everything – Just standing there, and enjoying the moment.
Then came the more complicated part, trying to take a photo with the quality that the landscape requires. The weather conditions were not easy, it was a rainy day with a lot of wind. Light fog and the rain hindered the visibility of the mountain… It is said that a photographer must adapt to any condition and I agree. There is not a right moment to take a photo, it’s the photographer who needs to find the best perspective for the given moment and circumstances.
I was using a wide lens, a 16-35mm and I wanted to capture almost all of that huge scenario in just one shot, but the heavy rain made it difficult to sharpen the photo. I tried to focus on a single point, on the houses that gave a sense of scale in relation to the top of the mountain. When editing the photo, I made the basic adjustments in white balance, contrast and shadows. As for the colors, I wanted to highlight the brownish autumn tones of the mountains and the bluish tones in the water, as to get close to the original view.
Then I eliminated minor distractions, with the brush tool I increased the exposure level of the houses and used the gradient filter in the upper and lower area of the photo to reduce the exposure in those areas in order to bring the focus to the subject. Lastly, I highlighted the little light source present at the moment, in order to create a separation between the bottom and the top of the mountain.
This photo is one of the many beautiful memories of the Faroe Islands. This photo inspires and motivates me in the creation of other works and makes me want to go venture out to new places. I’d hang the photo in my office, the place where my creativity flows and where I transform my memories and emotions into tangible visuals.
Without a doubt, I will return to the Faroe Islands many more times.
When the pandemic became a national emergency in the US, I officially was sent home in early March. At some point in late June, after being cooped up in our home for a few months without leaving our immediate block, we decided to move to Colorado for peak fall, from late August to mid-October. We found a rental house in Edwards and drove from Washington, D.C.
It was not an easy decision to hit the road for such a long trip because our baby girl – our first child – was born in May, and the arrangements would need to be well thought out for such a long journey. But when we arrived in Colorado, looking back, it proved to be seamless, and we had an amazing trip.
Colorado was a perfect escape from the busy, but empty city life. Being outdoors and exploring national parks, principally those with mountains, is what drives my photography. I did a lot of research on places to visit, and especially made plans to visit Rocky Mountain National Park. I applied for my permits and made the two-hour drive to the park on three different days. I had never been there before, so I was excited to check it out, and check it off the list.
The main driver to visit Rocky was the elk rut, which was spectacular in the Kawuneeche Valley, but also, seeing fall colors. Fall hits different here, as it is primarily yellow from the abundance of aspens and cottonwoods, and I’ve only seen the reds and oranges on the East Coast.
On the first visit to the park, I came with my family and we watched the sun set as the bull elks bugled and chased each other to claim more does. I was so captivated by the wildlife and beauty of the park that I wanted more.
The next morning, I left Edwards at 3am, excited to track the elk again and get some more photos. I unfortunately struck out and didn’t find any elk, so I decided to wander along the river. It was empty, quiet, and overcast, with a light breeze carrying the smell of burnt wood from the wildfires. I kept driving slowly up and down Trail Ridge Road, looking for the right compositions that captured the essence of this park.
"And in my rear-view, I saw this image of the road leading to the mountains, framed to perfection between the fall colors, so I pulled over, set up, and waited for the right moment."
For this shot, the backdrop was everything to me. The road was begging to be photographed with the Rocky Mountains at the far end of this straight-away. The sky was still hazy from the lingering smoke, but the sun was fighting through, and a touch of fall colors ran alongside the asphalt. I was standing in the middle of the road, shooting the scene, when I heard a car come behind me – it was still early, and the park was mostly empty because it was a weekday. I moved aside and when the car started driving toward the mountains, it clicked.
"I loved how much depth the car added to the frame, so I stood there, watching the clouds roll by on this cold morning, and waited for the right car and the right timing."
Sometime later, this old campervan came by, completing the scene in the most perfect, unexpected way. It brought everything together for me.
When I start editing any photo, I always keep in mind my vital rule for post-procession: illustrate the moment so others can feel like they also were physically there, seeing the scene as I saw. To ensure this, I try to capture the mood by working with gradients, light brushing, and the tone curve. And most important, I pay a lot of attention to not over-edit the image to ensure it looks real as it was when I was there.
For this particular shot, I immediately went for a warm tone to bring out the feeling of the morning haziness from the fires. I also think it complemented the yellow cottonwoods along the road. Then, I touched up the road-lines, tree, and sky to draw the eyes toward the center. Next, I cropped the distractions on the outside to focus the eyes on the road and the car with the mountains behind and place the viewer on the road itself. Finally, I reduced the saturation and contrast to blend the scene into a very real setting you could visit yourself by seeing the photo.
This photo is a typical representation of what I force myself to do when I go out shooting to get the shot: Plan ahead, wake up early, and be patient.
London, Ontario, Canada. It was a cold & crisp winter’s evening in late January and following a week of heavy snowfall, I was in a ravine only about 2 km from home. This particular location is a forest I am quite familiar with, having grown up in the area. During the course of the pandemic it has been this forest that I have spent most of my time. When times are “normal” I am most fortunate to go on great adventures in some of the most extreme locations to photograph animals such as bears, sharks & whales to name a few. However, over the course of the past year it is the whitetail deer which has captured my imagination, my heart, and my attention. Almost daily you would find me in the ravine with the deer.
On the day I captured this moment, I had been with the deer through the late afternoon. As the sun set and mercury dipped even further below the freezing point, I recall how quiet and still the night air was, how I could hear the snow crunch under my feet with each footstep, and how my nostrils started to freeze with each breath drawn and little snow crystals sparkled in the light like magic dust in the air. The sky overhead was clear and as my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness the stars slowly appeared one by one in the night sky. It had been a pretty average day thus far in the way of photos.
"Normally once it reaches this level of darkness I would have already been out of the woods and on route home, but I recognized something special was unfolding as my “Spidey sense” was tingling - and I always pay close attention to that feeling. "
I have spent so much time with this particular herd of deer that I feel as if they have accepted me as one of them at times. This evening, I was more of a spectator on the sidelines. I was under the cover of the trees on the forest’s edge overlooking a meadow to the north blanketed with a thick layer of snow. Similar to the stars revealing themselves one star at a time, so did the deer. What started out as a scene with two deer on the far side of the meadow slowly materialized into a herd of about 20 on scene.
With the moon phase nearing full in the cycle it was one of those winter nights I like to describe in photographic terms like “a giant soft box in the sky”. The kind of nights you only witness in the winter under a cloudless sky when the moon is near full and the land is covered in a white blanket of snow. If the moon is the soft box, the snow acts as the reflector and in this case the whitetail deer my models.
For the first while it was a scene that looked amazing to the naked eye, but my subjects simply were not cooperating enough for me to compose a worthwhile image. The deer were all grouped together on the far side of the meadow and there was no separation between my subjects and the background. I needed to have a deer or two break away from the herd and wander a little further into the meadow… This is where my patience paid off. Eventually one deer, the individual on the left of the frame, broke away from the herd – wandering out into the middle of the meadow. It wasn’t long afterwards that a second deer (one I am very familiar with and affectionately call “Stone”) also broke from the herd to join his friend in the middle of the meadow. This was exactly what I was hoping and wishing for.
I say wish for because I knew if a couple deer could break away from the herd and stand still just long enough out in the meadow with all the elements of the scene, it could look magical. The only issue when working with wild animals is, they do what they want.
"I think as a professional and having done this for most of my life, reading the scene and visualizing how it could play out has become like a sixth sense. I was able to recognize the potential of the scene and place myself in a position to be ready for the moment I envisioned – should it potentially unfold before my eyes."
Once you’ve assessed the situation it is up to you (the photographer) to have the patience for the waiting game. The subjects don’t know your plan and the only way your plan will come together is if you are in the correct position and of course if the animals happen to go where you need them to go. I had purposely backed up using the trees on the forest’s edge as my frame. With planning, preparation, patience and a little good fortune, magic can unfold. In this case it paid off. The magic started unfolding over the course of a five-minute window. The two deer stood in the meadow almost as if they were statues, periodically breaking stances to rub noses and have a sniff on one another; my subjects under the moonlit sky.
Now I had the “perfect” photo, later it was time for post-processing. Normally, I do spend a fair bit of time with how I tend to process images. However, in this case I didn’t have to spend much time. The image is near full frame, the light, the tone and the position of the subjects all came together so nicely in camera meaning I had minimal work to do for this image. My camera composition has been the vital factor of the success of this image.
The first few frames I took that evening I stood right at the edge of the treeline. I had no foreground in the image, just clean white snow on the ground. It was lacking something – I needed a foreground. So, I backed up far enough and shifted my position a little to the side in order to use the undergrowth of the forest to help frame my subjects. In my mind I wanted my viewers to feel almost as if they were in the comfort of their warm home, perhaps sitting by a crackling fire as they gaze out their window upon this magical winter scene. By adding the foreground of the tree branches framing my subjects it’s almost as if it provides the viewer with a sense of looking through a window or frame of sorts. Looking from the warmth of their home out on to a magical winter evening scene.
"One of the things I love about snow under a moonlit sky is that beautiful moody bluish hue it provides."
With this photo, a lot of old lessons learned were reinforced. First, patience – I know it’s an old cliché when it comes to wildlife photography, but it is absolutely key if you want to have long term success in the wildlife photography industry. There are different levels of patience, sometimes it may be years or months that you are working on something. Other times, and in this case, it was just a few hours, but it was a few hours of sitting in one place in temperatures that reached beyond the twenty below zero mark.
Another lesson reinforced which also applies to being in the field, was that just because it isn’t optimal conditions for shooting doesn’t mean you can’t create beautiful images. So many wildlife photographers put the camera down once the sun has set. No need! With advancements in digital technology over the years it has allowed for us to literally shoot in the dark. Sure, you have to make adjustments and you will fail more than you succeed. But when you do have success it can be magical. The ISO sensitivity levels in cameras are getting so much better with each passing year, the same applies to the dynamic range of pro bodies. Add some denoising into the mix and you too can create photos in the dark.
The last thing you will need (that is if you are like me and don’t often use a tripod) in addition to a still subject is a steady hand; this particular image was captured hand held at just 1/20th of a second. I set my camera to the highest frames per second setting and shoot in bursts. The majority of images will often have motion blur in them but take enough and in the end, you will have a handful of tack sharp images you can choose from.
Again, these aren’t new lessons for me, but they reinforce lessons learned from the past and maybe for you reading this, it’s a new lesson. Next time the sun goes down, perhaps you will think twice before packing up your gear and heading home for the night. There would still be so many great shots to be taken!
As we packed up our gear and set off at around 5am from our camp, the anticipation was at fever pitch. We had spent the night in sheer darkness on some of Scotland’s most remote roads through the north west, just one hour drive away from our destination.
We were finally heading to Suilven, a mountain I’d longed to climb. This wasn’t just any mountain, but one of Scotland’s finest which lies in the wilderness landscape of moorland, bogs and lochans – known as the Inverpolly National Nature Reserve and is also a UNESCO Geopark. The mountains here are carved by glaciers but almost look hand sculpted. What’s not to love about that!?
Arriving at the car park in the valley of Canisp, a slightly higher mountain than the nearby Suilven, it was still eerily dark on this cold autumn morning. We unpacked the head torches and set off on the start of a 21km round trip.
"As we walked through the valley, we caught the most surreal sunrise appearing over Suilven in the distance - I couldn’t have asked for a better day for this hike. "
Having reached the foot of Suilven, the serious hike kicked in. As we pretty much scaled a vertical path and took in the otherworldly scenery as we went, a nice cloud inversion had formed once we reached meall Meadhonach (middle round hill), the central point of the ridge. Having seen photos of Suilven I knew the best composition was of the ridge to Caisteal Liath (“Grey Castle” in Scottish Gaelic) but being covered under a blanket of clouds I knew there was no opportunity for a shot just yet. As we still had to summit the highest point, I carried on up the north western ridge.
After a bit, when I turned to look back, I could see the cloud was burning off and the ridge started to appear through the smoke and haze. The view could only be described as Godzilla’s back appearing through; it was like a scene from a movie. Again I was confirmed that patience is key in photography.
I reached for my camera clipped to my backpack and set about shooting. In this quick action I caught the composition of this picture; the peak and ridge shroud in smoke and haze add such majestic drama to an already amazing landscape.
I instantly knew that I had really caught some fantastic shots and I could’ve stayed there all day shooting this amazing mountain. But, we still had a long hike back so we had to depart soon after having been served a real treat from Suilven. I had been admiring this mountain for long, so I felt truly happy and rewarded by Suilven – we were buzzing all the way back through the Glen and to the car park, occasionally glancing back to marvel at the beauty of Suilven. About 21km and 7 hours later we reached the car with sore legs and painful feet – the things you do for a picture!!
Having known I’d caught some great shots I was impatient to get them off my SD Card and into Lightroom, and get to work on processing them. I took so many good shots of the ridge and peak of Caisteal Liath but this certain shot already had an amazing cinematic feel to it, which is what I aim for upon editing.
First, I set about adding a moody vibe to it. As the light had been a little harsh I lowered the whites and exposure, tweaked the highlights slightly, and gave it a strong S Tone Curve. As with most of my pictures, I like to punch out deep contrasty images. The oranges and ambers were popping in this scene because it was autumn, and I wanted to emphasize that. To do so, I brought out the oranges and blues and deepened the contrast.
I also added a gradient filter at the foreground of the picture taking out the clarity and adding extra contrast to darking, to really draw your eye to the peak and ridge in the centre. Then, as I wanted to give it a more dramatic touch, I added some extra dehaze and darkened the shadows. Lastly, I cooled the temperature and desaturated the blues of the sky to give it an airy vibe, sharpened up a little detail and added some grain.
"It’s a picture I’m really proud of and love. The timing, the landscape and the effort you have to put in to get it is why I love photography."
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