Technical

Equipment:

All the photographs featured on this website have been captured digitally with Canon SLR cameras.  I used the 10D (prior to September 2006), the 5D (from September 2006) and now I use the 5D mk II (as of December 2009).

Used in combination with the following Canon lenses:

EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM
EF 70-200mm f/4.0L USM
EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM

These lenses afford superb optical clarity and image sharpness.

Method:

I strive for a naturalistic style for the majority of my work – firmly believing that nature requires no improvement, using a polarising filter and nothing else to enhance available light. Much of my time is spent waiting for the right lighting and atmospheric conditions for the subject. Therefore most of the processing work that I do is kept to a minimum.

Rather than using graduated filters over the lens to even out the extremes of tonal range that the CCD sensor struggles to contain within one exposure, I prefer to do one of two things.  Where possible I use the graduated filter option offered in Adobe Lightroom or, when the tonal contrast is too great, I manually combine different exposures in Adobe Photoshop.  Either method allows me to faithfully reproduce the detail that the eye sees.

Process:

I use a combination of Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom for all image processing. My standard workflow starts with a RAW file processed in Lightroom, exporting to Photoshop as and when necessary.

Additionally, a large part of my practice is the creation of ‘stitched’ panoramic landscapes – images comprised of multiple photographs. This is the most complex process that I undertake digitally, with each panorama produced by the manual merging of layers using layer masks in Photoshop. I developed this technique in response to the restrictions imposed by the standard proportions of my camera. I wanted to expand, to go beyond the confines set by the 3:2 ratio of the CCD sensor. The panoramic format is appropriate for the wide-open spaces and elevated viewpoints that I prefer to photograph.