A common take between photographers is that frequent visits to those places that are almost in our backyard is a good way for training the eye and our photographic skills in general… If I had to name such a place it would be the area around Cabo da Roca (the westernmost place in Europe), situated in the Sintra/Cascais Natural Park…

(I should warn you: this is not my typical posting stile, but the current situation of Portuguese natural parks made me feel that something had to be written)

This image was created in "Malhada do Ouriçal" a rocky beach some hundred meters south of "Cabo da Roca"… This is one of those places I keep on going to looking for the perfect image, and whenever I come back and look at the results it always looks like there's something missing… This day, while waiting for the sunset I tried shooting some infrared images in Rollei IR trough an Heliopan RG715…

From past experiences I knew that Rollei IR does not create images with a deep infrared effect, but the film is much sharper than other infrared films and produces a very nice effect with moving water… The exposure index for this film and filter combination is around 6, this means that long exposures are not hard to get event in the middle of the day, still I waited for the sun to be covered by a cloud in order to get an exposure time of 8 seconds…

I like this image, but honestly I don't feel this is still my perfect image from this place. I keep on going there over and over again and almost risk to call it "my photographic sanctuary", but now whenever I do I can't help feeling that I'm doing something wrong, or should I say illegal...

Over the time the Portuguese authority for the management and conservation of natural areas (ICNB - Instituto da Conservacao da Natureza e Biodiversidade) has taken an arrogant attitude towards nature photographers, by limiting their activities while refusing to establish an open dialog policy that would probably benefit everybody.

The situation reached an insane level when ICNB published a price table that targets some activities that take place in natural areas. The table is not only unclear about what a "photo shooting session" is but also imposes prices that are impossible even for professional photographers to withstand… This means that a blind and straight forward application of such a table would make if impossible for someone to enjoy the beauty of Portuguese Natural parks through photography.

Responding to this situation a group of Portuguese photographers sent a letter to ICNB by March 16'th 2009, you can download the English Version here.

The letter still did not have any answer…

Don't get me wrong I don't mind paying a fair fee for visiting natural areas, specially if I feel that my money will be used in the conservation of the area… I just fell that for this case, the fee is not fair and even if I pay what I am asked for I'm not sure it will be used the right way…

As most things, images are not created the same... The sentence is almost a cliché, but when ever I try to find a common ground on how I create images, I can't find any...
When arriving at Svartifoss I had a single idea in my mind: "Basallt"... The idea was so strong that I skipped most of the obvious and more known views and I was attracted to this basalt column that looked like something that had fallen from the waterfall wall into the ground in front of me just a couple of minutes ago (I admit that the 1'st reason for coming to this side was that the curved rock wall above me shielded me from the pouring rain).

I tried some variations with the digital camera but quickly changed to the Bronica SQAi with the 50mm lens as the diagonal position of the basalt column seamed to scream "square format"... And finished my time at the place shooting Rollei IR though an Hoya R72 Filter.

Those who know me have heard me say countless times that my transition from my old beloved Maco IR towards Rollei IR was not an easy one... But over time I learned that although I could not use the new film for creating the same kind of images I did with the former, there where a new kind of situations where the different character of Rollei IR would fit like a glove. These situations include Waterfalls, and everything around water, in overcast weather when the sky does not show in the picture...

What I like about the film in these situations are the deep blacks and the sharpness of the film and the fact that because I don't need to care for the sky I can overexpose the film in order to turn green foliage white... In fact in this case my main concern was to be able to retain some detail in the dark areas of the image, while using the Hoya R72 Filter.

As usual I bracketed some exposures, this image is from the slowest (30s at f16), but I still could not get as much detail as I would have liked in the dark areas of the foreground. Sometime after my trip to Iceland I read about using multiple exposures with blue filters for getting detail in the shadows and with IR filters in order to brighten foliage. I was still not able to try this, but it sounds like a good way for addressing these situations without having to resort to mounting 2 exposures digitally in post production.

Some days later, during my last night before driving back to Reykjavik (and getting my flight back home). I got out of our cottage in Husavik with the single idea of enjoying every last bit of time...
It had been a long day... Seeing whales for the 1'st time in life had left me in meditative state... I kept looking at the Husavik bay in the distance while wondering how many whales would be there in their calm pace... I kept walking... Then I noticed the round pattern in the warm water lakes close by...

Lakes... Bay... Well... Lupine... There was lupine all over the place so I had no trouble in finding one bush for the 1'st plan... The 80mm lens in the Bronica allowed me to include just the right amount of everything... It was past midnight (actually closer to 2 am), altough I could see clearlly, the exposures I was getting on Rollei IR where already in the minutes range. I tried to use the B+W 092 IR filter rating the film at EI 25 and the Heliopan RG715 rating the film at EI 12.

I knew that Rollei IR probably would not retain detail both in the 1'st plan and in the overcast sky, so I did separate exposures for the SKY and for the 1'st plan. The final Image is composed from two exposures shoot using the Heliopan filter: one at F16 for 30 Seconds that holds detail in the sky and the last one for 4 minutes that holds detail in the 1'st and middle plans...

The time between each bracketed shot would take me back to my own thoughts... I could clearly hear several bird species in their chants, and from time to time an Artic Tern would fly close by just to let me know that I was probably in the limit of their territory...

These two images can probably describe my feelings regarding Iceland: the 1'st is from one of the "must see's" the last one is from "just being there"... I learned with both, but would never be able to pick a favorite among the two...

Two ideas that can be found in Bruce Percy's Blog have been going around in my mind for the last couple of months. One of them is a quote from other photographer Jake Warga: "the perfect photo is something you cannot chase, but instead, is something that finds you". The other is regarding the way photography drives our lives and gets us to do things we'd never do if we where traveling through the world without a camera.

The following images are examples of a situation where these observations come to my mind, and although I'm not sure if any of them is the perfect shot they all represent situations where photography drove me to do something I'd never do if I wasn't looking for images. In fact I'd add something to Jake's statement that would sound something like this: "although the perfect shot will find you, you can't just sit anywhere and wait for this to happen"…

I've been to Ontario several times in the course of business trips (not related to photography). Whenever possible I try to escape in order to create images.
Besides the Lonely Planet, my main guide book for the region is called Waterfalls of Ontario. This weekend, during the spring melt, I was driving from Toronto to Algonquin park and used the guide to find some waterfalls along the way. "The Gut" was a suggesting name in itself and wasn't far from the main roads so I made a quick detour there…

When photographing I have days when most compositions look obvious but most times nothing seams to work, this was such a day… I knew that with the amount of water in the gorge and the mid-day light the flowing water would most probably be rendered flat white in my pictures and this sort of kept me from trying to find possible compositions.

When I got to this spot, and looked through the Bronica's wlf I almost fell due to impression caused by the water movement. The image that came to my mind was so clear that I knew I had to attempt something. I had to shot at F16 with the 50mm lens to make sure I had enough dof for rendering both the first plan rock and the background sharp.

Hoping infrared film not to go completely featureless with the fast moving water I bracketed both ways (I usually only overexpose with IR film), expecting to retain some detail on film with faster exposures without rendering the water white and leaving some room for mounting several frames if required.

The image above is the frame shot at -1. The negative is quite thin, but responds quite well to scanning and the water movement pattern is the best from all my attempts.

This same day I had the idea to drive to Basin Lake in the eastern part of Algonquin Provincial Park, that implied driving though a dirt road with some mud and snow patches and at a certain point I had to quit because the road had completely disappeared.

I decided to drive back to some lakes I had seen along the way and trying to create some images. I stopped near this pond after sunset, I was only carrying the Bronica 50mm lens in this trip and everything looked to far away in the viewfinder...
Still I was caught by the dimly lit sky and the dead tree emerging from the water. The final image results from two exposures: one for capturing detail in the sky and another for capturing detail in the trees and the foreground water. The last exposure took 15 minutes. While waiting in silence I started to see some movement in the water an noticed that a couple of beavers had been there all the time, but I was so focused in the landscape that hadn't noticed them before...

Visually I like the final result, but what I like the most is the stream of emotions this image brings back whenever I look at it in my living room wall.

In the next day I woke at dawn expecting the sun to peek through the clouds. I had seen this north facing spot along highway 60 just before the east gate of Algonquin in previous trips and I had always thought it would be a good location for dawn or dusk. I had a very subtle display of color in the sky and did some attempts with slide film but them changed back to Infrared for my last attempts.
Infrared is known for rendering still water black. I've learned with experience that in overcast weather I can overexpose without burning the highlights and allowing for water reflections to be recorded, this is also due to the fact that the B+W 092 I was using lets in a marginal amount of visible light. The negative looks quite thin the water area but detail can easily be brought back after scanning…

Back from the initial questions, I'm not sure any of this is the perfect shot. Still they all come from situations that I would have not lived If I where not looking for images. In the end whenever I look back, the distance... being alone in the middle of nowhere in negative temperatures... getting my feet wet and my hands frozen… It all seams to make sense…

I always have the feeling that the places I visit look better at the 1'st time.

Or... Probably I tend to be luckier whenever I face some situation for the 1'st time... A couple of years ago I spent some time in the south-eastern part of Portugal during spring (inner Alentejo), the fields where amazingly filled with colorful flowers and I came back home with the impression that would go back every year and shoot more under those amazing conditions...


After that 1'st year spring time in this are has not been nowhere near in terms of abundance of flowers, color and my good mood. This year I came back with the idea that I should never take what I have in front of me for granted, every situation is unique and we should live it to it's fullest, because what we see will probably be the better things will get in a long time...

Going back to that 1'st year... Although fields where filled with flowers, skies where always flat white during the time I was there. Due to this, none of my color slide pictures show any sky at all...

Some times i resort to black and white and specially Infrared in order to pull something out of the sky that's apparently not visible...

In this case I was just hopping not to burn it completely so that I would be able to bring it to a ligth gray tone in post processing without making it look strongly manipulated. As usual I shot this scene with the Bronica SQA + 50mm lens loaded with Maco IR820c and the B+W 092 IR filter and did an average metering (without caring about the sky) at ISO 6.

In reality, this was a green field dotted with white flowers. One consequence of using infrared in these situations is that the flowers almost disapear from the image as the green grass will be rendered equally white.

As usual, I've also shot this scene with a regular black and white film, using an orange filter. In that other version the flowers really standout from the grass. I still prefer this version as it simplifies things to the simple forms of hills in the distance and the path leading to them. I also learned from this situation that not every infrared image needs a dramatic dark sky to work and that high key/low contrast images are also allowed and truelly meaningfull whenever infrared comes into play.

This year i kept thinking about this image and the fact that I would be able to do something similar even if there where no flowers... Still, the sensation that things are not as pleasing to the human eye as they where that 1'st time kept me from looking for something like this...

Whenever I choose a new piece of equipment, I usually do that based on how much my choice will improve my images.

I usually say that my car is my most expensive piece of kit and whenever this comes to my mind, it brings along the idea that "someone passionate about the outdoors and everything around them should not drive a big and fuel hungry 4x4"...

Before having a 4x4 I had the romantic idea that I could drive to the middle of nothing, hop off the car and create fantastic images out of the blue... This image is actually the only one that jumped in front of me while driving off-road. Actually it would be more correct to say that it jumped behind me, because I first saw it in the rear view mirror when returning back home from an unproductive morning.

I stopped the car and placed my Bronica SQA with the 50mm lens in the tripod really close to the ground and took some time working on the composition as I had to shoot through a fence and none of the wholes seamed to provide a decent perspective. When I finally got what I wanted, the sun was covered by a cloud...

When I first started with infrared I had the idea that sunlit scenes would work better, nowadays I know that overcast days are equally good and sometimes preferable... That day I sat on the ground in silence and waited for half an hour for the sun to come up again and shot two frames with Maco IR820c through a B+W 092 filter at ISO 6 and 3, the frame shot at ISO 6 is quite thin, but actually scans better than the other...

With time I came to understand that off road driving detracts my attention from possible images, it almost feels like going from photographer mode into pilot mode... Most times only some time after stopping the car and hearing silence for a while I can feel I'm back into my photography pace... I won't sell my car due to this, I'm human and not 100% coherent... I still use it in order to get to places faster than I would if I was walking... I just don't drive around looking for images anymore...

I usually don't prepare myself extensively before traveling in terms of the kind of images I'm expecting to create.



This image is an exception. I've seen images of done by Art Wolfe, Bob Khrist and series of other photographers done from this same exact view point, still I could not avoid being attracted to climb up and do the same that others did... Actually I was so eager on doing so that when I got to top of the elevation besides the waterfall and opened the backpack i found out that I had forgotten one of my cameras in the car... I left all my equipment at the top and ran downhill...

Imagine yourself running besides an enormous waterfall, jumping down on wet grass, almost feeling like a drop of water... This is what I recall now when I look at this image... I picked up the camera in the car, climbed back up and tried all sorts of possibilities, along with all sorts of medium I carried: Black and White, Color Slide, Infrared Film, and Digital. The image you see here is the infrared film version, I've also printed and like the black and white and slide film versions, but this is the one I find to be more attached to my own vision and also to my own intentions when I traveled to Iceland...

The image was shot on Efke IR 820c through an Heliopan RG715 IR Filter on my Bronica SQAi with a 50mm lens, I had only tried this film once before traveling to Iceland, my tests along with my previous experiences with Maco IR820c lead me to believe that the film an filter combination I was using where 1 to 2 stops faster that what I found them to be after the trip...

Because I usually load infrared film in subdued light I only have a back with 12 shots for a whole day, most of the times I bracket my exposures to +1 so this leaves me with 6 possible images... This time I instinctively bracketed to +2 and this is actually one of the phew acceptable exposures from this trip using this film... Did I say something about being prepared?...

If you ever wonder what was the camera I forgot in the car... It was the digital... I still did not edit my digital images from the trip... You may ask yourself if it was worth to go back for a camera when actually I did fine with the one I already had with me...

I probably went back for the wrong reason, with the right one being the fact that going back and forth on the landscape just for the sake of being there is more rewarding than the accessory act of creating images...