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FollowWinter Wonderland! A breath taking experience being in the Japanese Alps. Being from a city which never experiences this kind of weather, it was the first time ...
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Winter Wonderland! A breath taking experience being in the Japanese Alps. Being from a city which never experiences this kind of weather, it was the first time seeing snow much snow. ❄️
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was captured during my time in Japan. Being a landscape photographer, I had decided to escape the urban city life and travel into the more remote parts to experience the beauty of winter. This photo was taken from a small village known as Hakuba, situated on the outskirts of Nagano and surrounded by the Japanese Alpines. Hakuba is famously known for snowboarding and skiing after the town hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics.Time
This is one of the moments where I remember the saying "Wake up an hour early to live an hour more". I remember waking up at around 5am, and grabbing as many layers as I could because the outside temperature showed -3 °C. I decided to run down the hill from our motel towards the river. I found a bridge which overlooked the valley and the mountains in the distance. The sun was slowly starting to come up behind me. Most of the river had been frozen and small brooks were running through it. I decided an aerial shot would be the best was to capture this moment. With sub zero temperatures making it impossible for the drone to take off, I had to warm the battery of the drone in my puffer jacket. It took some patience and will power to stand there in the cold manoeuvring the drone for the right angle.Lighting
This aerial shot and the lighting went hand in hand. I was very fortunate that the sun was rising behind me, which meant no chance of glare for the drone. Most of the cloud had disappeared off the mountains in the distance. I wanted to create a mood of the landscape 'awakening'. To achieve this, I waited till the half of the valley had be lit up by the sun and the other half still awaiting the sunlight.Equipment
This was shot on the recently released Mavic Air drone by DJI.Inspiration
I am from Wellington, New Zealand. A city that never experiences snow. In my lifetime, I have never witnessed snow down at ground level, only on mountains. When I found out that I would be travelling Japan during wintertime, I was very excited. I made sure that I was going to visit a place that snowed. Hakuba was perfect, the snow down at ground level was past your ankles in some places. I knew the as the landscape was covered in snow, I had to see what it was like from the air. The drone was perfect this, and I was able to capture some breathtaking views of the landscape.Editing
My landscape shots are post produced in Adobe Lightroom. On the very odd occasion I use Adobe Photoshop for minor tweaks. My drone is set to capture in Raw just like my camera. This shot was purposely under exposed to capture the snow covered mountains in the distance. I also didn't want any parts to overexpose and lose detail. My goal was to capture the entire landscape from foreground to background, so the viewer had feel of the vast scale. Due to the underexposed shot, I had to bring this detail back by post processing in Lightroom and playing around with highlights, exposure and and tone curve.In my camera bag
My usual backpack contains a Canon 6D camera with a Canon 24-105mm f/4 lens, which is a brilliant general purpose lens for travel due to its versatile focal length. I also have a Samyang 14mm f2.8 lens, however I only use it for Astrophotography. If I know the location will have mountains, I take my Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 lens. This is a well built and very sharp telephoto lens. I always carry my DJI Mavic Air drone. Its light, and folds up neatly into my bag. I generally like to shoot a location with my camera first, and then take the drone for a spin. Its always interesting to see a place from the air, as it almost always exceeds expectations.Feedback
Landscape photography to me is about capturing a place through your own vision and to make a viewer feel as if they were right there too. My advice to anyone who is into landscape photography, is to try and include as much detail as you can, play around with the foreground or include subjects to show some scale. I also enjoy taking long exposures with ND filters when water or clouds are involved, as they make water appear like glass and the clouds to blur across the sky. That being said, my number one tip is to try shooting during blue/golden hour and sunset/sunrise. At these times the light on the landscape is soft, and you will be surprised to see the amazing tones and colours you can achieve.