Photographer: Misha de Ridder

Photographing landscapes is difficult. Producing images truly interesting and captivating is definitely not an easy task and in my opinion few photographers can pull it off. Misha de Ridder, who I discovered today via wayneford's posterous has a beautiful series that I found particularly enthralling.

This line from the article sums it up nicely:

‘My work is made from the perspective of someone who lives in a city and wants to know how to relate to wilderness,’ writes de Ridder, ‘to the greatness of nature and in the end to the nature of his own existence and inevitable death.

An afternoon landscape in New Zealand

In 2005 I went to New Zealand for a short trip. It wasn't a photography trip, so I only took an old Canon PowerShot G5 not expecting to spend any real time on photography.

It's a mistake I'll never do again.

Although I didn't, in fact, have much time to shoot, on the few moments I did manage to do it I regretted not having my gear with me. Mostly I missed the better lenses with wide apertures. Today I was organising my Aperture library and spent a few moments going through the photos from this New Zealand trip. I realised I've never shared any of them, so I decided to post a few. They're not great, but they're no good locked away forgotten in my library.

The above shot is, if I remember correctly, somewhere in the South Island between the Franz Joseph glacier and Arthur's Pass. Maybe Greymouth. What I do remember is that we stopped for a rest and food after driving for a while, walked towards the beach, and saw this. It was late in a winter afternoon, which gets very cold in New Zealand.

I liked how the rays of light cut through the clouds in the background.

Another black and white landscape

As part of my new view on sharing a lot more of the photography I do, I decided to start posting some of my black and white landscapes. I've only posted one before this one so far, but I do want to show a few more.

Photographs of Fire Water @ The Rocks, Sydney

The 3 photos: Opera House; Sydney, Australia; 2009 ©Gabriel Ponzanelli

I just got back from the Fire Water event at The Rocks. I almost didn't go as I was enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon, but I'm so glad I did get off my butt because it was awesome and I got some really nice photographs. Of course, so did everyone else (seems like everybody had a camera and tripod today), but still. Here are 3 of my favourites of the Opera House lit with different patterns. The show was pretty good also. They had a ghost ship emerge from the sea in front of us and light up in flames before sinking again. Pretty cool. It was a reenactment of a convict ship named the Three Bees that burned in the 19th century in the Sydney harbour. The music was also very nice, and of course there was lots of food. All in all, a very nice end to the weekend.

Click to read more ...

Arthur's Pass

Arthur's Pass, New Zealand; 2005 ©Gabriel Ponzanelli

In the winter of 2005 I went on a road trip across New Zealand driving on a camper van from Auckland to Christchurch. It was an amazing trip and I got many great photographs. This is one of them.

Click to read more ...