Happy World Photo Day
World Photo Day is here and to celebrate we’ve decided to share a staff gallery of some of our favorite images shot over the past year (Note: we did not shot the above image, you can thank the crew of Apollo 17 for that).
The DPReview team is made up of more than just our editorial side – like any web-based publication we also have developers and a business-oriented team. But regardless of each staff members’ role, we all share a common passion for photography. And this gallery is a small representation of that passion.
To accompany each image, the photographer has written a few paragraphs describing the scenario in which it was shot as well as the gear used. Enjoy!
Wenmei Hill
I’m at heart a portrait photographer: my favorite subject is people, my favorite challenge is to capture a bit of their story. This is one of my favorite photos of the year because it shows her in the midst of childhood – she’d just turned seven years old – and her eyes carry the frank directness of a child tinged with a hint of the adult she will become.
I took this photo with the Petzval 58mm on the Nikon D750. The Petzval 58 is a manual focus lens with drop in aperture plates, so she had to wait patiently for me to pick my aperture and find my focus. The depth of the shadows and color also add a quality of stillness that I like, as stillness and patience are not easy to catch in a newly-minted seven year old. Every time I pass this photo in my collection, I stop and take a longer look, remembering and savoring this rare quiet moment.
Vladimir Bobov
This is one of those photos where a fleeting moment was captured by dumb luck. I like getting lucky with a photo because I like knowing that aside from having the right gear and dialing in the right settings, there is also an aspect of randomness to our art, and I enjoy seeing it manifested.
I took this photo at a friend’s lake house, while watching their neighbors set off Independence Day fireworks. I was concentrating on photographing the fireworks, which were coming from different directions, so I was switching around between very different exposure settings. I had taken a couple of pictures of my friends sitting on the dock, but they were sitting apart, and the photos weren’t that strong compositionally.
When a few minutes later, I saw them lean in to each other for just a few seconds, I quickly shot with whatever settings I had dialed for the fireworks, and got this photo. When I saw it on the LCD, I knew that it was going to be a keeper for me, even if it was blurry or out of focus, and I continued shooting the fireworks worry-free, knowing that I already had my shot.
Gear: Canon 5D Mark IV, EF 16-35 f/2.8L II USM at 16mm 0.5sec at f/4 ISO 800
Jeff Keller
I was lucky enough to visit the rugged but beautiful country of Iceland last October during a press event for Olympus. We hit most of the usual tourist spots: Reykjavik, Gullfoss, Skógafoss, Almannagjá and, of course, the Blue Lagoon (we need one of those here in Seattle). Being a press event, it shouldn’t be surprising that I was using an Olympus camera, which in this case was an E-M1 Mark II.
On one of the days we headed to the south coast to the famous black sand beach in Vik. On the drive there we encountered sun, rain and hail in a five minute period, which I was told wasn’t unusual for Iceland. Prior to our arrival, our guide told us to never turn our back to the dangerous ocean (always sage advice) since many have died at the beach. That was reinforced by a warning sign on the walk down and the presence of a security guard keeping people away from the water.
The scene on the beach was incredibly monochromatic. It was overcast with unbelievably rough seas, whose spray eliminated any color above the ocean. The basalt columns that shoot out of the earth give this spot an almost otherworldly feel (no pun intended). Not long after our arrival it started to hail again. The hail added some much-needed contrast to the scene and it was at the point where I took the photo above. That is indeed a color photo, but the scene on the beach was so grim and gloomy that it ended up looking black & white.
Dan Bracaglia
I shot this image in Tokyo earlier in spring on the Fujifilm GFX 50S and GF 63mm F2.8 R. I’ve always dreamed of wandering the streets of Tokyo, camera in hand but never expected the camera to be a digital medium-format. Truth is I intended on shooting the streets with my Leica M6 but a stroke of good fortune at the CP+ trade show days prior resulted in DPReview getting our hands on one of the very first GFX 50S’ available to the media. And so naturally I put my M6 on the backburner/back in my suitcase and used the Fujifilm for the duration of my trip.
Large and sluggish to focus with the 63mm, it was hardly the ideal kit for walking multiple miles a day, trying to be discreet or attempting to catch decisive moments. But having yearned to visit Tokyo much of my life, I wasn’t about to let those factors hold me back on my first visit. Plus, I’ve always enjoyed shooting with Fujifilm cameras and was pretty excited by this new one.
In the end I worked around the sluggish AF and clunky size and made a ton of images while exploring there, many of which I was pleased with, but none more than the one above. It just goes to show, the photographic tool is much less important than the will of the photographer. Also thanks to the high-res chip, I was able to crop to taste in post without any worry.
Rishi Sanyal
I showed up to this shoot with a Sony a7R II and a set of primes. I brought a Nikon D5 and 70-200 F2.8E FL ED VR. Just in case.
I chose Volunteer Park in Seattle as the backdrop, because of the lush greenery everywhere. Close to sunset, the sun shines through numerous trees, affording ample opportunity for backlit scenarios and light shining through trees. I started off shooting with the a7R II. Looking through the EVF, I was able to carefully tune my exposure on-the-fly – a huge advantage of mirrorless.
But something was missing. I didn’t like what I was seeing through the EVF. I saw a flat, dull representation of the love story in front of me. Why? Because Sony’s JPEG engine rendered lackluster colors and a flat preview that tries to pack in a bunch of scene dynamic range into the EVF preview so you can see the wide range of tones in your scene. That’s actually a good thing, in most cases. But the resulting images on the LCD were, well, meh.
Somewhat uninspired, I whipped out the D5. It hurt. Like I think a couple of bones cracked and a nerve rubbed me the wrong way. But then I took a shot. I looked at it on the back of the LCD and I was like ‘whoa’. The retina-esque resolution of the D5 LCD combined with Nikon’s improved JPEG color rendition that gets it at least part of the way to Canon (whose colors – along with Fujifilm – we unanimously love in the office) left me inspired. But not just that – seeing a scene through the optical viewfinder and concentrating on it, and only after taking the shot realizing I’d created something quite pleasing was satisfying. Satisfying like those days when I picked up my Velvia slides after a weekend getaway.
I packed away the a7R II for the rest of the shoot. Boy was I glad I brought that D5 just in case. Good thing I didn’t need to shoot any video.
Carey Rose
As has already been well-documented, I brought only a 50mm-equivalent lens on a trip to Thailand as a personal challenge. I’m used to wider focal lengths, and after a couple of days, I had accepted that most of my photos from this trip would probably suck.
But I kept on shooting anyway. I was in Thailand, after all. I gradually became somewhat more comfortable with the focal length, and didn’t constantly feel like I needed to take five steps back whenever I raised the camera to my eye.
We visited the Elephant Nature Park in northern Thailand in the final days of our trip, and I like to think of this photo as a sort of happy accident that stemmed from my personal challenge. If I had a 28mm lens, this would probably be one of those ‘here is an elephant in a field’ sorts of pictures. But because of the tighter field of view, I was able to more clearly see and frame the curves of the elephant’s back against an almost mirror-image of them in the landscape, and captured what I found to be a much more compelling image.
So despite my initial reservations, I like this image not only because, well, I like it, but also because it serves as a reminder to keep on challenging myself to ‘see’ a little differently.
Dale Baskin
The Aurora Borealis is one of Earth’s truly magical natural phenomena, and under the right conditions it can turn a nighttime landscape into an otherworldly place. A few months back I was in Canada’s Northwest Territories to photograph the aurora and caught this image almost by accident.
I had a couple other cameras shooting time-lapse sequences in a clearing when something drew me into the woods nearby. It wasn’t until I looked up through the trees of the taiga forest that I realized why. I was surrounded on all sides by aurora that dipped almost to the horizon, creating stark silhouettes of the trees. A window of stars opened straight above. I quickly mounted my camera on a tripod, pointed upward, and took a series of shots. A few minutes later the aurora had moved and the scene was gone forever.
This picture is one of my favorites from the past year because it captures the essence of what it’s like to stand alone in a remote northern forest, spellbound, as the northern lights dance around you. It’s a supernatural, spiritual experience that’s good for your soul.
Photographed with a Nikon D750 and Rokinon 14mm F2.8 lens. ISO 5000, 10 sec, F2.8.
Richard Butler
One of my favorite photos from this year is actually a composite of two images. The fourth of May this year saw a storm approach from the west. A bright afternoon became darker and darker as threatening clouds rolled in and the forecast of lightning (uncharacteristic for Seattle) began to look more likely. I grabbed the highest-res camera I could and a Tamron lens we needed to shoot samples on, and raced to the most Southerly end of the building, hoping to capture the mood without also including one of city’s many construction cranes.
The clouds looked ever more moody, and it was visibly apparent where they were raining: the mountains to the North West were still lit by sunshine, but there was no visibility at all as you turned to the South. I started snapping, immediately struck by the Tamron’s ability to stabilize 1/80th of a second and 130mm while carefully aimed between the tilted-open window and its outer frame. I kept shooting as the lightning started.
The flashes seem so long-lived, illuminating the banks and fold of cloud for an appreciable time after the initial burst of light. I wondered whether I could roughly anticipate the next flash, with a long enough shutter speed. No. Then I thought I’d see if my reaction times, combined with the lingering glow in the clouds would be enough. Sure enough, on the third bolt of lightning, I managed to catch the tail-end of the strike. It wasn’t the most dramatic lightning shot I’ve ever seen, but it felt pretty satisfying, given my complete lack of preparation.
I quickly chimped: more than acceptably sharp, considering I was trying to hand-hold a 50MP camera. Then I zoomed out and realized that, while trying to focus on getting the timing right, I’d let the camera slip slightly and inadvertently cropped the top off the Space Needle. So the end result is a composite: a fractionally sharper shot taken a few moments earlier, with the darker clouds and lightning merged in from the better-timed image. I’d like to think I’ve created a 50MP image which looks eye-catching even as a thumbnail but also allows you to zoom in on the Washington State Ferries, apparently sheltering in the harbor on Bainbridge Island. And, since it’s not photojournalism or a competition entry, why not?
Allison Johnson
This is a photo I shot almost exactly a year ago, but just under, so I think it still counts. It’s shot with the Canon M10 and EF-M 22mm, which is a nice combination, and nobody checking your bag bats an eye at it.
Mason, Ohio is a suburb north of Cincinnati best known for its amusement park and annual pro tennis tournament. This is sunset on Grandstand Court, which is the second-largest court and has a more intimate feel than the neighboring Center Court. I saw Roger Federer play here once. He hasn’t played on the second-largest court in a long, long time since then.
There are things I don’t love about this photo but so much that I do when I come back to it. It takes me back to warm August nights, the hush over the crowd, the hum from the nearby interstate during quiet moments as points are played. I like focusing on the crowd here rather than the players. We had a day of intense rainstorms and the sunset was spectacular that night. It’s kind of a Field of Dreams moment – this incredible tournament with the world’s best players pretty much in the middle of a field, in what used to be rural Ohio.
I feel like this moment captures what that week in August is like, at least to me, and that kind of thing makes me really excited about taking pictures. It’s both meaningful to me personally, and a lovely, fleeting moment captured and made still. Now that I’m on a photo book-making kick, I feel like this might end up in a tennis photo album soon.
Eugene Hsu
This is a photo of a mother bear and two cubs sharing a salmon at the Katmai National Park and Preserve at Brooks Camp in late 2016. At this remote national park, there are only a small number of people and a huge number of bears. Safety is your number one priority as you always give bears the right of way, which results in a unique wildlife experience. Viewing platforms at various points in the Brooks Falls area give photographers some great angles whether they are hauling around tens-of-thousands of dollars in lenses – or the compact super-zoom Sony RX10 III that I used in this shot.
Staff
We love ducks. They’re a staff favorite. Mainly because there are lots of them at the nearby park and they’re always around when we don’t have any other models. At some point we should probably get them to sign model releases.
We have so many photos of ducks that we couldn’t pick a single favorite, so this was a random selection to represent the multitude of duck portraits we captured last year. Quack on.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
