CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

The season finale of the 2016 European Le Mans Series took place at the Autodromo do Estoril with a dramatic end to the year with the championship leading no66 JMW Motorsport Ferrrai retiring due to a gearbox problem, handing the European title to their nearest rivals at Aston Martin Racing. Alex Brundle (top picture) had already secured the LMP3 European title with his teammates Christian England and Mike Guasch (pictured below) and started the race from pole position.  But an incident between Mike Guasch and the no66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari after two hours of the four hour race meant the Anglo American trio failed to finish their championship wining season on a high note. In the pitlane I spotted Fabien Barthez, the former French goalkeeper and national captain, signing autographs.  Barthez is now a successful driver and team owner, competing in the LMP2 class of the European Le Mans Series. AF Corse Ferrari driver Rui Aguas was also signing some autograp...

On the second day of visiting Nikko National Park in Japan the morning started off very misty and grey ( see Misty Pier image on Thursday's blog ).  We moved along the north shore of Lake Chuzenji and we suddenly saw some breaks in the clouds covering the lake.  We came across a beach with a car park so pulled over quickly and unpacked the camera gear. I noticed the clouds hugging the tree line on the mountains on the opposite shore so set the X-T2 up to record a timelapse video of the scene.  I used the XF50-140mm f2.8 or the XF100-400mm f4.5/5.6 telephoto zoom Fujinon lenses. Using the Interval Timer Shooting function I set the camera to record one JPEG (Fine) image every 3 seconds and took a sequence of approximately 200 images before recomposing the image.  The result was a set of images that I could use to show the movement of the clouds in a timelapse video. The individual images were combined with the frame rate of 10 frames per second in Windows Mov...

The main reason we spent two days in Nikko National Park in Japan was to capture the autumn colours that this region is famous for.  Unfortunately we arrived in Nikko Province about ten days too early as many of the trees were still in their summer livery.  But when we headed north of Lake Chuzenji, climbing up into the mountains, the leaves started to show their autumnal sheen, with some trees a blaze of fiery reds and yellows.  The trees surrounding the impressive Ryuzu Falls provided a great display and the shot on this page is one of my favourites from the whole day.  The picture was taken on the Fujifilm X-Pro2 with the XF100-400mm lens. I will be posting a series of features of the travels in Japan in the coming weeks once I have completed the European Le Mans Series event in Portugal this weekend.   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY ...

This is an image of one of the wooden piers on Lake Chuzenji in Nikko Province in Japan.  This was taken just after sun up but with low lying cloud covering the mountains and the lake. The visibility was very limited and you couldn't see the end of the pier. Using the Fujifilm X100T I took the above image, getting down low so that the end of the pier disappeared into the mist.  You can just make out the mooring posts further out in the lake.   The image was converted into mono using NIK Silver Efex Pro2 software.

Yesterday was my last day in Japan and my plan to photograph the countryside around Mount Fuji had to be abandoned due to heavy rain and low cloud.  So I decided to head back to Narita where the airport is located and visit the Naritasan Shinshoji Temple.  It is one of the oldest and largest temples in Japan and located just 20-minutes from the airport. I will post a longer feature on the temple in the coming days but one of the standout shots I took in the gardens was this one of a standing stone in a wooded glade.  The stone was one of many but was the largest of the group, with two statues flanking each side.  The stone reminded me of the monolith in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and I decided to fit the Samyang 8mm fisheye lens to the Fujifilm X-T2 and get down low beneath the stone.   The light on the stone contrasted nicely with the surrounding trees, which also gave a nice composition with the converging verticals in the image. ...

Today is the last day of my latest trip to Japan and once again it has been an absolute pleasure to visit the Land of the Rising Sun for the sixth time.  I never get tired of discovering new things in this country whose people are welcoming and the culture ancient and respectful.   Of all the places I have visited, Japan has to be second only to Scotland on my list of favourite countries. On this trip we visited Nikko National Park before heading to Fuji Speedway for the seventh round of the FIA World Endurance Championship and I have a lot of images for several features which I will be posting over the next few weeks. This is the shot of the sunrise yesterday morning over Mount Fuji.  I watched as the sun hit the clouds and then lit up the top of Japan's sacred mountain (Fuji San).   I was going to get some more shots of Fuji San this morning before I headed back to Tokyo but the beautiful weather that we have enjoyed for the past five days has gone an...

People watching at Fuji Speedway is a great past time and the majority of the Japanese fans love to have their photograph taken if you ask.   I spent the pitwalk using the X-T2 with the XF100-400mm taking pictures of people enjoying the sunshine and collecting autographs and selfies with their favourite drivers.  With a few thousand people in the pitlane it gave me an opportunity to further test the X-T2s AF-C custom function, selecting set 2 (ignore obstacles and continue to track subject).  Once the X-T2 had locked on to the selected person I was able to continue to track them despite people walking between them and the camera. Here is a selection of images that were converted to black and white in post production using the NIK Silver EFEX.   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS...