Andy Lee photographer Iceland landscapes

From Bored Panada

As amazing as Iceland’s natural sights are, the sheer amount of photographers that visit there means that a lot of their photos end up looking fairly similar. UK-based photographer Andy Lee, however, has used an interesting technique to ensure that his photographs of Iceland’s stark and proud landscape are especially dramatic and atmospheric.

Lee’s stunning photos, which are from “Blue Iceland” and several other Iceland-focused series, resemble Romantic-era paintings because of their moody atmosphere and dramatic lighting. They were created by shooting with a camera that can pick up infrared light and/or a filter that filters out some or all visible light (emphasizing infrared wavelengths). Digital SLR cameras react to IR light, but many have blockers installed to minimize it. This means that one would either have to remove the blocker or use a darkening IR filter (for more tips on how to use this technique, check outthis article).

This technique can produce very interesting effects, blocking light from some visible wavelengths, emphasizing light from others, and picking up light from some wavelengths invisible to the naked eye. The natural features in Lee’s painting-like photographs stand under a black sky and are eerily illuminated by a seemingly faint and distant sun.

Iceland, a country rich with roaring volcanoes, monolithic glaciers, icy mountains and deep fjords, has become a mecca for photographers looking to capture the raw, mystical power of its natural northern beauty. The ruggedness of and stark contrasts present in Iceland’s landscapes makes them irresistible to photographers like Lee.

If you like Andy’s landscapes go to his 500px site here, you will not be disappointed

The death of professional photography – another nail in the coffin

Most Of The Pics In Ikea’s Catalog Are Computer Generated

The Huffington Post tells us that now cameras and photographers are irrelevant to making images of products

Most of what you see here is not a real photo. | CGSociety

The same kitchen, designed to appeal to three different nationalities

Those picturesque still-life scenes in Ikea catalogs aren’t real.

Up to 75 percent of the Ikea products in catalog displays are computer-generated images, according to CGSociety, an Australian graphic-design group. That’s up from25 percent just two years ago.

An Ikea spokeswoman did not respond to a request from The Huffington Post for comment. A spokesman for CGSociety did not return a call from HuffPost to ask whether the group had a business relationship with Ikea.

 

The transition to computer imagery started in the 2006 catalog, with a single image of a blond-finished wood chair called “Bertil.” As the company’s reach spread around the globe, with different products in various markets, traditional photography became expensive and difficult to manage. Making tweaks to products for certain local markets would require new catalog photos for each market, for example.

Instead of doing that, the company built up a digital library of 25,000 three-dimensional models, which may have helped Ikea speed up the phasing out of its photography.

Ikea last year used these 3-D models in a new “augmented reality” feature for the app version of its catalog. The feature lets customers superimpose 3-D images of Ikea products wherever they point their smartphone cameras — into an empty kitchen or living room, for example.

See the full article here