Photo# Photo Lens Film Speed f stop Action Aerials Available Light Landscapes People Still Life Telephoto Wide Angle Wildlife
abandon Abandoned Hut An abandoned ubosot ΓÇô the building in a Buddhist temple complex used for ordination ΓÇô in Thailand's Chiangmai Province. Actually, it's highly unusual to find a religious building in such a ruined state like this. The setting, in the middle of rice fields, was so evocative that I returned to it one dawn in November, when it was surrounded by a fresh rice crop, glistening in the morning dew. 65 F50 y
adobema Adobe Mason A New Mexican albanil (adobe mason) restoring an adobe wall near Santa Fe. People immediately at work are rarely distracted by photographers, and so not usually self-conscious. In any kind of manual work, there is always some moment, some gesture that stands out. The thing is to wait and watch for this. 180 K64 1/125 8 y
african African Buffalo From across a river bank, this African buffalo was motionless and uninteresting until it final decided that it had had enough of the attentions of a small group of egrets, and turned rapidly. I had been waiting for something to happen - in the event I had had the long lens trained on the buffalo for about ten minutes. A standard feature of wildlife photography is that most large animals spend most of the time doing very little. 600 K64 1/500 8 y y
aixcafe Aix Cafe A square in Aix-en-Provence, France. What makes the shot is the animated gesture of the man sitting at the café table. This was just a matter of reacting quickly enough. Framing the shot so that the couple are to one side rather than in the middle of the picture makes them just a part of the scene 20 V50 1/125 5.6 y
Akhagir Akha Girl I spent three months photographing the Akha, a hill-tribe in the area of the Golden Triangle, across Thailand, Burma and Laos, most of the time in one village. The traditional dress, particularly of the women and girls, was a major reason for choosing this tribe. This is a 14-year old Akha girl from the village of Maw La Akha in Chiangrai Province. Over her decorated head-dress, she wears a plain cloth mantle - protective wear when working in the fields around the village. 180 K64 1/125 2.8 y
akhatot Akha Totems A young hill-tribe girl runs past male totem figures guarding the uphill entrance to an Akha village in the north of Thailand. These figures, often with strong phallic representation, are renewed each year. Those of previous years are left untouched, to rot into the undergrowth. I was living in the village, so knew it well, and on this misty morning I was walking around looking for those views which would work well. Silhouettes against a setting that recedes into mist are a natural in these circumstances. 20 K64 1/60 5.6 y y y
amazona Amazon Aerial A meandering tributary in the northern Amazon. I had hired a light aircraft for a day, and we were exploring. The shape of the river, set among pristine rain forest, made such a clean image that it has been used many times by publishers, including the cover of a Time-Life book - in fact, it was this shot that gave me my start in photography. 80 E64 1/250 5.6 y y y
angorwa Angor Wat, Dawn We had arrived well before dawn at the west entrance to Angkor Wat ΓÇô incidentally, the largest religious monument on earth ΓÇô but the sky was completely thick with clouds. This was the middle of the monsoon, and I could hope for very little in the way of good lighting. But once again, the day had its surprises. For a very short time, before sunrise, the lower edge of the nearest cloud bank cleared, and a strange, deep red glow threw the towers of the temple into silhouette. 105 K64 1/15 2.8 y y
banteay Banteay Kdei The ninth-to-thirteenth century temples at Angkor are probably the most evocative ruins in the world, particularly in a Romantic sense. I hated the idea of posing anyone to give that 'Lost Civilization' look, but I did want something like that. I was rewarded one day as a villager happened to walk through the face-tower of this temple. This is the kind of image with which an art director closes a magazine story or book ΓÇô and it was. 180 K64 1/125 2.8 y y
bearand Bear And Rabbit Sunrise behind Bear and Rabbit Rocks, Monument Valley, Arizona. Using a long-focus lens to isolate and abstract these rock formations, I chose sunrise as the best time to show their silhouettes. The rabbit is more easily recognizable than the bear. Forecasting the exact position on the horizon where the sun appears is often difficult - it rises at an angle except in the tropics. So, I set up the tripod on a nearby road, with the car engine running so that I could make a quick last-minute change to the camera position if I needed. 400 K64 1/250 16 y y y
bhamoma Bhamo Market Market photography is one of the standards when traveling, because of all the life and activity. One thing I like to do is to get right into crowds with a wide-angle lens, to catch the sense of being there. It needs, as here, a fairly small aperture. 20 V50 1/125 8 35mm y y
bluedru Blue Drunks Just before the monsoon starts in the dry northeast of Thailand, the towns and villages perform a kind of rain-making ceremony by firing giant home-made rockets up into the sky. An integral part of the proceedings is intense and very drunken celebration. After a day of drinking the local rice spirit (not at all like sake), this group of teenagers were in a world of their own, and had painted themselves all over with blue dye. There was a wildness about them that I liked, but you know, just looking at the photograph, that I was only seconds away from being decorated in blue myself! 105 K64 1/125 4 y y y
blurred Blurred Seagull Panning the camera to follow a moving subject, and using an intentionally slow shutter speed, can turn even the most prosaic image into a graceful design. By choosing a dark background - a group of trees - I was able to keep this seagull outlined clearly even through a one-second exposure. This kind of shot is always something of an experiment. 400 K64 1 32 y y y
blurres Blurred Stockbrokers Top-hatted stock brokers in the City of London. These used to be a fairly common sight, then one by one dropped away. In any case, they were so recognizable that I decided this time to experiment by using a very slow shutter speed, hand-held very loosely, to give a sense of the rush and energy of the financial district. 180 K64 1/2 22 y y y
boules Boules A game of boules in the fishing port of Cassis, Provence. Again, a matter of timing ΓÇô catching the ball in frame and in mid-air, with the man in an interesting stance. I took a number of shots ΓÇô one per throw ΓÇô and this was the best. 105 V50 1/250 4 y y y
btf Btf3 Shooting at movie special effects studio Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), I had to do a series of shots showing how each type of effect was created. This is a blue screen, used to separate an object or person from the background, so that they can later be inserted in another scene - a standard movie procedure. This is the model car featured in the film Back To The Future, and for authenticity, I used the blue screen myself to isolate the image of the car. This assembled image, with a bit of Iceland on the right, took an immensely long time to set up, shoot and composite - this was before the days of computer imaging. various y
charsu Char Su Ramen The owner of an innovative and successful noodle restaurant in London was making a cookery book, and wanted something different from the usual run of food photographs. We talked, and I suggested making a series of digital compositions. I spent two days shooting de-constructed dishes - all the ingredients separately, and then spent much longer at my computer re-assembling them. There was a theme to each image, which was supposed to reflect some aspect of the dish; for this Char Su Ramen, it was 'classic formality'. y
comoros Comoros Aerial The fishing port of Iconi and the volcanic crater N'gouni, on Grande Comore, principal island of the Comoros, in the Mozambique Channel. In fact, the entire island is an old, collapsed volcano; these small coastal craters and the blue Indian Ocean are a natural spectacle. I used a small helicopter early in the morning, when the weather was certain to be clear - photographer heaven 20 K64 1/250 6.3 y y y
cooling Cooling Lime This scene looks a good deal more pleasant and romantic than it really was. This Burmese woman is cooling lime for road construction by pouring buckets of water over it. The lime. of course, is caustic, and the fumes are none too pleasant. What attracted me, nevertheless, was the natural grace of the woman's movements. 20 V50 1/250 5.6 y y y
cycloin Cyclo in rain A cyclo driver in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, takes an afternoon nap ΓÇô a respite from the hard and badly paid work of carrying people and goods all over the city. The scene, and the light playing on it, seemed to sum up an old-fashioned afternoon on the tropics. 180 K64 1/125 2.8 y y y
dawnhol Dawn, Holy Island Sunrise over Holy Island and Lindisfarne Castle, in the northeast of England. The light in the early morning was so calm and delicate that it couldn't fail to turn this view into something special. I stood at the end of the stone jetty and found a fisherman about to go out in his dinghy, 20 K64 1/30 3.5 y y
devilda Devil Dancer Devil Dancer on Corpus Christi Day in a small town in Venezuela. This is a unique religious event, which happens on one day a year in this one place. People dressed as devils dance in the square and come to the church for blessing ΓÇô one of those odd rituals that blends animism with major religion, in this case Roman Catholicism. The colors make it an easy spectacle to shoot, but I liked this quiet moment between dances, when I could concentrate on just one man. 180 K64 1/125 2.8 y y
dithpra Dith Pran Dith Pran, whose role Haing Ngor played in the movie 'The Killing Fields', returns home for the first time since the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge. Many of his family died during the regime, including his parents, and I was with him in Cambodia for a magazine. This was the moment when he met his sister and the remaining family for the first time in fifteen years. I was extremely uncomfortable to be shooting this, but it was why we were all there - Dith Pran included. 24 K64 1/125 4 y y
dozmary Dozmary Pool Dozmary Pool on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, where Sir Bedivere is supposed to have flung King Arthur's sword Excalibur. I was shooting a story on Camelot, and if nothing else, the locations needed to look evocative. When I arrived the day before in driving rain that showed no sign of letting up, I was in despair - the small lake looked no more than a muddy cattle pond, with not even a tree in sight. The next morning before dawn was the same, but I stayed anyway. Then, for about ten minutes only, the clouds cleared just as the sun came up. What a relief. 20 V50 1/60 22 y y
elephan Elephants Aerial Elephants from the Shangoni herd in South Africa's Kruger National Park flee from the advance of a helicopter. The pilot is separating animals for capture under a relocation program. 105 K64 1/250 5.6 y y y y
evergla Everglades Flamingoes A flock of flamingoes over coastal mangroves in Florida's Everglades. I had hired a Cessna for the end of the day, so that the setting sun would give the maximum contrast of lighting to the mangroves. We had to circle several times to get just the right juxtaposition of birds and swamp - this was exactly what I was looking for, with the birds highlighted against a channel. 180 K64 1/250 4 y y y y y
evzonei Evzone Inspection In Athens, I spent one day with the Evzones - the Palace Guards. Their uniform includes a kind of skirt, called a foustanella, and a large part of each morning is spent getting it right for parade. The combination of this frilly, effeminate skirt and the tough soldiers who wear it is marvelously incongruous, and I was looking for a way to put this across. After a lot of tugging and pulling at the skirt, the corporal inspecting this guard finally stood right back to take a last look, leaning sharply forward. I like the juxtaposition of a disembodied head concentrating intently on this tiny skirt worn on muscular legs. 180 K64 1/125 2.8 y y
fishing Fishing With Nets I was having breakfast on the terrace of a hotel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, when I saw these fishermen working their nets on the Mekong River just below. I'd never seen this exact way of hauling nets, and the whole complicated structure was tailor-made for a silhouette against the reflection of the rising sun. I cropped in tightly with a telephoto lens to avoid the distractions of the rest of the river and the opposite bank. 180 K64 1/125 8 y y y
flames Flames A sad small event: on a hot summer's day, what was Ontario's oldest church goes up in flames. The fire department was on the scene in minutes, but to no avail. What actually impressed me was how fast the fire took hold. There was just a little smoke to begin with, but within several minutes the fire was raging out of control. The shape of the doorway shows that this is a church, so it made for a more effective image to close right in. This was a stronger image than the others of the entire building. 105 K64 1/250 8 y y
flaming Flamingoes Flamingoes (Phoenicopterus ruber) take flight in unison from the mangrove swamps of Rio Lagartos, a major breeding ground in Mexican Yucatan. They get their color from their diet of shellfish, and it's more intense here than anywhere else I've seen. The moment of take-off, when the birds go from ungainly to aerodynamic in a few seconds, is fantastic, but difficult to catch. They are extremely wary, and naturally prefer to take off in the opposite direction. It took nearly two hours moving around the flocks in a boat, with a 600mm lens propped on the gunwales, before I caught this. 600 V50 1/125 4 y y y
floatin Floating Market, Soc Trang As Vietnam slowly opened its doors, I went several times, on each occasion trying to go somewhere different and unvisited. Deep in the Mekong Delta, I found this spectacular floating market, in one of the poorest and least-developed provinces, Soc Trang Province. 400 K64 1/125 8 y y y
gamines Gamines Gangs of street-children - gamines - live rough on the streets of Bogota and other cities. Abandoned by their parents, they live by petty crime. 20 K64 1/60 8 y y
girlfis Girl Fishing Traveling up the Tapanahoni River in Surinam, we were just about to negotiate a new set of rapids in our motorized canoe, when I saw this girl fishing from a dugout moored at the water's edge. It was dusk and the very last of the evening sun caught her fishing line. I didn't really expect to be able to take a sharp, unshaken picture from our rocking canoe, particularly as I needed to use a long telephoto but I tried anyway. I had time to squeeze off only two frames at a speed a little too slow for hand holding a 400mm lens, but this one worked. 400 E400 1/125 5.6 y y y
goldenb Golden Buddha The face of one of Thailand's most famous Buddha images, cast entirely in gold and weighing 5 tons. I used a 400mm lens at its closest focusing distance to get this highly concentrated view. 400 V50 1/15 5.6 y y
grandar Grand Canyon & Aircraft Another light aircraft below the one I was in gave me the essential scale for an aerial view of the Grand Canyon. I used a wide-angle lens to show as much of the canyon as possible and to keep the image of the other aircraft as small as possible. This is a variation on the time-honored technique of including people in a large landscape for scale - not something to do all the time, but occasionally useful. The shot was timed for the moment at which the white Cessna crossed over the shadow of a cliff, so that it stood out clearly. 20 K64 1/500 3.5 y y y
grandca Grand Canyon Of all the pictures that I've taken of the Grand Canyon, this is the one that, for me, works best. It works because of its simplicity: a stack of distinct planes, and a limited but balanced range of colors. It was taken from the South Rim with a 400mm lens looking into the sun. To avoid flare, I was careful to shield the front of the lens with my hand (the camera was mounted on a tripod). 180 K64 1/8 16 y y
grandpr Grand Prismatic Spring From the air, the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park presents a remarkable palette of colors. They are due to the temperature of the water, heated by magma below the surface, which sustains terraces of brightly colored algae. The only problem with this wonderful view from the air is that every photographer who flies over takes more or less the same shot - I have trouble identifying which shot is mine from the several versions regularly published in books. 180 K64 1/500 2.8 y y y
Graysea Gray Seascape Rough seas and a storm created a scene that looks more extreme than the actual conditions would suggest - no more than a miserable summer's day on the south coast of Wales. I liked the complete lack of color, and enhanced the effect by under-exposing slightly and by adding a neutral graduated filter to deepen the sky. 20 K64 1/30 8 y y y
haingng Haing Ngor Haing Ngor with the remains of Khmer Rouge victims at a killing field near the temples at Angkor, in Cambodia. Ngor, who won an Oscar for his part in the film The Killing Fields, himself suffered an ordeal of imprisonment and torture under the Pol Pot regime. He was murdered in Los Angeles in 1996. 24 K64 1/60 4 y y
halfpea Half-Pearls A worker on a pearl farm inspects half or 'blister' pearls, which are cultured onto the shell rather than in the tissue. To make the image as graphically strong as possible, I opted for an overhead view, from a conveniently located bridge. 105 K64 1/60 5.6 y y
hippoox Hippo And Oxpecker Hippos are photogenic under all circumstances, but the arrival of this Red-billed Oxpecker (Buphagus erythorhynchus) added a new level of interest. Both were enjoying an afternoon in Lake Manyara, Tanzania. 600 K64 1/250 4 y y
hohrain Hoh Rainforest One of the very, very few pockets of temperate rainforest is here in Olympic National Park, in the state of Washington. The Hoh Rainforest is drenched in green and in rain in equal proportions, and looks more primeval than any rainforest I've seen in the Amazon or Borneo. I used a wide-angle lens on a large-format camera to get the maximum detail of the ferns and leaves, and found a view that is all forest - no sky or anything else. 65 F50 y y
hunting Hunting Dogs Hunting dogs, Mikumi, in Tanzania. These animals are now quite rare, so we were very happy to come across a pack. Shooting from a Land Rover from 20 or 30 yards away, I was able to get a number of photographs over a period of about quarter of an hour. 600 K64 1/125 5.6 y y
hyenas Hyenas Spotted Hyenas fighting over the remains of a carcass in the Serengeti. As with most wildlife photography in savannah grasslands like this, the usual method is to photograph from the top of a vehicle ΓÇô actually standing up inside and looking out of a hatch. It's then mainly a matter of having a driver and guide who know their business and can get you to the right spot. A very long lens is essential so as not to distract the animals. 600 K64 1/250 4 y y y
ibansle Iban man sleeping In a longhouse far upriver in Sarawak, Malaysia, an Iban man rests after a day's work. What attracted to me about the image was that because of the extreme contrast between light and shade it took a few seconds to see recognize ΓÇô it's not too obvious. 105 E800 1/60 2.8 y y y
inspect Inspecting Tuna In Tsukiji market in Tokyo - the world's largest fish market - a pre-dawn inspection of frozen tuna before the daily auction. As a prime fish can easily fetch the equivalent of more than US $1000, the inspectors work hard. The artificial lighting, the mist from the frozen carbon dioxide and the unearthly pod-like shapes of the headless and tailless tuna combined to make a very peculiar scene. I used a moderate telephoto lens from this angle to show the orderly ranks of the fish. 105 K200 1/30 2 y y
iraeria Infrared Aerial In an experiment, I used a couple of rolls of false-color infra-red film (with a suitable filter: orange) in a flight over the Mazaruni River in Guyana. The violent red is typical of healthy vegetation on this special emulsion, invented originally for camouflage detection and forestry surveys, 55 I 1/250 4 y y
jackal Jackal In the crater of Ngorongoro, in the African Rift Valley, a jackal makes off along the water's edge of Lake Magadi with the leg of a flamingo, probably killed by a hyena earlier in the day. 600 K64 1/250 8 y y
khmerta Khmer Tank On its way to the front, a Cambodian army tank drives by the ancient temples at Angkor, which I was photographing at the time for a book. To make the most of it, I stepped out into the road and squatted down, shooting with a medium telephoto lens. As if on cue, driver hit the accelerator, which produced a cloud of smoke from the exhaust, although to be honest I wasn't sure if that was for my benefit or because he thought it might be fun to run me down. In any case, I shot quickly and stepped back. 180 K200 1/250 2.8 y y y
kukulca Kukulcan The Mayan pyramid of Kukulkan at the heart of the temple complex of Chichen Itza, in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. I had to wait until the end of the day for a clear shot without tourists clambering up and down the site, and was lucky enough that a storm was building up in the distance: the combination of the bright, late sunlight and the dark gray clouds makes a very satisfying contrast 28 shift lens V50 1/60 11 y y
lakedal Lake Dal A shikara ΓÇô traditional boat ΓÇô on Lake Dal, Kashmir. I was on another, being rowed around. Shooting from near water-level from a boat rarely offers good opportunities ΓÇô at least, in my experience. This was an exception, because of the wide, clean view and the slightly misty light. Being close to the water meant good reflections. I used a neutral grad filter to darken the sky slightly and bring it closer in brightness to its reflection in the water. 20 K64 1/125 11 y y
landsca Landscape Arch In this abstract view of Landscape Arch in Arches National Park, Utah, I was deliberately looking for a different treatment. The arch itself is a spectacle, but then so are they all - and there are many in the Park. I moved around until the sun was just catching the inner edge of the arch. By moving a little to the left or right, I then had a choice of contrast between sky and rock in this silhouette. The distortion from a wide-angle lens exaggerated the abstract treatment. 20 K64 1/125 16 y y y
lioness Lioness with kill A lioness dragging a wildebeest to cover, near Seronera in the Serengeti. The usual way to see and photograph wildlife in African grassland is from a Land Rover, and as long as you stay in it, most animals will not see you as a human being, but rather as part of the vehicle. This lioness completely ignored us. She had clearly been dragging the carcass for some distance, and was panting for breath in the heat of the day. Her target was the shade of a tree a few hundred yards away. 600 K64 1/250 8 y y
livingr Italian-American Living Room Italian-American living room of 1925. This was a room set in the National Museum of American History in Washington DC, and the care that went into selecting the props is reflected in the authenticity of detail. To give it more of a realistic atmosphere, I shot towards the window and door, lighting them from outside the set with powerful, diffused tungsten floods. I stopped the wide-angle lens right down to its minimum (f64 for the large-format camera I was using) for complete front-to-back sharpness. 90 5 32 y
lordmay Lord Mayor Flanked by pikemen, the new Lord Mayor of London waves to the crowd during his inaugural parade through the city's streets. Only on this one day of the year does the gilded coach make a public appearance. One of the things that has always fascinated me about the City of London is the strange marriage of hard-nosed financial institutions and all this pomp and circumstance, 20 E400 1/125 5.6 y y
lordrec Lord Mayor's Reception There is a kind of archetypal Englishness that I find appealing, even if it sometimes seems in danger of being a caricature of itself. This was a reception at the annual Lord Mayor's dinner for Her Majesty's Judges, at the Mansion House, London. The master of ceremonies is announcing a dowager. 180 B 1/30 2.8 y y
machupi Machu Picchu Machu Picchu, in the Peruvian Andes. The location is spectacular, on a bend in a river which runs through a deep gorge below. The only issue is the weather, which changes rapidly because of the mountains, and basically, you take what you're given. Every so often low clouds drift across, without warning, and I was waiting for this. 20 V50 1/60 11 y y
moose Moose, Gardner River Browsing on river vegetation in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, this bull moose was only a matter of yards from the highway. In this well-organized park, many animals have become relatively accustomed to humans. A moose has a highly distinctive outline (otherwise a silhouette shot would be pointless), and I had to wait for it to show its profile. 400 K64 1/500 11 y y y
moroni Moroni I took this shot of the mosque and port of Moroni, the capital of the Comoro Islands between Africa and Madagascar, in the late afternoon. What I particularly liked about the scene was its 'oldness'. The town ΓÇô hardly a city, really ΓÇô has changed very little over the centuries, and the yellow and brown tones over the buildings and the clouds rolling up to the summit of the volcano in the center of the island seemed to appropriately antique. 65 B 1/2 32 y
mothbal Mothball Fleet Sometimes, the patterns that man creates are only obvious from the air. These mothballed warships in California were arranged in the harbor with strict military precision - sealed, boxed and painted gray - and I deliberately had the pilot position our light aircraft so that I could align them in the frame. 180 K64 1/500 5.6 y y y
muslimw Muslim Women At the Muslim festival of Idul Adl-ha, in Yogyakarta, the old cultural capital of central Java, men and women prayed in public, but separately, in the town square. The rows of white made a compelling image, but I was looking for some point of interest to set them off. Eventually, a young girl became bored and wandered off. She spotted me, and I had my shot. 180 K64 1/125 8 y y
nunbang Nun, Bangkok A Thai nun in meditation at Wat Mahathat, Bangkok. I wanted a closely cropped image for simplicity ΓÇô to suit the subject ΓÇô and so to avoid being intrusive, I used the longest lens I had, a 400mm, which I could use from several yards away. 400 K64 1/125 5.6
oakalle Oak Alley Oak Alley Plantation, Louisiana, has its name from the two long rows of live oaks that form a grass road leading to the Mississippi River. It's more usual for photographers to stand at the end of the 'oak alley' to include all of them in the shot, but I liked the patterns of the shadows made by this tree near the house. I moved around until I could find a position where the house appeared to be naturally framed by the branches and shadows. 20 K64 1/125 11 y y
chartre Old man, Chartres Inside the Cathedral at Chartres, in France, I saw this elederly man engrossed in a guide book. Using a wide-angle lens in low light allowed me to include both him and some of the interior, and keep both in reasonable focus. 20 E400 1/30 3.5 y y y
pagan Pagan Twilight over Old Pagan, on the Irrawaddy River in central Burma. I had been photographing in the other direction at sunset, looking over the miles of plains dotted with thousands of ruined pagodas. This view, however, with wood smoke drifting across it from somebody's cooking fire, had a timeless quality to it. You could feel yourself back centuries. It needed a long telephoto lens ΓÇô and on a tripod ΓÇô to compress everything in view. 400 K64 1/30 8 y y
palioac Palio Acrobats Acrobats performing in the procession before the annual Palio in Siena, Tuscany. The Palio is a very particular horse race, with no saddles and no rules - the first horse across the line is the winner, with or without its rider. The festival surrounding it is a celebration of medieval Siena. 180 K200 1/250 2.8 y y y
palioho Palio Horse A competing horse in Siena's annual Palio waits to enter the Piazza del Campo. I would have preferred the sunlight to have been a fraction more to the right, but in these situations you can only work with what you've got. The energy level among everyone, including the supporters, was very high, and you can feel the tension in the horse and man. 180 V50 1/125 5.6 y y y
paliopa Palio Parade In a parade or procession, you can use a wide-angle lens to pull the viewer into the event and give a sense of immediacy, but it's important then to shoot very close to the subject. At this parade in front of Siena's cathedral, preceding the annual Palio, costumed participants toss banners in the air. To catch everything meant crouching low and shooting almost from the ground. 20 V50 1/125 11 35mm
parthen Parthenon, Dawn Less than half an hour before sunrise, the eastern sky over Athens is a definite pink, providing a serene backdrop to the Parthenon. seen from a nearby hill. Less romantically, the colors of the city's sunrises and sunsets are due to its in famously high level of pollution. In fact, I photographed the Acropolis from all conceivable angles and at different times over a period of several days. On this occasion, I chose a silhouetted view to hide the elements of modern Athens, preferring a timeless view. 180 K64 1/4 2.8 y y y
pathanb Pathan Boy With Gun A Pathan boy learns how to shoot. Guns are an integral part of Pathan life, and learning to use a rifle is one of the rites of passage. I chose to shoot close like this with a wide-angle lens so as to make the composition more dramatic. It emphasized the rifle. 20 K64 1/30 8 y y
pathbuy Pathan Buying Guns Two Pathan tribesmen buying a reproduction of a British .303 Lee-Enfield rifle in a gunshop at Darra Adam Khel, a Pathan town given over completely to arms manufacture. I had gone to the shop with them, and they were in on the photography. They were also natural actors, and hammed it up. Even normally, however, they are very expressive. 20 E400 1/60 5.6 y y
pelican Pelicans White pelicans over Lake Manyara, in Tanzania. There was a large flock by the lake, so many opportunities to shoot. Photographing birds in flight with a very long lens is never easy, but pelicans are large birds and fly relatively slowly. What makes the shot is the light ΓÇô bright sunlight from over my shoulder against very dark storm clouds building up ahead. 600 K64 1/250 5.6 y y y
perfume Perfume Bottle Blanks In photographing a story on perfume, mainly in France, I spent a day at a workshop that specialized in designing and manufacturing perfume bottles. Most of the manufacturing process was decidedly dull, but I was attracted to the blanks and off-cuts of colored Plexiglas used by the designers. I arranged them on a sheet of translucent Plexiglas, and lit then from directly below. macro 55 K64 1/125 32 y y
pushing Pushing Boat, Comoros In the shallow harbor of Moroni, in the Comoro Islands off the coast of East Africa, a boatman recruits the help of local children to push his ancient wooden craft to its mooring. The rich variety of browns and the crisp afternoon light made it very appealing. To concentrate on the effort being made, I used a long telephoto lens. 400 K64 1/125 8 y y y
ratcatc Rat-Catcher One of the world's less well-known occupations - rat-catching. Around 40 percent of India's rice crop is lost to rats, and in the south the Irulas, who are non-caste, hunt for them. This is part of a day's haul, which is then sold to a snake farm. This man was a natural actor - and what a great face! 105 V50 1/125 8 y y
recbudd Reclining Buddha The reclining Buddha at Kyauk That Gyi Pagoda in Rangoon, Burma. It was completely necessary to use a wide-angle lens in order to be able to take in this giant statue. However, I was looking for some human interest to add to it, and saw these two men talking. I had to shoot from close to the ground, aiming upwards, in order to include both them and the Buddha. One man made this pointing gesture, and that was the moment ΓÇô it has an old-fashioned, declamatory feeling to it. 20 K64 1/30 3.5 y y
redbarn Red Barn A simple, straightforward shot of a Shaker barn, but the combination of deep red and the blue sky make it immediately striking. To keep the effect of these two contrasting colors, I deliberately shot from close to the ground, and cropped out the foreground. 65 C100 1/8 32 y
redfing Red Fingers An eye-catching view, and a natural for moving in close with a macro lens ΓÇô it would have been much less striking if I had stayed back and showed more of the woman. At first glance, it looks like blood, but in fact this band of plaited bamboo that will adorn an Akha woman's silver head-dress is immersed in red dye from the crushed leaves of a tree. macro 55 K64 1/30 16 y
rhinoca Rhino Capture One of the funny things about shooting with a wide-angle lens is that you can easily forget how close you are to what you are photographing. This rhino was being relocated in South Africa, rather against his will, and although he had been darted from a helicopter, he was by no means down. The relocation gang had slipped a rope around one hind leg and were engaged in a tug-of-war. At one moment he took an interest in me, and I looked up from the camera to see why - it was because I was just a few steps away. I also realized how much I was relying on the other men. I said, 'Don't let go!' 20 K64 1/250 8 y y y y
riceter Rice Terraces, Bali These rice terraces near Ubud, on the island of Bali in Indonesia, are among the most beautiful in the world. At least, they are certainly the most photogenic. I passed them several times on one trip, but they looked their most spectacular at this moment one morning, with the sunlight streaming down. A farmer was transplanting rice, and making his way along the terrace, so I waited until he was in just the right place. I kept him to one edge of the frame to add a touch of life rather than to be the central subject. 20 K64 1/125 8 y y
roastin Roasting Pig In a hill-tribe village in the Golden Triangle, a pig that has been slaughtered for a family meal to commemorate the death of a relative is held over a blazing fire. I could have used flash, but really I dislike the complete artificiality it brings to many scenes. The blaze from the fire was enough; all I had to do was to position myself so that the silhouettes of the men were obvious enough. The slow shutter speed turned the sparks into streaks, and the overall effect is quite impressionistic. 35 E400 1/15 1.4 y
sculptu Sculpture Garden In several little-known places in Thailand, well off the beaten track, are large and garish sculpture gardens. They function as a kind of morality theme park, incorporating Buddhist and Hindu mythology with a dollop of folk animism. In the sculpture garden at Wat Pai Rong Wua, a girl pauses to look at the punishment being meted out to an adulterer. A demon devours his arm, and the words on his back read, 'Why did you take my wife away from me?' 180 K64 1/125 5.6 y y
shakerm Shaker Meeting Room A number of years ago I took the photographs for the book that initiated the interest in Shaker things. What made it such a pleasure, photographically speaking, was the spare simplicity of Shaker design. This meeting room attached to the Center Family Dwelling at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky is an object lesson in space and light. The natural treatment was to step right back to one end and show how open and minimalist it was. 65 B y
sheldon Sheldon-Hawks Bedroom Room interiors are frequently boring, and one of the biggest challenges is to make some sort of appropriate atmosphere. It's not always possible, particularly in restored historical buildings, which are more like museums. I was pleased that here, for once, I could arrange the lighting in this Colonial bedchamber in Massachusetts, to give a sense of how it was to live there. The key was to use mainly natural light, of which there was little, with a very long exposure. Lighting the candles made all the difference. 65 B y
specbud Spectacled Buddha This is an example of why I like Burma so much. Where else would you find a Buddha wearing specially made giant spectacles? In fact, the original pair, added earlier this century, were in gold, and they were donated by a man whose wife recovered from an eye ailment after praying to this Buddha image. The gold spectacles were later stolen, and replaced with these ordinary metal ones. They are cleaned once a month. 105 K200 1/60 2.8 y y
spiderr Spider Rock A stormy sunset over the Canyon de Chilly and the surrounding high desert plateau of Arizona. To begin with, however, the shoot did not seem promising - the entire day had been heavily overcast, and Spider Rock was almost indistinguishable from the canton walls. I waited out of a sense of duty, and fortunately, in the last moments of the day, the spring sun broke through from beneath a bank of storm clouds. Even better, it shone straight up the canyon to highlight the enormous rock pillar. The light lasted for just one minute - who says landscape photography is slow? 24 K64 1/60 8 y y y
srahsra Srah Srang This landing stage, graced with lions and serpents, looks out over Srah Srang, an artificial lake that was built in the 10th century in the temple complex in Cambodia . When I first visited in 1989, I was very familiar with all the old black-and-white published photography of these famous temples, but couldn't understand why no-one had ever photographed this view at dawn. One of the most tranquil views on the planet - paradoxically, as at the time of this shot there was an artillery barrage going on a few miles away, during the civil war. 20 V50 1/30 5.6 y y y
storkon Stork On Temple Roof In the nesting season, an Open-billed Stork tries to dismantle the roof of a Thai temple for nesting material. I was doing a story on the temple, a little upriver from Bangkok, which offers a sanctuary for these birds, who fly south across the Himalayas to breed. Were it not for the monks' compassion, the local farmers would blast away at the birds, though this individual fails to show the proper gratitude. 600 K64 1/60 4 y y
streetp Street performers, India I stopped in a small town in southern India to watch these street performers ΓÇô they spend their whole lives traveling from town to town. Part of the show was to toss a young girl in the air from the end of a long pole. I deliberately set the fastest shutter speed possible and shot the sequence with a motor-drive. I liked this shot very much once I saw it developed: the girl seems to be lying motionless in the air, ignored by unimpressed passers-by below. 20 K64 1/500 4 y y y
streetb Street Boy, Delhi Sleeping rough in Chandni Chowk, Old Delhi. 400 K64 1/250 5.6 y y
sumatra Sumatra Aerial I've always enjoyed taking photographs from the air whenever the opportunity came up, but the limiting factor is the cost of hiring an aircraft - not so bad in the United States, but prohibitively expensive in many parts of the world. I was surprised, then, at how well this shot of the east coast of Sumatra turned out, as I took it from a regular commercial flight through the usual double-thickness of window. Normally you would expect flare and scratches, but I suppose this was a new aircraft. 20 K64 1/125 3.5 y y y
sweepin Sweeping Church Floor I stopped to look at an old Mexican mission church standing on a hill above the small town of Santa Elena, near Merida. It was late afternoon, and the sun was streaming through the doorway. As I was looking around, a man came in to sweep the floor. Realizing that this would look good in the low-angled sunlight, I climbed up to the loft - just in time to catch him as he swept the sunlit area. 105 V50 1/60 2.8 y y y
mittens The Mittens The desert landscapes of the American Southwest never fail to amaze me. As an Englishman, living in our notorious weather, scenes like this, of the Mittens in Monument Valley, Arizona, look like Mars. This view, incidentally, is not quite as remote as it looks ΓÇô it is from the car park. 20 K64 1/30 11 y y y
twogirl Two Burmese Girls Burmese girls at the Shwedagon. 180 V50 1/125 4 y y
hamlet Hamlet in sea Of all the strange places that man finds to live in this world, these hamlets in the Sulu Sea, at the southern tip of the Philippines, are among the oddest. The Bajau Laut (sea-gypsies) make their homes literally at sea, on stilts above a submerged coral reef. I deliberately framed the shot to keep a lot of water around the settlement to show its isolation. 180 K64 1/500 4 y y y
villade Villa De Leiva The cobbled plaza of Villa de Leiva, in the department of Boyaca. 20 K64 1/15 3.5 y y y
wavesmo Waves, Monterey Peninsula Waves breaking on Monterey Peninsula, California. This scene caught my eye as I was driving along purely because of the light, and the way it shone through the waves. 180 K64 1/125 5.6
winnowi Winnowing Rice, India In this photograph of Indian farmers winnowing rice, timing is the key to the shape and rhythm of the image. Because the action was repetitive, there was plenty of time to find the best viewpoint and wait for the right combination of the three figures with trays held identically. 20 K64 1/125 8 y y y
womanso Woman And Son, Athens On a hillside below the Acropolis, this woman's house could have been on a remote Cycladean island instead of in a large city. As I was taking pictures, she began to talk about her son who, like thousands of Athenians. died of starvation during the Nazi occupation of the city. I gradually realized that the portrait on the wall was of her son, and moved around the table to include it in the shot. 20 E400 1/30 4 y y
zebras Zebras Two zebras on the shores of Lake Manyara, in Tanzania. Shooting into the sun with a long lens - 600mm - runs the risk of some flare, but it also gives a soft backlit quality, which is what I was after. 600 K64 1/250 5.6 y y