There’s an exciting new competition just been announced that I encourage all panoramic photographers to enter. It’s the International Photographic Pano Awards, open to both professional and amateur photographers. There is over US$10,000 in cash and prizes, from Lonely Planet, Apollo, Epson, PT Gui, and 360 Precision.

Here’s an explanation from their website:

“The inaugural 2010 International Pano Awards is dedicated to the art of panoramic photography. Advances in digital photography and software such as PTGui and Adobe Photoshop has resulted in an explosion in image stitching, especially in the panoramic format. Panoramic film photography also remains alive and well. The Pano Awards aims to showcase the work of panoramic photographers worldwide and be the largest and most important competition for panoramic photography.”

The judging panel includes some of the world’s top panoramic photographers, including Christian Fletcher, David Hugh Evans, Nick Rains, Jaspal Jandu, Peter Eastway, Christian Fleury, Glenn Beanland and yours truly.

Entries are open now and close 30th April 2010.  Visit http://www.thepanoawards.com/

For those of you in Melbourne tonight (Friday night), you would have experienced this. Literally shot less than 30 mins ago, i saw this squall line coming on the radar and ducked down the beach to capture a few frames. With it pissing down with rain outside now, it’s quite pleasant to be sitting here knowing I got one shot in the bag!

Apologises for those not from Victoria. We don’t get many storms here (say 6 a year average), so it’s exciting for us to see lightning (and rain for that matter!).

TECHS: Canon 5D Mark II (who cares!), 30 secs, F2.8, focus set to infinity, tripod, RAW image converted using ACR, vignette, clarity, customised action, lucky shot.

Is this not the sexiest man alive?

Ok well maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but Ian is a legend.  Based in Hobart (or somewhere near there), he is a Tasmanian Living Treasure (whatever that means), and photographer extraordinaire. Ian knows all about printing (he’s printed two books on his work) and is a SEO guru. Check him out at www.ianwallace.com.au

Ian helped me out on the most recent Cradle Mountain Workshop, when this photo was taken. This was the most serious shot of Ian – I had to tell him to stop laughing. Anyone who knows Ian will know he doesn’t do serious very well (except in this instance).  He’s a laugh a minute and a ripping bloke.

Here is the shot from that perfect Wednesday morning we had at Cradle. We stood for what seem liked hours taking pano stitch after pano stitch until the clouds came over again.

Well after Ian and I had been playing around for a few days out the back of Cradle, the workshop started proper.  7 participants came from all over the country (and NZL) and we entertained for 5 days of fun and photography. Whilst the weather was ok, we woke to a cloudy day on Wednesday which cleared into a perfect morning with the most amazing image of Cradle I’ve witnessed (post to come).

It was decided that we would do our big walk that day (after the perfect start), however the weather soon closed in and the day turned to (insert rude word here). Phil, Craig and I walked up to Marion’s (via the goat track, or escape route as I like to call it), beyond to Kitchner’s Hut, then decided we had plenty of time to risk our lives and climb to the Cradle Summit, hoping the cloud would clear (wishful thinking Tom).

This was the shot from the top. Pano stitch, barely executed given the wind, rain and condensation…

On our last day we walked out via the Cradle Mountain face track. Lots of snow around so there were some pretty hairy moments crossing steep snow drifts below the mountain itself (Ian you loved it!!!).  This was the view looking up at Cradle before we realised a walk to the summit was futile.

On our second day out the back of Cradle, Ian and I took a very long walk (3 hours away) to Waterfall Valley where I had this spot in mind from visiting there 12 months ago. We spent a few hours here before returning in the rain (again!).

Snow gums are my favourites and this very impressive tree was standing close to Artist’s Pool.

However it hadn’t been raining (YET!!!) so I grabbed my water bottle and pour it over the tree to bring out the colours.

So here’s the story. I’ve been working on a massive book (320 pages, 30cms wide by 30cms high, 3.3kgs, 6 months in the making, over 250 hours of photography, another 500 hours of editing, etc etc, blah blah blah) and I flew down to Hobart to meet with my good friend Ian Wallace who did the pre-press.  After burning the midnight candle, we left his place mid-morning and headed straight for Cradle. He was afraid we wouldn’t make it in time, however I was determined to get there in order to walk the 2-3 hours to the Scott Kilvert hut out the back of Cradle.

So we made the car park by Dove Lake about three and headed up over Hanson’s Peak (you loved it Ian) and came by Artist’s Pool late afternoon. The original looks nothing like this – there’s no colour and the highlights are blown out. I was telling Ian to wait for the shot later on were the sun dipped further down to produce a stunning pink sky and lower contrast shot. However it never came – the clouds rolled in and sunk over the mountain, effectively blocking out the sun.

So i processed this image in camera RAW and came up with something more that I imagined…

So i’m going to get off my arse and blog a bit.

Lots been going on (hence no time to share) however I’ll kick it off my a YouTube video from our latest workshop at Cradle Mountain a few weeks back. Thanks to Ian Wallace for arranging the video…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12P9LZ4qqgk&feature=player_embedded