recently posted about which lenses can be the best for landscape photography - http://wp.me/p3zwhm-51 The general consensus is that wide angle lenses can be the "best" for landscape photography. They exaggerate depth, alter perspective and create that "wide open space" effect that works for those great views!

This is a question I get asked regularly, and there really is no answer (sorry!). The answer depends on you, what sort of landscapes you like shooting, what other gear you have, the environment you shoot in.... the list goes on….

Darwin will always hold a very, very special place with me - it is where I first became inspired to learn about taking landscape photos.

Don't worry, I'm not leaving town! I have many years to come, of photographing the NT. But I am very excited about getting out in to some new territory….

I know I haven't posted my "one's that got away" (my unseen photos) from November and December - that's because things with Christmas have been SO hectic I've not had time to take any photos, really. I think I only posted around 5 shots on Facebook for the month of December (usually around 30).

As most of you who follow me on Facebook will know, things have been a bit hectic recently and I have had very little time to get away to take photos. My partner and I decided to grab one night away whilst we could, before the Christmas rush starts! We left Darwin at around 5am, to get to Robin Falls (near Adelaide River, NT) for dawn. We were a little bit late, but turned out to be near perfect timing - we walked along the creek to the falls, arriving when the light was shining perfectly on the rock face. Bad news was, there was absolutely no water in it!…

Over the last few weeks, I have lost count the amount of people that have asked me "how do you take photos of lightning?".... It is a hard question to answer! I think my questioners expect a quick one or two sentence answer.... but it's not that easy (as anyone who has tried, will know).

Sure there is "luck" - a lot of the time you have to be in the right place at the right time. Sometimes it just so happens that you have a camera with you when out and about, a storm hits, and you get that "lightning shot" - you've got that one shot, and people think it's easy to get lightning bolts in photos. The challenge is getting another one.....

I have been meaning to announce this for a while - but time kept getting away from me, and all of a sudden it's nearly time.... after ten months in the making!

My first Coffee Table Book is due to be released next week!!

Professional landscape photographer's always talk about the "light" in their photos. For me, I agree. To achieve an exceptional landscape photograph, you need to be able to use the light - and wait for the "right" light.

It's hard to explain how to use the light. You kinda learn, over time, how to see it. What to look for, and why it looks different….

Although I post daily to Facebook, my preferred "social network" site is Flickr. Flickr.com is all about photography, and photographers sharing their photos. It's not like Instagram, or Pintrest - I find there is so much more interaction and as a result, a wealth of knowledge stored in Flickr. If you are a photographer looking to learn - Flickr is definitely the place to be!

Why Flickr?

A few of you who follow me on Facebook or Flickr will see I've had a couple of recent attempts at taking photos of the stars. This was all sparked by me hearing about the Perseid Meteor Shower. I've never heard of it before this year - it is an annual shower, that provides regular and spectacular meteors for us viewing down here on Earth. Every year it peaks around the 11th of August, and I decided to try and catch my own meteor on camera.

The biggest mistakes made by beginners starting out in landscape photography, are in composition. In my opinion, it is one of the most important things to get right "in camera". Composition (aside from a little cropping) cannot be fixed in post processing. Nothing you do on the computer is going to change how you arranged the scene in the viewfinder.

Tweaks can be made, of course - e.g. cloning out intrusive branches or straightening the horizon but generally, composition must be right at the time of the shot.