2009 was an interesting year full of ups and downs for pretty much everyone. We were (are) facing a massive economic crisis, unemployment was at an all time high, people were loosing their homes, on going war, yet we all are continuing to battle on and continue to live life doing the best we can with inspiration from stories of courage, charity and love. 2009 brought a lot of people together with great collaboration projects from artists who wanted to give back (Help-Project is a great example) and while photographers are doing their best in an environment that is changing against them, we are all coming together to bring new ideas and innovations.

2009 for me was a life changing year. Faced with the economic crisis, I, like many, lost my job. I saw this as an opportunity and took off with my wife on a road trip across country to take some time to think about where to take my career next and really concentrate on what really made me happy.

2009 saw me slowly fading away from design work and more into photography and at times, combining both elements together for my clients.

So I figured the best way to sum up 2009 is using pictures. Click on each photo for a very quite sentence about the photo.

So how was your year? Leave me a comment and let me know!

I remember a Travel documentary I saw about 5 years ago on the BBC and it was asking people if they had one word to describe the Grand Canyon, what would that word be?

Most people’s choice? “Awesome”

It’s very true. Every time I visit the Grand Canyon I will always overhear people who wonder to the edge, take a moment to look over the vast canon and then exclaim, “Awesome.” I admit that I have done the same thing.

But my favorite thing about this place is it’s color. Like many of the famous wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, the Pyramids in Giza, Egypt, etc, every hour in the Grand Canyon is a different experience as it is always changing color depending on where the sun is. The colors in the Grand Canyon are incredibly unique especially at the ‘magic hours’ for Photography. I prefer the sunrise over the sunset in the Grand Canyon. It has this magical feel to it and everyone who has braved the cold and early hour to see it will just sit in silence and watch this great event. In fact I think it’s the only time the Grand Canyon’s tourists are quiet!

I have put together a collection of some of my favorite photographs I have taken from the Grand Canyon from a recent trip. President Theodore Roosevelt called Grand Canyon “the one great sight which every American should see,” and I fully agree. Anyone with the opportunity to see this wonder, should.  

Click here to see my collection of photos from the Grand Canyon.

Grand Canyon Lightning

Sun Set at Yavapai Point

The Sun at Desert View

Sun Set at Desert View

Sun Set at Desert View - Photograph by Tony Eckersley

The Colorado River

The Colorado River

Dusk colors at Desert View

Sun rise at Mather Point

Just thought I would let you know that I have updated a new section on my website which I am creating for my favorite images which you will be able to buy soon!

Check it out here

The road trip we took back in 2006 was amazing in so many ways. The things we saw, people we met, places we went, and I managed to get some really memorable photographs from the journey. Now I am a big believer in the “it’s not the camera, it’s what you do with it” saying but I also can’t help but think the camera does help. This year I will be traveling with a Canon 5D mark II which replaces my Canon 40D which in turn replaced the old Canon Digital Rebel XT I used back on the 2006 road trip. The camera was perfect for me as it was my first introduction to dSLR’s. It did everything I wanted and produced some great images that have done me pretty well over the past few years. But it’s no Canon 5D mark II… Full frame, the extra resolution, greater dynamic range, better noise levels, movie mode are just some of the things I will fully take advantage of on this trip.

But there were certain things that, back in 2006, held back the photos I really wanted to capture. And this wasn’t to do with the camera I was using…

Hit the jump to read more!

Firstly, I had no zoom lens. I only had a Tokina 12-24mm and the 18-55mm Lens Kit that came with the Digital Rebel XT. This was quite the limited arsenal to shoot some of the most spectacular landscapes in the USA. This time I am better prepared. My kit includes:

• Tokina 12-24mm F4
• Canon 24-70mm F/2.8 L
• Canon 70-200mm F/2.8L IS
• Canon 50mm F/1.8
• Canon 100mm F/2.8

While I would love a super telephoto, I do plan on doing some major hiking on this trip, and this is already a hefty bag!

But there were other things holding me back a little. I had a really old tripod I bought from Jessops (in the UK) for £20 that would not even hold the weight of the Canon 5D mark II. Since then I had upgraded slightly to a slightly better tripod, but one that didn’t really suit my style of work. Now for this trip I have purchased a Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod (see below photo) with a Manfrotto 804RC2 Pan and tilt head (see above photo).

This is a great tripod for the trip. It was reasonably priced and included the famous Manfrotto-patented horizontal center column which I have always been a fan of. It’s weight is just about right for some hiking and should be heavy enough to hold down my equipment safely. The Manfrotto 804RC2 Pan and tilt head is not really the ideal heal for this tripod as they don’t balance each other out perfectly as the tripod can hold much more weight that the head, but it is enough for the 5D mkII and the hefty 70-200mm F/2.8 L IS. I opted for the pan and tilt over ball head as I felt the panning and tilting on this head would double up for taking videos with the Canon 5D mark II than a ball head.

Another missing piece to my photography kit on my last trip was some decent filters. I have a tendency to create a graduated ND filter effect in Lightroom 2 to my landscape shots (regardless of the time of day the photograph was taken) which I think helps balance out my usual over exposed skies – thus loosing detail. Obviously this is what Graduated filters can help with.

I decided against screw in filters and went with Cokin ND Graduated Filters #121L, 121M, 121S along with with a P Series Filter Holder. These make the world of difference to your tough lighting situations you can have when shooting landscapes. I do own a few screw in filters (mainly as lens protectors) which can help my images especially circular polarizing filters.

So, there are some new toys I am looking forward to playing with on this trip. I can’t wait!

On Friday the 31st July my wife and I take off on a 17 day ambitious road trip from Virginia to Utah and back. We have some family in Utah that we have been meaning to visit for a long time as seeing as we both have 17 days off we figured we should make a trip out of it. Personally I am taking this a business trip to take some photographs to hopefully sell in the fall and continue my collection of American National Park photographs. I am a huge fan of the US park system and fully support it every year.

The map above is the ideal 17 state trip for us. Like I said, it’s ambitious, but we are no strangers to mega driving hikes. In 2006 we drove from Utah to Virginia in 2 days. It was approximately 2100 miles. Our ideal destinations are:

• Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Carlsbad Caverns National Park
• Canyon de Chelly National Monument
• Grand Canyon National Park
• Monument Valley
• Canyonlands National Park
• Arches National Park
• Zion National Park
• Rocky Mountain National Park

Obviously we wont be visiting all of these, as we have seem many before, and I would like some decent time at each to get some photographs. So during the week we will be finalizing the destinations and really nail down the final itinerary. We have a busy week ahead preparing our car for the trip (she has had an oil change and new brake pads installed, however the gas gauge just stopped working…) and working on some personal projects, but all going well, we’ll be on our way to Tennessee on Friday evening.

Stay tuned for more information and of course with my iPhone, I will be updating throughout the road trip!

If any of you readers out there have some suggestions of things to see on the way please leave a comment. Thanks!

I want to talk a little about HDR Photography in this post, however, I want to preface this by saying, in my opinion, when it comes to photography, nothing beats a well composed image that uses fantastic lighting (natural or studio lighting) that requires very little post production. This is just a technique I want to explore as part of my photography.

HDR Photography, an acronym for ‘High Dynamic Range’ generally means a processing technique allowing a greater dynamic range of luminance between the light and dark areas of an image than is usually found in most digital imaging techniques. Theoretically it means you can process an image that accurately represents the image you saw in your head when composing your shot. It’s become a very popular technique over the past few years with the increased populaiorty of DSLR’s with auto bracketing features and has literally flooded the photo sharing sites with very mixed outcomes.

Creating such a high dynamic range is very hard to do from one image, so HDR images combine usually a series 3 or more photographs taken at different exposures (under exposed, normal, and over exposed). It is possible to take one exposure if you shoot in RAW and use software (such as photomatix pro) to automatically recreate 3 exposures, which is exactly what the above photo is.

There is definitely a love/hate relationship with HDR photography among certain photographers. To some, such as one of the real ambassadors of HDR photography, stuckincustoms, HDR photography helps the photos look more “evocative” while others see it as being very overdone, far too over processed and generally looking too chromatic. Just take one look at the popular HDR group on Flickr and you will see many terrible looking examples of HDR photograpy. HDR photography is certainly used professionally where 3 or more exposures are used to create what your eyes would normally see, such as in office environments where the outside light is much brighter than the inside light. An almost ‘proper‘ use of the combination of multiple exposures if you will.

I personally don’t class the really over processed and ‘trippy’ photographs as being true HDR as I feel it completely misses the point. To me, some of the reasons I can enjoy certain HDR photography is that I feel it adds a new sense of drama, creates a sense of surrealism, helps certain elements ‘pop’ and a creates a unique representation of that fantastic scene you saw that day. All these factors in my opinion make a great HDR image.

A good example is the photo above. It was around 4.30pm on an extremely sunny and light day on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. All the clouds were hovering over the south rim causing a  fairly interesting scene, however, the light was just too much and exposing on the shadows created a white blanket of a sky, and exposing on the sky gave a very dark Grand Canyon – your typical situation on a bright sunny day. My options were to wait until the magic hour (which we of cousre did anyway!) or experiment with HDR photography. As we were doing some hiking, my gear at the time was limited and I did not have a tripod. I set my camera to shoot in RAW knowing I could potentially rescue certain areas of the image to recreate 3 exposures and I shot away. The Grand Canyon makes a very interesting place to experiment with HDR as there is so much detail to each wall of the canyons including grass, trees, rocks, bumps, nooks, crannies, etc, so the clairty of each element just pops – especially when shadows are getting long, and the light is dropping adding an extra level of drama to the scene.

The original photo was very bland, with the shadows being very dark and the blues of the sky were washed out. To be honest, this photo was taken with my first ever DSLR when I was first learning the ropes so I may have had some settings wrong, but I was using a ND filter to help the exposure. So to me, this is where I feel HDR benefits my photography (at times). I had a beautiful scene in front of me, but I could not do it justice with 1 bland exposure, even with some post processing I couldn’t make an image I had hoped. My HDR technique allowed me to bring out the details in the highlights and shadows to bring the image to life – exactly how I remember it in my memories.

Now, this certainly isn’t my best photo from the Grand Canyon, but it illustrates my point of why sometimes I enjoy playing around with the HDR technique – I do think however that it is a little over processed…

What are your thoughts on HDR photography?

Rolling Thunder – Washington DC 2009, originally uploaded by tony.eckersley.

Rolling Thunder rumbled its way through the streets of Washington DC this memorial day weekend. For those of you who have not heard of this organization, the non profit Rolling Thunder is dedicated to the search of American soldiers who are prisoners of war and missing in action.

The organization named itself after the continuous bombing campaign of North Vietnam in 1965 which was known as Operation Rolling Thunder – a name well suited to the annual rally through DC where this year an estimated 500,00 bikers thundered through the streets of the Capital. It’s an inspirational thing to see and really enjoyed photographing such a great event.

If anyone is interested in buying prints from this event drop me an email at tonyeckersley@gmail.com and we can talk.

I have some of the images available here

Checkout the slideshow below

Sitting on the edge, originally uploaded by tony.eckersley.

I am going to be doing a huge day-by-day review of my road trip. I have a few aims of this mega post; 1 – for me to remember the amazing time me and wife had, 2 – to inspire others, 3 – to inspire me to do this again in the future!

So lets start right at the beginning – the story/planning.

The Year is 2006. I had been with Danielle for 14 months and were about to go to the UK for a year to complete my under graduate degree. I had finished my job with Mediastudio in the states after 17 months of constant work. This is the perfect excuse for a ROAD TRIP!

We spent a month living in the back of a 95 Dodge Dakota truck and camping at as many national parks as we could! It was a fantastic experience and one I think everyone should try and do. We saw so many incredible things and cannot wait to do it again.

Hit the jump to see and read more about our route!

Map of USA Road Trip 2006, originally uploaded by tony.eckersley.

Me and Dannie spent months and months with a Road Atlas of North America planning our best route. I had an idea in my head of the ideal Road Trip USA that I wanted to do which included visiting places like the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Arches and a big bunch of other National Parks that I had wanted to go and photograph for years. Luckily, all these places seem to have been summoned over on the West Coast in close proximity with each other(well, relatively in Road Trip terms) and seemed to create an almost perfect loop. While I say it’s lucky that they are relatively close, we just so happened to live on the opposite side of the US, in Virginia! Regardless, I had my mind set on all these fantastic west coast national parks. So, with this in mind, our first real stop we figured during the planning stage would be Badlands national park in South Dakota. That meant our first stop would be 1700 miles away! Once we had gotten over the shock of a 1700 mile trip only to stop and sleep until we got there,there we were golden – our route planned itself! We could hit the Badlands, drive to Yellowstone, continue down to Grand Tetons, drive south through Salt Lake City and head west through Nevada over the salt plains and hit north California around Lake Tahoe where we would head south towards Yosemite, then start our journey back east through Vegas, hitting the North and South rim of the Grand Canyon before traveling up to Bryce Canyon and Zion and continuing east through Arches and Canyon Lands which would lead us to our last real national park of the trip – the Colorado Rockies, before we would race back to Virginia to catch a flight to the UK!! I apologize for the lack of periods there – I felt it was necessary illustrate how frantic and awesome our trip would be!

So the route was set in stone – and it had to be, Dannie had already applied a sharpie to our route in the map! Initially, I had hoped to spend a day or so in San Francisco, and kept it as a maybe throughout the trip, in case we had time, but realistically, we knew we would rather spend time else where and travel to SF another time in the comfort of a flight as apposed to 3500 miles driving. I also had an end date for work, the date we planned to head West – August 12! We had planned to Dannie’s uncle’s Nissan Titan, however, those plans fell through at the very last minute meaning we had to take Danielle’s trusty old 95 Dodge Dakota. I have to admit, I was skeptical it would survival 9000+ miles in a month, but I was assured by it’s trust owner, the future wife, that it would be fine – I mean, why would I doubt that! Because of this last minute change of plans, we decided to set off on the 13th, real early in the morning, and get a good start heading north. That was ok though, as it gave us an extra day, you know, to add a back window (yes – a back window, or else we would have to content with a large breeze for the whole trip), and give it some much needed maintenance before a big trip!

Oh, but you should have seen her all set up! It was almost too perfect. Plexiglass windows and dents aside, of course. We managed to fit a single mattress in the bed of the truck for those nights we couldn’t be bothered to set up a tent. We used the small rear seats to hold our big cooler for our food and drinks and to hold our our camping gear, spare clothes and washing stuff! We were truly ready – We had no GPS, only a road map showing all the camping areas across the states including national parks. Looking back, these maps were not great as they had very little detail! But whatever! How hard can it be?

To be continued

The Family, originally uploaded by tonyeckersley.

USA mum, Dannie and I took a trip down to Fincastle, VA where we spend some time with the USA family, aka the Crockers – Rob, Wanda, Cynthia, John, Kim Nanny (aka Mildred) and the kids, Page and Sam. This was quite a fun trip. First, on Friday night, me and Danielle were treated to the Honeymoon suite at Acorn Hill in Lynchburg (a pit stop to see Rob and Wanda before hitting Fincastle) which happened to be fantastic. We had a beautiful view, spa-bath, bed and balcony all to our selves. This was a very nice treat as me and Dannie had been meaning to stay there for a while. It was actually nice just to relax after a long week renovating at Mediastudio!

After breakfast we headed to Fincastle where we chilled with the full family. It’s funny what you learn about family, especially one as unique as this. Man do they have some serious stories! Obviously I wont go into any detail as I don’t really want to go and blurt this families story all over the intertubes, but it does make great listening! One day Dannie says she will make a script out of her family history. I’m putting 100 bucks down on it being an Oscar winner already.

But things came up that inspired me. Rob lost his sight temporarily a few years back dub to his diabetes (has one glass eye now) and during his stay in hospital he vocalized some of his memories from growing up in Up state New York, terrorizing his family, getting in trouble and all sorts of tom-foolery along the way. It was such a great read and really made me realize how important it is to document our lives (the main reason I set up this blog). From now on, I am going to try and write down at least one memory a day (and post some here) so I never forget. In fact, I already feel like I am forgetting my childhood a little. It wasn’t until someone set up an alumni page on Facebook for my high school that I started remember what the hell I did at school! That was only 8 years ago!

Me and Dannie also watched Superbad again. Again…

Just want to say, this is the funniest comedy movie pretty much ever. There is so much more to it than I think a lot of people see. Maybe that’s because they don’t have it on in the background 3 out of 5 days a week at work? Anyway, there is so much you can relate too from growing up – and the last scene, where they are really splitting up for the first time to hang out with new people? Fully took me back to the last night I had with my old friends before heading to college. Great times, great film.

“That was like 8 years ago asshole”

“People don’t forget”

Haha