Blog — Andy Mumford Photography

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AZORES PART 2: FAIAL

AZORES PART 2: FAIAL

On our trip around the Azores we'd planned three nights in Faial, mostly because I was fascinated with the view it had of neighboring Pico and its mountain, but we soon realized that it was a beautiful island in its own right.

On our first day there we drove over to Almoxarife, a small village on the coast on the other side of a headland from the capital Horta. It's a reall pretty little town and we spent a large part of the afternoon diving into the sea from the concrete piers with the the locals. The beaches here are all pretty steep and rocky, and there's something incredibly enjoyable about leaping into the ocean like that. The water in the Azores is much warmer than in mainland Portugal and in such a hot and humid place it was great to jump in.

Fujifilm, Landscapes, Portugal, AzoresAndy MumfordOctober 11, 2016AÇORES, azores, islands, faial, pico, fuji fujifilm, filters, capalinhos, almoxarife, Portugal, sunrise, sunsetComment

AZORES PART 1: PICO

AZORES PART 1: PICO

This year Teresa and I decided that we'd like to see more of Portugal so instead of booking an exotic trip to someone far away we've gone on short trips to different parts of Portugal, from Porto in the winter to Alentejo in the spring. For the summer we decided to spend 10 days travelling around some of the islands of the Açores, a place neither of us had ever visited and didn't really know much about. The Açores is an archipelago of nine volcanic islands pretty much in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean midway between Europe and the USA.

The first part was planning which islands to visit. São Miguel is the obvious one, but it's also the most touristed and best known. I spent some time researching the islands and it quickly became apparent that Flores, one of the western most islands, was the one I wanted to photograph most, and next to that is the tiny island of Corvo which also looked stunning. I also wanted to photography Pico, Portugal's highest mountain, which can also be viewed from the neighboring islands of Faial and Sao Jorge. Both of these islands looked lovely, but as there are direct flights to Faial from Lisbon it made sense to spend some time there. So our final plan saw us flying to Faial, picking up a rental car and then catching a ferry for the 30 minute trip to Pico.

Azores, Fujifilm, Landscapes, PortugalAndy MumfordOctober 4, 2016pico, azores, AÇORES, Portugal, paisagems, travel, fujifilm, fuji x series Comments

CARRASQUEIRA - CAIS PALAFITICO

CARRASQUEIRA - CAIS PALAFITICO

About ten years ago now, not long after I'd first got seriously interested in photography, I made the hour and a half journey down to the small fishing village of Carrasquiera on the edge of the Sado estuary. I'd seen pictures of the fishermen's piers there, the cais palafita, and wanted to see if I could make a good image there. Piers are the kind of subjects that work really well with long exposures, so I took a thick neutral density filter and my tripod and arrived just before sunset.

That evening I was fortunate enough to get some of the best light and colour I've ever seen and took a couple of images that changed my perspective on photography. In some ways it was the beginning of my photography journey, when I realised how powerful photography could be and how much I enjoyed waiting for the light.

Landscapes, PortugalAndy MumfordJuly 19, 2016cais palafitas, porto da palafita, piers, waterscapes, long exposures, CarrasqueiraComment

A FEW DAYS IN ALENTEJO

A FEW DAYS IN ALENTEJO

Alentejo is a large rural area between the industrial heartland of Lisbon and the developed coast of Algarve. We spent five days there over Easter to unwind and spend some time hiking in the countryside.

We spent the first couple of days in a small town near Sao Luis where we did a few hikes. The first was through dunes along the coast near Almograve. While we were walking there the light wasn't really conducive to landscape photography, although I did note a few excellent locations for coastal photography and the dunes that I'd love to return to photograph another day. I did spend some time photographing the flowers and plants that grow in the sand near the sea. I don't have a macro lens, but with some careful composition and a bit of patience I managed to get a few close ups I was happy with.

Fujifilm, Landscapes, PortugalAndy MumfordApril 18, 2016alentejo, portugal, portugal landscapes, beja, fujifilm, fujiComment

CHAMPALIMAUD FOUNDATION FOR THE UNKNOWN & LISBON PORT AUTHORITY

CHAMPALIMAUD FOUNDATION FOR THE UNKNOWN & LISBON PORT AUTHORITY

In the last couple of weeks I've been out to Alges, a superb of Lisbon right next to the river that I wouldn't really associate with shooting landscapes, but there are a couple of interesting locations there, the Champalimaud Foundation for the Unknown and the Lisbon Port Authority building, which I was really interested in photographing.

The Champalimaud Foundation, or "Centre for the Unkown" is a beautiful building next to the river on the outskirts of Lisbon. I've passed by it on the train hundreds of times but only recently got around to shooting it. It's a fascinating structure with some interesting architectural aspects and water features.

I always think architectural shots work well with long exposures against and fast moving clouds, and I as we've had a lot of rain recently I liked the idea of being able to include reflections made by the wet stone in the images.

Fujifilm, Landscapes, PortugalAndy MumfordJanuary 24, 2016champalimaud, lisbon, lisbon port authority, alges, rio tejo, fuji, fujifilm, x seriesComment

LOWEPRO PHOTOSPORT 200 REVIEW

LOWEPRO PHOTOSPORT 200 REVIEW

The search for the perfect camera bag is one that lasts many photographers years and can cost a fair amount of money. For a long while I was pretty happy with my Lowopro Primus, which could happily fit my old Nikon D3 along with a wide angle zoom and the 80-400mm.
When I upgraded to a D800 though, I also switched to using a 70-200 f2.8 as my telephoto lens, and all of a sudden my kit wouldn't fit in my bag. It's also a pretty heavy bag so I started looking around for alternatives.

There were quite a few frustrating "this would be perfect if only..." and "this is great, but why didn't they..." moments, but over the last couple of years I've owned a couple of bags that pretty much ticked all the boxes, the F stop Kenti and the Lowepro Photosport 200, and after using both bags extensively on trips I thinks it's time I got around to reviewing them. I've also now switched to the considerably smaller Fuji X system so I'll try and write these reviews from the perceptive of a full frame dSLR system and also a smaller mirrorless system.

Equipment, Travel, Landscapes, FujifilmAndy MumfordNovember 22, 2015lowepro, lower photosport 200, backpacks, fuji, fujifilm, xt1, review, best backpackComment

INDONESIA PART 6: UBUD

INDONESIA PART 6: UBUD

Ubud is the cultural capital of Bali, an artist's town set amongst the rice fields and hills of central Bali. It's a place we planned to unwind and catch some culture like Balinese dancing, and although I had a couple of locations researched I wasn't really planning on much photography here.

One of the things that Ubud has is a wide range of incredibly stylish, sophisticated, but affordable accommodation. We'd booked 5 nights in a place called Alam Indah, on the outskirts of Ubud next to the famous monkey forest. It didn't disappoint, the room was beautiful with great views out over the forest and proved to be a fantastic place to relax (and write this blog).

Fujifilm, Indonesia, Landscapes, Travel, Street PhotographyAndy MumfordNovember 9, 2015bali, ubud, indonesia, campuhan, dawn, tirta empul, photojournalism, hindu, kedewatan, legong, monkey forest, tanah lot, travel photography, street shootingComment

INDONESIA PART 5: MUNDUK

INDONESIA PART 5: MUNDUK

We were sad to leave Pemuteran. It had been a relaxing four days, but it was time to move on to our next location, Munduk, high in the central mountains of Bali. It's a tiny village surrounded by clove and coffee plantations with rice terraces cut into the side of the hills. The journey from Pemuteran took a little less than an hour and a half, and after we left the town of Seririt we seemed to be constantly rising in twisting roads. The landscape is so green and there is so much water. It's incredibly fertile land and so much grows here.

Indonesia, Fujifilm, Travel, LandscapesAndy MumfordOctober 28, 2015bali, munduk, indonesia, asia, bratan, filters, laangan, tamblingan, pura ulan dana bratan, travel, travel photography, fuji, fujifilm, fuji x series, mountains, rice fields, jatiluweh Comments

INDONESIA PART 3: BROMO

INDONESIA PART 3: BROMO

We were up at 4am the next day again, but this time it was to get us to the early train in to Surabaya from Yogyakarta. Where the journey to Borobudur had taken almost 2 hours with the holiday traffic, the journey back to the station only took 45 minutes and we were there in plenty of time to get some breakfast and find our seats.

The journey took 5 hours and despite dozing a little on the train, I saw lots of the countryside through the window. Lush rice fields with people wearing conical hats, it was a typical rural south East Asian scene that made me wish, as ever, that we'd had more time to explore the area. At Surabaya station we met the driver we'd arranged with the Bromo hotel a few weeks previously. After about 2 hours we turned off the main road and started to head up into the mountains, the air got cooler and our ears started to pop.

Fujifilm, Indonesia, Travel, LandscapesAndy MumfordOctober 3, 2015astro photography, bromo, camera lawang, tengger bromo national park, star trails, semeru, mist, dawn, stars, volcanos, asia, indonesia, javaComment

FIRST LANDSCAPES WITH THE FUJI X SYSTEM

FIRST LANDSCAPES WITH THE FUJI X SYSTEM

It's been about a month now since I picked up a Fuji X-T10, but due to a combination of being busy preparing for a month in Indonesia next week, and how cloudless and uninteresting the skies are in Portugal right now, I haven't had much chance to go out and shoot landscapes with the camera. It was important to me to try and get the chance though, as I really wanted to be familiar with what the camera can do before I go away.

If you read my last blog you'll know that I'd made my mind up to switch completely over from shooting Nikon to Fuji gear for a whole host of reasons that I wrote about there. Even so, my plan in getting the X-T10 (rather than the X-T1) was for it to replace my backup camera and to shoot with it alongside my Nikon while in Indonesia, before switching completely when I returned.

Equipment, Fujifilm, LandscapesAndy MumfordAugust 7, 2015fuji x series, fujifilm, fuji, xt10, xt1, xf14, waterscapes, starsComment

ALTIPLANO PART 4: LAKE TITICACA AND LA PAZ

ALTIPLANO PART 4: LAKE TITICACA AND LA PAZ

Flying into La Paz must be one of the most dramatic introductions to a city anywhere! On the short flight from Sucre we looked out of the window at large dusty plain of the Altiplano below us and slowly the outskirts of El Alto, the La Paz suburb which has become a city in it's own right, began to appear. Then the massive peak of Illumani, the highest mountain in Bolivia, the top of which seemed to reach to the same altitude as our plane, loomed into view. Then, below us, the streets and buildings of El Alto seemed to disappear over the edge of a cliff beneath the peaks of the mountains and a valley which resembled a crater or a bowl appeared. Lining the sides of the crater and tumbling all the way to the bottom is the city of La Paz, or Cidade da Nuestra Señora La Paz (City of Our Lady of Peace) to give it it's full name.

Landscapes, Travel, AltiplanoAndy MumfordDecember 25, 2014bolivia, lake titicaca, isla do sol, la paz, tarrabuco, altiplano, landscape, cordillera realComment

ALTIPLANO PART 1: SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA

ALTIPLANO PART 1: SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA

It's been about two months now since we returned from South America, and our trip across the Altiplano from San Pedro de Atacama in northern Chile to Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. As I wrote in my previous blog about the trip, it's a place I've wanted to see for about as long as I've been interested in photography. It's a genuinely remote and extreme part of the planet with landscapes that look like they belong on Mars rather than our own green and blue planet.

We flew to Santiago de Chile via Madrid, one of the longest single flights I've ever done. Not only do you cross the Atlantic Ocean, but also the whole of the south American continent and move from the northern hemisphere to the south. We flew overnight, arriving in Santiago early in the morning and caught the bus to the centre of the city. It's always said that Santiago is South America's most European city, and although I can see why people say that, to us it really didn't feel particularly European. It's incredibly wide streets have all the signs of a city that was built for cars like most of the cities I've seen in both North and South America. Still, we'd decided to stay for a night, and soon found our room in the Lastarria district. We spent the afternoon wandering around the city, trying the food and enjoying the atmosphere before having a great meal in the evening.

Altiplano, Landscapes, TravelAndy MumfordNovember 14, 2014atacama, altiplano, san pedro de atacama, lascar, chile, boliviaComment

HEADING TO THE ALTIPLANO

HEADING TO THE ALTIPLANO

On Sunday we're going to the airport to head off on another adventure. This time we'll be flying to Santiago do Chile, before heading to Calama in northern Chile and then on to San Pedro de Atacama, our base for the beginning of a trip across the Altiplano which will take us all the way to Lake Titicaka

This trip has been on the agenda for a long time now, I can well remember sitting in a bookshop in Brazil after we'd just left the Amazon about 7 years ago, reading the Footprint Guide to Bolivia and trying to find out information on crossing the Altiplano from San Pedro de Atacama to the Salar de Uyuni. Since then, I've kept returning to the document on my computer with an outline of a dream itinerary for this trip and researched the area a little more, and then finally last summer we took the plunge and decided to make serious plans to actually do it.

Altiplano, Landscapes, TravelAndy MumfordAugust 9, 2014bolivia, chile, altiplano, uyuniComment

MYANMAR PART 6: BAGAN

MYANMAR PART 6: BAGAN

After spending three hours at dawn on the top terrace of Shwesandaw pagoda we were hungry and ready for breakfast.
The terrace had been packed for sunrise, but immediately after the sun came up a lot of people had disappeared and it was easier to move around and take in the views across the plain in different directions. By the time we left some local kids had come to the top of the temple and were hustling the tourists, selling postcards and posing for photos

We saw more kids hustling in Bagan than anywhere else in Burma, which isn't surprising really as it's one of Burma's most popular and long established tourist attractions. On leaving the hotel after breakfast to explore the temples a young girl immediately approached us and after (very sweetly) asking us if we'd like to buy some postcards, proceeded to pull a brand new Penguin paperback of Orwell's Burmese Days from her dress and ask us if we'd like to buy it. She said it was "very good" and I asked her if she'd read it, to which she smiled in a kind of you-know-I'm-not-being-strictly-honest kind of way and said "Yes, of course. It's very good."
In all the time we were in Burma we never found these encounters tiresome or awkward. The kids were always polite and not particularly persistent, and it never felt like a pressure, but at the same time it is sad that the kids don't go to school because they can make money selling to tourists.

Burma, Landscapes, TravelAndy MumfordApril 24, 2014burma, myanmar, bagan, shwedagon, pythanda, temples, buddhismComment

MYANMAR PART 5: SUNRISE AT BAGAN

MYANMAR PART 5: SUNRISE AT BAGAN

Back when we first started looking into this trip, when we'd decided to go to Asia but weren't sure which country yet, the more I looked at Burma and saw places like Golden Rock and Inle, the more I wanted to go there. However, it was seeing photos of Bagan and reading descriptions of the vast plain covered with thousands of ancient temples that really made us decide "We have to see this place!"

Because of the route we'd chosen to travel around Burma Bagan was one of the last places on our itinerary, and despite all the amazing places we'd seen before there'd always been a sense of anticipation about finally getting to Bagan.
As it turned out, our plane landed at night and driving from the airport to our hotel in Old Bagan we couldn't really see much, just the odd tantalizing glimpse of a couple of large illuminated temples between the trees.

Burma, Landscapes, TravelAndy MumfordApril 16, 2014burma, myanmar, bagan, shwesandaw, pagodos, temples, telephoto landscapes, mist, dawn, sunriseComment

ICELAND PART 4: THE WESTFJORDS

ICELAND PART 4: THE WESTFJORDS

The final leg of our trip around Iceland was to the Westfjords. When you look at a road map, you can see why it's a part of the country that a lot of people miss out. The road hits the coast, going around each and every fjord, making driving to the main towns there a long and torturous journey.

It's a journey worth making though as the landscape there is stunning. Despite the fact that for the whole of the journey, the weather was absolutely dreadful, just driving rain and grey clouds hanging so low over the fjords that it was impossible to see the other side, the fjords have an ethereal peace and grandeur that takes your breath away.

Travel, Landscapes, icelandAndy MumfordDecember 13, 2012isafjordur, iceland, westfjords, dynjandi, arnafjordur, dyrafjordur, fjords, sunset, overcastComment

ICELAND PART 3: THE NORTH

ICELAND PART 3: THE NORTH

The drive from the south east to the north was epic. From the east fjords across the dark volcanic Jokuldalsheidi plains. The weather and light was constantly changing, from overcast clouds, to heavy rain, then snow followed by sunshine, and then rain again.

The landscape was stunning, and like eastern Iceland, I wished we'd planned time to be able to stay here and shoot it. As it was, the photos taken in the middle of the day will have to suffice from this trip, but it's certainly an incredibly beautiful area that I'd love to return to one day.

iceland, Landscapes, TravelAndy MumfordNovember 25, 2012iceland, detifoss, godafoss, waterfalls, husavik, whalesComment

ICELAND PART 2: THE SOUTH EAST

ICELAND PART 2: THE SOUTH EAST

After leaving the highlands, we headed west across the southern coast of Iceland. The landscape continued to be amazing as we reached the beginning of the Skeidararjokull glacier, the 20km sweep of ice from the vast Vatnajokul glacier that descends almost to the road.

It's a breathtaking view, which continues to the left of the car for pretty much the entire time that you drive east across the south south eastern part of Iceland. The plains of the Skeidararsandur are a vast flat expanse of grey sand that stretches from a steely grey sea to the south up to the foot of the glacier, broken only by the glacial rivers that run across it carrying water from the Vatnajokul icecap to the ocean.

iceland, Travel, LandscapesAndy MumfordOctober 28, 2012jokulsarlon, hofn, east fjords, iceland, skaftafell, svartifoss, icebergs, vestrahorn, vatnajokulComment

ICELAND PART 1: REYKJAVIK TO FJALLABAK

ICELAND PART 1: REYKJAVIK TO FJALLABAK

Iceland has been on the list of places to visit for a very long time...almost as long as I've been interested in landscape photography.

I guess it first started with seeing Art Wolfe's photographs of icebergs floating in the lagoon at Jokulsarlon, and the cumulative effect of seeing the work of photographers I admire photographing places like Landmannalauger and the waterfalls at Dettifoss. Then, various BBC Natural History documentaries, and it reached a point when it became inevitable that I'd have to visit someday.

iceland, Landscapes, TravelAndy MumfordOctober 7, 2012iceland, reykjavik, fjallabak, laugavegur, landmannalauger

PENEDA GERES NATIONAL PARK

PENEDA GERES NATIONAL PARK

We've just spent a long weekend in the Peneda Geres national park, in the far north of Portugal. It's a place I've been told about so many times, and have wanted to see for a few years now, and it's also the best place in Portugal for autumn colour.

Having said all that, I didn't regard this as a photography trip. By that I mean, I hadn't spent time researching locations to shoot, partly due to the fact that I'd had no time but mostly because I just wanted to spend three days away with Teresa, relaxing, reading, eating good food and seeing a new part of the country. Besides, the weather forecast was terrible, and I seriously didn't expect that we'd get more than a couple of hours without rain.

Landscapes, Portugal, TravelAndy MumfordDecember 3, 2011portugal, arcos de valdevaz, brufe, germil, geres, landscape, minho, norte, norte de portugal, northern portugal, peneda, PNPG, ponta da barca, serra amerela, serra do soajoComment