Another World was taken at Námafjall, Mývatn, Iceland.

This image just missed out on Picture of the Day at the Photography Cafe, but managed to come top of the Monthly open photography competition at “The Digital Site”

Mick (the reviewer of the competition) had this to say:

Iceland is a place I have always wanted to visit and this image helps to illustrate why. The place truly is like another world of dramatic volcanoes, waterfalls and glaciers…amazing stuff. A quick google tells me that the Hverir solfatare field is one of the largest in Iceland…an area where sulphurous vapours rise through the earth’s crust and create the scene we see here. We can clearly see yellow sulphur deposits in the foreground. This scene is very well composed and the viewer’s eye is taken through the landscape to the distant lonely figures, the steamy vapours rising from below, the distant snow-capped mountains and the wonderfully dramatic sky. This is a truly stunning image which I like very much and it is my personal favourite in this comp.

In September we travelled to Iceland for a weeks tour. Our book of the trip is now complete and is available from Blurb. You can see the pages in the gallery, or via the Blurb Web site

Big Al said: Jane’s POTD looks like selective colouring was used but this is not the case. The cold grey of the water is in big contrast to the warm red of Jane’s coat. Though the waterfall and Jane are totally different in size, they share equal prominence in the image.

It was actually taken by Stephen and not me, as it has me in it.

I was pleased that a second of my Iceland shots achieved Photograph of the day at Photography Cafe today.

Big Al said: Jane had the advantage of getting an unusual landscape to start with but getting POTD requires more than that. By getting the foreground land at the bottom of the picture she made use of the zigzag line of hills as your eye follows the route from bottom-left to top-right. The subtle use of HDR brought out the differences in the clouds and land on the horizon showing the vast distance involved.

It was also nice to see my “Another World” made a second appearance in the list, after being runner up in yesterdays competition.

Sometimes I see a competition and I just have to raid my archive this was taken a few years ago in Turkey, but when The Digital Site had “Shadows and Silhouettes” as a theme I knew just the image I wanted to enter.

To my delight it took first place. Additionally I took second place in the “Open” competition at the same site with my “Into The High Atlas”.

I am pleased to announce our Travel book of our trip to Morocco is finally complete, running to 131 pages of full colour photographs and information about the places visited on our recent trip,  it also includes several of the photographs recently featured here.

You can view the it here in our gallery or via it’s page on Blurb where you even have the option to purchase a copy.

Jane’s POTD does not seem to have anything special about it so you may be wondering how it came to look so good. The answer is in the lighting. There are shadows that define the hills and give depth to the picture. If the photo had been taken at a different time it may well have looked flatter.
Big Al @ Photography Cafe

See More of our Tunisian Adventure Book

We visited a Troglodyte house in Matmata, where a woman lives with her 5 children. The house has some electricity via a solar panel, with a small TV in one of the rooms off the central courtyard and a piped water supply to the front of the building. The youngest of the children grabbed the bag of lollipops our guide brought and was working his way through them, even though I suspect he was supposed to be sharing them.

Jane’s POTD is like a quick trip to the location. In one image we have all the elements that describe living at that location. By having the subject so strongly off-centre we become more focussed on the empty walls and are given a sense of how little there is within the home.

You can find out more about our trip in our Photo Book or check out our Jordan Gallery, with a few selected images.