I believe we all now and then are envious of others’ photography — their skills, the conditions they experienced, the epic locations they visit, the accolades they receive and so on. We can either let this emotion make our lives miserable or we can channel it into something positive where we strive to improve our own skills and develop our talent. In other words, we turn envy into inspiration and motivation. May the tremendously gifted photographers featured in this article inspire you just like they inspire me. Each of the photographers has written a few words about themselves.
Ellen Borggreve
Ellen Borggreve loves to capture the most magical side of reality on camera and seeks out stillness and weather conditions that will help her work in an almost painterly and timeless style. She got her first camera in the early 1970’s and has never been without a camera since. Even though she started out as a professional artist and designer, her passion for photography was always the driving force in her life.
Born and raised in the midst of the forests of the Veluwe, the Netherlands, she grew up with a deep-rooted love for the extraordinary magic of this earth. She returned to the forests to photograph them when in the end of 2015 she realised that photographing Venetian Carnivals and product photography did not suit her nature. The 21 years of experience as an artist seeps through in how she approaches photography and she considers herself to be an artist working with a camera, rather than a purely documenting photographer. To her it is really all about showing the viewer that there is another side to reality than what is usually considered to be real life.
‘ L’Heure des Fées’
Andrei Trocan
A finance professional, originally from Romania, who now lives and works in Kentucky, USA. Andrei has enjoyed nature and mountains from an early age, a passion that evolved into landscape photography as a means of recording his travels. He uses photography to escape city stresses, he goes on photography trips and family trips in nature as much as time allows. His photography philosophy is to accurately record the natural world, his processing tends to be low key and he uses softer tones.
‘Gamma Radiation’
Greg Benz
Greg Benz started his photographic journey while living in London nearly twenty years ago. His current work features landscape and cityscapes from both near his home in Minneapolis, Minnesota as well as various locations around the globe. In addition to his work as an artist, he is also a Photoshop instructor and the software developer behind the Lumenzia luminosity masking panel for Photoshop.
‘The Warrior’
Matt Meisenheimer
Matt Meisenheimer is a photographer based in Wisconsin. His artistry revolves around exploring the wilderness and constantly seeking out new adventures. He strives to capture those brief moments of dramatic light and weather, which make our grand landscapes so special. Matt loves the process of landscape photography — from planning trips and scouting locations to taking the shot in-field. Matt is an active adventurer and wildlife enthusiast as well. He graduated with a degree in wildlife ecology and worked in Denali National Park and Mount Rainier National Park as a biologist. He also spent 6 months working in the deserts of Namibia before finding his path in photography. Matt’s passion for the outdoors has taken him to many beautiful places around the world, and he is very thankful for the opportunities he has had.
‘Jurassic’
Joshua Snow
Joshua Snow is a full time, professional landscape photographer and educator based in Moab, Utah. His love for capturing nature in its most dramatic form and will to be consumed by it show in his work. He aims to transport the viewer not only to the scene but to the thoughts and feelings he experienced so that his imagination brings the scene to life so that others that may never have had the joy of seeing what he has been privileged to see can enjoy it. In 2018 he decided to make photography his life and career leaving behind the life of an engineer to be able to work with other passionate people, and spend more time enjoying this short time we’re on earth.
‘ Ascension’
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Hillary Younger
Hillary is an award winning landscape photographer based in southeast Tasmania. Her first explorations of the island’s forests, mountains and shoreline were on horseback, later venturing into remote locations on extended hiking trips. In 2007, she went into the mountains with a camera, for the first trip with a specific photographic intention. She has had numerous exhibitions, both solo, and collaborative and has been published in several magazines, including Australian Geographic and On Landscape.
She is known for her Tasmanian landscapes, particularly seascapes, as well as mountain landscapes from more remote locations around the world, including the Ladakh Himalaya, the Yukon and the Rockies. She also conducts photo workshops both in Tasmania and internationally. Her passion is connection to the land, and to explore the relationship between the self and the landscape. Her photography aims to communicate the intimacy of that relationship. She is renowned for her dramatic wide angle images of less photographed locations and her original compositions. Her values include uniqueness, originality and the courage to explore both physically and artistically.
‘Desert Winds’
Sean Bagshaw
Sean is an outdoor photographer, digital image developing enthusiast and photography educator based in Ashland, Oregon. When he was young and indestructible he did some rock climbing and mountaineering and enjoyed being an expedition photographer because it allowed him to present slide shows to anyone he could corner in a dark room with a projector. Over time he moved away from documentary images and became immersed in the art of photography. Now he photographs mountains instead of climbing them.
He spends about a quarter of each year sleeping in his truck or in a tent, stumbling around in the dark, eating bad food and avoiding showers. His previous career as a science teacher makes photography education a good fit for him. Sean teams up with fellow Photo Cascadia members leading workshops. He also teaches digital image developing classes, lectures and offers a series of Photoshop video tutorials.
‘Psychedelic Dettifoss’
Website — PhotoCascadia — YouTube — 500px — Instagram — Facebook
Carl Loveall
Carl T. Loveall is a self taught landscape photographer living in Aschaffenburg, Germany. Carl’s passion for photography started after moving from the United States to Europe. He began to photograph the beauty around him to share with his family and friends back home in Michigan. Due to his love of nature, this quickly evolved into his true passion, landscape photography. Carl is continually working to learn more, and improve his work (in the field and in post) by pushing his own boundaries, and limits. To create unique images of the world through his eyes.
‘Johnny Appleseed’
Chip Phillips
Spokane, Washington-based photographer Chip Phillips began his relationship with photography in 2006 when his father gave him his old Pentax Spotmatic film SLR camera. Chip was immediately hooked, and soon made the transition to digital. Given his lifelong love of the outdoors, he naturally made the progression to focusing on landscape photography.
A professionally trained classical musician, Chip performs as Principal Clarinet with the Spokane Symphony Orchestra, and is Professor of Clarinet at Gonzaga University. Chip’s images have been published in various books and magazines, including National Geographic, Outdoor Photographer, Popular Photography and Imaging, Digital Photography, and Digital Photo Magazine.
‘Dolomites in Mist’
Instagram — 500px — website — Facebook — PhotoCascadia
Max Foster
Max Foster is a landscape photographer originally from Minnesota, USA. His greatest passion is traveling the world, and his work reflects that. For the past 12 months he has been RVing around the United States and Canada, shooting as much as possible along the way. Max enjoys shooting a wide variety of
landscapes, but is drawn to mountains and waterfalls more than anything. His work has been published in several magazines, including Outdoor Photographer, Practical Photography, Digital SLR Photography and many more.
‘Arctic Cotton’
Inge Bovens
Inge Bovens has a preference for dark forests and mysterious woodland pathways. Through post processing she turns the images into fairy-tales to show the world the way she sees the forest: as a magical place.
‘Painterly’
Dan Ballard
Dan Ballard is a pro-landscape photographer based in Crested Butte, Colorado, where you can find him mountain biking, skiing, and seeking out dramatic landscapes (or a combination thereof). His love for photography comes from a love for being outside exploring and traveling around the world looking for a decent image. His latest work is focused on trying out new perspectives and techniques with the drone — challenging himself to create original images in a world where that is getting harder and harder to do. Dan also shares his passion as a workshop instructor, teaching the art of landscape photography across the States and globe.
Erin Babnik
Erin Babnik is a full-time landscape photographer, photography educator, writer, and speaker. Immersion in the visual arts has been the one constant in Erin’s life, including extensive formal education in studio arts, graphic design, and the history of art. Erin’s dedication to the medium of photography evolved out of her years working as an art historian, photographing at archaeological sites and in museums throughout Europe and the Middle East for the purposes of teaching and research. She subsequently spent years producing photographs on assignment before transitioning to her specialty of wilderness/adventure landscape photography and teaching photography workshops worldwide.
‘Arrow Dynamic’
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Stefan Mitterwallner
Stefan Mitterwallner is an Austrian surgeon who started with photography as a hobby in the summer of 2013. Using available light to make the subject shine quickly became a passion. From the very beginning he was fascinated with the endless possibilities of aesthetical and emotional expression. Always looking for that unique moment, that one gesture, that smile, that unpredictable incident and that magic touch of light made him look at our world with different eyes. For him, photography is all about that moment, the compositional balance and beauty of color.
Website — 1x — 500px — Instagram
Juan Pablo de Miguel
Juan Pablo de Miguel is an editorial, landscape and cityscape photographer based in Madrid, Spain, with great collections of inspiring and versatile landscapes and BW fine-art photos, all sharing a unique style of his artistic signature. Juan Pablo teaches photography and advanced post processing techniques all over the world developing his own digital processing techniques.
Winner of several international competitions like the Gold medal in one of the largest circuits of the world, the Trieremberg Super Circuit twice, several medals in the Epson International Pano Awards, he is one of the 101 “The Landscape Photographer of the Year” for several years, collaborate in special editions and exclusive “Memento” and “Visions” edited by 1X y and obtained countless nominations, honors and prices for his landscape and fine-art photography works. His work can be seen in magazine covers and publications like National Geographic, GEO Magazine, Landscape Photography Magazine, Indonesia Colors, Digital Photo, Digital Photographer, NYC|The Huffington Post, Daily Telegraph, Microsoft, Google, Practical Photographer, Samsung, Forbes, Outside Magazine and numberless online publications and travel guides and agencies.
Being present in the international exhibition “100 Wonders of the World” in St. Petersburg in 2015, 2016 y 2017, Crown Prince of Dubai y and Netherlands Television. In 2019 Jury of one of the most prestigious photography awards, “The Epson International Pano Awards”. He’s using photography as a medium for inspiration and a means to understand the world. Specializing in European and American fine art landscapes, admires the works of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Carleton Watkins and the diversity of many I encounter, networking on the Web. The hope is, in some small way, to instill the essence of the incredible vistas I’ve had the opportunity to see, within others.
Instagram — 500px — Facebook — 1x — Website
About the Author
Ole Henrik Skjelstad is a Norwegian math teacher and photographer, whose love for photography began after receiving his first camera as a birthday present in January 2013. You can follow his work on Instagram, Flickr, and 500px. This article was also published here and shared with permission.
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