City Photography – Resource Travel

Experience The Beautiful Chaos of Los Angeles

Cody Lewis — Fri, 18 May 2018 18:04:25 +0000

Cities in the United States don’t often fit into the narrative we tend to focus on here at Resource Travel. Nature, landscapes, wildlife, unfamiliar cultures in undocumented parts of the world, amongst other things, are usually what gets the most attention. But we love highlighting American cities and the unique experiences one can have (Vegas, is more than just a place to walk around the street with an open container.)

The new time-lapse film from photographer Bobby Gibbons, reminds us that once in a while, you can admire the beauty in your own backyard, even if there is more concrete than trees.

The film, called “LAPSE – A Los Angeles Timelapes” reveals the Southern California City in all its beauty–from iconic landmarks like the Hollywood sign and Dodger stadium, to the pristine beaches and unreal sunsets along the coastline, the imagery offers a quick and beautiful time-lapse tour of the City of Angels.

Gibbons’ has been shooting photography around L.A for more than a decade, but he decided that he “wanted to bring some motion to the mix and create a short of all moving parts.” He learned the techniques of creating a time-lapse and, using a Canon 5D (both a Mark III & Mark IV), spent the next two years capturing his favorite locations in the Los Angeles area.

Gibbons’ says he grew obsessed with finding both the perfect environment and light for each shot and even spent time reshooting certain locations when it wasn’t quite right. A year into the project, through constant scouting, shooting, processing, and reviewing his work (and perhaps his perfectionism as well), he was able to find the direction the film was headed and the story he wanted to convey. From that point, he begin shooting “for the underlining story.”

“L.A. seems to come alive at night,” He says in the descriptions, “The lights migrate around its sprawling buildings, and roads tell their chaotic tale, but during the daytime, life becomes mellow.”

Hard-work pays off.

Los Angeles has never looked so good.

Follow Bobby Gibbons on his website, Instagram and Facebook.

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Illuminating Nocturnal London on the River Thames

Robin De Clercq — Fri, 02 Dec 2016 19:05:32 +0000

Running through the heart of London, the River Thames has always been at the center of the city’s evolution, shaping its communities and driving its economy. By day, the river continues to provide a huge source of pleasure for both Londoners and for millions of visitors each year, but at night much of this liquid history fades into a ribbon of darkness.

That’s why The Illuminated River was conceived – because London is a twenty-four-hour city and the Thames should be a place to enjoy after dark. In this major new public art initiative, teams of artists, lighting designers, engineers, architects, and technology experts from across the globe were encouraged to design ideas for creative light art installations for central London’s bridges. Over 100 teams from 20 different countries eventually entered the competition, and six finalists were chosen on November 29.

One of these finalists will become the one who will actually transform London by night, using the seventeen Thames crossings from Albert to Tower as canvases for light. The winner will be announced on December 8, and if all stakeholders agree, the first phase to actually develop the project is planned to start in 2018. The Illuminated River Foundation will then “seek the balance of the costs of the project from private and philanthropic sources rather than the public purse.”

Which of the following projects do you think should win? We selected three images from each of the finalists, but you can view the full concepts on the website of The Illuminated River.

Thames Nocturne

A River Ain’t Too Much To Light

Current

Synchronizing the City: Its Natural and Urban Rhythms

The Eternal Story of the River Thames

Blurring Boundaries

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The Surreal Street Photography of Riccardo Magherini

Robin De Clercq — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 15:05:42 +0000

When you are far away from home, a sense of estrangement sometimes overtakes you. But being in a new and unknown place, among people who don’t speak your language, can also be a precious source of creativity and inspiration. Italian award-winning photographer Riccardo Magherini plays with this wandering feeling to create a unique style of fine art street photography. He captures faces, stories and feelings that stand out to him in composed and merged shots, anywhere from Hong Kong and Tokyo to New York and Lisbon.

Tokyo series – Shinjuku
© Riccardo Magherini

HK series – Tsim Sha Tsui
© Riccardo Magherini

Tokyo series – Udagawacho
© Riccardo Magherini

HK series – Yau Ma Tei
© Riccardo Magherini

How did you get into this very distinctive way of shooting?

When I visited Japan for the very first time, I experienced a beautiful feeling of estrangement. I was surrounded by an amazing new and totally unknown world, without any cultural or visual references. Photography as I then knew it just wasn’t enough to capture the wonders I felt. So, looking for a way that felt right, I started to take pictures of everything that surrounded my subjects, trying to capture all the moments I wanted to talk about. The look that those images had and the way the time overlaps over the same place was totally intriguing. They eventually became the base for my Tokyo series.

Magherini sees the world as “a sum of instants,” moments and impressions that overlap each other and merge into feelings and memories. There’s no denying that he found a way to recreate this with his photograph. Layer by layer, Magherini collects pictures as fragments of time and space, eventually suggesting a story.

Firenze series – Battistero
© Riccardo Magherini

Tokyo series – Izakaya
© Riccardo Magherini

HK series – Mah Jong
© Riccardo Magherini

NYC series – NY
© Riccardo Magherini

The photographer tells Resource Travel he chooses his destinations based on “the emotions they can give me.” Naturally, we wondered what his favorite destination so far was, and which destinations are up next.

Throughout the years, I became more and more passionate of big cities. Their hugeness, their mood, the vibe, the smell and the noise… Everything captivates me. Streets are densely populated and unpredictable, it’s the perfect playground for eagerness.

Magherini is particularly excited about his latest BKK series. He thinks it says a lot more about people and street life than series like his Firenze or NYC series, where historical atmospheres and urban structures prevailed.

I made a base camp in Talat Noi, one of the most popular and ancient parts of Chinatown, full of mechanical workshops, food stalls and rusty second-hand car engines. This dense, noisy, lively and smoky neighborhood was the perfect choice.

BKK series – 1204
© Riccardo Magherini

BKK series – DHK
© Riccardo Magherini

BKK series – Itsara Nuphap
© Riccardo Magherini

BKK series – Khlong San
© Riccardo Magherini

BKK series – Mae Khlong 1234
© Riccardo Magherini

BKK series – Pak Khlong
© Riccardo Magherini

BKK series – Sin Palow
© Riccardo Magherini

BKK series – Talat Noi
© Riccardo Magherini

BKK series – Tha Kha
© Riccardo Magherini

BKK series – Tha Klang
© Riccardo Magherini

BKK series – Wongwian Yai
© Riccardo Magherini

BKK series – Yaksa Tavarnbal
© Riccardo Magherini

BKK series – Yong Hok Yi
© Riccardo Magherini

The photographer has several upcoming destinations on his agenda and, for the moment, they are all Asian. Aside from that, Magherini also is involved in a totally different style of photography. Would he be able to choose one style if he had to?

That would be impossible for me. Even to separate one world from the other would be impossible. They compenetrate each other, elements constantly migrate from commercial to fine art and vice versa.

Riccardo Magherini’s fine art photography is represented by galleries in Paris, in London and in New York. He has collected awards and recognitions by international contests such as the International Photography Awards, International Aperture Awards, Prix de la Photographie Paris, and the London International Creative Competition. If you like his work, feel free to check out more on his website, or just visit, like or follow the artist on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

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A Unique Panoramic Look At Los Angeles

Robin De Clercq — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 16:44:09 +0000

For Joe Capra – otherwise known as Scientifantastic – resolutions can’t seem to get high enough. Remember how he explored Rio de Janeiro in 8K? Or how about this breath taking 12K (!) time-lapse of his hometown Los Angeles? Resource Travel has been keeping a close eye on this artist’s work ever since discovering those gems, and his latest project just rewarded us for doing that.

Even though Capra claims he did not shoot Pano LA “to achieve the extreme resolution,” it does come at you at a whopping 10K x 4K resolution. But more importantly: it’s a panoramic time-lapse, something that had been op Capra’s wish list for a long while.

It has been the most ambitious, challenging, demanding, and rewarding project I have worked on to date. It was shot over a period of two years entirely in true panoramic form using two synced DSLR cameras side by side.

But Capra didn’t want to fake it, he wanted to do a proper panoramic time-lapse. No cropping off the top and bottom of a one camera time-lapse, but stitching together images from two synced cameras. Even though he had already given it a failed attempt many years ago, he decided to give it a second shot when a client contacted him for some panoramic time-lapse shots of LA. The client eventually disappeared, but Capra kept shooting, and it paid off.

Simply cropping a single camera shot on the top and bottom does not give you a proper panoramic field of view. It’s just not a true panoramic image. Take any single frame from my video and divide it in half, then crop off the top and bottom, and see how it compares to my original shot. Its nowhere near the same. You need to take multiple frames with a single camera, or use multiple cameras and stitch the images together to get a proper panoramic image.

Why are you so fascinated with pano?

There is just a different look you get when shooting panoramics that you don’t get with regular photos. I just love how the wide format allows you to really get a better sense of the scene and environment.

Aside from being technically extremely challenging, Capra doesn’t think panoramic time-lapse shooting is all too different from shooting other, regular time-lapse films. Like always, people were kicking his tripod and standing right in front of his lenses, cars were blasting headlights into the cameras. No wonder it take him quite a while to capture everything he wanted in the way he wanted it.

First, it took me a lot of time to do my location scouting. I had created a huge list of potential locations, and for every one of them, I wanted to check if I could actually get the shot I was looking for. I would sometimes have a specific shot in mind, only to find out that there was no way to get that shot when I actually went to the location. Once I scouted all the locations, I would go back with cameras and start shooting. As usual, it was all about timing, weather, and light, so I had to make multiple visits to all the locations to get a compelling shot. When I got a shot that worked, I would head back to the office and start the post production, which actually took most of my time. I was out shooting, scouting, and processing images almost every week during the two years.

Did you experience anything particularly astonishing during those two years?

The shots like the most are the fireworks shots taken on 4th of July. It is truly amazing how crazy this city gets on the 4th. The entire city and surrounding areas light up with thousands of fireworks lasting into the late night hours.

Capra keeps us in suspense when we ask him specifics about future projects, “but I have a few ideas up my sleeve.” To discover what they are, and to admire some of his past work while you wait, head on over to his website. If you’re more of a social media kind of person: you can find the artist on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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Inspiring Infrared and Ultraviolet Photography Reveals the Beauty of the Invisible

Robin De Clercq — Thu, 13 Oct 2016 20:13:46 +0000

Ten years ago, the now 28-year-old Parisian Pierre-Louis Ferrer began his education in optical engineering, while at the same time starting to play around with photography. He soon found himself fascinated by optics, lights and perspectives, and found an artistic approach towards it in his photography. During his first years as a photographer, Ferrer focused on architecture and landscapes, two fields in which he felt able to present his own vision of the environment surrounding him.

When Resource Travel asked the Ferrer what his favorite place so far had been to engage in those first passions, he didn’t hesitate to name Iceland, knowing it wasn’t the most original answer to give. He spent two weeks over there back in 2014, and has been looking forward to returning ever since.

Beyond offering some of the most magnificent landscapes I have ever seen, this country is truly ideal for introspection and returning to nature.

Kirkjufell, Iceland
© Pierre-Louis Ferrer

“Ice Machine”, Iceland
© Pierre-Louis Ferrer

Seljalandsfoss, Iceland
© Pierre-Louis Ferrer

Gradually, Ferrer’s interests expanded to portraits, while at the same time trying to specialize in infrared and ultraviolet photography. After a few years, the latter seems to be resulting in some amazingly surreal photography, shot in the streets, parks and squares of his hometown.

I think my interest came from both the technical challenges of infrared and ultraviolet photography, combined with the artistic potential. Both forms actually have a lot in common: they require specialized equipment and they reveal details and elements that are invisible for the naked eye. Isn’t that extremely fascinating?

Picture from the infrared “Invisible Paris” series
© Pierre-Louis Ferrer

Can you explain how infrared or ultraviolet photography works, for those of us who don’t have a clue?

To understand what it’s about, you have to return to the base of photography: light, which is actually a spectrum of wavelengths. The naked eye can only catch a part of this spectrum, where each wavelength corresponds to a color tone, going from blue (400 nanometer) to red (700nm). Below 400nm, we find ultraviolet, whereas infrared lies above 700nm. Even though these sides of the spectrum are invisible to the naked eye, photo cameras do in fact have a natural sensibility between approximately 300nm and 1000nm. However, camera manufacturers equip their sensors with a small filter, to block ultraviolet and infrared light. After all, traditional photography is all about finding good white balance with visible light. So, if your goal is to capture invisibility, you’ll first need to remove that filter, to be able to use the sensor’s full sensibility. Then, it’s best to use a specific filter that ónly captures infrared or ultraviolet.

Ferrer would definitely recommend photographers to experiment with infrared and ultraviolet techniques. He sees it as “a fun way to develop a new style in your photography.” It simply requires a little bit of technical training and a little investment in your equipment. But he wouldn’t recommend novice photographers to immediately dive into it – “because it’s always better to first master traditional photography.” However, once you have that under control, how do you decide to shoot a “normal” or a “special” photograph of a scenery or a person?

It really depends on what you want to photograph and what narrative or artistic frame you want to depict. For example, I like infrared specifically for daytime landscape photography. In my portrait photography, it’s always important to ask myself if IR or UV is suitable for the project, or if it will cause nuisance.

Ultraviolet portrait from the “Hail to the Sun” series
© Pierre-Louis Ferrer

What’s next on your calendar?

I am preparing for some projects that focus on the human body and the use of ultraviolet and infrared. Of course, I will also continue my series “Parisian Dreams” this winter, and I also want to make a series about urban movement. Oh, and I would also like to create something with mirrors.

“Foggy Lady” from the “Parisian Dreams” series
© Pierre-Louis Ferrer

The Shard, from the “London Dreams” series
© Pierre-Louis Ferrer

What do you find or hope to achieve in photography?

Photography allows me to express both my sensibility and my point of view in trying to reveal my environment. I hope that I will be able to continue making interesting projects, and I hope to meet other enthusiasts along the way to pass along my passion.

Will you be going in an even more experimental direction?

Absolutely. What I like the most about photography, is the ability to experiment with it. There’s always room to learn and experiment, so I do not intend to stop here.

“Red & Blue”, France’s national library in Paris
© Pierre-Louis Ferrer

“Diamond in the Sky”, site du Ponant, Paris
© Pierre-Louis Ferrer

Breton coastline
© Pierre-Louis Ferrer

More groundbreaking photography of this relatively young talent can be found on its website. And Pierre-Louis Ferrer is of course also on Facebook and on Instagram.

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Portland, Maine is a Dream Destination For Photographers and Foodies

Billy Murray — Mon, 03 Oct 2016 18:16:45 +0000

Cobblestone streets give way to playfully decaying alleys, while a heady-looking group of drifters post up on a park bench. “Where you from and where you going to?” asks a curious local woman, who shyly slips them a couple bucks, cautiously examining their dreadlocks. In a nearby thrift store, a guitarist, nestled between a row of mannequins, sings into a microphone. And further downtown, the Atlantic Ocean expels a rugged salty scent, as a thousand-something-foot cruise ship pulls into Old Port. Across the harbor local fishermen untie their modest boat from a curbside dock. The surrounding buildings vary in shades of deep blue, orange, and pastel white. This is the small town charm of Portland—Maine’s biggest city—and there’s no escaping it, and that’s even before you’ve tried the seafood.