no photography

I've given photography a rest for a month or so - mainly as my EOS 1D Mk3 has been back with Canon having its autofocus fixed (a factory recall job). I've done some work-related aerial photogrammetry stuff though which is pretty impressive - more of that soon.

I've also started another blog for a new passtime that does not involve cameras: click here to view

Alaska Project Published Worldwide

Last June I went to Alaska to train a group of surveyors how to produce land maps using helicopter-based low altitude photogrammetry. 

The survey was centered on Huslia in the remote bush  north of Fairbanks and was a big success. In conjuction with Topcon and the client, a two-piece article was written and published in the world's survey press.

You can download the articles here: part 1 | part 2

For me the trip was an adventure to a part of the world I'd always wanted to visit.  After leaving a wet, grey Wales, a sweaty stopover in Mineapolis, landing in Fairbanks was just like landing back in Cardiff (grey and wet) - but with more trees. I joined the survey barge which departed 2 weeks earlier after a four hour helicopter flight. The pre-flight briefing involved showing me a loaded pistol under the pilot's seat for shooting bears (only in the eye socket as their heads are too thick to penetrate with a bullet), and a mosquito net ("if we go down and you're too smashed up to walk then the mosquitoes will eat you before the bears get to you") said Chris the Swiss pilot.

Click here too view a slideshow of some of my photographs of the trip

Bostonia

Bostonia Magazine, originally uploaded by nick_russill.

My aurora shot from Kulusuk in E. Greenland was used on the current cover of Bostonia - the Boston University Alumni magazine for their cover article on space weather and its effects on global telecommunications. Read the article here.

new website

With a little help from the folks at Evrium I've been updating my website.

Over the next few weeks all the images will be optimized and reprocessed so the best of my favourites will get better. I was prompted into doing this after binning my PC and buying an iMac and consuming a few hours of podcasts on Adobe Lightroom. Wish I'd done that years ago.

you can see it HERE

German Anthropology Museum

Inuit girl, Kulusuk, originally uploaded by nick_russill.

The museum of social anthropology in Germany, Leipzig, the “GRASSI Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig” is using some of my Inuit portraits in a new permanent exhibition of American cultures

Best Photo - BBC Wales December 07

Best Photo - BBC Wales December 07, originally uploaded by nick_russill.

December 2007 saw some big storms here on the South Wales coast so I headed down to Porthcawl to photograph some of the huge waves slamming into the harbour wall.

I submitted one shot to the BBC who nominated it best local photo for December 07.

Another strange thing happened on this shoot - the following day one of my pictures was on the front page of The Times newspaper, only it wasn't. It just happened to be another photographer next to me who shot the exact wave at exactly the same split second (see below - that's my picture on the right).

Wedding in Sweden

Swedish Wedding 3, originally uploaded by nick_russill.

August 4th 2007 and I was the photographer at my friend Maria's wedding in Ludvika, Sweden. Nothing could have prepared me for how stressful it was - especially as my new Canon 1D Mk III broke down on me as the bride was walking up the aisle, but thanks to a 5D backup I was generally pleased with the results:

http://www.nickrussill.com/ohrwall/