Stunning Locations and Extraordinary Images by Dave Newton
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Dave Newton is an international award-winning professional photographer and filmmaker and represents EIZO as a ColorEdge Ambassador. For 2022 we will be following his journey on the road as he travels the world with his family, Jess, Isla, and of course Otis in his recently converted truck!
Stunning Locations and Extraordinary Images
As promised, this month sees me out of the truck on an adventure of a different kind - a round the world trip on a private jet. I appreciate that sounds a little far-fetched but bear with me. I am travelling as photographer/videographer for the trip, to capture the places we visit and the guests on board.
We began our trip in Seattle, where it was just a little chilly and rather damp. From there we flew for an overnight stop in Guam and then on to Cambodia, Nepal, India, Uzbekistan, Abu Dhabi, Jordan and finally where I am writing this from - Sicily. We’ve been going, non-stop, for 23 days and it has been incredible.
All the while I’ve been doing this, Jess has been at home in Bebe with Isla and Otis, making sure all is well and enjoying some time without me!
- 'It’s always a glorious day above the clouds and the scenery is ever-changing'
We arrived in Cambodia and it was hot and humid. The kind of hot and humid that leaves you looking like you’ve fallen in a lake after just a couple of minutes of walking outside. Air Conditioning was essential… and yet a pain. On my first night I didn’t think about the humidity effects, so I kept my camera kit in my lovely, air-conditioned hotel room. The following morning, I stepped outside with it and then spent 20 minutes trying to clear the inevitable fog that formed on the front of each of the lenses. It was rude reminder, given COVID has stopped any foreign travel for a while. But lesson learnt, I then left all camera kit on my balcony each night so there were no temperature changes to deal with.
Of course, there are many reasons for visiting Cambodia, but our purpose was to see Angkor Wat at sunrise. You’ve seen the travel pictures, and it’s a truism that places never look like they do in the brochure. There are crowds of people. It was, for our visit, surprisingly quiet, and yet there were still several hundred people milling around. More frustrating than that, was the “main” shot location to capture sunrise there was closed. For your reference, it’s the left-hand edge of the left-hand reflecting pool. Sadly it had been fenced off for renovation so I was left with the right-hand pool - still gorgeous, but just not the perfect angle. But such is travel photography on a trip like this, you get what you can in any given situation.
- 'A mother macaque preens her baby in the Pasupathinath temple, Kathmandu'
From there we flew to Nepal, with the goal of a helicopter flight to Everest Basecamp. But Kathmandu is so much more than just a jumping off point to go to Everest. It’s a bustling, crazy city of life and prayer. There is so much visual interest and intrigue to capture that it’s almost overwhelming.
- 'Colour dancers at a street festival, Kathmandu'
After the bustle of the city, the high point, both literally and metaphorically, was our helicopter flight up to Everest base camp. You may think you can handle altitude, but when you fly up that high with no time to acclimatise, it literally takes your breath away. The helicopter flights only give you a few minutes on the ground there before whisking you back down to lower altitudes and more oxygen. But it’s an incredible few minutes for sure!
- 'Everest Basecamp and Mt Everest, come in to view from the helicopter window'
From Nepal we flew to India to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise. No words or pictures can do justice to the beauty that is the Taj Mahal. It’s described as the most perfectly proportioned building in the world, but that doesn’t even come close to describing it. The best time is at sunrise, when the white of the building takes on the ever-changing hues of the sky. The choice you must make is whether to try and get the front and centre shot, fighting with the crowds of people who want that position, and those walking ahead towards the Taj, or whether it’s better to move further in and find some different angles free of people. I choose the latter, deciding it would be an exercise in frustration fighting against the hoards, especially since tripods are banned there and there was no chance of using a solid ND filter to make them disappear with motion.
- 'Hunting for different angles of the Taj Mahal'
To avoid boring you, I’m going to keep the rest of the trip for the next blog, which will also include my upcoming time on a second private jet trip, this time in the American mid-west. Then, come mid-June I’ll be back in Bebe with the family, and we’ll be planning where we’re heading off to next. No decision has been made yet, but we have a few months before I’m travelling on one of these trips again, so we should be able to cover some ground - Southern Europe, Morocco, Northern Europe? Who knows. If you have any suggestions, please let me know!
If you have questions, don’t be shy, feel free to reach out to me either through EIZO or through our social media channels:
@globaltraces on Instagram and Facebook, or www.globaltraces.co.uk for a website.
If you want to see more of my work specifically, then @photopositive (Insta and FB) or www.photopositive.co.uk will get you there.
