The International Landscape Photograph of the Year - 2019 [PDF]

Q: What does it take to win the International Landscape Photographer of
the Year Award?
A: Four strong and inspiring landscape photographs and at least one of
them must have been selected in the Top 101 as well. The idea behind the
Photographer of the Year Award, as distinguished from the Photograph of the
Year or the Top 101 Photographs, is that we’re looking for a photographer
who can provide more than a single winning image. We want entrants to
demonstrate that not only can they produce a world class photograph, but
there’s a degree of consistency and repeatability to their skill and imagination
as a photographer.
This year’s winner Oleg Ershov has demonstrated both skill and imagination
with an inspiring series of brilliant landscape photographs. Wrote an
excited Oleg from his home in Moscow, Russia, “My passion for landscape
photography is based on a love of nature, especially in places where human
intervention is not yet visible. Just being in location at dawn and watching the
start of a new day gives me tremendous vitality.”
Oleg is an amateur landscape photographer, funding his passion by
working for a food distribution company.
“My interest for photography began in 2007 when I bought my first DSLR
camera and signed up for a photo tour to the Southwest USA. I was struck by
the tremendous variety of landscapes, colours and textures found in nature.
Since then, I spend all my free time improving my skills and knowledge in
landscape photography. I usually spend six weeks a year on photo trips,
sometimes in groups, often on my own.”
Oleg says that at the beginning of his career, he really liked shooting
panoramas. “In fact, I shot panoramas most of the time - multi-row, HDR and
vertical - but then I met landscape photographers such as Joe Cornish, David
Ward, Rafael Rojas and Bruce Percy. I didn’t try to copy their styles, rather I
took from them what I liked the best and then gradually, I felt that my skills were
improving and that my work was becoming more serious.”
Now Oleg also enjoys vertical landscapes because of their dynamism,
expressiveness and depth, and indeed all four of his winning entries are verticals.
“I have always used full-frame Canon EOS 5D-series cameras. Currently
it is the Canon EOS 5DSR because the high number of megapixels is very
important for landscape photography and for me personally.
“Regarding lenses, I started with the holy trinity of Canon zooms (16-35mm,
24-70mm and 70-200mm). They were convenient, universal and generally
accepted. Then there was a period when I was fascinated with tilt-shift lenses
(Canon’s 17mm and 24mm and Schneider-Kreuznach’s 50mm and 90mm),
which required much more time to build a frame, but this was compensated by
the sharpness and geometry of the image.
“Today, I use two Canon zooms (24-70mm and 100-400mm) for versatility
and three Zeiss Otus prime lenses (28mm, 55mm and 85 mm) due to their
unsurpassed quality. Of course, it can be challenging to carry 1.5 kg lenses,
but ‘good glass is heavy glass’.”
Oleg uses Gura Gear camera backpacks and loves Really Right Stuff
tripods, heads and plates. “It would be unfair not to mention Lee’s ND and
graduated ND filters, although instead of using the latter, I often do several
exposures for HDR. And I must say thanks to Sandisk memory cards that have
never let me down, plus I keep copies of the files on my trips with two fast and
compact Sandisk Extreme SSDs.”
Oleg’s favourite destinations for landscape photography are Iceland,
Scotland and the USA’s Southwest. “I always return to my favourite places
because this allows me to get to know the country better and to find new
scenes and places to shoot. When I immerse myself in a familiar environment
and slow down the pace, my productivity increases many times over. For
example, I have been to Iceland 15 times and it took me 10 years to make my
first photo book, but the second book only required two visits in 2019 and it
turned out even better than the first!
“I try to get an almost finished shot right from the camera and limit myself
to minimal edits. I usually do 95% of the processing in Adobe Camera Raw,
taking maybe 10-15 minutes, including panoramas and HDR. Finally, I’ll use
Adobe Photoshop for content-aware removal of fellow photographers from the
foreground or focus stacking, and sometimes I’ll do the finishing touches using
the Color EFEX Pro and Silver EFEX Pro from Nik Collection 2 filters.”
And Oleg says that a photo is only good when it’s on a wall and so his
workflow is focused on creating large prints. “I make the prints myself on an
Epson SC-7000, so megapixels and attention to details are important to me.”
And we have no doubt his prints look exceptional!

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