Digitalab Featured Photographer: Mike McFarlane
At Digitalab, we appreciate the power of photography, whether it’s personal or professional. We asked Mike McFarlane for one of his images and posed a couple of questions to find out exactly what it is he loves about photography and what he’d say to any enthusiastic photographer hoping to make a career out of their passion.
Tell us a bit about this image and why you chose it to be featured.
This is the beautiful Peninis Point on St Mary’s Island, The Isles of Scilly. It’s a 360×180º panoramic image made about one hour after the sun went down and was produced as part of a series for the Wildlife Trusts to promote their Living Landscapes conservation scheme. I spent one year travelling by train and bike to reduce my carbon footprint, and wild camping to get me as close to Nature as possible, to make approximately 300 panoramas covering the whole of the UK.
These panoramas were woven into virtual tours which you can see at http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/360. I chose this image as it is typical of the beauty I saw country wide, even in towns and cities, and represents a typical landscape photographers experience of waiting ages for a shot and it all coming right at the last moment before I flew off the islands the following day.
Which styles of photography most interest/inspire you?
I am most inspired at the moment by panoramic photography and virtual tours as they encapsulate so much more of the experience of being in a place, and they are also significantly more complex to compose despite what many people think which is that you just stand there and turn round!
What one piece of advice would you give to an aspiring photographer?
Whether you are wishing to improve your art, or form a business around photography, be patient and understand what it is that you are trying to do.
Photography and words by Mike McFarlane as part of a project for The Wildlife Trusts Living Landscapes.