Inspiration: Peter Lik

[Scamper]

I’ve always enjoyed looking at beautiful and striking photography, but it wasn’t until my brother came back from a trip to Australia with some Peter Lik prints that I felt truly inspired by a specific photographer.

That was several years ago now and I’ve had a chance to visit a few of the places I saw in his photographs and visit Peter Lik’s own gallery in Noosa, Australia on a few occasions. It’s these visits to the gallery that really cemented Peter Lik as my favourite photographer, as there is a depth and intensity to his orignal prints that you can’t fully appreciate on the web, in a book or on a postcard.

I think what I love about his photography so much is his ability to capture the raw beauty of nature and somewhow magnify it. His images are intricately detailed but what really makes them standout for me is his incredible use of light and colour, which brings a magical quality to his pictures. Sometimes when you look at beautiful scenery in real life, there is a magic that you can feel in the moment, but this is often lost in still images. I think Lik’s gift is the ability to capture that magic. It’s almost as if his images are alive.

I think the combination of fine detail, dramatic lighting and (in some cases) motion creates images that are both real and surreal at the same time, almost like he is showing you his vision of the perfect world.

I think the image below is a great example of this.

[attachment=0:2u596ru3]http://www.peterlik.com 2011-5-25 18-22-47.png[/attachment:2u596ru3]

[Duncan Rawlinson]

This is an excellent piece.

I have to admit I was not familiar with the work of Peter Lik but his images are positively stunning. I can see why and how his work inspires you.

I just spent 10 months in Australia and Peter Lik is lucky to live there. It is positively stunning. Have you been there?

There are a few reasons I have students write this piece. The main one is to refine their ideas on what inspires them in photography. When you know what is inspiring you, you will be more likely to work hard and shoot great photos.

Second, I think it’s important to find out what kind of photographs interest you. The world of photography is so vast that you can kind of get a little lost and just shoot random photographs all the time.

Finding an area of interest like, extremely vibrant and sharp panoramic landscape images, is great! Do you want to shoot photos like Peter Lik?

I enjoyed reading your piece.

See you on the next assignment.

Do you have any questions at this point?

Thank you.

[Scamper]

Yeah, absolutely from a personal point of view my aim would be to be able to shoot landscapes like Peter Lik. I’d also like to explore architectural photography in the long term as architecture is an interest of mine and it might fit in well with our business further in the future.

I’ve been to Australia a few times as my brother now lives there. We spent the whole of last year there and had a great time 🙂 We’re going again later this year so hopefully I can come back with much better pictures this time!

Just one question. I know we might cover this later, but do you think photographers like Peter Lik use photographic filters while shooting, or can these sorts of colours be achieved naturally if you know how?

By the way, thanks for the example photos of the tissue boxes. I’d been trying to take some that captured the texture of the tissue like the ones you linked to, but haven’t quite cracked it yet.

[Author]

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