Alex on the summit of A’mhaighdean.
mountain photographer IN THE BAG
Alex Nail, A
lex Nail is a landscape photographer and time-lapse filmmaker with a passion for mountains and wild places. He was introduced to photography on holiday in Australia in 2004 and subsequently developed a passion for hiking in the outdoors, eventually leading to multi-day backpacking trips in Scotland, Norway, Iceland, South Africa and Greenland. In 2013 he started time-lapse photography and now uses custom built equipment to produce films in the wilderness. Now a full- time photographer, Alex splits his time between commissions, adventure photography workshops and personal trips.
Describe a typical day in your life?
Sadly it involves sitting in front of a computer! There’s a lot of marketing, social media, writing articles, editing, producing time- lapse footage, financial bits and emailing. It’s a never-ending battle to find time for trips.
What’s the best place you’ve been to for mountain photography, and why? My favourite area currently is the Drakensberg Escarpment, which forms the boundary between South Africa and Lesotho. You can hike there for weeks without seeing another backpacker. Clouds often fill the valleys below in the morning and in the afternoon thunderstorms crash around the peaks.
What are your current goals? I have a few time-lapse projects in the pipeline in Scotland, Iceland and the Drakensberg. These are all backpacking based and time- lapse is incredibly challenging in mountain environments. As a result these projects keep over running — at least I don’t have deadlines to meet!
What’s the best way to get into mountain photography? If you already hike, the next step
is to plan your routes around photographic opportunities. The best photos are often taken at the extreme ends of the day and that might mean hiking in the dark, or camping out overnight.
Toughest adventure you’ve ever been on?
18 days unsupported backpacking and packrafting in Greenland in 2015. I knew it would be hard before I left, but the combination of bog, tough scree, mosquitos, bushwhacking and a 35kg pack nearly beat me into submission!
Time-lapse photography — what is it and how do you do it? Time-lapse is essentially showing the accelerated passage of time by capturing photos at intervals of a few seconds (for example) and then playing them back at 25 frames per second. You can also add motion with a motorised slider.
Top photography tip? Don’t bail too soon. The number of times I have left a summit because I thought the situation was hopeless only for incredible conditions to appear out of nowhere five minutes later... A big part of landscape photography is learning to tough it out.
Find out more:
www.alexnail.com
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