Inspiration

Martin Rak is a renowned landscape and travel photographer based in Prague, Czechia. He took to photography at an early age, but his interest in landscape photography started in 2009. Martin thrives on diversity, from grand vistas to intimate scenes. His colour photographs make great use of light and fog, but he also creates striking black&white images. Martin’s work has been published in various publications all over the world. He contributes regularly to Black and White Photography Magazine, Practical Photography, Digital SLR Photography, GEO (Germany), and many others. He has been awarded in several international photography competitions such as EISA Maestro, Sony World Photographer Awards, International Photo Awards IPA and Prix de la Photographie Paris Px3. read more.

The shoot posed some challenges due to the low sea fog that occurred on the day limiting how high I could fly without having haze/fog affect the image. However, the subtle light created by the fog worked in my favour giving an incredible soft pastel colour pallet instead of the bright vivid colours usually achieved at this location... read more.

While looking at the rushing river in the gorge, I noticed the small branch, which surprisingly had not been swept away by the current. It is typical of my photography that my compositions are very intuitive. I catch sight of something and then I try to arrange an image from it... read more.

My first intent was to transcribe the subtle palette of tones covered by the trees during this season. The light fog of this humid day reduced the contrast of the image, thus contributing to a certain softness in the rendering. Although the colors of the trees were pleasant, I wanted to highlight the diversity of shapes of this forest seen from above by... read more.

I have decided to take this image as a single long exposure shot using an ND filter. I was so lucky to see the great light illuminating just the Cuernos Towers. In this short-lasting moment, the clouds passing behind and over the towers were not illuminated by the sun, which created a special mood, hand in hand with LE motion blur in the sky, as well as in the water. The forest of dead trees behind the river Serrano was full of interesting trunks... read more.