Dom Reardon

29 year old landscape and astro photographer based in the English Lake District

A bit about me:

I first became interested in photography around age 14, I used to spend a lot of my free time hanging out at the local skateparks with friends on our BMX bikes, scooters and skateboards. I started out with a cheap Panasonic Lumix point and shoot camera (I think it was about £50?) and would use the camera just to capture photos and videos of our days out, whether somebody wanted a photo of a new trick they just learnt or I wanted to make an "edit" of everyone who was riding on that day - it was all just good fun and I enjoyed it a lot!

The transition into landscape photography began when some of my skatepark friends started getting into rock climbing, Most of this took place in and around the Lake District and I would go with them just to capture photos of them doing their thing, however when no one was climbing, I would be taking photos of the surrounding landscape. I loved being out in these amazing places so much that I started coming back on my own with landscape photography being the focus of the trip. Over time I explored more and more of the national park and fell in love with capturing those magical moments of fleeting light. colourful sunsets and clear dark skies at night! I have met some amazing people through photography and have even travelled to other countries with them on landscape photography trips to try and capture more of the incredible beauty that our planet has to offer! As much as I absolutely love the Lake District, places like Iceland and the Faroe Islands are on a whole other level, total photographers' playgrounds! The crazy weather conditions, towering cliffs, dancing northern lights and frozen waterfalls are an experience like no other! I could go on forever about the places I've travelled to and the things I've been fortunate enough to see. If you'd like to hear more then don’t hesitate to get in touch via the contact page or take a look at my portfolio where the images tell their own stories!

My Awards:

reFocus Awards

1st | People's vote award - Conceptual | "HDR 57% Mineral Moon"

A bit about the image: Nikon Europe loaned me the Nikon Z8 and Z 800 6.3 to test out and what better way to test that beast of a lens than to point it at the moon!

Over two clear nights, I photographed the first quarter Moon and the full moon (18.1.23 & 24.1.23) and a star field too, all at 800mm. I captured hundreds of images of the two moon phases, both correctly exposed and overexposed so I could blend in the actual moon glow later.

The star field was a stack of 45 exposures. I aligned, stacked and sharpened the moon images using PIPP, Autostakkert!3 and Registax6 (respectively). The glow was just aligned and stacked as it didn't need sharpening. The colours were brought out in Photoshop using multiple saturation adjustment layers and the composite part was done in PS too.

The blended image was then finished off with some minor tweaks in Adobe Lightroom.

The colours are genuine and are not added in editing. The colours are present in the raw files and have to be pulled out by stacking images to increase the signal to noise ratio and then upping the saturation in multiple small increments.

The colours represent the minerals present on the Moons surface, browny-orange being Iron and Blue being titanium.

To see the award on their website, click here.

reFocus Awards

1st | People's vote award - Conceptual | "HDR 57% Mineral Moon"

A bit about the image: Nikon Europe loaned me the Nikon Z8 and Z 800 6.3 to test out and what better way to test that beast of a lens than to point it at the moon!

Over two clear nights, I photographed the first quarter Moon and the full moon (18.1.23 & 24.1.23) and a star field too, all at 800mm. I captured hundreds of images of the two moon phases, both correctly exposed and overexposed so I could blend in the actual moon glow later.

The star field was a stack of 45 exposures. I aligned, stacked and sharpened the moon images using PIPP, Autostakkert!3 and Registax6 (respectively). The glow was just aligned and stacked as it didn't need sharpening. The colours were brought out in Photoshop using multiple saturation adjustment layers and the composite part was done in PS too.

The blended image was then finished off with some minor tweaks in Adobe Lightroom.

The colours are genuine and are not added in editing. The colours are present in the raw files and have to be pulled out by stacking images to increase the signal to noise ratio and then upping the saturation in multiple small increments.

The colours represent the minerals present on the Moons surface, browny-orange being Iron and Blue being titanium.

To see the award on their website, click here.

Lakeland Photography Prize

2nd Place - "Loughrigg Fell at Sunrise"

A bit about the image: This was one of those shots that I had had in mind for months, maybe even years. One evening in Autumn of 2020, I checked the weather forecast for the next day and it was forecast to be mainly clear, very low wind, and pretty cold too - perfect conditions for a potential cloud inversion! I decided that the next morning I was going to head out a couple hours before sunrise in a bid to get myself up Loughrigg Fell to capture Loughrigg Tarn from above with the rising sun lighting up the surrounding autumnal trees and lingering mists. When I arrived at the viewpoint, there wasn't as much mist as I'd have hoped but the light was incredible and the view was just stunning! A very memorable morning in the English Lake District. If you'd like to view the winners and shortlisted entries, they can be found here.

International Photography Awards (IPA) 2020

3rd Place | Nature-Astrophotography | "3D HDR Crescent Moon"

I was pleasantly surprised to see that out of my entries into the IPA, one actually won a prize! Although only 3rd place, this one was quite an honor as the competition receives thousands of entries every year and is a very well known competition so it was really cool to have my name amongst the winners in the "astrophotography" subcategory! To create this effect in this image, I've captured the full moon and the crescent moon on separate nights and then darkened the full moon, processed the crescent moon to show the "mineral colours" and then blended them together in photoshop to show a highly detailed version of the moon that although technically exists, can't be achieved in one single exposure. If you look at a crescent moon in a clear sky however, you will be able to see the dark side of the moon ever so slightly, this becomes more pronounced the thinner the crescent is. This is actually known as "Earthshine" and is caused by sunlight hitting the earth then bouncing back to the moon, and then back to us again enabling us to see it! Capturing this phenomenon in high detail is incredibly difficult and most likely impossible once the moon gets past the crescent stage so this is why the "HDR Moon" images are created! The idea of the majority of astrophotography is not to show you what's there that you CAN see but what's there that you CAN'T. Anyway enough waffle - if you'd like to read more about the settings and number of exposures used in this image, click here. For anyone interested - my certificate can be seen here.

International Photography Awards (IPA) 2020

3rd Place | Nature-Astrophotography | "3D HDR Crescent Moon"

I was pleasantly surprised to see that out of my entries into the IPA, one actually won a prize! Although only 3rd place, this one was quite an honor as the competition receives thousands of entries every year and is a very well known competition so it was really cool to have my name amongst the winners in the "astrophotography" subcategory! To create this effect in this image, I've captured the full moon and the crescent moon on separate nights and then darkened the full moon, processed the crescent moon to show the "mineral colours" and then blended them together in photoshop to show a highly detailed version of the moon that although technically exists, can't be achieved in one single exposure. If you look at a crescent moon in a clear sky however, you will be able to see the dark side of the moon ever so slightly, this becomes more pronounced the thinner the crescent is. This is actually known as "Earthshine" and is caused by sunlight hitting the earth then bouncing back to the moon, and then back to us again enabling us to see it! Capturing this phenomenon in high detail is incredibly difficult and most likely impossible once the moon gets past the crescent stage so this is why the "HDR Moon" images are created! The idea of the majority of astrophotography is not to show you what's there that you CAN see but what's there that you CAN'T. Anyway enough waffle - if you'd like to read more about the settings and number of exposures used in this image, click here. For anyone interested - my certificate can be seen here.

CONTACT ME

If you have any questions, would like to book me for a shoot or simply want to say hi :)

Follow my adventures on Instagram!

@dom_reardon_photo