We go behind the lens with Photographer Thomas Liam-Ryan who explains how he captured this chilly atmospheric landscape on the isolated west coast of Tasmania.
The West Coast of Tasmania evokes a harsh beauty which keeps me coming back in an attempt to capture those fleeting moments. The region receives around 2000mm of rainfall per year, with frost, fog, snow and hail all regular occurrences.
I headed over there in August last year and captured the coast during the week when Tasmania received some of its biggest dumps of snow in decades. In an attempt to capture the drama as it unfolded, much of my time was spent patiently observing the weather at various locations I've previously scouted.
This involves a lot of waiting, observing the weather as it constantly changes. In between a brief lull in the persistently bleak weather I was able to photograph this formation of snow and hail. I wanted to capture the drama of the whispy streaks in greater detail so I used a zoom lens and took a series of four overlapping photos in portrait perspective. I made dozens of frames so I could choose the best ones to edit when I got home.
This formation only lasted a matter of minutes, until the snow started to fall on me and I took cover. Four Raw images were merged using the photo merge tool in Adobe Lightroom CC and converted to monotone. Further minor adjustments were undertaken in Adobe Photoshop CC.
Photo by Thomas Liam-Ryan. Canon EOS 5D Mk III, 70-200mm lens @ 100mm, 1/320s @ f/8, ISO 200.
West Coast of Tasmania, August 2015. Photo by Thomas Liam-Ryan.
