Two Worlds Images: The Photography of Richard Harris http://www.two-worlds.com/imageination/ This site is my showcase gallery, online store and information resource. I'm a photographer and writer, selling my own images directly and specialising in several themes. These include travel and expedition photography and communications, machinery with soul (typically classic cars and motorcycles and their owners), landscapes and architectural images of both modern and heritage buildings. I'm also available for local and worldwide commissions in any of these areas. I'm based in Surrey (England), Edinburgh (Scotland) and wherever in the world I happen to be at any given time – in the last couple of years that has included Iceland, much of Europe, assorted parts of the USA, DR Congo, Rwanda and Uganda.

]]> 2007-12-28T17:16:12+00:00 Olympus E-3: First Impressions http://www.two-worlds.com/imageination/2007/12/olympus_e3_firs.html This has been a long wait: in a market where the life of a digital camera can be measured in months rather than years, the three year wait for Olympus' follow-up to their i* (where * can be either '-conic' or '-diosyncratic', according to your taste) E-1 DSLR has been an ice age. While competitors' cameras, and even Olympus' own consumer DSLRs have leapt ahead in resolution and specification, the E-1 has soldiered on with its modest 5 Megapixel sensor and tank-like build quality, continuing to delight those of us who value a photographer's camera over one designed to tick specification checkboxes. That's something of an Olympus tradition – like that other industry iconoclast, Apple, Olympus have rarely headlined on numbers, but have usually delivered where it counts: build quality, lens quality and sheer usability - I'm actually sitting here with my heirloom Olympus OM-2n beside me, rediscovering just what a joy it is to hold and use – I really do believe that cameras that feel the product of precision engineering by people who care inspire better image creation than those that come across as marketing-led, cost-driven consumer electronics. So does the new 10MP E-3 fall into that most desirable of categories?

Firstly though, a small disclaimer: This isn't a press review camera but my own beast, purchased with semi-real money. Nor is this intended to be a 'numbers and menus' review - life being far too short for that – but rather my first impressions of it and how it performs in daily use.

I've also have had a Canon EOS 5D on hand, so I'm now working on some comparisons with that, for publication as soon as I can set some Photoshopping time aside.

]]> Richard 2007-12-28T17:16:12+00:00 Richard's Bio http://www.two-worlds.com/imageination/2007/02/richards_bio.html
I'm Richard Harris and I'm a travel, expedition, heritage, landscape and wildlife photographer, working around the diffuse boundary between using photography as an adjunct of my travels and expeditions and it being an income-generating profession. My work's been used in a variety of books and magazines, I sell limited edition prints of my work and I've won a few competitions along the way, most notably the Aitken Spence Sri Lankan national photographic competition of few years ago, the prize for which was a return visit that beautiful, friendly and tragic island.

]]> Bio Richard 2007-02-11T22:05:52+00:00 2006 Goodwood Revival Meeting http://www.two-worlds.com/imageination/2006/09/2006_goodwood_r.html A selection of images from the 2006 Goodwood Revival Meeting: a wonderful annual three-day event at the Goodwood Race Circuit in West Sussex. Classic racing bikes and cars (and their drivers and riders) gather from all over the world, display themselves to the paying public and disport themselves on track with displays of competitive spirit that would shame most of the current F1 bunch.

]]> Mechanica Richard 2006-09-05T16:38:51+00:00 Watts Chapel, Compton http://www.two-worlds.com/imageination/2006/08/watts_chapel_co.html The village of Compton in Surrey is not only blessed with decent pubs, ridiculously pretty houses and an excellent tea shop, but was the home of the Victorian Arts & Crafts artists, George Frederick Watts and his wife Mary. Their legacy is seen in two buildings on the edge of the village: Watts' own gallery, built to house his painting collection and the Watts Cemetery Chapel, designed by Mary and built by her and the local craftspeople she trained. The Chapel is a truly beautiful Romanesque brick building, covered with celtic-inspired moulded brickwork and with a gesso interior created by Mary and her craftspeople.

The Watts Gallery is currently the subject of a major restoration appeal, to restore and conserve both the building itself and its collection. It has just been featured on the BBC's Restoration Village series.

]]> England Richard 2006-08-01T10:04:46+00:00 Patterns in the Stone http://www.two-worlds.com/imageination/2006/07/patterns_in_the.html There's a problem with photographing the really iconic places of the world: how to convey the essence and atmosphere of a place through the barrier of the familiar postcard images to which we're all pretty much innured. This is one such – the mediaeval island fortress abbey of Mont St Michel in Normandy. This is a truly magical place, where the patterns of nature and those of man contrast, reflect and complement each other as the light changes through the day and through the seasons. And this is what I've tried to capture in this gallery: the patterns, light, detail and the contrasts that make the atmosphere and presence of the place.

]]> France Richard 2006-07-14T08:37:59+00:00 <![CDATA[Apple & Intel Photographic Workflow: Update]]> http://www.two-worlds.com/imageination/2006/03/apple_intel_pho.html With the first three ranges of Intel-powered Macintosh systems all now shipping, I and many other power-hungry users are keeping a close eye on the availability of key imaging and workflow software products in the Universal Binary form that allows them to run natively, at full speed, on the Intel machines.

There's a wide range of software available to support all or part of the photographic imaging workflow, and this is my own update on the current release state of my favoured workflow applications, including both those I use day-to-day and those I'm trialling, reviewing or considering.

]]> Software Richard 2006-03-20T14:50:43+00:00 Apotheosis of the PowerBook http://www.two-worlds.com/imageination/2006/03/apotheosis_of_t.html The MacBook Pro is a very cool, very fast and very shiny computer. But, as of now, largely pointless for me: until such time as core applications for the photographer and image munger are released as Universal Binaries, I'd simply be paying more for a machine that ran Photoshop and its ilk more slowly than my existing machine (under the Rosetta emulation environment), and which wouldn't run some plug-ins at all. Unless I was using Aperture as the heart of my workflow (which I can't, due to its current, "limitations" in RAW conversion), the only benefit would be that the Finder, email and text editor would run ludicrously fast (and they're fine already). The first generation MacBook Pro has also taken some backward steps in its specification that smack of a rush to market.

]]> Computers Richard 2006-03-20T14:11:36+00:00 TfT: Technology for Travellers http://www.two-worlds.com/imageination/2006/01/tft_technology.html

I do a great deal of my photography, writing and geekery on the hoof, and am often to be found staggering around assorted strange parts of the planet, swaying like an overloaded Christmas tree under the combined weight of camera, computer and communications gear, and all those bits and pieces that I've slung in, "just in case". So, Welcome to the review area – this is where I'll be reviewing technology and tools that really work (or, for that matter, which don't) for those of us who spend rather too much – often too much – of our lives on the road, in planes and, on occasional, up to our individual or collective armpits in mangrove swamps. In particular, it's aimed particularly (but certainly not solely) at the needs of the digitally-driven travelling and expedition photographer – from the casual traveller through to the semi-pro and onward to the full-on hairy professional.

I concentrate on reviewing stuff that has at least a nodding acquaintance with the notion of portable(1), and which is actually useful once away from the beaten track of broadband-enabled hotels and the Starbucks monoculture. Included are computers, phones, PDAs, communications services, cameras, accessories to any of the the foregoing, luggage, books, useful web sites and, of course, the power sources that help keep everything going.

]]> Communications Richard 2006-01-17T18:16:23+00:00 <![CDATA[The Powerbook is Dead…]]> http://www.two-worlds.com/imageination/2006/01/the_powerbook_i.html …Long live the, ah, MacBook.

So we're starting with sad note in technohistory: I've been surgically attached to both the name and entity of Powerbook since it first appeared rather more than fourteen years (and to my laughingly named Mac "Portable" before that), so I'm unlikely to convert to the casual dropping of, "I'll just grab my MacBook…" overnight. Or possibly not ever. And what happens when Apple migrates their Power Mac range to Intel - do we end up with the Mac Mac?

But enough of the sentimental maundering – this is supposed to be about what the Intel shift means to travelling photographers and meedja types, for whom a <whatever>Book is their weapon of choice, and for those Wintel frustratees who are considering a shift, now that direct platform comparisons are possible for the first time.

First things first, then – just what is a MacBook, and what's changed from the previous generation of PowerPC-based machines?

Design

A full specification is available on the Apple web site, so I'm not going to reiterate that, but concentrate on what's changed, for better and worse. The basic industrial design remains as for the 15" Aluminium PowerBooks, albeit in a case that's 1cm wider than before, but a couple of mm slimmer – almost back to the thickness of the PowerBook Ti. Depth remains the same. Strange to tell, that little extra slimness is much more significant for travelling than the extra centimeter of width – I'll happily trade a bit of footprint for something I can stuff into the narrowest possible space in a crowded equipment bag. A good start then. Now for the rest…

]]> Computers Richard 2006-01-12T14:30:43+00:00 Enchanted Forest http://www.two-worlds.com/imageination/2005/10/enchanted_fores.html Each Autumn, a forest near Pitlochry in Perthshire hosts a dramatic and atmospheric Son-et-Lumière¨ show. This year's took place around the mirror-still lake in Faskally Forest, contrasting with the tumbling waters of last year's Hermitage experience.

]]> Richard 2005-10-27T12:28:00+00:00 <![CDATA[Getting Started…]]> http://www.two-worlds.com/imageination/2005/06/getting_started.html News Richard 2005-06-01T00:34:21+00:00 Eden Project http://www.two-worlds.com/imageination/2005/05/eden_project.html The Eden Project in Cornwall, England is an Ark for the era of Global Warming – Silent Running come to Earth. Its huge geodesic biomes sit in the shelter of an old clay quarry that itself has been sculpted to form a setting for the technopagan presence of the domes, their plants, sculptures and people.

50°21'33.34"N 4°44'19.36"W

]]> England Richard 2005-05-13T01:10:28+00:00 2005 Triumph Motorcycles http://www.two-worlds.com/imageination/2005/05/2005_triumph_mo.html The intentional design of machines that both work as tools for humans and as design in their own right is rarely more clearly expressed than in motorcycle design. Here, I'm using black and white images to expose the sculptural lines of two of Triumph's 2005 model range – the Sprint ST and the Speed Triple. Motorcycles kindly provided by Haslemere Motorcycles.

]]> Mechanica Richard 2005-05-11T20:11:48+00:00 Scottish Parliament http://www.two-worlds.com/imageination/2005/05/scottish_parlia.html The Scottish Parliament is an astounding building: In concept, execution, location and cost. It sits at the base of Edinburgh's Royal Mile, beside the ancient palace of Holyrood House. Completed: (almost) 2004. Architect: Enric Miralles.

In October 2005, it won the prestigous Stirling Prize, beating off competition from five other shortlisted RIBA award-winning designs.

This monochrome gallery, shot mostly at night, emphasises the form and moods of the encapsulated and rambling village of a building.

]]> Scotland Richard 2005-05-11T17:15:25+00:00 Mountain Gorillas, Rwanda http://www.two-worlds.com/imageination/2005/05/mountain_gorill.html In 2003, I made two long trips to Central Africa, working with and photographing the Mountain Gorillas of the Virunga Mountains. This gallery shows a sample of the images from the second of those trips, concentrating on portraits of these gentle, inspirational fellow apes.

]]> Richard 2005-05-11T15:09:23+00:00