One of my photos, Sea Spash, was honored from Digital Camera World Magazine for its cover (Spring 2012). It is worth to note that 500px.com is a part of this success because the Editor found the photo here!

Thousand thanks to 500px founder and staffs for their contribution to this great community. Additionally, many thanks to Geoff Harris (Editor) and Simon (Art Editor) of Digital Camera World for their great supports. This honor drives me a lot in improving my photography skill and trying to take much more AWESOME photos : )

Sincerely,

AtomicZen

Note: The following links are the photo covered and featured in Digital Camera World (Spring 2012)

(1) Sea Splash: Upload to 500px.com on February 2012

Surprisingly, I got a great news at a sleepy, exhausted night, mid of January 2012.

One of my photos, called 'Stunning Morning After Storm', will be published as a cover of the N-Photo Magazine (NIKON)!! This amazing magazine is renown among Nikon users world wide. Richard Liewellyn, Art Editor, told me that it would look great on the cover, and would be fantastic coverage with the magazine going internationally, both in print and digital.

Needless to say that, at midnight, I thought I was dreaming. Someone were trying to pull my legs in my birthday, 16 Jan. I couldn't sleep til the morning. Trying to identify the reality, I checked all related website of N-Photo Magazine to make sure that it really happened. Did a fake guy try to defraud me, or else's? Very confused as well as excited. If it was real, I would be very happy, I thought. Next week, Richard mailed me a commission with a Purchase order number on it (PO No.). It was real!!

In retrospect, it is a great honour to me, wh ...

My photography inspiration comes from several sources.

First, I have surrounded by some close friends who fall in love taking landscape and seascape photos. We usually have a shooting trip on the weekend. I learn a lot from their point of view and photography techniques.

Second, recently, I live in Sydney, Australia in which it has a lot of beaches. Some of them has interesting rock formation as well as powerful wave that challenge me to take some seascape photos. My favorite beaches in Sydney are Avalon, Turimetta, Little bay, Mahon Tidal pool, and Coogee.

Next, I love traveling. The more I visit a new place, the less I know about the world. We live in a huge planet, isn't it? New Zealand is my most favorite country last forever. I have second trip in this gorgeous landscape on last December. In the end o f next year, I am planning to revisit with some of my close friends-photographers.

Moreover, photography blog, website, magazine and online gallery always drive your inspirati ...

In digital photography era, post processing is very important to enhance your photos. We could improve our RAW file to much more stunning with several steps.

For my own workflow, I start from Nikon Capture NX or Adobe Camera Raw in order to convert from RAW --> TIFF file. This step is very vital in keeping as much as dynamic range of the shot. Moreover, we could easily enhance shadow/highlight and white balance. In Photoshop, we need to decrease colour cast in both shadow and highlight by using CURVE tools. Then, I still add brightness to mid-tone, and a little bit to overall photo. I prefer bright photo to dim photo.

In order to enhance the sky, I increase red-yellow colour from Hue/Saturation. We mush make sure that colour is not over saturated by noticing the details in the photo, especially details in red and yellow. When you want a vivid photo, you should gradually increase colour layer by layer. For example, I increase yellow colour first with +10 Saturation in yellow channel ...