‘Spirit of Dombrovskis’

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Tell us about yourself and your photographic journey ?

I’ve always been a lover of the outdoors and a bit of an explorer of it. I suppose I thought I had fallen in love with fly fishing at one stage in my life only to realise it was actually the places it was taking me that I was truely in love with. I wanted to show people these places who just seemed to nod with glazed eyes when I tried to explain it. One night in the Western lakes I was camping after a few days camping and fishing and I saw an Aurora dancing in the sky and reflecting off the lakes. I have never gone anywhere without a camera since.

Tell us about this image ?

After an all-nighter on the Summit of Cradle Mountain I was privileged enough to witness a dawn like no other I had seen. It was a photographers heaven and I knew that it would be many climbs to come before I witnessed something like this again. This was a moment from my dreams.

But there was a problem… I was so overwhelmed by it all that I couldn’t seem to steady myself long enough to take a decent photo. Knowing this may well be the only time I ever see a dawn like this from such an amazing place seemed to flood panic into my mind. It got worse with the threat of the moment going past and none of its glory being captured.

But amongst the adrenalin and rush of blood something stood me still and told me to breathe. I turned my back on it all and just tried to still my mind. Then something in my head said ‘what stands out’ and in this case it was the cloud around little horn. So after a little time spent calming myself and a little bit of climbing I found a place for my tripod at the edge of the mountain and set off a 30 second exposure. Then it came up on the screen on the back of my camera…

I don’t think I took another shot for 30mins or so (after shooting non stop since 3pm the day before) I just sat there and enjoyed the moment.

I had taken an image that truly represented how I felt about what I was experiencing.

I feel as if the work of the great Peter Dombrovskis guides many photographers and certainly has me. He influences what we do and somehow he lives on through it all. He is gone but maybe what motivated Peter is still alive. Maybe in our quest for good light and exploration we all share a little bit of the Spirit of Dombrovskis.

I recently drove to Hobart to meet with Liz Dombrovskis the wife of Peter to ask her face to face for her permission/blessing for the use of the Family name in this image. She was happy for me to use it and was also happy to share a few wonderful stories about Peter. What an amazing man.

Can you share some technical details about the image ?

Spirit of Dombrovskis is a single exposure taken at f4 ISO 600 and 30secs.

Was taken with the Nikon d800e and 21mm Zeiss distagon.

What kind of processing was applied ?

I lifted the shadows greatly and the whites to get the highlights on the clouds to pop a bit. Temperature is about 6000 kelvin with a 30 plus of tint. (In ACR). Then finished up in camera raw with a brilliance and warmth nik filter brushed into the highlights and a sharpen.

Bio

Aaron Jones is a wilderness and seascape photographer from Burnie, Tasmania.

Who’s main desire is to capture the unexplored compositions available in the remote areas of Tasmania.

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