News about Yan Zhang Photography
2017
10 October 2017: Please see "Awards" for my latest photography achievements in various competitions.
10 April 2017: Water and Mountains - Yan Zhang's Solo Photography Exhibition: I had a solo photography exhibition "Water and Mountains" in WSU during May - July 2016. I was just told by someone that this event was actually reported by one Australian major news media The Daily Telegraph on 10 June 2016. Nice to find out this, though it is almost a year later.
1 March 2017: I am pleased to announce that my image "Cathedral Cove" has been selected to be a winning photo in the Nature category of the 27th Memorial Maria Lusia International Mountain and Nature Photography Competition (MML 2017).
20 February 2017: I am glad to announce that my two profile entries to 2016 Australian Photographer of the Year competition were ranked to 8th and 11th, respectively, in landscape category, have been honourable mentioned. One of them has been selected to be published in the February Issue (2017) of Australian Photography magazine.
5 February 2017: I was invited to give a photography lecture in Pleasanton Public Library, San Francisco Bay Area.
2016
29 November 2016: New Zealand photography magazine D-Photo recently caught up with me to talk about my landscape photography. The article about this interview is now published here.
19 August 2016: It was delight to attend the opening of Australian Geographic 2016 Photographer of the Year Exhibition held in Australian Museum from 19 August to 9 October 2016, where one of my image "Mount Taranaki" has been selected in this exhibition. Furthermore, this image was also selected to be used as the advertisement for this exhibition, as you can see from the following picture.
This is also the first time that Australian Museum hosts such prestigious nature photography exhibition with Australian Geographic.
5 June 2016: It is my pleasure to be the judge of this month 1X monthly photography contest with the theme "Forest".
20 May 2016: My exhibition is now on from 20 May - 8 July 2016, in Builiding AD, North Werrington campus, Western Sydney University. This exhibition is hosted by the Art Gallery of Western Sydney University. The theme of this exhibition is Water and Mountains. In this exhibition, I try to represent my personal interpretation on water and mountains - the two most essential elements of our nature. Through these 16 images, one may witness my journey of exploring the beauty of water and mountains all over the world: from our local Penrith region to New Zealand, China, and as far as to North and South America.
18 May 2016: This news has been a bit out of date, but I thought I should put here. Although it did not win an award, my image "Twilight" entered into the final list of the 26th Memorial Maria Lusia International Mountain and Nature Photography Competition. This photo was taken back in 2012 in Mount Assiniboine, Canada.
22 April 2016: I am very glad that my image "Mount Taranaki under Moonlight" has been selected to the shortlist of 2016 Australian Geographic ANZANG Nature Photographer of the Year Competition (Landscape category). This is the three years in a row that I have image(s) made into the finallist of this most prestigious nature photography competition in the region.
Mount TaranakiAfter a severe storm for 20 hours, the mountain returned to its calmness. I came to this location at 3:30am on 4 July 2015. It was a full moon night. The moonlight starry sky was impressive over the summit of Mount Taranaki. Again, this is one single shot capturing such amazing mountain and sky and their reflections in the tarn.
This photo has been published on 1x.
12 February 2016: I haven't updated my photography activities for a while. In last several months, many things have happened about my photography. Here are some highlight:
(1) In December 2015, with my mountain companion, I undertook another mountain trip to the Southern Alps in South Island of New Zealand. This time, I climbed three mountain regions: Sealy Range and McNulty Tarns and Darran Mountains in Fiordland National Park. Images and more information about this trip can be seen from my photo gallery.
(2) Photo sales - Since the beginning of 2016, my photo sales are going quite well. In January, several images have been licensed by a publisher. In the meantime, my photo print sales are steadily increased. It looks like that 2016 will be a good year for photo sale.
(3) My image "A Place of Solitude" has been selected by Landscape Photograph Magazine as a Showcase (double page), and will be published in a future issue.
(4) 1X photos - I have published over 60 photos on 1X and reached 700 followers, which are a kind of milestone. Although I never care much about the popularity in current social media of photography, getting more photos published on 1X is indeed a good indicator for an increasing recognition of my photographs.
2015
14 June 2015: Once again, my image "Mount Hallelujah" has gained another highlight - it has been selected as the Images of the Day by the prestigious Nature Photography website Whytake.
10 February 2015: I am glad to announce that my image "Mount Hallelujah", made from famous Chinese Huangshan (黄山) has been selected by UK magazine Practical Photography and will be published in its March Issue.
25 January 2015: My image "Meeting of Waters" has been published on 1x.
Meeting of WatersIn the last few days of 2014, Yun and I undertook a 3-days trip to the south coast of New South Wales.
For the first time of visiting this place, I was lucky enough to have got two out of three mornings with spectacular light. This image was taken on 28 December 2014 morning.
By exhaustively searching the location, I discovered this tiny water pond on the rock stack, which presented an eye-catching contrast with the outside ocean scene. However, the ocean and the pond were somehow detached, while the only way to let them meet together was patiently waiting for the high tide that created such "waterfalls" during the magic time period ...
This image has been published on 1x.
12 January 2015: My image "A State of Tranquility", made from my November 2014 Expedition to the Southern Alps, has been published on 1x.
2014
25 November 2014: My image "Reflection of Serenity" has been published on 1x. This is one of my earliest images since I started to practice digital landscape photography. From very beginning, I was always interested in capturing something peaceful, moody, and surreal. Such instinct has been embedded into almost all of my works.
Reflection of SerenityCapturing a mood of calmness has been always one of my prominent photography interests, no matter whereas I am: traversing on the mountain ridges, chasing ocean waves, or crossing pasture lands. Such instinct perhaps reflects some aspect of personalities.
I took this shot in Penrith Lakes, not far from my home, back to 2009. In an early morning, just before the sun broke the horizon, the sky dramatically changed its color. It was a great moment to capture this perfect reflection.
This photo has been published on 1x.
The 3rd 2014 New Zealand Southern Alps Expedition (30 October - 12 November 2014): This has been the 3rd time for me to travel to New Zealand in 2014 and undertake extensive southern alps expedition in the South Island. Yun and I first undertook a 2-day backpacking trip along the Routeburn Track starting from the Divide. Due to a bad weather condition, this trip turned to be a challenging one: heavy rain falls, strong wind and flood during our trekking.
After this trip, as planned, Mark and I would climb the Darren Mountain from the Knob on the way to Milford Sound, and then camp 3 nights in two different mountain ridge locations. But due to a strong snow storm, the avalanche risk was too high. We then changed our destination to the Ball ridge in Mt Cook. We first stayed one night in Ball Hut just above Tasman Lake terminal, then climbed to Ball ridge, camped 2 nights just a couple hundred meters away from the Caroline Face of Mt Cook summit. During the day up on the ridge, we also climbed a 1936m summit near Caroline Hut.
This has been a wonderful alpine exploration, and I will have some beautiful images to share with people from this trip.
My next photography trip: I have decided to undertake another mountain photography trip in New Zealand in the first two weeks of November 2014. During this trip, we will first do a 3-day backpack to Lake Mackenzie on the way of Routeburn Track near Milford Sound. After completing this backpacking trip, Mark and I then will undertake a 4-day mountain trip to climb Darren Mountain. I am very excited for this coming trip, and currently I am doing hard exercises and indoor rock climbing training for this trip. The Topo map of this mountain traversing is as follows.
Darren Mountain Topo Map
30 October 2014: My photo "Blue Lake", made from my July 2014 New Zealand Southern Alps expedition, has been published on 1x.
Blue LakeBlue Lake is located in St Bathans - a former gold and mining town in the high land of Otago region of South Island, New Zealand. During our recent 17-day winter photography expedition to New Zealand, we only stayed one day in St Bathans. It was a cold morning and we got up before dawn. When the first light appeared, we witnessed a dramatic change of the sky. This image illustrated a magic transition from night to day. It was made from 4 successive shots with 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 14mm end so that I could capture the entire lake and its surrounding mountain features.
10 October 2014: My photo "Tasman Valley", made from my July 2014 New Zealand Southern Alps expedition, has been published on 1x.
23 September 2014: My photo "Golden Bay: When the Tide Receded", made from my January 2014 New Zealand trip, has been published on 1x.
7 September 2014: My pano image "Malte Brun Range", made from my recent New Zealand Southern Alps mountain trip, has been published on 1x.
15 August 2014: My image "Beyond the Plains: Touching the Sky", made from my recent New Zealand Southern Alps mountain trip, has been published on 1X.
27 July 2014: 10 of my landscape photographs have been selected by Instagram's Master Shots. These photos start to be featured on their site from today: the first one is "Great Wall":
18 July 2014: I just completed a 17-day 2014 New Zealand Photography Expedition. During this trip, I climbed Mount Cook Range with my guide Mark. We camped two nights on the mountain ridge. We witnessed the most stunning Milky Way over the mountains, and encountered a very intensified and beautiful sunrise. It was a unforgettable experience, and I have a couple of nice images over the mountains. Please check my Gallery "New Images" for my latest works from this trip.
5 June 2014: My image "Milford Sound Waterfalls" has been published on 1X.
Milford Sound WaterfallsMilford Sound is a fjord in the south west of New Zealand's South Island, within Fiordland National Park. There are hundreds of waterfalls directly from the mountains pouring to the sea.
11 May 2014: My image "Glenorchy on Fire" has been published on 1X.
22 March 2014: My image "Golden Bay: When Night Falls" has been published on 1X.
Golden Bay: When Night FallsGolden Bay is a shallow shaped bay at the northwest end of the South Island of New Zealand.
This photo was taken on the last day during our stay in Collingwood in Golden Bay region. After finishing shooting sunset, the tide was receding while a full moon was rising. Deeply attracted by such a beautiful scene, we stopped to make our shots...
12 February 2014: My image "Great Wall" was selected as the Editor's Choice in 500px.
Great WallIt was an unforgettable night at the West Tower with Five Holes at Jinshanlin Great Wall. Severe thunderstorms and lightning just came suddenly, and the tower was my only shelter during the whole night.
This photo was taken at the night of 4 August 2013 in the tower. As it was raining together with severe thunderstorms and lightnings, I could only take photos through the arches and windows of the tower. Both the foreground and background of the great wall and mountains were greatly lighten up by a series of lightening that made them clearly visible.
This image was a result from blending four shots with the same composition, two for the foreground, background and sky that were lighten up by two separate strong lightnings, and two captured the three major lightnings as showed in the final image.
The West Tower with Five Holes (西五眼楼) was built in 1599 with a masonry structure. It once had an important geographic position in the old time due to its connection of the both east and west sides of Jinshanlin (金山岭)Great Wall.
5 February 2014: My image "Mount Hallelujah", made from the famous Chinese mountains Huangshan (黄山), has received "Highly commended mentions" in the category "mountain Landscape in the 24th Memorial Maria Lusia International Mountain and Nature Photography Competition.
"Mount Hallelujah"Mount Hallelujah created in movie Avatar has its origin from three famous Chinese mountain regions: Huangshan, Zhangjiajie and Guilin. This image was made in one of these three beautiful mountain areas: Huangshan. An unexpected snow storm suddenly arrived in West Sea Valley in the later afternoon on 22 Feb 2013. It was very cold and the storm was so strong especially in such an open location. Everyone left but I decided to stay a bit longer. The storm only lasted 15 minutes. By the end I was glad to be able to make this image under such extreme weather condition.
1 February 2014: My image "Beyond the Plains", made from my recent participation in the Mt Cool Alpine Guides' Mountain Experience Course (MEC), has just been published on 1X. A detailed description of my participation in MEC may be viewed from my blog.
31 January 2014: I am very delightful that image "Li River Sunrsie" has been selected by airlines Garuda Indonesia in-flight magazine "Colours" to be published in the 2014 February Edition.
7 January 2014: My image "Curio Bay Morning", made from my first New Zealand Photography Expedition in 2011, has been published on 1X.
2013
27 December 2013: My image "Cold Mountain: Devils Postpile", made from my recent backpacking trip to Eastern Sierra USA, has been published on 1X.
I am particularly delight with this publication, because making this image, both in the field and in the post-process, were technically challenging.
25 December 2013: Christmas News - I have been notified that my entry photo "Mount Hallelujah" has been selected to the finalist in "Memorial Maria Lusia International Mountain and Nature Photo Contest - 24 Edition 2013". I was requested to submit the RAW file, HD jpg file and photo description of this image for the jury's further assessment. The final result will be released in February 2014.
"Memorial Maria Lusia International Mountain and Nature Photo Contest" is created as a means of remembering mountaineer Maria Luisa Alvarez Alvarez, who lived friendship intensely in the mountains and everywhere, and died in a mountain accident on 18th November 1990.
1 December 2013: My image "Minaret Lake: First Light", made from my recent winter backpacking trip to Eastern Sierra, has been published on 1X.
4 November 2013: My image "Morning Delight at Lake Hawea" has been published on 1X. This image was made during my April 2013 New Zealand Photography Expedition.
8 October 2013: My image "Gate to Heaven" has been published on 1X. This image was made during my first photography trip to Bombo, South Coast of New South Wales on 7 September 2013.
3 October 2013: My panorama image "Roy's Peak", made from my April 2013 New Zealand Photography Expedition, has been published on 1X.
2 October 2013: I am glad to let you know that my blog article "My Passion for Li River" has been translated into Italian language by Cutor - an Italian photography website. My original article was first published on my photography blog site in 2010. The translated article has then been enhanced with my latest Li River images.
28 September 2013: My image "Starry Night at Mount Assiniboine", made from my 2012 Canadian Rockies Photography Expedition, has been published on OneBigPhoto.
25 September 2013: My image "Misty Morning at Great Wall" made from my recent trip to Beijing in August 2013, has been published on 1X.
14 September 2013: My image "Magog Lake" made from my 2012 Canadian Rockies Photography Expedition has been published on 1X.
27 August 2013: My images from Li River have been selected as a showcase on The Photo Argus - A Photography Source Blog. Click here to view this showcase.
8 August 2013: I am glad to announce that my photo "Cathedral Cove", made from my 2013 New Zealand Landscape Photography Expedition, has been selected for Photo of the Day at Photo.Net on 9 August 2013.
Cathedral CoveThis Cathedral Cove is located in Hahei coast, about 2 hours drive from Auckland towards south east direction. Arriving in this place before 4.30am, I looked into the beautiful sky through this magic arch.
It was also a super test of my patience to make this incredible image during the two hours of witnessing such a magic moment.
This photo has been published on 1X.
This photo has also been selected by Photo.Net as Photo of the Day on August 9 2013.
This photo has been selected to the finalist of the 2014 Australian Geographic ANZANG Nature Photographer of the Year.
This photo has won the Curator's Award on 1x in October 2015.