I love having the privilege to see this magnificent world through the eyes of incredibly talented photographers. One of the photographers I admire the most is Joel Santos. He is a new-school digital photographer like myself, but his talents go far beyond his short 4 years of shooting. He creates some of the most stunning images I have ever seen.

I have learned a lot about him through the DPReview Forums, where he has been a frequent member. Naturally, when he post his resulting images, each bursting with color and oozing of style and serenity, he is questioned on his post-processing techniques. “You must be doing an HDR in this one.” or “I bet he jacked up the contrast and saturation on that one.” are common to read in forum threads about his images. In fact, Joel seems to be very adament that he capture the image almost entirely from behind the camera. His PP techniques only include those aspects that in most digital cameras are done automatically… slight tone curve adjustments and a small amount of sharpening. It doesn’t take but a short time viewing his images to see that this master of light must be a very patient soul, combining great usage of polarizing and graduated neutral density filters. The payoff is something we all get to enjoy.. his wonderous images.

Also through the forums, I’ve learned a lot about Joel himself. You would think that someone with the ability to capture light like he can would fill from an ego much bigger than the talent. But in Joel’s case, he is a warm and generous person, involved in photography because of his simple pleasure in sharing photographs.

He calls Portugal his home, and many of his images seem to have an out-worldly feel to them. I have always assumed my stunned perception of his vision had to do with the fact that I’ve never been to Portugal. But recently, he added a series of pictures he captured on a trip to Scotland, where I spent half my childhood. Being able to see a place that are so familiar to me, but from his eye, make them even more surreal and beautiful.

I highly recommend checking out more of Joel Santos’ work. He continues to blow my mind with his abilities, and his attitudes are inspiring to say the least.