Photographer Nick Coburn Phillips

What a stunning plant by architectural design! The Giant Chilean Rhubarb plant or Gunnera... The textures and shapes are what first attracted me to this giant herbaceous perennial... Thinking about how I wanted to depict the capture, the smoothness of the stem, but the spikey-ness of the stem and the cabbage like texture of the leaves underneath... I chose to add rather than remove texture, by keeping grain. A higher ISO allowed for this - and I worked on the boundary of a higher setting to improve on capture of natural light... Knowing that I would have to work in post - I made minute adjustments in monochrome. Now I'm wondering what it would look like without the grain!

Everyone has their own perspective on what makes "really good art"... It's our prerogative to say, that that piece or that print is good art. With a glass of white wine in hand or quite possibly champagne, we stroll around galleries and art opening nights under the illusion that most often we know what art is... Quite frankly, many who shoot on *terrestrial grounds*, *above water*, have little idea what marine art is all about..! How can they..? They have never gone through the ordeal of 'relying on a device to provide them with air under pressure' to provide them 'with oxygen', or 'work through the skills' necessary to be *'able to survive'* for periods of time underwater... this is an art in itself... Many, strolling ar...

Two Grypocoris beetles use their piercing mouthparts called a 'labium' - to suck and feed off the sap of wild campion blossom.

All damselflies enjoy spending their time on the wing and on the support structure of grasses. Think twice before picking up the strimmer or mower... Do you really need to make that cut..? Is it not possible to avoid the chop altogether or to at least minimise the severity of the cut...? Or maybe you could leave a patch of wilderness within your space so that wildlife can coexist in your area?

In the UK, there is one species everybody knows the Queen protects: the mute swan (Cygnus olor). ... An annual count of these swans takes place every summer and is known as Swan Upping. The census highlights trends in the birds' health that are reflected across the country... but did you know that HRH protections don't just stop there..? As times have changed, certain royal representatives have become increasingly committed to conserving natural wonders... Recently the Duke of Cambridge launched an ambitious partnership between some of the world's leading conservation organisations... here's the link to more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/24623773

Being Welsh, I thought very hard about the Aberglaslyn gorge and the significance of the name "Aberglaslyn"... I doubt there is correlation, but aber is estuary, and glas is blue and llyn, with a double L is lake... so blue lake estuary... I pondered on the walk with this in mind... and whilst taking some shots, I thought that I'd capitalise on this blue thought, by looking for an area of rich contrast and high energy with a hint of azure blue... Later, working in post, I heavily vignetted the image and worked on the colour contrast, to enhance and enrich the wonderfully lush natural water colours!

A little fox sits out by the shore ~ keeping an eye on potential prey or food items... Reworked art image of a local fox down by the seashore...

A soft thistle head in full bloom provides a nice pillow head for a large bumble bee to nestle its head... warm and fuzzy feelings immersed in pollen heaven..!

The moderate walk up Cwm Bychan up Nantmor revealed a wonderfully varied day and terrain with heavy billowing clouds, promising, yet not delivering rain! With surprisingly good conditions, I composed a few panoramics and this shot. I exposed for the land, leaving the shadows produced by the clouds as shadows and thought how wonderful the depth was in such an image... I adjusted for texture in post and picked up one or two areas for balance.

Art certainly is subjective. For me, creating this image was certainly challenging... Standing on the side of a cliff, with 32 miles per hour winds blowing in and it trying to snow, with a temperature of a feels like minus two! Still, the visibility was excellent and the setting superb! I set up my camera to work as much as possible in camera and worked as little as possible on this in post. The correct exposure allowed for lifting some of the colours of the rocks and some of the highlights in the water, but I steered clear from over-lifting the shadows in the pillar. I used 13 stops of ND filter along with a circular polariser and something like 20 seconds of exposure... Must have taken a roll of film equivalent in exposures and...

An image that I struggled to work with in post to improve upon and so I have left it completely as was taken from camera... Something seldom done these days! I think this is Hydrothassa marginella species ~ but I could say for sure... Found this so delicate and pretty.

A young hawksbill turtle sits patiently watching me from below whilst I take time to compose the shot. He was quite happy to have his photo taken for conservation measures...

A 'fire coral' profuse with dancing 'anthias' with divers diving deep walls of the Sudanese waters sets an 'Ocean Vista'

A pod of Indo-Pacific Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops species) cruise along with us under the boat, riding the pressure wave and playing in the surf. These dolphins have outstanding vision in and out of the water. In the water, their eyes are protected from the sea water by mucus secreted from glands at the outer corner of the eye. Their ears, small and hard to detect, are located just behind the eyes and have no flaps or lobes. The dolphin's swimming power comes from its caudal fluke, which moves up and down instead of side-to-side like fish. The dorsal fin provides stabilization and may also regulate body heat ~ a dolphin's body heat is very close to human body temperature and also it is now realised that the Dolphin and Human genome are...

Never has the time been 'so emotionally strong' as now ~ to be an 'ocean lover'... to love the sea, to love oceans... Show a little bit of your 'ocean love' with some 60's flower power lovin' Proceeds support ongoing marine conservation and awareness... A "Fabien Cousteau Loves Oceans Special"

Welcome to the real estate of the scuba puffins..! We've just launched our NEW trademark "Just Add Scuba" ~ so here's the first of quite a few designs in mind for Ocean advocates and Wildlife lovers...! Hope you like it!??? :P

A healthy population of Moorish Idols ~ hurriedly swim by the reef. The moorish idol got its name from the Moors of Africa, who purportedly believe(d) the fish to be a bringer of happiness. Most people like the Ocean ~ divers 'love' the Ocean! Underwater photographers and videographers besides loving the Ocean ~ they 'Idolise the Ocean' inspired by nature and often in awe of the sheer variety of colour and diversity of the wildlife they study and capture under the lens! For many ~ this in itself ~ is happiness! :-)

Quite a long exposure using a ten stop filter and working in post to pull out the texture and shape and form within the rocks. The cloud cover was dispersed and thin, yet movement in the wind provided for a smouldery smokey texture above the trees as the water cascades gently from height. I added a slight vignette to lead the eye. Shot using full frame Sony A7 and Pentax 35mm f/3.5 glass along with a 10 stop neutral density filter when light conditions were just right!

Often the process of photography is a more laboured effect than one might imagine... In this case, after working on a normal exposure and getting the image just so in camera, once returning to the computer to analyse and scrutinise... clarity and texture in the seas and cliffs, just wasn't quite right. So I worked in post using a painted effect to tease out the texture in the seas and sky and cliffs. I imagine this will look best on a canvas and as such I will aim for such...

The beautiful mother-of-pearl inlaid doors built in 1756 by order of King Boromakot of Ayutthaya - Wat Phra Sri Rattana Mahathat. Northern Thailand. Image adjusted to get the "best" out of this shot! :-)

Some form of nomad bee sifts through the pollen of a white flowered herbaceous plant... without either we would be up the orinoco. Pentax K3 with dedicated Macro lens

Took this using full frame technology and a medium focal length 70's vintage lens. Looking in post production, I knew that I'd prefer this image in black and white, in bold monochrome, to create the dramatic look of the often foreboding Snowdon Massif... where such weather formations, often catch people out...

If it weren't for the detail in the flow of this image ~ I wouldn't have posted. Using a long exposure 10 stop and timed just nicely I made this image... I had already got a meter reading and adjusted my white balance according to the weather... Working in post I adjusted the exposure in the water using a radial blur and made minor adjustments in texture and clarity, then finished off by dialling down any distractions...

As I walked up the river, I found a place of convergence, convergence of forest canopy with the flow of the river... I wanted to better capture this and illustrate using a longer exposure - to "strengthen the feeling of movement and flow of the river" I used a neutral density filter to slow down my shutter speed and worked in post to accentuate the capture.

Initially I was drawn to this capture due to the wonderfully bright lush green colour of the sycamore tree delicately illuminated from above by the sun and I positioned the camera so that the slight arch of the tree followed that of the large stone outcrop covered with a good covering of moss... the rest, for me was - just a bonus! The larger tree - to the left, adorned with lush green ivy and even holly beneath and the delicate fronds of fern - just added to the setting... I decided on a long exposure - to pick up the detail in the water and add a dimension of flow to the capture...

I ventured down to Church Island (Ynys Tsilio). There was a bitingly cold wind but the evening light was subtle and the tide was just right ~ not too high and not too low... I set up tripod on the rocks and got a shutter metering from my camera... I then added a new filter another ten stop which gave me around 6 seconds via a remote shutter - to create this image... It seemed rather flat, but a good quality of light. After some thought, I decided to work on this in post using Lightroom, to add depth and texture to this iconic landscape and engineered setting... that is "Menai Bridge".

As a photographer, this appealed because of the light and quality of light landing on the subject... I didn't need to venture too far, just up the river... where I was going to take a landscape shot of the bridge... but found this tree in the way... so I figured... I'll just take an image of the tree instead ~ because of the light... Working in post I teased out the texture using texture and clarity and tried to best emulate the lighting conditions captured by the camera.

A shot to death composition in the lagoons of Llanberis... Thought I'd try something a little different and decided to combine a long exposure with movement and some company for the so called "lonely tree" ~ although I'm not quite sure its lonely, rather more "lone-less" as it doesn't seem to get much peace as an area anymore... due to holiday makers and it becoming some kind of photographers mecca for a shot..! I sat things out and kinda expected some company within the shot on such a lovely and busy day... Many paddleboarders and canoeists and young ones playing in the shallows. I waited for the shot and a junior came to sit and play in the shallows under the tree. She didn't hang around long, just long enough to create this do...

Branching out almost like a tree ~ this stunning backdrop of Gorgonian fan coral adds shelter from the drifting currents. Blue damsels dance amidst courting pairs of bluestriped sabretooth blennies and green 'moon' wrasse.

Iridescence is a brilliant thing! Not only brilliant in colour but also by design... As often I do, I just happened to stumble upon this capture whilst on a wild local walk... I was drawn to the light falling upon this geranium and just noticed a hoverfly sucking upon its nectar... The beautiful brilliance and iridescence seemed to shine through its wings with ochres of red, blue and gold... Shooting in natural light - so as not to lose its colour I stopped down as much as I could so as to lose the background but not overly as to lose the light... The surroundings were dappled light so it didn't take much to lower and lose the surroundings and I tidied up in post to bring out the best in this image... I often wonder whether some insec...

As the winds picked up they whipped across the water, the clouds slowly gathered across the sky, as the boats sat safely docked in the marina... Marina moods...

As the moorings move on the tide the RV Prince Madog sits berthed against its slipway as the early morning skies start to trickle through its light - slowly piercing through the dense cloud, that has been omnipresent just recently. A long exposure lightens the sky and adds a serene flow to the setting...

Ynys Gorad Goch or "Red Weir Island" dates from 1590 and was traditionally a weir which acts as a fishing trap and one of the fishermen's cottages on the island was a smokehouse. In the 19th Century, a bell by the Anglesey shore summoned a boat to carry visitors across to enjoy a 'Gored Whitebait Tea' which comprised a pot of tea, brown bread and butter and whitebait ‘fried in a basket’, priced one shilling... Shame it doesn't exist today!

A thick legged flower beetle has the time of his life covered in pollen and whilst the parks left uncut ~ high on grass!

For quite some time now, I have been trying for a clean capture of the Welsh flags flapping in the wind, illuminated by a background of a setting sun. Finally, this summer, after much trying... I managed to get what I was looking for...

Wasps blossom from the abundance of blossom during the summer which attracts other insects feeding on the pollen of various species of flowers. The legs of the insect that this voracious predator has just consumed can just be seen within its mandibles. Without insects such as predatory wasps and other carnivorous insects - we would be swarmed by plagues of 'biting insects' such as mosquitoes... So the next time you think to swot and kill a wasp - think twice, because insects like these - just like all insects, serve an essential purpose in life... and have a role to play - in balancing our global ecosystem.