If you have a Netflix account (best with the 4K UHD package) and an interest in photography or just like watching beautifully shot documentaries, I highly recommend the series Tales By Light.
The six-part series (shot in 15 countries over the course of a year), offers us a rare behind the scenes look at photographers doing what they do best, in places and situations that most of us will only be able to dream about shooting in.
Created for the National Geographic channel and produced by Canon Australia (the Canon 1DX and various telephoto lenses are featured heavily throughout), the series follows five (mostly Australian) photographers in their quest to “push the limits of their craft in little-known, little-covered and little-understood corners of the Earth”.
Having been shot in 4K, the imagery is as stunning as you would expect, but they are a couple of scenes that cinematographer Abraham Joffe and his team captured that are simply mind-blowing.
One of them takes place in the first episode (submerged) with photographer Darren Jew who is shooting Humpback Whales off the coast of the Kingdom of Tonga.
The scene shows Darren under the water as a herd of whales swimming out of the depths directly towards the camera like speeding locomotives. It really gives you a sense of the awesome size and power of the animals.
The only downside (and it’s not really) to the series is that it’s easy to blow through all six 20 something minute episodes in one sitting as I did which leaves you craving more.
That being said, I can’t wait for the 3-episode (an hour long this time) second series to be released in the near future!