Sigma UK — Love at First Light Article

I won a Sigma lens as the prize for a Sigma UK competition, and later collaborated with Sigma UK on the article described below. All words, opinions and photographs are my own.

You can read the article here: Love at First Light by Christopher Harrison

Bluebells at Sunrise — early morning sunbeams cut through this beautiful beechwood in the Chilterns AONB, Oxfordshire. Bluebells carpet the woodland floor, and warm light illuminates the scene. A truly magical springtime capture.

The way that I began speaking with Sigma UK was when I entered and subsequently won the Sigma UK Art Photographer of the Year 'Our Planet' category.

I entered the competition with one of my favourite woodland captures — 'Bluebells at Sunrise', which to my surprise took a category win against stiff competition. The prize was a Sigma lens of choice, which I had great trouble in selecting.

I'd like to thank the Sigma UK team not only for running the competition, but also those who helped judge it — including none other than Joe Cornish, the renowned British landscape photographer, who said the following very kind words about my photograph:

"Tackling highly popular subjects is a special challenge due to the myriad of comparable images already in existence. But amongst beechwood and bluebells photographs this one stands out due to the immediacy of its beautiful lighting, the subtlety of the processing, and the precision of framing (the zoom lens will have helped here). I particularly love the slender fallen branch, a precisely-observed darker note in a scene that might have otherwise been too sweet."

I already own two Sigma Art lenses for my Sony a7R IV, the trusty powerhouse that is the Sigma 24-70mm DG DN Art and the wider 14-24mm — both of which have wide f/2.8 apertures. This gives a huge range of potential for my usual landscape photography endeavours. From astrophotography at 14mm at f/2.8 to 70mm, my needs were covered.

I ended up speaking to the Head of Marketing at Sigma UK to get some advice, where we spoke at length about photography and the potential lenses on offer. Thanks to this conversation, I landed on the Sigma 70-200mm Sport lens. This would complete the "holy trinity" of lenses, giving me 14mm all the way through to 200mm at a constant wide aperture of f/2.8. The lens soon arrived and I was simply blown away with its performance and sharpness, and I have loved using it ever since.

Following this series of events, I kept in touch with Sigma UK, and met them at the London Photography Show, where we discussed potentially working together on something such as an article. I had great pleasure in writing the piece, which really just focussed on the joy of being in nature and seeing landscapes in different weather conditions and times of year. Having your camera in hand, simply 'being there' at opportune moments.

I really hope you take the time to enjoy the article — you can read it here: Love at First Light by Christopher Harrison