Going to extremes

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Image List:

• Image 1: Ian Parker has traveled the world with his camera. “I like to capture images in the wild and share them with other people,” he says.
• Image 2: "One of the things that makes a better photograph is simplicity," Parker says. "If you can distill a photograph down to its essence, it can be very striking."
• Image 3: "Sometimes taking photographs is a bit calculating. You have to plan in advance when you want a particular shadow or effect, such as when the sun is setting at a certain angle."
• Image 4: "I try to capture the spirit, the emotion of a place."
• Image 5: "Most of my photographs are done just before sunrise or just after sunset, often when there's barely any light. It's when most people don't take them, but it's when you get the most beautiful pictures."
• Image 6: "The camera is more sensitive to light than your eyes. When it's almost dark, you can make a nice picture with a long exposure."
• Image 7: "I like to photograph UCI in unusual weather conditions. When it's a wonderful misty morning, I'll grab my camera and see what I can get."
• Image 8: "Waves don't even look like waves with a long exposure. You create something different from what you see with the eyes."
• Image 9: "A magical time is just after sunset. Things get dark, but there's still a lot of color in the sky."
• Image 10: "When photographing a building, I try to find the balance between artificial and natural light. That way the glow from the building will show up against the sky."
• Image 11: "I like going out after it rains. There's a bit of sheen, and you might get some nice puddles that you can shoot from unusual angles."
• Image 12: "Most people shoot at eye level, but I tend to get down on the ground a lot. For this shot, I opened the aperture to get a narrow depth of field and obscure the background details."
• Image 13: "I like seeing things under conditions where people ordinarily don't see them."
• Image 14: "This looks like a lake in Joshua Tree, but it's actually just a puddle. If you change the perspective, you can create a different photograph."
• Image 15: In this photo by Melanie Matheu, Ian Parker struggles through mile 130 of the Badwater Ultramarathon in 2006: "There's an inner drive, and I don't know where it comes from."