Andy Mumford (Portugal)
Andy Mumford is a Lisbon based landscape, travel and fine art photographer. Andy also teaches photography through one-to-one workshops and is the author of Photographing Burma. In addition to this he shoots a handful of weddings each year, and has worked with clients from all over the world.
Andy grew up in the UK loving nature and travel, but a love of photography developed much later when he realized he wanted to take better pictures of the places he saw rather than just snapshot records. He bought his first digital camera in 2006 and was immediately fascinated both by the art and the technique of making images. Now, whenever he travels he hopes to capture the feel and spirit of the places and the people who inhabit them. Andy is inspired by visiting new countries and cultures, from the people to the food, the landscapes to the buzz of the cities, and when he’s not out traveling or taking pictures, he can be found at home with his wife planning the “next trip”.
When I first started with photography I couldn’t wait to buy my first DSLR. After that I stepped up to a full frame DSLR, convinced it was the only way to take professional images, and spent years carrying heavy camera bodies and lenses in my backpack, hiking with them up the sides of mountains or pushing them into the overhead luggage compartment of planes. Then a couple of years ago someone turned up at a workshop with a small Fuji camera and I thought “Hmm, cute camera” but didn’t have an opportunity to spend any time with it. Then more and more people started to bring them to workshops, and not only that, but they generally raved about how much they loved using Fuji cameras, and how they had changed the way they thought about photography!
I had to investigate and so spent some time shooting with a friend’s X-T1. I immediately loved the form and controls, it’s such a beautiful camera and its tactile controls make it a pleasure to use. But almost immediately I realized that it went a lot deeper than that; the EVF for example was far superior to the optical viewfinder on my old DSLRs. And then there are the image files. The JPEGS look stunning right out of the camera, and the RAW files are exceptional! There’s so much latitude in the highlights and shadows and so much detail from the wonderful Fujinon lenses that within a couple of days of first picking one up I was convinced this was the way to go. I sold my DSLR gear almost immediately and jumped right in at the deep end by taking two Fuji cameras, a X-T1 and X-T10, to Indonesia for a month. They performed in every way. From autofocus that nailed portraits, to detail and dynamic range in the files that is superb for landscapes. They were small, light and easy to carry, discrete for taking portraits, and beyond all that, they were just a joy to use.
I’m looking forward to using them more and more, and seeing where this new relationship takes my photography.
