squiver

Well spotted.

Very pretty, really well done. If this were mine, I'd clone out the little branch that is now attached to the lower edge of the frame, and tone down the saturation of the reflecting branches to get rid of the green.

Good timing! I'd remove the out of focus bright spot near the lower left corner.

Nice one. Foreground could be slightly brighter though.

Very pretty. My only concern is the dark line on the horizon - can it be the result of masking? I'd prefer a less harsh transition there. Foreground, light and color are exceptional - well done.

Nice mood!

It's the colors that strike me most about this image - totally unnatural, but very pleasing. Looks like an old post card. Well done.

A fun shot. The pattern and color of both phones match the outfit of the owners. :-) Well spotted.

Good, dynamic composition, and you made sure the boat was not cutting through the horizon. Overall I find the sky a bit too dark - if you look at the brightness of the water near the horizon, the sky looks overfiltered. And the front of the boat seems to fall outside of your depth of field. Other than that, well done.

Ah, tulips - our national flower. This is a very nice specimen. As for the image itself, and I'm going to be brutally honest here, it looks quite random to me. One of the reasons for that is the background which I find rather distracting here - very high contrast and that piece of blue at the ulc is either distracting or there is not enough of it. If this were mine, I would have prefered to have just the black background or just the blue sky - especially with high contrast conditions like here. Second, with multiple shapes that are all the same color and texture, I would either include more of them so that the lack of separation is not an issue, or try to isolate one or a couple of them - the graphic qualities of the shot would be much higher with more separation imho. Finally, I think the shot is cropped/framed a bit tight - both the edges of the flower on the right and the main flower are almost touching the edges of the frame. Hope that makes sense.

PJ - this is not HDR. Just plain oldfashioned masking and local contrast enhancements.

Cappadocia, Turkey, is a region of exceptional natural wonders and aunique historical and cultural heritage. The spectacular volcaniclandscape is entirely sculpted by millions of years of erosion. Windand rain have created a bizarre field of hundreds of conicalformations. Many of these pillars, known as fairy chimneys, containlabyrinths and caves where Christians once hid to avoid persecution.

I visited this area earlier this year in search of new locations forour tours and workshops. I had seen images of the region that lookedvery interesting, but I hadn't imagined it would be so spectacular.

When I took this shot, the weather was not cooperating at all; a dullgrey sky that did nothing for the scene. I decided to just scout thewhole area, find different angles that I could try to shoot later.While I was working, the weather changed. Dark rain clouds started toform that contrasted very nicely with the yellow sand stone. After Iset up for this shot, I just waited to see what would happen. At onepoint, the sky opened up behind me, just enough for the sun to peekthrough and throw some light on the pillars. I usually try to avoidthis kind of perspective distortion, but in this case I thought itworks very well as it emphasizes the height of these fairy chimneys.

If you would like to join me on this landscape photography workshop,please have a look at my website.

Thanks for your comments - much appreciated.

As for the size of my postings; I have had some bad experiences with image theft in the past. Since then, I post my images at this size.

The Cape Cross Reserve on the west coast of Namibia is the home of oneof the largest colonies of Cape Fur Seals (Arctocephaluspusillus), also known as Brown Fur Seals, in the world. About80,000 to 100,000 seals live at Cape Cross - an impressive sight, andsmell.

Brown Fur Seals breed in mid-October. Pups are usually born betweenlate November and early December. The female spends the next severalmonths foraging at sea and nursing her pup, who is weaned at fourmonths old. The Cape Fur Seal's main predator is the Great whiteshark, but for the pups there are two other dangers: jackal and gulls.For the jackal the pups are easy fast food - they just walk into thechaos and grab one of the many pups. The Cape gulls are mostly lookingfor the afterbirth. I've also seen them trying to pick very young pupsto death - not a nice thing to watch.

I took this shot on last year's Namibia workshop, and I since use itto demonstrate that your main subject does not necessarily need to bethe largest element in the frame. Our eyes are drawn to brightelements in dark images and to dark elements in bright images. Eventhough the the seals are much larger and more numerous, your eyes tostraight to the gull - the main subject. Spot metered off the gull.

It's a pity this site does not feature smell-o-vision; you'd be impressed.

Nikon D3, AF-S 600/4.0, 1/2500 @ f/4.0, ISO 400, beanbag

[if you're interested in joining me on one of my workshops, pleasecheck out my website: squiver(dot)com.]

Thanks for your comments.

 

Colton - the image is not as bright as you'd expect, because it was shot before sunrise. This is a realistic representation of how this scene looked at the time. I could easily brighten the shot, but then it would look like a regular daytime shot and lose the early morning atmosphere. Hope that explains my choice to leave it like this. Thanks for your feedback.

This remarkable scene was shot last February on this year's White &Wild Japan workshop. We got up early to see the Japanese craneswake up at their roosting spot, when we suddenly saw something movingin the forest on the left. It turned out to be a red fox, trottingtowards the river, where a couple of cranes had just started theirmorning routine. I've seen foxes going after white tailed eagles onnumerous occasions, and also cranes, so I expected the cranes to makea run/fly for it. But to my astonishment, the cranes didn't move afeather and just continued with their business. The fox didn't seemtoo interested in the birds either - it just needed a drink.

There are many, many fox images around, and it's hard to get somethingtruly original, so we all returned to our ryokan for breakfast withbig smiles on our faces.

The cloudy effect is caused by steam rising from the water - it was -28C.

Nikon D3, AF-S VR 600/4.0, 1.4x TC, 1/125 @ f/8.0, ISO 1600

[if you would like to join me on one of my trips, please have a lookat my website: squiver(dot)com]

In just a few months I'll be off to Kenya again for this year'sMasai Mara Migration tour. Being on the road for the majorityof the year, it's sometimes difficult to find the time to go throughall the images, make selections and process shots. Today I foundmyself looking on the internet for 2TB drives to replace the 1TBdrives that are now installed in my MacPro. But what I should actuallydo, is look at everything that I've shot and throw away the bad stuff.That should free at least 75% of the available disk space and save mea lot of money. :-) So today I finally started to have a closer lookat last year's Kenya shots, and this is one of the images that stood out.

While I usually try to isolate and separate my subjects to get theclean and graphic look I like so much, here I was much more interestedin capturing the incredible mood of the scene in front of me. It waslate afternoon when we stumbled across this small herd of wildebeest(not so difficult, considering we were almost unable to land our planeon the airstrip because there were so many of them). The backlighting,the rimlight, the warm colors, and the dust kicked up by thewildebeest , turned this otherwise mundane scene into tons ofatmosphere. Instead of isolating one or two wildebeest, I thereforedecided to frame it quite wide to show the lovely play of light.

I included a fair amount of empty sky, but in this case I would neverconsider cropping it to a panoramic. Even though there is not an awfullot going on there, the subtle textures imo are essential for theshot. I did try it, also losing a slice from the bottom, but for methe wider approach works best.

Now the interesting thing is that not a single wildebeest is separatedin this shot. Normally, that would be a good reason for me to bin it.I don't mind it here at all, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

[if you would like to join me on any our workshops, please check outmy website.]

Another shot from the Beyond the Great Rivers tour. Probablyone of the biggest differences between Zambia and most other Africansafari destinations, is the Zambezi river - the fourth-longest riverin Africa. The 3,540-kilometre-long river (2,200 mi) has its source inZambia and flows through Angola, along the borders of Namibia,Botswana, Zambia again, and Zimbabwe, to Mozambique, where it emptiesinto the Indian Ocean.

The river supports large populations of many animals. Hippopotamusesare abundant along most of the calm stretches of the river, and manycrocodiles are also present. The riverine woodland also supports manylarge animals, such as buffalo, zebras, giraffes, elephants. Insteadof using a 4x4 to search for animals, you can also use a small boat tofloat along the shore - after all, eventually all animals will comedown to the river to drink. Elephants are one of the few animals thatalso cross the river on a regular basis. Sometimes to just get to theother side, but often to get to one of the many small islands wherethe grass always seems to be greener. These river crossings are a joyto watch and make for great photo ops.

This was shot late afternoon from a small boat close to our camp. Wesaw this herd of elephants approaching the river from the other side,and decided to quickly jump into the boat to check it out. When theelephants reached the middle of the river where the water was veryshallow, they briefly stopped to see what we were up to. The darkpatches in the water behind them are hippos.

I suspect that not many people appreciate this large amount of emptysky, but I know from experience that art directors - I used to be onemyself - and designers do. Within weeks after I shot this, the imagewas used on the back cover of a brochure. The empty sky was used fortype, the main reason that art directors and designers look for thissort of shot in the first place. Apart from commercial reasons toshoot this, I just like the spaciousness it gives.

I'm curious what your thoughts are.

Nikon D3, AF-S VR 70-200/2.8, 1/400, f/11, ISO 400, handheld from aboat

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> If you would like to join me on one of my nature photographyworkshops, please check out my website.

Zambia is one of the last remaining unspoiled safari destinations inAfrica. A scene like this in the Serengeti or in Kruger NP wouldattract a small army of tourists within minutes, battling for the bestspot.

When I took this shot in South Luangwa NP, there were no othervehicles and I had the whole scene to myself for several hours. Asusual, I left the camp long before sunrise enabling me to spend sometime to drive around, searching for something interesting. We soonstumbled across a small family of lions, lying next to a dead tree. Itwas still relatively cool, and as a result the three cubs were veryactive. They were constantly running and jumping on and off the treeand each other - a joy to watch. After a while they became tired andtwo of the cubs sat down. First the one of the left, then the one onthe right joined. Almost a perfect mirror image, I couldn't havewished for a better pose. By positioning the vehicle in a ditch I wasable to get the low perspective.

In just a few months I will run another workshop to this amazingcountry, and I'm looking forward to seeing how much the three cubswill have grown.

Nikon D2X, AF-S 600/4, 1/500 @ f/4, ISO 800

Great shot as usual Marina. Love the placement of the bird and that long curved line at the bottom. Love the copyright too - very clever and subtle.

I'll be leading a photo safari to this incredible place in September - if you're interested in joining me, please check out the Beyond the Great Rivers photo tour on my website: squiver.com

A few months ago I was on a photo assignment in Zambia and stayed atan amazing bush camp. It was located right on the banks of the Zambeziriver, unfenced and in the middle of the wilderness. Contrary to themore well-known safari destinations like Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana andSouth Africa, Zambia is still truly wild - a rough diamond.

During the dry season, this area is full of wildlife as all animalsvisit the river several times a day. As a result, all kinds ofwildlife were constantly walking through our camp, particularlyelephants. They were not only interested in the water, but also in thenutritious pods that fell down from the trees - they just loved them.

One afternoon my wife Daniëlla and the lodge manager had a relaxedchat on the verandah, watching an elephant feeding from a tree in thedistance. It moved from tree to tree and slowly got closer and closerto the camp. Then it just walked to the verandah where they weresitting, and briefly stopped to check them both out. They sat theremotionless without making a sound to not to disturb the animal in anyway, and after a few seconds it moved away again. It was a once in alifetime experience that we will never forget. To get this close to awild elephant - on it's own initiative - is truly amazing.

As I'll be leading a tour to Alaska in a couple of months, I thoughtit would be a good idea to go through the images from the previousvisit and have a second look at the ones I selected then. As always, Inoticed that there are shots that I didn't select back then -apparently I didn't like them - but that I do like very much now. Andthere are shots that I did select, which I don't think are veryinteresting anymore. Fortunately, there were also some shots that werepart of my initial selection that I still like, and this is one ofthem. It's interesting to see how your taste changes over even a veryshort period of time.

Instead of waiting for thatsalmon-leaping-into-the-mouth-of-a-bear-shot, I decided to focus on aspot with the least action; a sleeping bear. By choosing a relativelyslow shutter speed, I was able to blur the water (while retainingsubtle texture) to give a moody feel to the scene and emphasize themotionless state of the bear. I used a polarizer and small aperture toget my shutter speed down.

Nikon D2Xs, AF-S VR 70-200/2.8, 1.4x TC, polarizer, 0.6s @ f/16,ISO 100

This was shot on an assignment in Zambia last year. One of the lodgesthat is featured in our latest book (Wild Romance - Africa's mostromantic safari lodges) asked us if we could return to shoot someadditional material for their new brochures. One of the most importantfeatures of this camp is the fact that they offer guided walkingsafaris. The area is famous for the large herds of elephants, and thecamp owner wanted to have a shot of an elephant standing underneath alarge Winterthorn tree, also typical for this area, with a group oftourists and guide in the background. Obiviously, this is easier saidthan done.

Photographing an elephant is one thing, but to photograph one withpeople in it is quite something else. In order to get the shot, weused two vehicles - one with myself in it and a guide, and one withthe 'actors'. The idea was to have four people in the shot: twotourists, a guide and a security guard. We drove around the area,searching for elephants, preferably standing in good light and eatingfrom a big Winterthorn tree. When we found one, I would take positionand use a radio to direct the other vehicle to the spot where Iwanted the people in the frame. I would then make the compositionwhile the four actors would get out of their car and very slowly andquietly walk into the shot. Obviously, with wild animals it is veryimportant to keep a safe distance - both for the people and for theanimal. By using a long lens I was able to compress the perspective,pulling the animal and the people closer together in the shot.

To get a good shot was not easy to say the least. It takes time tofind a good potential shot and to get into the right position. Oftenby the time everything was set, the elephant was already starting towalk away or decided to turn around for a nice butt-shot. Weeventually got the 'money shot' not far from our camp. A largeelephant was feeding from a large tree and was not in a hurry to move- I gratefully took advantage of that.

Nikon D3, AF-S VR 200-400/4.0, 1/400 @ f/11, beanbag

I will be hosting a photo tour to Zambia later this year. If you'reinterested in joining us, please have a look at my website.

Just returned from this year's Japan workshops. Still have to move allthe images from my laptop to my home computer, so no Japan images topost here yet...

This is the third image from my brown bear series in NationalGeographic (Dutch edition), which was used as the opening shot for thearticle. This young bear cub rocketed up a tree when it heard anotherbear approaching. The obvious choice here was to make a verticalcomposition to emphasize the vertical direction and the height of thetrees, but I preferred to use the different layers of tree trunks incombination with shallow dof.

Nikon D3, AF-S VR 200-400/4.0, 1/250 @ f/4.0, ISO 1600, bean bag