Dec

28

2019

Madagascar

Makro / Nature / People / Photo tour / Travel / Wildlife  Posted by / 2 comments

AN ISLAND FULL OF SURPRISES 

Usually all it takes is one photo. I see it, and my mind is made up, I want to go there. Madagascar has been on my mind for a while, and as I was told to go there rather sooner than later, well there’s no better time than right now. So we went on a photo tour with Oryx Photography, with  photographer Dale Morris and our Malagasy guide Nono Tianamalala. Between them these two guys made just about anything possible, and this trip one of my best photo holidays ever.

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Jun

28

2019

PATAGONIA, a photo tour with Hougaard Malan, continued

Landscape / Nature / People / Photo tour  Posted by / 0 comments

Part 2: Chile

PARQUE NACIONAL TORRES DEL PAINE

Mon 22: to Chile and Torres del Paine

It is a long and boring drive, the first 2,5 hrs so we simply sleep. We do a coffee stop at Estancia La Leona, the coffee is not too bad, and Jürg treats himself to a gigantic piece of lemon meringue pie, it is about 20cm high, no kidding ! Best of all, it really is good !

On the road again

This thing is huge, but look how happy he is !

From there 1,5 hours to Esperanza for more coffee and super good empanadas, freshly made and still warm. This sounds like a gourmet trip right ?

Another 2,5 hours gets us into Chile and to our hotel, the Hosteria Pehoe, probably the most scenic lodgings  in the whole park. It is located on a little island 100m off the shore of Lake Pehoe, and you can only reach it by a foot bridge. Drag along your own bags please, and do pray the bridge holds.

Pray the bridge holds our weight

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May

30

2019

PATAGONIA, a photo tour with Hougaard Malan

Landscape / Nature / Photo tour / Travel  Posted by / 1 comments

Part 1: Argentina

Parque Nacional los Glaciares

This National Park was created in 1938 and declared a World Heritage Site in 1981. Its 726’900 hectares host 356 glaciers that cover a total ice surface of 2’600 km2. The beauty of lakes and mountains  combine with spectacular glaciers to shape a divine landscape. A photographers paradise you might say. So lets go see.

Hougaard Malan is the best landscape photographer I know. I’ve travelled with quite a few photographers, and each and every one taught me something, but from Hougaard I learnt most. So when he asked us if we wanted to come to Patagonia for 2 weeks in April, and gave us just about 2 days to think it over, it took us 2 minutes to say: yes please !

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Feb

09

2019

White turf for beginners

Misc  Posted by / 0 comments

The horse races at St. Moritz

We don’t have a clue about horses, don’t ride them and don’t know a thing about them, just that they look gorgeous when racing by at full speed. I’ve wanted to come here to photograph them for years, and finally we made it. Bad luck: the weather is lousy, it is cold and snowing heavily and visibility is bad, no or little light, but that won’t spoil our fun.

White Turf, the races at the mondain winter ski resort of St.Moritz. The only place I’ve heard of, where horses race on snow on a frozen lake. These races have been held here for ages, always the first 3 Sundays in February, this year is the 112th issue ! To get there take the bus Nr.1 from your hotel to St.Moritz Bahnhof and walk across the road, or come by car and park in one of the assigned (free) parking lots, just follow the signs. Walk to the race area and pay the entrance fee: CHF 85 for a premium numbered seat on the stands with of course the best view of the finish line. CHF 45 if you like to sit and have a good overview, free choice of where you sit, or CHF 25 for standing but then you can literally go anywhere around the outside of the track. Which seemed a better option for us to photograph.

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Feb

07

2019

THE PELICAN WHISPERER

Nature / Travel / Wildlife  Posted by / 1 comments

The Dalmatian Pelicans of Kerkini

I love wildlife photography, but I really don’t do birds.

Well, maybe there’s one exception… if they are extremely colorful, very big, or come in huge numbers. One day, I saw just one picture of a strange animal with orange around the eyes, and a sort of wild and hairy hairstyle… Shit, it’s a bird. A pelican. I just had to go and photograph one.

A photo like this really got me going

So I did some research. These are Dalmatian pelicans, they are the rarest of the world’s 7 pelican species, and they are BIG ! The second biggest bird species on the planet : 1.2m tall, weight 6-10kg and a wingspread of up to 3.2m. And lucky me, they are not so far away ! About 10% of the mating pairs are found in northeastern Greece, close to the Bulgarian border, on a lake called Kerkini. The name Vasilis  kept showing up in the reviews I read, so I decided we needed him too. A few months later, when everybody else was getting ready for the skiing season, we boarded a plane to Thessaloniki, Greece. 

To photograph birds…

But very cool and very big birds !

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