Happy Holidays!

Publication in the international version of National Geographic in January 2009

We are extremely proud to announce that one of Marsel's favorite images from Zambia was chosen by National Geographic to feature as a double page spread in the January 2009 edition of the magazine. While working on a photo book in Zambia, we visited the famous Victoria Falls and Marsel was desperate to try and find a way to take an original picture of this over-photographed icon.

When local people told us that an elephant had been spotted in the vicinity of the falls, we were determined to get a shot with both the elephant and the falls. After several visits our perseverance finally paid off: the only picture in the world with an elephant standing at the edge of Victoria Falls! Limited Edition Fine Art Prints of this spectacular image are now available on request.

New video added for the Extreme Leopards Photo Trip

We've added a new video to our website with an extensive impression of our Extreme Leopards Photo Trip in South Africa. It is a Big-5 safari, during which you will spend many hours photographing leopards in the wild. It is the best South Africa has to offer!

Chris Gray shoots Top 10 winner during Squiver photo trip

The North American Nature Photographers Association (NANPA) has announced that Chris Gray has won a Top 10 place in this years competition. There were over 4,300 entries. Chris joined us on our Namibia Untamed photo trip last May during which he made the winning shot.

Chris says: "In the spring of 2008, I was on a photographic expedition in Namibia. One of our stops was an area with the most unusual natural rock formations. During the daytime it offers spectacular photographic opportunities of quivertrees and dolerites (gigantic magma formations about 180 million years old). At night it is spell-binding, it is almost like it puts a trace on you as you are transported to another place and time. The darkness was filled with millions of brightly shining stars and several other celestial bodies, including a couple of man-made satellites. The sounds of nature in the surrounding area dramatically added to the sense of awe I was feeling. I knew I had to try and capture this visual experience."
Besides this Top 10 shot, Canada-based Chris also shot a Top 100 NANPA winner on this same trip to Namibia. Both images will appear in NANPA Expressions 2009 that will be released in January 2009 and on the NANPA website. You can see more of his pictures on his own website: www.photogray.ca

Marsel's image in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington

Marsel's image of a Namaqua chameleon catching a beetle is currently displayed at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, USA.

The Smithsonian is the world's preeminent museum dedicated to inspiring curiosity, discovery, and learning about the naturaly world through its unparalleled research, collections and exhibitions. Marsel's image is part of the exhibition of the Nature's Best Photography Awards - one of the most prestigious nature photography competitions in the world - and was chosen from more than 17,000 entries! The exhibition lasts until May 3, 2009.

Entries for Photo Trip to Japan closing in two weeks time!

As we need to make the final arrangements for Japan, entries are closing 1st of October 2008. Please make your bookings for this trip before that date. We have managed to lower the price of this trip to 4250 EURO (approx. 6045 USD*) for two full weeks travelling in Japan and we will take you to the most spectacular places imaginable. We will focus on photographing Japanese macaques (snow monkeys), red-crowned cranes, Steller's sea eagles, white-tailed eagles and whooper swans.

But you also get to experience the ancient Japanese culture in Tokyo and find yourself in simply beautiful landscapes in Hokkaido, the most northern island of Japan.
If you would like to see what lies in store for you, please visit our website for photos and videos on the White & Wild Photo Trip page. Or download our PDF with detailed info: www.squiver.com/Japan.pdf

Winner International Photography Awards

International Photography Awards (IPA) announced the winners of this year's IPA Photographer of the Year awards, and we are extremely proud to announce that Marsel was awarded 1st Prize for his calendar "Africa".
Marsel also received 9 Honorable Mentions for images he shot in Japan, Namibia, South-Africa, Zambia and Alaska.


IPA is the world's most prestigious photography contest and Marsel's winning entry was picked from over 22,000 submissions from 124 countries across the globe. The winning images will be exhibited at the Farmani Gallery in Los Angeles. They will then travel to eight other countries.

Large format calendar on Africa

A selection of Marsel's Africa images have been used for a high quality art series calendar. The 2009 calendar features 12 of his shots at an impressive size: 27" x 23" (69 x 59 cm). Currently the calendar is only available in German-speaking countries, but we're looking into the possibility to sell them through our website.

Successful at the Travel Photographer of the Year Awards

This week the results of the Travel Photographer of the Year Awards were announced, and we were thrilled to hear that Marsel has been succesful in this competition as well. His African elephants series was awarded a Second Place in the portfolio category, his image of an oxcart and baobab trees from Madagascar was Highly Commended, and his popular chameleon image was given a Special Mention in the Best Single Image in a Portfolio category. The winning images can be seen on www.tpoty.com and will be displayed at the Travel Photographer of the Year exhibition at Focus on Imaging, Europe’s largest imaging show, in February 2009.

Interview in Digital SLR Photography Magazine

Digital SLR Photography Magazine featured a lengthy 14-page interview with Marsel in their July issue.


He talks about how he got into photography, the influence of his advertising career on his work, his personal style, the rise of digital photography and his photo equipment. The interview also features a selection of 15 full color images. You can download the interview here.

Photographing leopards

New Squiver Photo Trip, July/August 2009 - We are proud to present an amazing new Photo Trip, focusing on photographing the most beautiful of the African Big Cats: the leopard. The leopard is notoriously difficult to find, and the chance that you will encounter one in good light, and long enough to take some good shots during a gamedrive in one of the many parks Africa has to offer, is usually slim to none. That is why we will take you to Sabi Sands, the best place in the world to see and photograph this prestigious animal in the wild. This area has the highest leopard-density in the world and our specialized guides and trackers know exactly how and where to find them.


The first week we have our own private camp: six luxury suites, each with a private viewing deck overlooking the riverbed, indoor and outdoor showers and air-conditioning. Thatched roofs, mosquito nets draped over the comfortable beds and beautiful wooden finishes complete the picture of an exclusive safari getaway. The last three nights of safari are spend in luxury rooms at the main camp of MalaMala, a private reserve in Sabi Sands, renowned for the excellent leopard viewing. 99% of guests spending 2 nights there experience more than one leopard sighting a day! And although our focus will be on leopards, we are in Big Five area and may encounter lion, rhino, buffalo and elephant as well. This is South Africa at its very best!

All gamedrives are done "Squiver-style", which means that you will have your own row of seats in order to move around freely in the car and to have an uninterrupted view on your subject, regardless of it being on the right or left side of the vehicle. This 12-day trip gives you 10 full days of gameviewing with 20 gamedrives in one of the finest wildlife areas of the world!

Join us next year on this new Photo Trip!
You can access the Extreme Leopard webpage via the general Photo Trips page on the Squiver website.

New photo trip: Spain Wildlife Workshop

New Photo Trip, October 2009 - If you want to improve your wildlife photography and camera skills, this exciting workshop in beautiful Spain is just the thing you're looking for! We will take you to the largest zoological park in the world, where we’ll be able to photograph more than a hundred different animal species from the five continents.

The animals live in semi-wild conditions in large open areas made up of unusual limestone rock formations produced by erosion. Rusting iron minerals have painted the rocks in a wide variety of colours. This gives us the opportunity to photograph the animals with unique natural backgrounds. Expect in-the-field instructions, daily image reviews and watch your images improve during the course of this week.

Visit our website for more information about this trip, to see some pictures and an extensive video of what lies in store for you.

Book in July and get a €400 discount on your trip to Japan!

We have just added a PDF to our website with a more detailed description of the trip and information about what lies in store for you if you join us to the magical White & Wild Japan photo trip. Please visit the Japan Photo Trip page or download the PDF here: www.squiver.com/Japan.pdf


On the Photo Trip page of Japan you can find a description of the tour and links to:
- an image gallery
- several stunning videos (snow monkeys, whooper swans and cranes & eagles)
- a PDF with tour information
- a booking form
Go to www.squiver.com to have a look.

The early-bird discount of €400 for the Photo Trip in Japan is only valid for another three weeks, so make your booking now!

Wild Brown Bears in Finland

Report of a Squiver Photo Trip - In June we took an group of photo enthusiasts to Finland, to photograph wild brown bears in their beautiful natural habitat, and it was a big success. New hides had been added to the existing ones, which meant we could not only photograph the bears in a gorgeous forest setting, but also in a swamp and near a small lake with stunning reflections in the water. The weather was good, with lots of sunshine, so we could photograph far into the night (the sun does not fully set in Finland around this time of year). But the best of all: we had on average 8 bears per night in front of our cameras! That gave everyone plenty of opportunities to shoot a lot and improve their shots each day, which really showed in the daily image reviews. What made it extra special was that we saw three different mothers with 2 or 3 tiny cubs each, only a few months old. At some point we even got them as close as 3 meters from our hide! They are the cutest things you can get in front of your lens, and some of us even wanted to take one home.


Please visit the Wild Brown Bears Photo Trip page, where you can download a PDF with detailed information, have a look at the image gallery, see a video and read what our participants had to say about this trip. The first bookings for 2009 are already in, so don't hesitate and reserve yourself a seat for this growling photo tour in Finland!

Namibia video added and program adjusted

Last May we visited Namibia with a group of 10 people, and we enjoyed every second of it. Daniëlla made a spectacular video impression of this trip and added it to the general videos of Namibia. Please have a look at the Tour Impression video and read what our participants had to say about this exciting trip on the Namiba Untamed webpage.


This year Etosha was bookable as an extension to the 14-day roundtrip in Namibia. Etosha was a big success and we saw a lot of wildlife. That is why we decided to make the Namibia Untamed Photo Trip even more diverse and we added a flight to Etosha to the program. This enables everyone to have a full day of gameviewing in Etosha National Park, on top of the spectacular landscape Namibia is famous for and the seals that were already in the program. The 2009 Namiba Untamed Photo Trip will start on 23 May 2009 and is now open for bookings.

Book Japan in June or July!

We have recently set up our Photo Trip to Japan. All early-bird bookings in June and July will be rewarded with a €400 discount! Make sure you reserve yourself a seat on this fascinating trip and get acquainted with the abundant wildlife and winter wonderland of Japan.



This roundtrip will take you from Tokyo to the most northern island of Japan (Hokkaido) to photograph Japanes Cranes, Whooper Swans, Steller's Sea Eagles and White-Tailed Eagles, against a background of jaw-dropping winter landscapes. And we will end our trip with a visit to the famous Snow Monkeys. We have just added an extensive Image Gallery and new videos to the Japan Photo Trip page. Make sure you book in June or July in order to receive €400 discount on this Photo Trip!

Namibia Untamed: Report on a Squiver Photo Trip

We have just returned from Namibia and it was absolutely amazing!



Together with our 10 guests we fully enjoyed everything this spectaculary beautiful country has to offer and everyone improved their photographic skills through the workshops and numerous image critiques.



We visited the quivertree forest, watched the sun rise and set over the most peculiar rock formations, walked around a ghostly and sand overblown old diamond mining town, climbed the red sand dunes of Sossusvlei and Deadvlei and photographed them from a microlight, visited (and smelled!) the largest seal colony in Africa, climbed rocks at Spitzkoppe and Erongo, and topped it all off with a visit to Etosha. Namibia is like nothing else on this planet and a truely magical place when it comes to andscapes and wildlife.



Do you want to know what our participants thought of this trip?
Visit the Namibia Untamed Photo Trip page and read their comments! It's an experience they highly recommend and one we would love to share with you next year!

Walking with bears in Alaska

Bears are amongst the largest and most powerful predators in the world, which makes photographing them in the wild an exciting and unforgettable experience. August 2009 we will take a small group of people with us to Alaska to watch and photograph wild brown bears running and fishing in rivers and on the tidal flats along the coast of Katmai NP. If you like big teeth, fur, claws and great scenery, keep an eye out on our website and the next newsletter for more information!

White & Wild Japan

New Squiver Photo Trip, February 2009 - In January we visited Japan and were amazed by its stunning scenery and abundant wildlife. An experience we would love to share with you next year! We started in Tokyo where we spent some time exploring the city and then travelled to the north of Honshu, the main island, where we visited the famous and extremely photogenic snow monkeys. A troop of Japanese macaques live here permanently, and during the cold winter days they spend most of their time bathing in one of the natural hot springs - quite an amazing sight. The combination of snow, steam rising from the hot springs and monkeys bathing and interacting makes for perfect wildlife photography opportunities, but it's just as wonderful to simply watch them swimming, playing and fighting. Maybe it's the calming effect of the warm water, but the monkeys are very relaxed so you can get very close for powerful close-ups or dynamic wide angle shots of these remarkable creatures.


After that we flew to Hokkaido, the most northern island of Japan, famous for its red-crowned cranes. They were once close to extinction, but fortunately their numbers have gone up over the last decades. With an estimated 1500 cranes living on Hokkaido they are however still the rarest of all cranes and high on the IUCN Red List of endangered wildlife. The cranes are very beautiful and elegant birds and it is great to watch their graceful dances. Several times we saw big white-tailed eagles fight with the cranes over fish, a real spectacle! After the cranes we travelled to the north coast where we found a great place to take a boat and search for Steller's sea eagles. They use the pack-ice that comes floating towards Hokkaido from Kamchatka (Russia) as their mobile fishing spot. They are the heaviest of all eagles and with a wing span of up to 250cm (8,2 ft) an impressive sight. Our last stop was a visit to the whooper swans, swimming in a few open sections of a frozen lake, with dramatic snow-covered mountains in the background. Warm water from nearby hot springs mixes with the icy cold water, causing steam which adds even more to the fairytale-like scenery. The perfect place to take stunning photographs of these birds in their otherworldly habitat.

Join us next year on a new Photo Trip to Japan!
On the White & Wild Japan web page you can see some examples of shots Marsel made as well as a few video clips of the locations we will visit on this exciting trip. Truly wild places with beautiful scenery, where you will get close to the animals and where you will experience Japanese traditions, customs and their refined cuisine. Visit the Photo Trip page for more information and to reserve a place on this incredible trip. For more info please have a look at the Photo Trips page.

Leopards, leopards and leopards...

Of the African Big Cats, the leopard is not only one of the prettiest, it is also the most elusive one and notoriously difficult to photograph. We are currently putting together a new and exciting Photo Trip primarily focusing on this magnificent animal. For this purpose we have selected a region with the highest leopard density in South Africa. Specialized guides will accompany us on 10 full days of safari during this trip in July 2009. Encounters with these beautiful creatures are 100% guaranteed, but expect to also see lion, elephant, rhino and buffalo to name a few! More information on this trip will be featured in our next newsletter and on our website.

In May we're off to Namibia

Squiver Photo Trips: Namibia Untamed & Etosha Safari - In just a few weeks we'll be taking an international group of enthusiastic people with us on a roundtrip through Namibia. We're really looking forward to return to this hauntingly beautiful country, and especially to the spectacular microlight flights over Sossusvlei - a unique experience no one else offers in Namibia. Keep an eye out for the pictures and stories on our website! It's a trip you might want to consider for next year, because Namibia is simply stunningly beautiful! There are still two openings left for May 2008, so if you want to have a great time with a bunch of like-minded photo enthusiasts and return with tons of jaw-dropping images, you'd better hurry!

Chinese pandas and siberian tigers

At this moment Marsel is in China to photograph pandas and siberian tigers. As soon as he returns we will try to find some time to update the galleries and add some of the amazing shots he took over the past months. If you like to be on our mailing list for image updates and new photo trips, please let us know.

Japan in wintertime

For three weeks we've been traveling in Japan to photograph Japanese cranes, steller sea eagles, white tailed eagles, whooper swans and snow monkeys. We enjoyed it so much, that we have set up a Photo Trip to Japan! Wintertime is an absolutely magical time to visit this wonderful country. Take a look at some photos and videoclips on our website.

Madagascar image in National Geographic

"Visions of Earth", March issue 2009 - For the second time this year, National Geographic has chosen one of Marsel's images to show the astonishing beauty of our planet in Visons of Earth. The award-winning image of an oxcart surrounded by giant baobab trees, was shot in Madagascar and is now featured as a double page spread in the March issue of the magazine.


We visited this location several times in order to get the perfect conditions, and luckily our patience paid off. The 80-foot-tall "upside-down trees" could become the island country's first national monument and we hope that this image will help to make that happen.
Limited Edition fine art prints of this spectacular image are now available through the shop on our website.

Winner 2007 National Geographic/PDN World In Focus Travel Photography contest!

We are proud announce that one of the images Marsel took at Madagascar was chosen as a winner in the 2007 National Geographic/PDN World In Focus travel photography contest.