Nature Photographer of the Year 2011!

The 2011 International Photography Awards have announced the winners of this year's competition, and we are proud to announce that Marsel won 1st Prize in the Nature/Wildlife category for his series "Japanese Macaques", for which he was also awarded the title Nature Photographer of the Year 2011.

And as if that weren't enough, he also won 2nd Price in the People/Culture category for his series "Libya", and he received a total of 7 Honorable Mentions.

As a main category winner, Marsel will compete for IPA's top award of International Photographer of the Year. The finalists will be invited to attend the Lucie Awards at the Lincoln Center, New York, where one photographer will be announced as the grand winner, earning the coveted Lucie Statue and a cash prize of $10,000. Wish us luck!

The annual International Photography Awards is one of the most ambitious and comprehensive competitions in the photography world today. Over 8,000 submissions from 90 countries were received for the 2011 International Photography Awards with over 70 jurors, the largest to date. The Foundation's mission is to honor master photographers, discover new and emerging talent, and promote the appreciation of photography.

All winning images are available as Fine Art Prints. If you'd like to order the whole series, you get one print for free! Email us for pricing.

Want to photograph these amazing animals yourself? Join us next year on the White & Wild Japan workshop to shoot snow monkeys, whooper swans, Steller sea eagles and Japanese cranes in a stunning snow covered winter wonderland. More info and videoclips on our website.

Falling Skies

>Click here to see larger version<

Namibia is like our second home - we've been there countless times and simply love the country. When we went there for the first time, hardly anyone had ever heard of it, let alone seen photographs of the surreal scenery. Now, many years later, it is one of the most popular landscape photography destinations in Africa, there are Namibia pictures all over the internet, and for a large part we have ourselves to blame for it, bringing groups there every year. As a result, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to create something original at this incredible place.

This year I got very lucky when the heavens decided to bring me something entirely different from the blue skies that I've become so used to. What you see here is very dense fog creeping over the dunes, about to fill the valley. The fog lasted for over an hour even after sunrise, and it was the most magical hour I have ever spent there.

D3s, AF-S 14-24/2.8, 1/13 @ f/8, ISO 200, focus blend

Bear shots in The Daily Mail

Two of Marsel's brown bear images from Katmai National Park, Alaska, are now featured in UK newspaper The Daily Mail. You can read the full article here.

This year's bear adventure is already fully booked, but if you'd like to join us next year, please check out the Ultimate Bears photo tour page on our website.

Oh no, not again!

Japanese macaques (macaca fuscata), also known as snow monkeys, like to bathe in the warm water of the natural hot springs. With outside temperatures below freezing and a constant water temperature of 42°C, who can blame them?

These photogenic animals have become used to humans wanting to photograph them, so they are not shy and stay very relaxed in human presence. This little one however seemed to think 'Oh no, not again!' when one of the participants on our Japan workshop tried to take a photograph.

>Click here to see larger version<

What I like about this scene, is the almost human-like expression, and the fact that the camera lens makes the young macaque look even smaller than it already is.

Nikon D3s, AF-S 70-200/2.8 VR II, 1/1000 @ f/5.6, ISO 400

If you would like to join us on the 2012 Japan tour, please have a look at the White & Wild Japan photo tour page on our website for dates, prices, images and video clips.