Join us on our Tigers & Leopards safari with a huge discount!

Due to a cancellation we have one space to fill on our 8-18 June Tigers & Leopards tour, and time is running out. This is your chance to join the most productive tiger and leopard photography tour on this planet at a bargain price!

If you're not interested yourself, even though that seems highly unlikely, please share this message with people who you think might be. For more information, visit www.squiver.com. 

Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2013

We are very proud to announce that Marsel's image 'Resurrection' was successful in the Creative Vision category of the 2013 Wildlife Photographer Of The Year Awards! It was shot in Deadvlei, Namibia, and here's how it all got started:

One of the many aspects of my preparations for my photography, is to find out what images of my subject are already out there. This usually gives me a good idea of ​​what is possible, what to expect, and what has already been shot by other photographers - so I don't run the risk that I photograph the exact same thing, in the exact same way. Especially this last point is essential for me from an artistic perspective - there is no creativity in copying the photos of others. And also from a commercial point of view it is important to create original work - not a single publisher is interested in more of the same.

On my first visit to Namibia many years ago, it was not very difficult to create original images. Most people had never heard of Namibia, let alone that they had seen any pictures of it. The photographs that I shot of the surreal landscapes were mostly viewed with disbelief. "That must have been Photoshopped" was a frequently heard comment. Most of the pictures that I showed were original, because the subject was, at that time, original.

Immediately after my first visit I decided to start with night photography in Namibia because at that time no one else did it, and because the dry desert air and the lack of light pollution are perfect for it. Those pictures became very popular, and night photography has since been an integral part of our annual Namibia Untamed workshop - Milky Way shots, static stars and star trails. The result was of course that more and more photographers visited Namibia, more night photographs of Namibia were shot, and after a few years the novelty wore off. It was time for something new.

I had seen pictures of Deadvlei in fog, and I came up with the idea to try to combine fog and night photography in one shot. Easier said than done, because fog only appears four or five times a year in this desert area.

My idea was as follows: fog looks at its best when shot against the light, for example around sunrise. A fog picture that I shot in Madagascar, and that was published in National Geographic, was based on that very principle. But when it's dark there is no backlight, so I had to create the light itself. Using a very powerful flashlight I wanted to light one of the trees in Deadvlei from behind so that the branches would create shadow beams in the diffused light. I selected the perfect tree, the one with the most dense and upward pointing branches, and chose the best the composition for the shot. On every Namibia workshop I brought my big flashlight and kept a close eye on the weather forecast, waiting for that one chance. But whenever I was there, the fog was not. Until that one magic day in June last year.

The weather forecasts indicated that there was a chance of fog, so we decided to visit Deadvlei earlier than usual. In total darkness Daniella and I walked across the dunes towards Deadvlei, and when we got to the top of the last dune, I saw that this was the moment I had been waiting for for years. We quickly ran to The Chosen One and I set up my tripod as fast as I could - there was no way of knowing how long the fog was going to stay and I didn't want to miss this opportunity.

It was still dark, so focusing and framing was difficult. Daniella hid behind the main tree and set the flashlight to the highest output so that I could get my focus and composition. I then took a test shot to make sure everything was sharp and that the composition worked.

For the final image I had very little time - shooting too early would mean the trees in the background would not be visible, and waiting too long would mean it would be too bright to see the effect of the flashlight. I therefore decided to start shooting continuously as soon as I could see the trees in the background, and I constantly asked Daniella to try different output levels on the flashlight based on the results I saw on the camera.

It was a very special moment to see the end result on my LCD screen - the picture that had only existed in my head for so long, had finally turned into reality.

Nikon D4, AF-S 24-70mm/2.8, 15 sec @ f8, ISO 400, Surefire UB3T Invictus flashlight

If you would like to join us on our next Namibia Untamed workshop and learn more about night photography and composition, please check out our website for more information.

Hope to see you there!

Glacier Lights

The sun has a heartbeat - every eleven years or so it beats. This is known as the solar cycle and is measured by the number of sunspots visible on the sun. The more sunspots, the more solar flare energy is being released into space, which means more aurora activity. Luckily, this solar cycle is predictable.

After a couple of years of deep solar minimum, sunspot activity started to increase again around 2010, and "Solar Max" was predicted for 2013-2014.

Spring is aurora season. For reasons not fully understood by scientists, the weeks around the vernal equinox are prone to Northern Lights, which is why we run our Iceland tours in March.

The aurora predictions for this particular night were not that good - level 3. That's usually not enough to make everyone run outside, but we knew that on a clear night and with a bit of patience, you can get good results. Last year we already scouted many places for possible aurora shoots, so when we decided to give it a try with our group, we knew exactly where to go. We had selected a spot on top of a small hill to get a view of a massive glacier and mountains on all sides.

Already when we were hiking up in the dark, we could see the aurora appearing ahead of us. We all set up our gear and had two full hours of good activity.

If you would like to join us on next year's Iceland tour and learn more about landscape photography and composition, please check out the photo tours page on our website or download the brochure (PDF).

Cover Shot

Photography Masterclass Magazine is a magazine designed exclusively for the iPad Newsstand, and their latest issue features my popular giraffe image on the cover, as well as two other images in the Capture Wildlife Masterclass.

The giraffe image was shot on our Wildlife Boot Camp in Spain. This year's workshop is fully booked, but there are still openings for 2014.

Last Minute Offer Zambia 2013

Due to a cancellation we now have 2 openings on the Beyond The Great Rivers tour to Zambia.

Book now and get a 500 Euro last minute discount!

More information on this amazing safari here.

Daniella (left) and the lodge manager trying not to wet themselves.

National Geographic Blogger

National Geographic (Dutch edition) has asked me to write blogs on photography and my travels for their website. The first one was posted today.

Snowmobile

An important quality of a wildlife photographer is the ability to predict animal behavior. That means that you should not only look at your subject, but that you have to observe and analyze. If you don't do that, then every time you will be surprised by the actions of the animal and you will be too late to make a good photograph.

Young Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata), also known as snow monkeys, cling the first four weeks after birth onto the belly of their mother, and after that period they crawl on her back to move over larger distances. This period lasts about a year. In order to capture this behavior you must primarily watch the mother, especially her interaction with other macaques in the troop. Macaques have a complex social structure and hierarchy, and virtually all movements of an individual macaque are the direct result of those of more senior or dominant counterparts. This hierarchy is often maintained by force, which is why mothers with children like to keep a little aloof from the rest of the gang. If there is a disturbance elsewhere or a more senior macaque is approaching, it is often a reason for the mother to go somewhere else with her child on her back.

This photo I made at the end of a long shoot on our White & Wild Japan tour. It was cold and I was ready to call it a day. And so were the macaques, because they slowly began retreating to the mountains. This mother with child decided to walk down again when a little higher up on the mountainside a few macaques started fighting. Looking at the tracks in the snow, I could predict where they would probably go and I was able to get into a good position. I used a flash for some extra light.

Nikon D4, AF-S 70-200/2.8 VR II, 1/320 @ f / 8, ISO 800, SB-910 flash

If you're interested in joining us on this trip to photograph snow monkeys, Japanese cranes, Steller's sea eagles and whooper swans, please check out our website for more information.

Our 2014 tour filled up really fast, so we set up a second one.

Hope to see you there!

Marsel

Last Minute Offer Tigers & Leopards 2013

Three of the four Tigers & Leopards tours are fully booked, but we still have two spaces on the trip from 27 July to 6 August.

We want to fill those last two seats, so we offer a last minute discount of 500 EURO if you make your reservation now!

If you're interested, and of course you are, then please check out the Tigers & Leopards tour page on our website, watch the tour impression video clip, or download the PDF.

This is a unique trip that will get you the best opportunities to photograph tigers and leopards in the world.

Hope to see you there!

Miss Zambia

I've been on safaris in all African safari countries, and Zambia is easily one of my favorites. It's not as crowded as the Masai Mara, the Serengeti or Kruger, not as expensive as the Okavango, you can drive off road, you're not limited to opening or closing times of the parks, you can get out of your vehicle, and there's lots of water. During the hot dry season that's where all the animals will be so and that's where most of the activity will be.

Zambia is not your typical safari destination. It is not as open as the Masai Mara or the Serengeti for instance, where you can spot the animals from miles away - you have to work harder for your shots. To me, that's what makes it so much more fun and rewarding. Especially because the scenery in Zambia is so spectacular with giant winterthorn trees dwarfing even the elephants, and the famous Zambezi river with highest hippo density in the world. The Zambezi is an animal magnet in the dry season, and where all the animals go, that's where the predators are as well.

Leopards are my favorite big cats - they're just stunning. When we're in our bush camp in Zambia, I always plan a few leopard drives, where we specifically search for leopards. So far we have always been successful, just like last year. We left our camp very early in the morning to drive to this specific area where we had seen a leopard earlier in the hope to spot her again in good photography conditions. Well, we couldn't have been more lucky.

Miss Zambia, seducing us with her fiery eyes

There she was, Miss Zambia, the prettiest leopard in the country, walking along the tree line. She was very relaxed with our presence, walked towards a termite mount, climbed up and lay herself down in the most elegant of poses. I asked our guide to reposition our vehicle to get the beautiful side lighting, and after that it was just a matter of clicking away. Bad photographs were simply impossible. We train our leopards well! ;-)

When the sun got higher and the light harsher, she got up and walked away. Our cue to slowly drive back to camp and have breakfast.

If you would like to join us on this spectacular trip and learn more about photography and composition, please check out our website for more information, dates and prices. There is currently a discount of 500 euro per person on the last two seats of the Zambia tour in September.

Back From Iceland

We're back from Iceland - it was awesome. We ran two tours in this amazing country, and they couldn't have been more different.

On the first tour we got everything from Iceland's famous weather menu: cloudy skies, rain, wind, lots of wind, ice, snow, wind chill factors of minus comfortable, blizzards and white-outs. And when I say blizzards and white-outs, I'm not exaggerating - we actually got stuck for two days at Jökulsárlón, the famous black beach with the stranded chunks of ice. Not a bad place at all to spend some extra time, but it really messed up our plans and as a result we didn't make it to the North. But at least we were lucky to still be able to drive to the beach for photography - the roads around Reykjavik for instance were all impassable.

Check out this short video of me walking on the beach of Jökulsárlón - this is not how you usually see it in the pictures:

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I don't usually walk this slow, but I tried to prevent my face from getting peeled off

The brutal conditions here were not all bad though. Sure, it was not as comfortable as we would have liked, but the scenery was stunning and completely different than usual. As a result, the images that we were able to shoot there were also quite different. Regarding photography I often say: bad weather is good weather, and that certainly was the case here.

On the second tour the weather was completely different - more sun, more snow and ice, more clear skies and much colder temperatures. The obvious benefit of clear skies is that you can actually see the aurora when it's happening. I had already seen many northern lights images shot in Iceland, and I noticed that the vast majority of them were taken at the same spots. So when the aurora predictions were good, I decided to take our group to a special location that would give us truly original northern lights images.

We left late in the evening in our super jeep to visit a remote crash site with an old plane. We brought some extra lights to light the plane from both the inside and the outside, and then we just waited for the magic to happen. And when it did, it was this perfect curved line that followed the contours of the plane. I love it when a plan comes together! :-)

The cold wind that night was brutal, but with a sight like this in front of you, you really don't mind. After a couple of hours we all returned to our guest house with a big smile on our face and with some of the most original aurora shots ever taken in Iceland.

Unusual conditions, unusual lighting and an unusual location make for unusual pictures

Clear nights means it gets colder, which means you can search for ice caves. When temperatures are above freezing, exploring an ice cave is not a good idea - unless you're into cryonics. We found several nice caves and to walk and crawl inside them is a truly magical experience. Glaciers are always moving, so it's important to be well prepared. We used an experienced local guide, helmets and ropes to guarantee our safety. And that was necessary, because in one of the caves we wanted to descend to a lower level that was only accessible with the use of ropes.

Daniella is standing somewhere halfway inside the cave. 
 I climbed down to get to the far end and take this shot.

After our glacier and ice cave adventure, we spent a few days among the ice chunks at Jökulsárlón and then got on our chartered plane to fly us north. As usual, there was a lot more snow there than in the south. So much actually, that the road to Dettifoss, one of the most impressive waterfalls in Iceland, was impassable. But we don't let nature tell us what to do, so meet the Squiver Monsterrari:

The Squiver Hummer-crusher. Be afraid, be very afraid.

With two of these mammoth-sized vehicles we drove all the way to Dettifoss, at times completely ignoring the road because it wasn't visible anyway. I still haven't processed any of the pictures we shot there, but believe me when I say it was spectacular. More later!

If you would like to join us on our next Squiver photo tour in March 2014, please check out the tour PDF and price on our website.

Ice Capades is Photo of the Month

Marsel's Iceland picture 'Ice Capades' is Image of the Month on Naturescapes.

Here's the background info that accompanies the shot:

'Early this year I was travelling in Iceland, scouting for locations for a new tour. I was prepared to see a lot of spectacular landscapes, people had even warned me that I would get hooked, but it still greatly exceeded my expectations. As a result I didn't cover a lot of distance each day - too much to see and photograph! And as a result of that, I stayed much longer than anticipated - which was not too bad by the way.

This was taken at sunrise. I had set my alarm clock very early to check out the weather, and it didn't look very promising - completely overcast. The weather in Iceland changes quickly though, so I decided to give it a try anyway. When I arrived at the beach the clouds already started to move away and the sky opened up a little. Enough for some light and color to come through. Moments like this can disappear quickly, so I had to move fast. I shot three exposures to capture all the brightness levels and later merged them in PS.'

From our new Iceland Winter Wilderness Tour

If you would like to join us on this year's Iceland Winter Wilderness tour, please check out our website for more information, images, a tour impression video clip and a detailed PDF. One of the tours is already sold out, but we have a few openings for the other one. If you're interested - don't wait too long!

First Prize in NPN Awards

Just when we thought that 2012 has been such a successful year in terms of awards and recognition, the new year already starts with yet another award. :-) Marsel's photograph At The Gates has won First Prize in the Nature Photographers Network Awards. NPN is the internet's top-ranked nature photography site where nature photographers from around the world share their images. It's a real honour to have been chosen as a category winner amidst so many excellent photographers.

Double Arch, double exposure. Daniella did the posing and the light painting.

Here's the story that accompanied the shot when I first put it online:

'Of all the National Parks that I have ever visited in the US, Arches NP is without a doubt the most iconic one. Millions of photographs have been shot here, and to come up with something different is not easy. That does not mean one shouldn't try though, and I personally greatly enjoy thinking of new possibilities to photograph iconic subjects.

Double Arch is one of them. When you're standing below this imposing marvel of nature, it's hard to not be impressed by the size and the beauty of this amazing structure. From my research for my visit to Arches, I learned that 99.9% of all the images of this arch are more or less taken from the same viewpoint. I'm sure one of the reasons for this is that you need some distance to get the whole thing to fit inside your frame - standing inside the arch is not going to work. Unless of course you have a 14mm on a full frame camera. But even then it was tough to find a position where I could get all the openings and the lines at the right places - it only worked with a vertical composition. I was fine with that, because the vast majority of images taken of this arch are all horizontals.

I also decided to photograph the arch at night and to bring out the details and colors by using a flashlight. The advantage of doing this also meant that there would be stars, and stars are nice. I wanted to include part of the Milky Way, which meant that I had only a very short window of time to take the shot. These decisions were all very important in order to create something original, but the most important one for me was to include a human figure. It brings the shot to life and it acts as a vital scale element. The fact that most landscape photographers don't like humans in their pictures is always a nice bonus when you're trying to create something original.

This was shot three years ago as a double exposure - one for the sky with my lovely assistant, one for the light painting. We tried to shoot it again with our group on this year's Arches Under The Stars workshop, but the weather gods did not want to cooperate. They gave use snow the next day though, so that made up for that.'

Double Light

A couple of weeks ago I posted an image here of Turret Arch shot through North Window, and I included Daniella to add some scale to the shot and to make it slightly different from the kazillion other images that have been shot at this location.

But I knew that it would take a lot more to create something truly different, so I gave it some serious thought and made a plan. I decided to shoot at night, hope for snow, and use a combination of moonlight and flashlight as I had never seen that before. I thought: night shot + moonlight + stars + snow + flashlight = not very likely to have been shot before :-)

There was only a very small window (sorry) of time to do this, because I wanted a low moon and it needed to rise at a certain angle or else there would be large shadows of the rocks behind me creeping into the shot. The inside of the arch was lit by Daniella during part of the exposure with a Surefire Invictus, the flashlight of the gods.

New Tour In South Africa: Tigers & Leopards

Earlier this year I was on assignment for National Geographic Traveler in India to shoot for an article on tiger safaris. I was there for a week and visited both Bandhavgarh and Ranthambore, their most famous tiger parks. It turned out to be a very frustrating experience - only on our very last game drive did we see a tiger. One tiger. After sunset. On the road. Hardly the ideal conditions for a good photograph.

Tigers are indigenous to Asia and there are many companies that offer photo tours to India, where they visit the same two parks which are supposed to be the best. But chances of you actually seeing a tiger are small, and seeing one in good photography conditions are even smaller. Unfortunately, chances of seeing a tiger in the wild are diminishing further every year, as tiger conservation on the Asian continent does not seem to be very successful. Numbers are decreasing rapidly and necessary measures, like properly fencing the national parks, are not taken.

This has always been the main reason we have never organized a tiger photography tour before - you simply can't promise good tiger sightings in those parks if you only have limited time. Another reason is that the famous tiger parks are heavily overcrowded with tourists and vehicles, and that you have to be extremely lucky to be in a good position for photography when you arrive at a sighting. Been there, done that.

And the fact that I saw just one tiger during that whole week does make one wonder how many tigers are actually still left in the national parks. Once the tiger is lost to the parks, so is the tourist potential and so too is the vital income needed to save the tiger from poachers. It’s a downward spiral.

But even though my first tiger encounter was short and far from ideal, I was impressed with this incredibly pretty cat and I was determined to get better pictures.


Tigers in South Africa?

This year we met John Varty, also known as JV. A man who has been wild about big cats most of his life. He came up with a highly controversial plan to do something about tiger conservation. His idea was to create a free-ranging, self-sustaining tiger population outside Asia. In South Africa, to be precise.

This tour impression video was shot & edited by Daniëlla

Because of his vast knowledge of wildlife conservation and his success with leopards in Londolozi, JV was invited to visit India and he offered his advise on how to improve the living conditions of the tiger. When it became clear to JV that nothing was going to change in the way tiger conservation was handled in India, he decided to take matters into his own hands.

In 2000 JV came up with the idea to buy huge stretches of farmland in South Africa and start a new game reserve - one where tigers could roam in the wild, hunting on their own, living free while protected by a huge fence; to keep the tigers in and the poachers out.

In the beginning he was criticized by conservationists, who questioned the value of what he was doing, but he hung on and continued to work with his two original tigers that came from a zoo in the USA. Two additional captive bred tigers were added to the mix and were rehabilitated to the wild, and soon the first litters were born.

In December 2010 there were already 16 tigers in the sanctuary, and it is currently the most successful tiger conservation project in the world when it comes to rapidly increasing numbers of tigers.

Meanwhile, things are changing and the world has caught up a bit with JV’s wild thinking and his “Just do it” approach. Recent news that all the tigers have disappeared from Panna, one of India’s leading reserves, when just 2 years ago there was still a healthy population of 24, has somewhat vindicated Varty’s big idea. Maybe he was not so crazy after all.

We visited JV earlier this year, spent a few days with the tigers, and we were very impressed. The tiger sanctuary is huge, the tigers have loads of space, they can hunt for themselves, and they are well protected from the outside world by a state of the art fence. We had so many good photo opportunities with the tigers, that we were instantly convinced that this is the place to go if you want good tiger images. So we decided to organize a tour to this remarkable place.

The sanctuary offers us a unique view into the life of the tiger. As the tigers are used to vehicles, we will be able to see them up close in the African landscape, allowing us to make stunning pictures of these beautiful big cats. And there will be no other tourists, just our group.

You are virtually guaranteed to see tigers on every drive. There are lots of open areas and we are allowed to drive off-road (landscape permitting) to follow a tiger when we find one. The landscape is beautiful and very diverse. There are open plains, hills, rocks, reeds, small streams and ponds. This offers us the opportunity to photograph tigers in all kinds of surroundings and situations: walking, hunting, playing, relaxing, sun bathing, jumping and swimming.


The Leopards Of Sabi Sand

The Sabi Sand Game Reserve is a collection of private game reserves that share unfenced borders with each other and Kruger NP. This allows the free movement of wildlife over more than 2 million hectares of pristine bush.

We stay at Londolozi, one of the most exclusive lodges in the park. You will experience exceptional cuisine and the very best game viewing with some of Africa’s finest rangers and trackers.

But the main reason for choosing Londolozi for our leopard tour is because of the photographic opportunities it has to offer: if you want to get good images of leopards, it just does not get any better than this! We have 2 private vehicles for our group, where you will each have your own row of seats. This allows you to move freely from side to side in the car, with ample room for your gear, and without being bothered by someone sitting next to you, blocking your view.

With over 16,000 hectares of traversing wilderness, no two game drives are ever the same. Trackers sit up at the front of the Land Rover looking for fresh animal tracks, while rangers drive with great skill through ravines and thickets in pursuit of elusive animals. Although the focus of this trip is on leopards, we are a Big Five area, so you may expect to encounter lion, rhino, buffalo and elephant as well.

Breeding herds of elephant and buffalo roam throughout the Londolozi area, while white rhino and lion concentrations are amongst the highest recorded on the African continent. However, it is the truly remarkable relationship between wild free ranging leopards and ranger & trackers which has developed over three decades that has made Londolozi world famous.

There is no disputing that viewing the leopards of Londolozi is one of life’s truly treasured experiences. And it is exactly the reason that we chose this amazing camp to photograph leopards. It is simply the best!

The tour includes daily briefings, in the field instructions, image reviews, and post processing tips.

If you want to join us on this spectacular tour, don't wait too long because the trips are filling fast! We have several departure dates in June and July 2013, but there is limited space available per tour, as we travel in very small groups of just 6 guests.

Check out the Tigers & Leopards Photo Tour page for more information and a detailed PDF.

Hope to see you there!

Marsel

Back from Zambia

Just returned from Zambia for this year's Beyond The Great Rivers tour - it was awesome. Great group, great sightings (leopards!) and great scenery.

We've been on safaris in most African safari countries, and Zambia is easily one of our favorites. It's not as crowded as the Masai Mara, the Serengeti or Kruger, not as expensive as the Okavango, you can drive off road, you're not limited to opening or closing times of the parks, you can get out of your vehicle, and there's lots of water. During the hot dry season that's where all the animals will be so that's where most of the activity will be.

We used small boats to photograph the wildlife on the shore (elephants, crocs, buffalo, etc.) and in the water. One of my favorite animals in and around the Zambezi is the hippo. They're big, dangerous, often shy, and very photogenic - that is, when they're not submerged :-)

I haven't had time to select or process any images from this year's trip yet, so here's one from last year. Shot while sitting on the bottom of a small boat to get the low angle. We banked the boat at a safe distance from a pod of hippos, an hour or so before sunset.

The key to success when photographing hippos, is patience. The moment you stop near a pod they usually submerge and only show themselves every now and then to take a deep breath. After a while however, they get used to your presence and get more relaxed. Hippos are very territorial and can be ill-tempered - a dangerous mix. They can be aggressive towards people, but also towards other hippos. And when hippos have an argument, there's always a lot of noise and splashing involved.

This hippo had a brief conflict with one of its neighbors, which resulted in a series of intimidating big head and teeth displays. This shot is basically the end of that little quarrel, and I liked the profile, the expression and the soft directional light.

If you would like to join us on our next Zambia workshop, please check out our website for more information, pictures and tour impression video clips.

Hope to see you there!

Marsel

Awesome video footage from our Ultimate Bears photo tour

We have some awesome footage to share with you, shot by Daryl Godkin, one of our participants on this year's Squiver photo tour to Alaska. We are happy to tell you that both Daryl and the GoPro survived this close encounter :-) You can view the video on my Facebook page or by clicking the image below. Want to join us next year? You can find more information about our bear photo tour on our website.

Eye to Eye

Icons. Most people love them, many landscape photographers hate them, and both groups for the same reason: because they're icons.

Arches NP in Utah is full of icons, and most of them have been photographed to death by millions of people who were all equally excited when they were standing right next to one of them. Especially the ones close to the parking of course ;-)

I like photographing these iconic places, because they're usually worth seeing with your own eyes, and because they provide a challenge to any serious photographer: how on earth am I going to create something different here? I've been to many places that few people have ever visited before, and to shoot something original in those places is very easy - just point your camera in any direction, and you're done. Well, maybe not like that, but you know what I mean. When you're standing in a spot from where many thousands, or even millions of photographs have been taken before you, it makes you think a little more about what you're going to do.

Before my first visit to Arches I had seen many pictures of Turret Arch shot through North Window, and never had I noticed that North Window was actually this big. It wasn't until I walked towards this giant opening and noticed it's position relative to Turret Arch that I realized that I had been completely wrong. It's a way more impressive scene than the photographs I had seen ever suggested.

The first thing I therefore did was to add a human element (who else?) to the shot to give a sense of scale to the image. It's still the same icon that's been shot to death, but the combination of the human element and the snow in the background make it just a little more different from the rest, which was all I was after.

I also shot another version of this scene without the person and with very different lighting conditions that I will post later.

If you would like to join us on our next Utah workshop, please check out our website for more information, pictures and tour impression video clips.

Marsel

Serenity In White

This was shot on our last White & Wild Japan tour.

On this trip we visit the main island Honshu to photograph the snow monkeys, and we visit the Northern island Hokkaido to photograph Japan's spectacular birdlife; white-tailed eagles, Steller's sea eagles, the endangered Japanese cranes, and whooper swans. These swans can also be photographed outside of Japan, but nowhere do you get to shoot them with such stunning scenery and backdrops as on Hokkaido. We visit this great lake that freezes over in winter, except for a few parts close to shore where warm water from natural hot springs runs into the lake. Obviously, the swans like to swim there, and as the rest of the lake is frozen, there are many swans in a few relatively small areas - perfect for photographers.

On this particular morning the conditions were very good - a crystal clear sky with a good view of the mountains in the background, fog, some soft sunlight, and a lot of swan activity. We got flocks flying low over our heads, fly-by's, landings, take-offs, wing flapping and dancing.

What I like about this shot are the different activities all in one image; sitting, sleeping, flying, landing and calling (the one on the far right in the distance). It's a shame there's no sound with this picture, because that can be pretty impressive.

If you would like to join us on our next White & Wild Japan workshop, please check out the White & Wild Japan page on our website for more information, pictures and tour impression video clips.

Marsel

At The Gates

Of all the National Parks that I have ever visited in the US, Arches NP is without a doubt the most iconic one. Millions of photographs have been shot here, and to come up with something different is not easy. That does not mean one shouldn't try though, and I personally greatly enjoy thinking of new possibilities to photograph iconic subjects.

Double Arch is one of them. When you're standing below this imposing marvel of nature, it's hard not to be impressed by the size and the beauty of this amazing structure. From my research before my visit to Arches, I learned that 99.9% of all the images of this arch are more or less taken from the same viewpoint. I'm sure one of the reasons for this is that you need some distance to get the whole thing to fit inside your frame - standing inside the arch is not going to work. Unless of course you have a 14mm on a full frame camera. :-) But even then it was tough to find a position where I could get all the openings and the lines at the right places - it only worked with a vertical composition. And I was perfectly fine with that, because the vast majority of images taken of this arch are all horizontals.

I also decided to photograph the arch at night and to bring out the details and colors by using a flashlight. The advantage of doing this also meant that there would be stars, and stars are nice. I wanted to include part of the Milky Way, which meant that I had only a very short window of time to take the shot. These decisions were all very important in order to create something original, but the most important one for me was to include a human figure. As always, Daniella was so kind to risk her life by climbing into the arch Her presence really brings the shot to life and it acts as a vital scale element. The fact that most landscape photographers don't like humans in their pictures is always a nice bonus when you're trying to create something original. :-)

This was shot three years ago as a double exposure - one for the sky with my lovely assistant, one for the light painting. We tried to shoot it again with our group on this year's Arches Under The Stars workshop, but the weather gods did not want to cooperate. They gave use snow the next day though, so that made up for that.

If you would like to join us on our next Arches Under The Stars workshop, have a look on our website for more information.

Marsel

New Iceland photo tour now online!

As most of you will know, we have traveled in Iceland extensively last month to set up a new photo tour there. It was a truly spectacular experience and we're excited that we can now officially introduce the Iceland Winter Wilderness Tour 2013.

We already got so many enthusiastic reactions on the iPhone shots that Daniella posted on her Facebook page when we were still in Iceland, and on the awesome video impression she made soon after, that the first tour was already fully booked before it even officially existed. Which is why we set up a second tour that will start a few days after the first one:

Iceland Winter Wilderness: 14-23 March 2013

Here's the introduction text from the Iceland photo tour page on our website:

Iceland is a country of boiling mud pools, spurting geysers, vast glaciers and countless waterfalls. Its breathtaking landscape is even more spectacular in winter. Snow accentuates the black lava fields, and in the evening we may marvel at the dancing lights of the aurora in the night sky. We will photograph magnificent waterfalls, vast glaciers and seascapes, and along the way pass lava fields, craters, volcanoes, and fields of volcanic ash. One of the highlights is Jökulsárlón, the largest glacial lagoon in Iceland with floating icebergs and surreal ice-covered black beaches. This tour offers you more photography and less driving; a chartered plane will fly us to the North for some of Iceland’s most scenic landscapes.

If you want more information, please visit the Iceland page on our website. You can also download a 14 page PDF with even more info there.

This trip is suitable for photographers of all experience levels. There will be daily briefings, in the field instructions, and image reviews. You'll return with spectacular images!

Spouses and non-photographing travel companions will also enjoy this amazing trip!

If you're interested, don't wait too long with your booking - the second tour is filling up very fast as well...

Marsel & Daniella

New video: Iceland Winter Wilderness

The video impression of our Squiver Photo Tour is ready! On 23 April the tour will go live on our website. And when it does, you will be able to find detailed information and make a booking for this spectacular tour.

We noticed when posting the new video for Turkey, that subscribers to our blog receive an email where the embedded video is not visible. We apologize for this - something is not going well between Blogger and Vimeo. So for all of our subscribers: please have a look at the video on Vimeo.