Invasion Of The Dunes, the painted version

A few months ago Spanish painter Juan Manel Vargas Vega asked my permission to paint my famous picture Invasion Of The Dunes. Ever since it was published in National Geographic it has become one of my most published, most sold, and most copied image. This is the final result. I'm sure it took Juan a lot more time to make this version than I needed for mine. Great job!

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.

Interviewed by the Namibian Tourism Board

The Namibian Tourism Board has asked me to give their readers a personal account of what it is like there, and share some tips on photography in Namibia. You can read it here.

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.

Interview In Photography Masterclass Magazine

Photography Masterclass Magazine is a magazine designed exclusively for the iPad Newsstand, and I am the Featured Photographer in their current issue.

We are happy to offer you a free 3 month subscription to this high quality magazine through this special Squiver link.

21 Landscapes That Will Blow Your Mind

Well, that's the title that The Weather Channel came up with for showcasing Marsel's work :-) There's also a short interview there: 21 Landscapes That Will Blow Your Mind

Back from Japan

We're back from Japan. Well, actually we're already in Iceland now, but we're no longer in Japan.

It was a great trip, thanks to a fantastic group. Thank you guys for all the laughs, it was great fun!

There was plenty of snow at all locations, which was the most important thing. Weather was good most of the time with little or no wind, and pretty moderate below freezing temperatures. We got one morning of falling snow at the cranes, which was spectacular. As always, we visited the cranes' roosting spot three very early mornings in a row, and we got rewarded with near perfect conditions on our last visit - no wind, a good sunrise, hoarfrost and lots of steam rising from the river. A little bit too much steam perhaps, as it took some time before we could see the cranes, but when we did, it was magical.



This year there was also a lot of pack ice in the North East, so much actually that our boat wasn't able to go very far. Not much of a problem, because there were loads of white tailed and Steller's sea eagles around and beautiful snow covered float ice for them to land on. Lots of eagle action on both mornings and few people shot less than a thousand images on a single morning.

The swan lake looked particularly stunning this year. It had been freezing hard for a couple of weeks, and the snow covered ice sheet was pristine. We also got some hoar frost on our second morning, which is always a very welcome bonus. As always, we started the trip at the snow monkeys - surely one of the most photogenic animals I have ever photographed. Like at all the other locations, the wildlife here is totally relaxed with human presence, so there was plenty of opportunity to photograph the macaques bathing, fighting, grooming each other, mating, playing, running and jumping across the stream. It's really hard to take a bad shot here!

We were one of the first companies to offer a specialized wildlife photography tour to Japan many years ago, but the last few years many companies have started to do the same thing - often down to an exact copy of our itinerary. However, these companies don't have the experience that we do, and they certainly don't visit some of Marsel's favorite secret spots. If you want to get the best shots on the best spots and stay at the best accommodation on each location, then you don't need to look any further. If you're interested in this wildlife trip of a lifetime, check out the White & Wild Japan page on our website for more information, tour impression video clips and the booking form. Hope to see you there in 2014!

Timelapse Video Now Online

Namibian Nights, our timelapse video that won First Prize in the Travel Photographer Of The Year Awards, is now online!

Namibian Nights from Squiver on Vimeo.

The Nikon Emergency Room Again

I've never had any serious problems with my Nikon gear, but after the expensive repair on my 24-70, I had some other issues.

First, the sun shade of the 24-70. When I put the lens in my camera bag, no matter whether it's on the body or not, I put the sun shade on the lens in reverse. Which is actually the position that most people have their sun shade in when they're shooting, but that's a whole different matter. The thing is that in the reverse position it didn't lock any more. I'd still hear the click when I put it on, but it didn't actually lock and as a result it fell off constantly when I took it out of the bag or whenever I walked around with it with the sun shade in the reverse position. Nikon Service Center said they couldn't fix it. It was normal wear of the sun shade. I ended up buying a new one that locks a lot better, but still not as good as my other lenses.

The non-stick sun shade

Then the D800. Great camera, love it. Super sharp, giant files, awesome quality. If it works. A couple of times the D800 just froze. The green light on the back of the camera would go on and not go off anymore. Whenever that happened, none of the controls worked. At first I thought I just needed to wait for the gigantic files to be written to the card, but that wasn't it. For a while I thought it was the cold, but then again it wasn't really that cold - the coldest it got was maybe -10C. They don't know what it is, and they are keeping the camera to run some tests.

The little joystick that broke off

One of the first things I bought for the D800 is the MB-D12 battery grip. I don't like the small size of the D800 and I prefer all my bodies to feel more or less the same. And I like to use the vertical release button and the extra battery is nice as well. But pretty soon on our Antarctica trip I lost the little joystick on the MB-D12. Don't know what happened - whether it just fell off or got stuck behind a piece of my clothing or broke off in my camera bag. I never found the little joystick again. Problem was that there was now an opening in the grip that showed electronics. When you're on a trip that includes plenty of sea spray and snow, that's not what you want. I ended up using some Duct tape to close the opening. The missing part has been ordered.

The zoom lens that didn't want to zoom

And then there's the 70-200. Remember the zoom ring that got stuck on my 24-70? Same thing happened with my 70-200. Well, not exactly the same because it didn't get stuck at 50mm, that would be really strange, but it just got harder and harder to twist it. In cold weather it was the worst, and I even messed up the rubber ring that goes around it trying to zoom in or out. Needless to say that's another item I left at the emergency room.

That's it? No, if only. I had three bodies that I used extensively for over a month, and I wanted the sensors to be cleaned. I'm an NPS member, so they do it for free, and Dutch people like free things. They told me I could wait for the sensor cleaning so that I could take at least some gear back home. After about 15 minutes one of the surgeons came out to tell me that something had happened. Something bad. When cleaning the sensor of the D3s, they scratched the sensor. They had to order a new sensor...

Let's hope I've had my share of gear problems by now and that 2013 will be smooth and without repairs.

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.'

Back from Patagonia

We're back home again. We had a good time in Patagonia, but we had clearly used all our luck for good weather in Antarctica. In Chili we got one decent day where we could actually see the mountains, and the same thing in Argentina. As a result I didn't take many shots with spectacular mountain backdrops, unfortunately. The scenery was stunning though and we really enjoyed driving and walking around. Our 16km hike in total darkness to get to the perfect location for sunrise on Mt. Fitzroy was a complete failure - low clouds and no mountain to be seen - but it was good fun and good exercise. We'll probably go back there next year and hope for better conditions.