Will's Posts

Indonesia: Orangutans & Volcanoes

Posted on June 22, 2009 at 2:45 pm

I have recently returned from a fantastic ten-day trip to Indonesia. I started in Tanjung Puting National Park on the island of Borneo where I spent several days photographing Orangutans. I then flew on to Java where I explored the ancient Buddhist monument of Borobudur and some spectacular volcanic scenery.

Kalimantan, Borneo

Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous country and as a result there is tremendous pressure on the land. Large-scale deforestation (much of it illegal) threatens the survival of many endemic species. Tanjung Puting National Park is a large area of protected wilderness in southern Borneo which was established in the 1930s to protect Orangutans and the unique Proboscis monkey. The park is very remote and it took me two days just to reach the village of Kumai on the boundary of the park. The interior of Tanjung Puting can only be accessed by boat and so I spent the next four days sleeping, eating and chugging along on a colourful “klotok” (river boat).

My primary base in the park was Camp Leakey. This research facility was set up in 1971 by Louis Leakey who was mentor for three world famous primatologists; Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey (known for their work with Chimpanzees and Gorillas respectively), and Dr Birute Galdikas, who has been based at Camp Leakey since 1971 and is a leading authority on orangutans.

Over the years, orangutans orphaned by deforestation and the illegal pet trade have been taken to Camp Leakey and returned to a life in the wild. These rehabilitated orangutans live alongside and breed with wild orangutans in the area. I was fortunate enough to photograph both rehabilitated and wild orangutans during my time in the park.

Observing these lively primates was fascinating because their behaviour can be so human; the mothers were tender & caring and the youngsters playful & mischievous! However, the highlight of the trip was when I came face to face with a dominant male orangutan whose size and strength was quite awe-inspiring! Dominant males such as the one shown above can have an arm span of 2.3 m and weigh over 118 kg – females by comparison weigh just 45 kg!

Borobudur, Central Java

Having survived the mosquitoes, leaches and ferocious ants of Borneo’s rainforest, I flew on to Yogyakarta in central Java. Here I got up at the crack of dawn to visit the ancient Buddhist monument of Borobudur at sunrise.

Borobudur was built over 1,000 years ago in the ninth-century AD. The monument comprises six square platforms topped by three circular platforms, and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. A main dome, located at the centre of the top platform, is surrounded by 72 Buddha statues seated inside perforated stupa (shown in the first image above). The monument looks out over the twin-volcanoes of Mt. Merapi and Mt. Merbabu.

Mt. Bromo, Eastern Java

The final leg of my Indonesia trip was to Eastern Java, home of the picturesque Mt. Bromo. I first saw pictures of Mt. Bromo a few years ago and I was instantly captivated by the mythical prehistoric nature of the landscape.

Photographing Mt. Bromo at sunrise involved rising at 3.30am and getting into a jeep that looked like it was designed for driving on Mars! I suffered an uncomfortable 45 minute drive along a steep and bumpy track in order to get to the view point before the sun came up. I hastily set up my gear and took some long exposures while the stars were still visible and the landscape was lit by the first hints of dawn.

Later in the day, the light was not good enough for taking photographs, so I decided to capture the steam billowing out of Mt. Bromo by shooting a time-lapse clip. As I shot the sequence, the clouds rolled in overhead and added an extra dimension to the scene. You can view my time-lapse clip here.

Kawah Ijen, Eastern Java

The last stop of my trip was Kawah Ijen, a huge volcanic crater with a one-kilometer-wide turquoise-coloured acid crater lake. To one side of the lake is an active vent where gaseous sulphur billows out from the earth. Local people funnel this gas through ceramic pipes in order to cool and condense it. The sulphur drips from the end of these pipes and freezes into solid rock. The miners then hack the sulphur into slabs and carry up to 90kg of it up the treacherous path to the crater rim and a further 4km down the side of the volcano. Each miner will make the trip two or three times a day and will earn a total of around $5 per day. I can safely say it is the hardest job I have ever witnessed!

While trying to photograph the miners at work, I got a first hand taste of what their working conditions are like. On one occasion I got too close and the wind blew the noxious gasses over me. I almost fell over as I was hit by a stinging, burning pain in my nose and throat. Many of the miners had just a flimsy scarf wrapped around their faces and were right next to the active vents – I have no idea how they survive it! Here are a couple of pictures me in action: before being suffocated and while being suffocated! After my “near death” experience, I decided to keep a safe distance from all manner of mining operation!

For a few more photos from my trip to Indonesia, please visit my photoblog.

Wildlife Photography Competition Results

Posted on May 7, 2009 at 12:30 am

We would like to thank everyone who entered our recent Wildlife Portraits competition. Matthew and I have been overwhelmed by the response and have spent the last week sifting through the 3,500 photographs that were submitted.

The overall standard of photography was fantastic and we had an extremely difficult task in whittling the submissions down to a final selection. We had to be very harsh and eliminate any photo that wasn’t technically perfect. We then took into account more subjective factors such as composition, originality, atmosphere and character to pick the images that stood out the most.

In the end Matthew and I unanimously settled on Thomas Vignaud’s Tompot Blenny as our winner. The perfect framing and spot-on exposure combine to beautiful effect. Thomas has used the strobe light masterfully to gain a sense of the blenny looming out of the darkness. Ultimately however, it was the blenny’s characterful face and frilly appendages that clinched it for us! Congratulations to Thomas – he has won a Olympus SP-570UZ digital camera.

We have also selected two runners-up and eight highly commended entries which we feel exhibit the wonderful quality and diversity of the images that were submitted. All of the photographs appearing here fought off stiff competition and deserve special praise.

Given the success of this first competition, we have decided that we will launch another photo competition soon! If you would like to be notified when this competition is announced then please subscribe to our blog via RSS feed or email updates.

Now without further ado, click here for the winning pictures!

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Easter in Rome

Posted on April 19, 2009 at 10:27 pm

Over the Easter weekend, what better place to visit than Rome? I was fortunate enough to spend last weekend exploring some of the historic sights of Rome and the Vatican City.

Although I tend to focus on nature photography, I believe that photographing a broad range of other subjects makes me a better photographer. I therefore spent the weekend snapping travel shots, some of which I have included below.

St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City:

St Peter’s Square, Vatican City:

Ancient Rome:

Wildlife photography interview on deviantART

Posted on April 14, 2009 at 6:30 am

I have recently been interviewed by John De Bord for deviantART, a popular online art community. John asked a series of great questions and I provided some fairly in-depth responses.

Here are some of the topics that were covered in the interview:

• How I got started in photography
• What gear I use
• How Matthew and I work to together as a team
• My wildlife photography tips
• Wildlife photography destinations
• Some of the ways I market my work
• And much more!

I also included a few photographs in the interview which I have not previously displayed online.

Read the full interview here.

If the interview prompts any further questions then feel free to leave a comment on the interview page or on this blog post.

Behind the shot: Celestial Storks

Posted on April 3, 2009 at 12:31 pm

Matthew and I took this photograph last year in the Pantanal, Brazil. It shows two Jabiru Storks sleeping in their nest while the stars rotate overhead. The camera was positioned so that the southern celestial pole was behind the nest and an exposure time of 40 minutes was used to capture the star trails. The tree was illuminated by a single lamp placed about 100m away.

The southern celestial pole can be located by identifying the Southern Cross constellation and following it down about four and a half cross-lengths. In the Northern Hemisphere, you can find the north celestial pole by pointing your camera at the North Star. You can find out more about locating the celestial poles here.

This is photograph is one of our all-time favourites – it looks fantastic when printed large. If you are interested in buying a print then please get in touch.

Meerkats of the Kalahari

Posted on March 31, 2009 at 7:30 am

Matthew and I have recently added a gallery of Meerkat photos to Burrard-Lucas.com. The photographs were taken in the Kalahari Desert (Botswana) over the course of two days last year.

The temptation would have been for us to both use telephoto lenses but we wanted to try and get a fresh perspective by showing the Meerkats in their environment. We therefore worked as a team with one person using a long lens to capture portraits while the other scrambled around on the floor with a wide angle lens!

We have split our photographs into two galleries: Meerkat Portraits and Meerkat Groups.

Here are a few of our favorite photographs:

More photos: Meerkats of the Kalahari

Finland Bears

Posted on March 9, 2009 at 1:00 pm

Last summer we ventured to an area on the Finland-Russia border in search of European brown bears. These bears are mainly active at night and are much shyer than their North American counterparts. As a result, we slept during the day and spent five consecutive nights sitting in a hide, never speaking louder than a whisper.

This video was shot on our first night in Finland. We give you a tour of our hide and talk a bit about our equipment set-up.

View the video here: Finland Bears

On subsequent nights we tried out some other hides positioned on the edge of a small lake. Sitting in a hide for five consecutive 14-hour nights with only our cameras, the bears and each other for company was a wonderful escape from our frantic lives back in the UK. We left Finland feeling recharged, and already planning our next visit to these bear-filled forests of the North.

You can see another clip from our time in Finland here: In the Hide.