Archive for the ‘Trips’ Category

We have recently returned from an incredibly productive trip to southern Tanzania. Our primary destination was Katavi national park, a small and very remote area which receives less than 650 visitors per year. In Katavi, game such as hippo, buffalo, zebra and elephant congregates in huge herds. This abundance of animals attracts predators, and prides of lions patrol the flood plains. The wildlife is much shier than in other places we have been due to the low volume of visitors. This made photographing the animals challenging but ultimately more rewarding.

We set ourselves a grueling schedule: off looking for wildlife before dawn, backing up photos at lunch, out again in the afternoon and then processing photos late into the night. Our constant companions throughout the day were the tsetse flies – large, almost invincible flies with a ferocious bite. They had a knack of launching coordinated attacks right at the crucial moment of taking a photograph and it wasn’t long before we were covered with angry red bites!

We dedicated many hours to photographing a pride of lions which lived near our camp on the Katisunga floodplain. The pride consisted of four females and six beautiful cubs. The hours we spent with them were rewarded with some stunning photos.

Katavi is also a great place to see a wide range of interesting bird species. One morning we lay beside a croc infested river with a blanket over us to photograph sand grouse as they came down to drink. One of our favourite creatures was a Verreaux’s Eagle Owl which often used a perch overlooking the plain. We spent a long time trying to capture some of its many amusing expressions!

Our ten days in Katavi were a fantastic experience. We have many more photos which we will be sharing in due course. Our next post will be about the Mahale Mountains National Park and the wild chimpanzees that we photographed there.

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.

While Will was exploring the historic sights of Rome, I was the other side of the world experiencing the incredible natural beauty of New Zealand.

I’ve just returned to the UK… I’m exhausted from the jet lag and the 24 hour journey but somehow I’m still finding the energy to write this post. The trip was a milestone for me (though not a very significant one) in that it was the first time that I have managed to fill an 80gb portable hard drive! The main reason for this is that I was shooting almost exclusively with the Canon 1Ds MK III. The 21 megapixel files from this camera munch through megabytes at a disturbing rate!

New Zealand is an amazingly diverse country, famous for its stunning landscapes and unusual wildlife. High levels of rainfall across the whole country lead to a land of verdant hills, snow capped mountains and glaciers that stretch down into temperate rainforest. The downside of this is that when the weather turns nasty, your camera can be rendered unusable. I discovered this during a 3 day spell in which I only managed to take about 20 photos! On the whole, however, the weather was good during my trip and it didn’t hinder me too much. I managed to explore both the North and South Islands and visited a variety of locations that gave me a good flavour of the country. Amongst my favourites from the trip were White Island, the gannet colony at Cape Kidnappers and the Franz Josef glacier.

White Island is recognised as New Zealand’s most active volcano and is located within the Bay of Plenty. People can reach the island either by boat or helicopter. I left from the mainland at sunrise which ensured that I could explore the island without any large groups of people getting in my photographs. The hour long boat journey was choppy, but I was filled with anticipation and suspense. We made landfall on the island at an abandoned sulphur mining factory. The buildings had been destroyed in an eruption in 1914 that killed all 10 of its workers.

Shortly after landing at the dock, a helicopter arrived to take me up and get some unique perspectives of the island’s features. The pilot was absolutely brilliant and he was more than willing to let me have the door taken off to improve my mobility and the quality of my images. Leaning out of a helicopter at 5000 feet with nothing but a harness holding me in was definitely one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life!

Since the only native mammals of New Zealand are a few bat and seal species, most wildlife photographers tend to focus on the country’s birdlife. One of the best parts of my trip was photographing the Australasian gannet colony at Cape Kidnappers. Unfortunately most of the birds had left either for Tasmania (the adults) or the Great Barrier Reef (the chicks) but luckily a few stragglers were left behind for me to photograph. It was great being able to crawl up close to these beautiful birds, despite having to lie down in all the excrement and cemented feathers!

My final stop in NZ was the Franz Josef glacier in the Westland. From here I did another scenic helicopter flight into Mt. Cook (Aoraki) National Park. Just after the sun had risen up above the peaks, we soared along the Franz Josef glacier and into the midst of the highest mountains in the Southern Alps, including the likes of Mt. Tasman and Mt. Cook. Once again I had the door of the chopper removed, but this time the 13,000 foot altitude took its toll on my fingertips – they got so cold that I couldn’t feel the shutter button on my camera. In the end I resorted to deftly forcing my frozen index finger onto the top of my camera in the hope of hitting the right button. This was probably my most painful, but also one of my best photographic experiences to date!

I hope you enjoyed looking at some of my photographs. Will also visited New Zealand a couple of years ago and has a few pictures on his photoblog.

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:

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 (removed)

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.

Will and I have just returned from a 14 day trip to Nepal. The expedition got off to an incredible start with a helicopter flight into the Sagarmatha National Park. We flew into this mountainous region from the remote village of Lukla and were almost immediately surrounded by towering 8000+ meter peaks including the likes of Everest and Lhotse. Soaring through deep glacial valleys and over high mountain passes was a once in a lifetime experience. Throughout the journey we were accompanied by Tashi Tenzing, grandson of Tenzing Norgay (who accompanied Sir Edmund Hillary on the first ascent of Mt. Everest). Tashi himself has scaled the infamous mountain three times and is one of the most inspiring and fascinating people we have ever met. Near the end of the flight, we landed at Tengboche, a Buddhist Monastery in the Khumbu region.

For the first 2 days of our trip, we were based out of the capital city, Kathmandu. During this time, we visited the historical town of Bhaktapur, one of three cities located in the Kathmandu valley. We spent an afternoon wandering through the bustling streets, passing street sellers touting their various goods. It was fascinating to observe and photograph the vibrant culture and architecture that extends through the ancient city.

Our next port of call was Pokhara, a city that expanded rapidly in the 1970’s due to the trekking industry. The city is a popular location due to its proximity to the Annapurna conservation area. Normally, one is able to see a panoramic view of the Annapurna mountains from the foothills, unfortunately however, we were unable to experience this for ourselves (except for a few fleeting glimpses) due to the haze and thick fog that sets in at this time of year. Nevertheless, we got some nice photos at the World Peace Stupa, where countless prayer flags had been strung up between the trees.

When we weren’t busy photographing the surrounding countryside, we aimed our lenses towards the ground and focused in on the smaller creatures of Nepal. At this time of year, the country’s climate is much cooler, and while this means that the insects are less abundant, they are much lazier and more amenable for photography.

Although not many people know it, Chitwan National Park is one of the best places in the world to see the Asian one-horned rhinoceros. Once widespread over the whole subcontinent, the Indian rhino is now restricted to localised pockets and only numbers about 2500 individuals. In Chitwan, the rhinos can be found foraging in the tall grassland, which offers them both protection and a copious food source. Obviously this presents a problem for photography. The best way to see the rhinos is from a high position, and this is offered by elephant safaris. The advantage of viewing from elephants is that most of the wildlife behaves more naturally than if it is approached by other means.

Chitwan was a wonderful natural environment, which offered opportunities to see plenty of mammal and birdlife, however the pressure on the land from surrounding settlements was quite evident. On a number of occasions, we observed people coming into the park to illegally cut grass for cattle fodder, or to fish in the rivers. We can only hope that in the future, efforts to eliminate these activities will succeed. Unfortunately we remained eluded by tigers throughout our trip, having only seen paw prints on the dirt roads. Hopefully though, Will and I will be able to return to Asia in the near future to photograph these beautiful cats.