Photo of the Day - Galapagos Islands

Intimacy

Canon 1DsMkII, 100-400mm, 1/500 @ f/9, ISO 320

Espaniola Island, Galapagos Islands

I am leaving for the Galapagos Islands soon, and I thought it would be appropriate to look through my past images to remind myself of how successful and unsuccessful I was on my last trip there a few years back. The Galapagos Islands is a difficult place to photograph for me, as the compositions are either very obvious or difficult to find. It is a great place to photograph for me, as it is incredibly rich in landscapes and wildlife. With that being said, I find it very challenging to put my own stamp on things. I am always after images that convey emotion, a sense of place, a specific moment in time or whatever, and avian subjects are probably the most challenging of all when it comes to this (no, I don't want any bird photographers sending me death threats over this). I am primarily a mammal and landscape photographer, so this is where my tendencies are when I visit the Galapagos Islands. I will dig through my archive over the next few days to see what I can dig up from my last trip a few years ago, and use them as examples of what not to do or perhaps images that I am just curious about.

Photo of the Day

The Chase

Nikon D300, 200-400mm, 1/1600 @ f/4, ISO 800

Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

Photo of the Day - Cao Dai Temple, Vietnam

Cao Dai Temple, Long Hoa, Vietnam. April 2010

Nikon D700, 24-70mm f/2.8, 1/250 @ f/2.8, ISO 1000

Photo of the Day - Wenwu Temple

Wenwu Temple, Sun-Moon Lake, Taiwan

Nikon D700, 24-70mm f/2.8, 1/640 @ f3.5, ISO 800

Photo of the Day - Cao Dai Temple, Vietnam

Cao Dai Temple, Long Hoa, southern Vietnam

Nikon D700, 24-70mm f/2.8, 1/200 @ f/5.6, ISO 1600

Photo of the Day - Ho Chi Minh City

Family on a Motorcyle (including dog)

Nikon D700, 24-70mm f/2.8, 1/30 @ f/5.6, ISO 100

Cheetah on the Serengeti Plains

Cheetah on the Serengeti Plains

Canon 5D Mark II, 600mm f/4, 1/800 @ f/4, ISO 50

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. March 2010

As many readers of this blog may already know, 1) I don't shoot with Canon gear any longer, and 2) didn't even take a digital camera with me to Tanzania last month. So let me explain the image above. We were out on a morning game drive, and we came across this cheetah mother on the open plains. One of my generous travelers, Ben, quickly loaned me his 600mm lens on a 5D Mark II camera body, as he had a great opportunity to photograph the above female as she was moving her week-old cubs by her mouth. The 600mm was waaaaaaay too much lens for this, as she was passing only a few meters in front of our vehicle. The 'real' shot of this type of behavior was with his 100-400mm lens, and I just took his 600mm lens in the hope that she would get up on a termite mound at some point. Well, she certainly did it for me, and I ripped off a couple of quick shots. I haven't written about this before, but none of my 6x24cm panorama film worked out. It is a long and heartbreaking story for me, but the short story is that there must have been some damage to the helical focusing mechanism during transport to Africa. So at the end of my 3 weeks of safari in Tanzania I only ended up with 1 photograph that I will be able to show. I kind of have to laugh about it, because I know that I am out on safari so often that it doesn't really matter. It would massively upset me if I only go on safari once in a lifetime.

So here you have it: a cheetah on a termite mound, taken with somebody else's camera. I do have a ton of video from the safari, though. Maybe I should learn how to use Final Cut Pro.

Photo of the Day

Inn at Loretto, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Nikon D700, 24-70mm. B&W Conversion and toning in Adobe Lightroom