The Essence of Africa

Tomorrow I will be off to South Africa - another conference, this time in Johannesburg, and a few days added to go on safari!

Wildlife photography is not an easy discipline. The equipment is more important than for most other disciplines, except maybe sports. Otherwise results will be blurred or boring. Long lenses with low light capabillity are required  - meaning heavy weights -, because most animals are active and best observed in low light in the early morning or at dusk. This also means very heavy hand luggage on flights and the absolute minimum of clothes and other necessities...

One has to know his camera well to be able to switch quickly e.g. from continuous auto focus to follow some animal on the ground to 3d tracking to capture a flying vulture overhead. Manual focusing is sometimes necessary, because nobody wants to see tack sharp grass leaves and the leopard's eyes just behind out of focus  :)...

And then - the excitement during the action! A hunting group of cheetah or a pride of lions greeting each other rambunctiously close to the safari vehicle, makes one sometimes forget to look through the viewfinder. Watching wild life in action can be so breathtaking, that one ignores all about the camera as not to miss action that is happening outside of the viewfinder. It is wise to keep one eye off the camera for the surroundings - maybe a jackal will try to sneak in and get bits of the dead gnu that the lion pride is munching on  - if one concentrates too much on getting the bloody noses of the lions right, one might miss the moment when the jackal shows up out of hiding and makes one of the lions take a huge leap to chase him away. Nearly always we have to decide and make compromises - will this next photo be a blown-up print for sale (low ISO required) or will it be for the blog or website or a photo essay where we need to capture all sorts of pictures in between to tell a story, where some pixel noise is of no importance.

Sometimes they pose like this leopard lady, who was hiding her kid in the bushes and taking a sunbath watched by several cars and cameras.

...and in these situations we have all the time in the world or until  fellow safari goers in the vehicle run out of patience with the lonely family photographer in the front row, who is waiting for an eye to open ...

or they cannot stand the stench ...

As always, for good results one needs a lot of practise and a bit of luck. But as most of us cannot spend their whole life on safari, a really good picture is not easy to come by.

More here ....

Das Fenster im Blick

Vernissage at 7 pm today at the Volkshochschule Bad Homburg for our latest exhibition "Das Fenster im Blick":   40 photographers, 80 photographs on and around the topic "windows".

Mine are two black&whites:  "Beschränkte Aussicht" shows one of those 5* London hotel rooms where a tiny room has had a window installed to be able to sell it to paying guests.  In contrast, "Fenster zur Seele" shows my oldest son posing in an unusual moment.
Visitors welcome!

Hongkong

It is quite unbelievable how densely packed Hongkongers are willing to live. These are impressions of the highrises that dominate the city from every viewpoint.

In between, there are quite a few "old" chinese parts left. One is the Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road dedicated to the Gods of Literature and War - what a strange combination! Local people go to buy incense sticks for prayer or light one of the huge incense coils hanging from the ceilings.

Another interesting place to visit is the Chi Lin Monastery for nuns. It is next to Nan Lian Garden and only a short walk from the Diamond Hill MTR station, a surreal and peaceful atmosphere amidst the highrises looming around.

Hongkong Park

                                                   View from Hongkong Park to the city

In contrast to London parks with a large variety of free birds, Hongkongers have two options to see birds: to  go to an aviary or to go the bird market. Hongkong Park aviary is a very fine one with two dozen species or so. Many of them seem to breed happily in captivity. Most of them are not too shy.

                                              two Bali Mynahs admiring each other's hair-do

                                                       white-eared Catbird

Free living birds in Hongkong are extremely elusive and hard to find. This may be so because of the bird market - birds see that they can be captured and stay away. I found very excited sparrows bouncing between the cages of captured birds of all species.

                                   A view from the plane on Hongkong and its islands. There must be more birds in all the green spaces ....

London Parks

                                                  making ripples

London's beautiful and exceptionally well maintained parks are always worth a visit.  When I visit my daughter and youngest son, who both go to university in the UK, I go to Regent's or Hyde Park for pictures of nesting birds or look for new life and other scenery.   

                                     very British! 

                                     mutual fascination

                                        Entengrütze

                                    trying to impress her

                                    More Here ...

                                   

Selogriyo Valley, Java, Indonesia

Java during the rainy season feels like Garden Eden, teeming with colourful life, plants, birds, butterflies. Here are pictures of Selogriyo valley, on the slopes of the vulcano Mt Sumbing. The soil is so fertile that farmers have four rice harvests per year. Rice paddies are interspersed with banana trees, chili and tomato patches and Cassava trees. We saw rice in all stages of growth.

                                    scaly-breasted munia - apparently a pest in rice fields although very pretty and busy building its nest

                                        for this huge butterfly I did not need my macro lens but the tele zoom!


At the end of the valley lies a small derelict Hindu temple where we hiked. But every paradise has its flaws. During the monsoon rains it happens that this pretty temple is carried away, washed away to a lower level and has to be carried up again and rebuilt. That's why it is carrying a girth around its belly, to keep it from slipping away.

                                                     More Here ...

Sunrise at Borobudur

Borobudur on the Indonesian island of Java  is a buddhist temple complex dating back to the ninth century. In the lush landscape with the volcanoes Mt Meru and Mt Merapi among others as backdrop, it is a stunning sight comparable to the temple complexes of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

                                   Buddha watching the sun rise

We got up at 4.15 to watch the sunrise. As we visited during the rainy season with rain and thunderstorms every evening that sometimes lasted until the morning, we needed three early morning trips to witness a nice sunrise ...but then it was spectacular with mist rising from the valley as the sun rose.

                                    On several platforms the structure is decorated with intricate stone carvings and Buddha statues.

                                   Each of the stupas on the platforms contains a stone buddha    

                                       More here ...

Happy Valentine's!

What else can I send today? To all lovers, husbands and wives, to be or not to be... Enjoy the day and Greetings from Borobudur!

                   This is an in-camera image overlay. The "upper" photo was made with a torch and red foil over the light.

Grüße aus Hongkong

A fisheye's view from the peak - a view in the evening must be even more spectacular, but the last days were too cloudy. A good reason to come back, but now we are traveling on to Java!

Wanderlust

Asia is a photographers' dream, colours are unsurpassed, light is different, people with interesting faces everywhere. Therefore I use every chance to go. From Monday, I will be in Asia again - accompanying my husband who will sit in some air-conditioned conference room while I stroll through Hongkong for a couple of days.

                                                                 Hongkong 1998

   And a few weeks later, I will join him again for another conference, this time in India!

Chic and Kilara (photo essay)

My best selling picture on fotolia is the one of my horses Kilara and Chic.To date, this photo has been bought 132 times and I have sold nine large licences for calendars and cups and even for a kids' horse magazine that produced heart-shaped stickers from it.

Kilara, my brood mare, is a courageous, dominant and fearless  horse who prefers to go out and lead the way through the countryside. Unfortunately, she had an injury to a hoof so that she cannot be used for riding any more. Chic, my dressage riding horse, a gelding, dotes on her but is quite the opposite in character: a fearful, overly sensitive but very obedient horse who prefers to stay indoors and do complicated dressage lessons in a riding hall for fear of the unknown outdoors. They are unusally close, in fact, we have never seen any friendship quite like that before - they complement each other like an old couple.When a doctor visits Kilara, Chic is so worried that he suffers from diarrhoea.When he has this condition, I am sure to find some lameness or other problem in Kilara. He himself is never sick.

So how could I get my horses to pose for such a picture?    ... Of course they would not pose. The behaviour documented in this photo series can only be observed, if you know your horses very well and sometimes patiently wait for a long time with the camera ready in hand, just like wildlife photography. This is the story of this picture:

                                             

                                      An afternoon on the paddock. Every day they go out to the paddock together.

                                      "you smell really good!"

                                                  after some nibbling...

                                        they get down to business.

                                     And now for dinner....   she tries to tear off some leaves ....

he is a cavalier and gets some

                                          But she is distracted and curious: what is happening next door?

                                                     Look, what I have brought!

                                          Now she wants some, too.

                                      Suddenly they notice me .....

                                      And Voilà, here it is !

                                       more here ....