Nature Photo Magazine 2011/3

nature photo magazine

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free online photo magazine

2011/3-4.

Infrared photography | Tips and tricks Nikon 1 V1 | Field test Golden eagles | Adventure tour

welcome Dear Reader, On behalf of Nature Photo Magazine’s editorial staff I wish you a merry Christmas and a successful, happy New Year! In our 2011/3-4 issue, we entertain you with lots of interesting and exciting texts and fantastic pictures. Our “Adventure Tour” flies the reader to the empire of the Golden Eagle where besides the birds, there is something else to shoot too – on lucky days the polar light shines up in the sky. We guide you to this wonderful region of Norway full of nature’s beauty through the pictures of Anikó Imre and Tamás Imre.

We tested Nikon’s newest product Nikon 1 V1 on field. János Szekeres nature photographer checked out the camera in live situations.

In the “Tips and Tricks” column we highlighted an interesting and exciting area of photography and its tricks by Béla Szabó text and pictures. We welcome on our “Portfolio” Mrs Mária Kesjár who prefers to photograph lights, drops and atmospheres.

In our “Photo School” series we give you a taste of the world of black and white photography. Béla Szabó presents how to transform moods and thoughts into black and white pictures in his writing titled “The world in shades of grey”. In our “Life under the water” column photographer Dániel Selmeczi shot the moments of sea turtles’ life. The text was written by Szabolcs Németh marine biologist.

We continue the presentation of India in our “People-Cultures-Cities” column. Poverty, widowhood and the everyday direct encounter with death are hard to accept for people raised in the European culture. But India is penetrated with the openness and directness regarding these subjects. One who has been there will likely see the world around us differently. The Nature Photographer of the Year competition and the book review is the customary part of the end of the year events.

Congratulations to the winners! In our “Interesting places” series we present you the beauty of Hűvösvölgy which is one of the best known but rarely photographed area of Budapest. Out of the Christmas books I would definitely highlight a fantastic album titled “Iceland – the land of extremes” in which Erlend Haarberg and Orsolya Haarberg amaze the viewers of their pictures.

Bence Máté introduces the reader to the history and secrets of Hidephotography. Those who are interested in Bence’s writings now can learn the workshop secrets of the famous nature photographer in the newly published abbreviated edition of his book titled “The Invisible”.

Our website became a dynamic site so we can publish news, exhibitions and other useful information much more frequently. Please visit our website regularly: www.termeszetfotomagazin.hu Please take part in the popularisation of nature photography on our EYE OF NATURE website where our photographers share pictures and thoughts with each other. If you would like to send portfolios and pictures send an email to: info@naturephotomagazine.com Please receive our tenth issue with love!

Photo: © Tamás Imre Canon EOS 7D, EF 180 mm f/3,5 L Macro USM 1/250sec f/4 ISO 640

Tamás Imre Editor-in-Chief

Photo adventure 6 Golden eagles

Canon EOS 1D Mark II N, EF 300mm f/2,8 L IS USM 1/1250sec f/3.2 ISO 1250

Field Test - Nikon 1 v1

16

I could not wait the day when Nikon Ltd’s Representative Henrietta Bata handed over the box to me in which a Nokia 1V1 was. I had high expectations of this excellent, little camera. My hopes were justified as I could get my hands on a camera of cutting-edge technology which meets today’s highest requirements in every aspects. The market of mirrorless cameras with interchangable lenses has developed rapidly, new models has been launched one by one.

Portfolio - Mrs Mária Kesjár

30

I was born in Békéscsaba where I studied and finished secondary school with a leaving exam. My life has been revolved around work, family and kids up to the recent times.

I came across with photograpahy almost by chance when I received my first Bridge camera as a birthday present from my husband. As I had no professional skills at all I had to learn step by step (through lots of attempts) which were my faults and what to change in order to adjust the potential of my camera to my vision.

Photo school - Black & White

42

At the beginning of photography pictures appeared in monochrome due to the technological limitations. These photographs actually were not black and white in terms of today’s photography but appeared in some of the colours.

Cyanotype appeared in shades of blue, while argentotype produced sepia tones. To my greatest pity, the traditional silver-based black and white photography presently is crowded out to the periphery of photography.

© Tamás Imre

a glance at india part 2

60

Varanasi, India: death, widows, orphanage, giving away food to the poor, mysticism, modesty and an incredible energy surround the City of Shiva. In the first part I introduced you to the holy city and now we will have a look at Shiva and the strength of faith, the life of widows and those who are waiting for death – fates which seem incredible for the European man and the world of feelings which are unknown for us.

Bence Máté - the Invisible

96

I was in my second year at secondary school when it first occurred to me that I could organise nature photography tours. This was one of the ways that I thought I might be able to make a living from my hobby of nature photography. When I first started to take pictures eleven years ago, nature photography, at least in Hungary, was cloaked in secrecy.

tips and tricks

infrared photography

life underwater turtles

48

Book review

iceland

88

nteresting places Hűvösvölgy

94

22

Photo adventure

Golden Eagles – polar light and extreme cold At this period of the year there is winter and darkness in Europe.

There are not too many subjects for photographers but we could collect a bunch of them. To have a photo adventure we travelled to Norway again, to the top predator of Flatenger fjord, the empire of the Golden Eagle. I will also show you the polar light which can be photographed well at this season. We can also photograph very nice landscapes between the fjords from November to March.

Canon EOS-5D Mark II, EF 16-35mm f/2,8 L USM 1/40sec f/16 ISO 200

The Golden Eagle is the king of birds, an extremely big sized predator – the biggest ones can reach 90 centimeter height, 6 kg weight and 220 cm wingspan. They live alone or as a couple and primarily prey on mammals and birds but they are carrion-eating too. Not rarely Golden Eagles hunt for bigger mammals too, such as deers.

They maintain a vast territory so it is rare that more birds are in one place but the Flatanger fjord of Norway is an exceptional bird paradise. There often 4 or 5 eagles stays in a smaller area. Full of adrenaline and in spirit of adventure we went to this land again to photograph the king of birds.

In winter you have to find more time to photograph than in other seasons as in Norway the sun is up for a short time we only have 3 or 4 hours to photograph eagles in good light.

We settled in a prepared bird-photographer hide about 8 in the morning, still in total darkness.

We expected the eagles for the bird and mammal carcasses put out there in advance. It was extremely cold, a temperature around -5 C° degree, the roads to the hide were icy. If someone would take it into his head should definitely arrive with nailed tyres to Norway. Because of the cold there was a little oil heater in the hide and a reindeer fur to wrap ourselves up. There was room for five photographers altogether, everybody had a little hole at the front of the hide where you could stick the lens out and wait for the arrival of the bird.

We heard some noise in the darkness and tried to look out of the peephole but as it was misted up from the warmth of our body we could not see a thing. Suddenly next to the hide about two metres far if a big stump had moved. My goodness, that’s not a wood, I said silently, but a Golden Eagle. Jesus, this is so huge! It walked slowly to the displayed fox carcass and started to eat. Unfortunately we had not had any light yet, so we could not shoot but we had already seen something in the viewfinder.

Then one of my photographer mate said that he wanted to change his lens as that giant bird could not fit into the viewfinder. I told him it was not a good idea, ‘don’t do it as it can fly away and then the photo subject is over! He tried anyway and of course the bird had gone. There was a great outcry in the hide as at about 11 the light and the snow came, only the Golden Eagle was nowhere.

Canon EOS 1D Mark II N, EF 300mm f/2,8 L IS USM 1/1000sec f/3.2 ISO 800

Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, EF 300mm f/2,8 L IS USM 1/1600sec f/3.2 ISO 1600

Canon EOS-5D Mark II, EF 16-35mm f/2,8 L USM 1/100sec f/8 ISO 640

Canon EOS-5D Mark II, EF 16-35mm f/2,8 L USM 1/50sec f/8 ISO 640

The time passed but incredibly slowly, everybody checked his watch in every five minutes.

We did not talk, only made signs toward our mate: you are done if there will be no eagle!

Then we got luck when at about 1 o’clock (it was still snowing) the Golden Eagle appeared in the air with its huge wings and targeted on the fox and swooped down. We exposed at the flying in bird continuously and everybody calmed down. The sun already set at three o’clock, the shooting was over. We said thank you to the birds as more than one came, altogether three Golden Eagles visited the vicinity of the hide.

Even our photographer mate did not care about what he had done in the morning anymore.

The shooting days passed and the eagles come around or not, then on the third evening good luck came. I checked at home in advance that we will have polar lights but I could not predict the weather clearly. There are some websites where you can check the intensity of the polar light for the next 4 or 5 days. It had stagnated for weeks, so we expected one solar flare during the tour which of course appears in the form of polar light in Norway’s sky.

We went out at six in the evening with my wife and one of my photographer mate to check out the scenes where we could shoot nice pictures. This is not a complicated thing, you need a compass and northward you will have the bigger chance to spot polar lights.

We marked three spots on the map and headed to our lodgings but we had not got home yet when the polar light came. Oops!, I said. And now what? We cannot take photos as our cameras are in our rooms. By the time we arrived, the others said that they saw the polar lights too but it was not really spectacular. Of course, this is normal as it was not completely dark, it was rather dusk.

We agreed to have dinner quickly and then we went to the marked scenes to hunt for polar lights. So we did and it chanced that we had such experience than never before. From 10 in the evening until 3 in the morning we could see polar lights dancing in the sky, there were moments when at it came in at eight places at the same time and lit up the Norwegian landscape.

Canon EOS-5D Mark II, EF 16-35mm f/2,8 L USM 1/800sec f/8 ISO 200

Canon EOS-5D Mark II, EF 16-35mm f/2,8 L USM 30sec f/4 ISO 640

Actually, even a full-frame body with a 16 mm wide-angle lens was not enough to photograph every part of this beautiful light phenomenon. Looking northward from the left to the right and above our heads we could see polar lights in about 170° degrees. It was fantastic.

It was an incredible experience for us to see and photograph this extraordinary light phenomenon, and besides we could take part in the life of Golden Eagles too.

I can recommend this to everybody as a very good opportunity. Do not lose heart if the desired pictures are not successful at the first time. Nature photography requires persistence and plenty of early wake-ups.

I wish nice lights and lots of photo themes for everyone.

Text: Tamás Imre Photo: Anikó Imre and Tamás Imre

Planning Place: Middle-Norway Accessibility: from Trondheim or Tromsø airport on road E6, then on road 17 westward up to the fjords.

What can you shoot: primarily eagles, landscape and if you are lucky polar lights. It is worth photographing landscapes around the islands.

What to take with us: wide-angle lens 16-35 mm, telephoto lens 70-200 mm and 300 mm, with 1,4x teleconverter if possible, tripod, ND graduated filter and memory cards as much as you can.

Accommodation: in the region of Flatanger and Tromsø you can find good quality accomodation.

The best time to go: from November to March.

Canon EOS-5D Mark II, EF 16-35mm f/2,8 L USM 25sec f/5 ISO 400

Field test Nikon 1 V1

I could not wait the day when Nikon Ltd’s Representative Henrietta Bata handed over the box to me in which a Nokia 1V1 was. I had high expectations of this excellent, little camera. My hopes were justified as I could get my hands on a camera of cutting-edge technology which meets today’s highest requirements in every aspects.

The market of mirrorless cameras with interchangable lenses has developed rapidly, new models has been launched one by one.

The micro four-thirds 1V1 camera developed by Nikon is a refined example of them. Producers see serious market in this category and they are right. Unfortunately its price is still a bit high but it likely to be reduced in the near future.

When I unwrapped the box I was really surprised. I could hold a camera in my hand which was small but elaborated, very graceful and handy in its shape.

The black colour suits very well to the metallic shell! The three graceful lenses which comes with the shell looks great.

Technology What does Nikon offer by 1V1? A brand new CX format, 3,2×8,8 mm, 2,7 2.7x lens focal length szorzójú ultra fast CMOS sensor, presently with 10.1 megapixel resolution, from ISO 100 to ISO 6400 sensivity. The camera is also equipped with an inbuilt, top-quality and high- resolution electronic viewfinder, 3 inch LCD monitor with 921k pixels resolution, Full HD Movie with H264 compression, MOV system with 60 pics/mp picture refresh. You can also make Slow Motion movies with a speed of 400 – 1200 pics/mp (in 640x240 and 320x120 pixels resolution). You can choose between a camera with mechanical or electronic shutter mechanism, continuos shooting up to a speed of 60 fps, contrast and phase detection based focus system. Focus points can be moved freely, there is an inmer sensor cleaning and RAW format support. We can also find a supplementery Accessory port in which we can attach a flash or GPS module, constant light movie lamp or portable LCD as well.

Let’s pick out some practical features of this little wonder which could be used well in nature

photography. The new Nikon 1V1 is excellent on the field of automatic focus too. Besides contrast detection which is conventional at this category, a phase detection based mode is also available. During the test it was proved that the camera really know in many cases where to go to reach proper sharpness and in these cases we get a DSLR fast focus setting.

Sometimes the camera switch to contrast detection and search back and forth, but even this process is not slow, much faster compared to still compacts.

We can set the autofocus measure field to the 15x9 matrix points but we can also set it to let the camera recognise the position automatically.

Moreover, subject tracking and face recognition are also available. We can select one-time or continuous autofocus mode, but manual focus is also available, in this case a digital zoom support our work. In case of poor light conditions a green LED helps the precise focusing.

As for light metering, we have the options of spot, center-weighted or matrix metering methods.

Thanks to the application of the excellent CMOS

sensor continuous shooting is really fast.

At Nikon 1V1 using electronic shutter provides 10-30-60 fps in AF-S mode. 1/16000 shutter speed shows an extreme knowledge too.

Exposure makes normal or 2-5-10 mp exposure time possible. We can make video in 1920x1080 or 1280x720 resolution. Picture refreshment in FULL HD mode can even be 60 fps. During the movie the camera record stereo sound and set sharpness continuously. The size of the record can be about 2 GB. During video making we can save up to 15 still picture and will not experience any break when playing the record.

Image noise Here Nikon made a great achievement too: from ISO 100 to 800 noise is almost unnoticable on the ready pictures, above ISO 800 the quality is still excellent, it comes close to the performance of a better mirror reflex camera and this can be very useful in poor light conditions. We can select D-Lighting mode which is wellknown on DSLR bodies, even before exposure or after exposure to lighten the dark parts.

Nikon 1 V1, 1 NIKKOR VR 30-110mm f/3.8-5.6 1/25sec f/3.8 ISO 800

Speed I was in my second year at secondary school when it first occurred to me that I could organise nature photography tours. This was one of the ways that I thought I might be able to make a living from my hobby of nature photography.

When I first started to take pictures eleven years ago, nature photography, at least in Hungary, was cloaked in secrecy. Photographers kept quiet about where they had taken their pictures and how they had got them.

Whom do I recommend Nikon 1V1?

To those who do not compromise in image quality and want to have today’s cutting-edge technology and up-to-date solutions but do not want to buy a mirror reflex camera, however, they want to own a small sized camera with similar performance and interchangable lens. I also recommend for those who already own a serious body but want a second, travel camera with which they could take very nice, richly detailed, excellent quality pictures.

If we purchase the adapter – with which we can use the original Nikon lenses – that will really get Nikon 1V1 into royal spirit.

It will be even more interesting with the separately sold adapter, which allows to use DSLR lenses with Nikon 1V1. And at this point let our imagination fly...

Text and photo: János Szekeres

Tips and tricks

Infrared photography I came across the first time with the wonderful world of infrared photography by foreign photo magazines at the beginning of my photography career in the middle of 1980’s. At this time, during the Communist era, it was impossible in Hungary for a mere mortal to get this kind of stuff. After the opening of the borders I had the chance to try out the traditional, silver-based infrared photography which enchanted me at once. It revealed a new world for me unseen to the naked eye. When I switched to digital photography, I got excited about the opportunities provided for infrared photography. I tried to collect the necessary information, Internet was a great help to me.

What is infra light? „Light” is the visible part of the electromagnetic radiation, beween 400 to 760 nanometer (nm) wavelenght. Every photographer knows the fact that we call radiation with a wavelength shorter than 400 nm ultraviolet (UV) light. While infrared (IR) is a radiation with a wavelength longer than 760 nm. Both can be used for photography.

Infrared photography has countless applications in science, military technology, criminology etc., but now we focus on its possible utilisation in fine art photography.

In infrared black and white photography the green of plants in sunshine will appear in white, the blue of sky in black out of which clouds emerge. Water is also represented in dark tones.

Evergreens are in dark tones, the shady parts are almost black. The picture is very grainy and noisy.

Sensors used in digital cameras can look into the infrared sprectum. As this radiation spoils the quality of the picture, producers try to exclude this kind of light by filters. Let’s hope that they will not be able resolve it completely as we would like to use this radiation for photographic purposes.

The simpliest way to check the infrared sensivity of your camera if you try to photograph the light of a remote control in a dark room. If the LED which gives infrared light is on, then we can try to shoot with an appropriate filter.

article’s sponsor:

I use Fuji FinePix S2 Pro for digital infrared photography with AF Nikkor 2,8/28 lens and Hoya R72 infra filter. I overexpose the value measured by the light meter by 1 aperture to reach a suitable coverage. As for sharpness, autofocus works perfectly. We encounter some problems only at composition as it is quite hard to see through dark red filter. To determine the image cut the good old „revolver” rangefinder is a great help. Attaching it to the hotshoe helps to imagine the image cut. Another option to use our camera with a tripod. Compose without filter, fix sharpness then put infra filter on.

Our recorded picture will be red coloured. We can change it by Photoshop-Image-Adjustments-Auto Levels command which results in an interesting colour combination. If we want to make black and white picture, then we can do it by the Desaturate command. Thus the RGB colour mode remains and we will have much more options for modification than in Grayscale mode.

I made an interesting test with my Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera. I shot a picture at the same place without filter, then with filter and later with filter but in Live View. In the picture shot with filter even a trace of image cannot be seen, there are only pale sign on the hystograme. While using the Live View an sharply exposed picture can be made. I used the AV mode of the camera in both cases.

The following websites can provide some useful information: www.atsf.co.uk/ilight/index.html www.wrotniak.net/photo/infrared/index.html Have a nice experiment!

Text and photo: BĂŠla SzabĂł

Without the filter

Raw image with hoya R 72 filter

Mrs Mária Kesjár I was born in Békéscsaba where I studied and finished secondary school with a leaving exam. My life has been revolved around work, family and kids up to the recent times. I came across with photograpahy almost by chance when I received my first Bridge camera as a birthday present from my husband. As I had no professional skills at all I had to learn step by step (through lots of attempts) which were my faults and what to change in order to adjust the potential of my camera to my vision. This period of research started in 2008 and lasted for about one year when I had the chance to buy a more professional DSLR camera to which I purchased a better macro lens (Canon 450D, Sigma 105).

My opportunities led to my professional orientation, macro photography. Through the viewfinder, I discovered a wonderful world completely unknown for me before, on which most people just tread or pass by it without taking any notice.

I has been charmed for good and all by the colours, lights, forms of these wonders so rich in details. For me and for my immediate environment, photography is primarily a source of joy. I had not taken my pictures to receive acknowledments on different professional forums or to gain awards on competitions so I have not participate in such events except of one local competition where I was placed 3rd by my Christmas photo.

For me photography is nothing else but an opportunity to spot God’s wonderful creations in their real beauty and show them those who are interested and receptive. http://marcsisfotok.blogspot.com/ kesjarne@gmail.com

Portfolio

Colours in a drop

Light b

broom

Golden

n wings

Sunba

athing

Az

My h

house

Shin

ning

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, EF17-40mm f/4L USM, 120s f/16 ISO 100

Photo school

in black and white

The world shown in shades of grey At the beginning of photography pictures appeared in monochrome due to the technological limitations. These photographs actually were not black and white in terms of today’s photography but appeared in some of the colours. Cyanotype appeared in shades of blue, while argentotype produced sepia tones. To my greatest pity, the traditional silver-based black and white photography presently is crowded out to the periphery of photography. Chances to purchase the necessary devices has been narrowed. I would not think that my 13x18 cm negative sized enlarger ever will stand carefully packed next to my big format cameras in my device collection which consists of nearly 200 pieces.

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Canon EOS 5D, EF 24-70mm f/2,8 USM L, 1/30s f/16 ISO 200

Canon EOS 5D, EF 70-200mm f/2,8 USM L, 1/400s f/13 ISO250

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, EF 24-70mm f/2

2,8 USM L, 1/200s f/8 ISO 200

Some time I only made my black and white pictures on sheet films, although this was almost a decade ago. However it hurts, you cannot stop the development of the world so I have to acknowledge that photography presently is dominated by digital technology.

Today photographers mostly get to black and white (monochrome) photography in two very different ways. Some of them set out on the painful road of picture making with the help of silver-based black and white films and this fact fundamentally determines their attitude to photography. The other group - I mean the great number of picture makers of the digital era primarily makes black and white picture out of a colour photo in a digital way. They do it with the help of the inbuilt functions of their camera or later, during the digital process, by “Lightroom”. Digital photography has several benefits, you can go for lunch during processing without actually stopping the work, not like when you work in a traditional dark room. If you made something wrong or you are not satisfied with the final result, you do not have to throw your work away, you can step back in the process and start again.

Camera producers, particularly in the nonprofessional segment, try to build as much creative filters and functions in the devices as they can, such as (among others) the different black and white (monochrome) effects. Nowadays black and white photography has come back into fashion again as a sort of opposition against the colourful world. Many people use it at report, wedding or model photography and monochrome landscapes are in fashion again as well. The secret of the latter’s success might be the fact that a well-done landscape gives a kind of timelessness to the viewer.

How to make a nice black and white (monochrome) picture successfully? The most important is the good composition. Unfortunately, a lot of people think that if they do not consider the picture good enough then they say “let’s try it in black and white” and make a monochrome picture. This is not the way for a successful picture. For a good picture, you have to learn to think and see in the shades of grey.

A monochrome picture requires a much stricter composition than a colour one.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, EF 24-70mm f/2,8 USM L, 1/100s f/10 ISO 100

When you make a colour picture colours help the interpretation, while black and white requires a great deal of abstraction from the viewer. To estimate tone relations a Kodak Wratten 90 filter can do a good service as this way we visualise colours in monochrome shades. Another option to set our digital camera in mononchrome mode using RAW file format so we could see a monochrome picture in our LCD display.

Why to use RAW format? Because this way we can make a good quality picture during processing. How can we do that?

We make the most perfect possible colour picture out of the RAW file. I oversaturate a little to make stronger colours. From this point there are several options. What you should never do to make black and white picture with Photoshop desaturate function.

This usually results in a flat, toneless picture.

Use the black & white function instead.

At this point lots of options help you to create the appropriate tone relations. Many people use the channel mixer. Here you can set black and white tones by mixing colour channels. The B&W function of Lightroom’s Develope module is very useful too. In this processing option we can make the best possible black and white picture rich in tones with the help of numerous options.

Last but not least, we can control the transformation of colours into black and white tones by using Nick Silver’s Efex Pro programme. In this software we have the chance to control tone relations in the Zone System developed by Ansel Adams. Many inbuilt settings help our picture processing.

We can change them freely to make our own vision.

I hope that by these few thoughts I could arouse your interest in black and white photography.

Text and photo: Szabó Béla

Life underwater

Walk slowly, swim quickly: this is the secret of long life Or about sea turtles in brief The son of man (or daughter) must pigeonhole things in order to find his way in the world more easily. One of these stereotypes says that turtles are slow. This is true for mainland turtles but not really for their aquatic peers (you can catch a sleeping turtle but not the awake one).

The faith in the superiority of mankind can be ruined easily when a diver - equipped with a flipper made out of the most up-to-date, most streamlined, most hyper-super materials - tries to catch up with a sea turtle swimming in first gear. The result usually the same. One or two nice and graceful and slow stroke by the turtle and the diver feels for the life of the Coyote when the Road Runner leaves him standing. Beep-beep...

Presently about 220 species lives in the order of turtles (Testudines). Most of them are mainland or fresh-water turtles and only a fraction of them lives in the sea. Turtles have a very ancient family tree, their ancestors - who were very similar to the present species – already lived 200 million years ago. Let’s have a look at the sea turtles. Although there are different opinions among biologists regarding their numbers, we are not far out if we say presently there are 7 different species of them.

• • • • • • •

Loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) Hawksbill sea turtle (Erethmochelys imbricata) Green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) Olive ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) Kemp’s ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii) Flatback sea turtle (Natator depressus) Leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea)

Sea turtle statistics • The smallest: Olive ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) – about 50-75 cm and 50 kg • The biggest: Leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) – about 120-210 cm and 900 kg • The deepest dive: 1.500 metres • Average time spent under water: 3 hours

The armoured troops: Sir Lancelot, Sir Bedevir and the turtle The shell which covers their body can be divided into two parts (with a kitchen knife literally, but now just theoretically). The turtle itself is actually between the carapace scutes (carapax) and the flat breastplate (plastron) – like the meat in the hamburger. To make it simple we can say that the backshell is knit with the spinal column and the ribs so the turtle cannot taken out of its shell without damage. The shell consists of horny scales and bony shell, the proportion of them can alter in different species. For instance, the proportion of bony shell has decreased significantly at sea turtles. The shell provides a perfect protection for mainland turtles since there is enough room inside for the animal to withdraw in case of danger.

For them it is a disadvantage that their legs stick out at the side and not downward. But at the marine species things are a bit different. These animals cannot pull their legs back into their shells and even their head can be pulled back only to a limited extent. On the other hand the side positioned legs provide an excellent opportunity for swimming (as we mentioned it in the introduction).

The distinction between marine species can be made by the number and shape of the scales which make up the backshell. These scales usually precisely fit to each other by their edge. Loggerhead turtle is an exception as its cover scales partly cover each other like the tiles on the roof . However, we cannot see it in case of elderly turtles. Sea turtles do not have a solid connection between the back and the breastshell so when females crawl out to the land to breed have to stand up at every breath as their own weight press them. This is so hard work that if sea turtles are in captivity on the land then they die in a few hours or days.

How do turtles swim?

Quickly. I guess this is a short and brief summary of sea turtles motion by a diver. The flat, fin-like formation of their forelegs at their side is perfectly fits for swimming. They only paddle with their forelimbs, while their short and rounded hind legs stand still.

They use the latter for sitting on the sea-bottom, for crawling when they eat or for digging a hole in the sand when they lay eggs.

On the paddle legs they have claws on the first or the first and second fingers. The shells - which are dropshaped from above view and slightly convex from the side – are perfectly streamline, so moving in water causes the less possible hydrodynamic resistance.

Sea turtles are basically fast compared to man but during escape or hunting (e.g. when catching a crab) they can swim surprisingly fast. (But I guess, diver photographers and film-makers could tell more stories.)

Turtle-menu (a la Levin): Sea turtles are like nursery teachers imagine the ideal kid. So they do not running wild shouting, they do not pull the hair of their mates and eat everything what given for them. Indeed, their menu is quite varied.

Although tomato soup and green peas soup are not on it, but seaweed, sponges, jellyfish, corals, soft corals, squids, crabs, tunicates and fish are equally served for them.

Turtles nibbling at corals is a common sight in tropical waters. Divers first question is: how do their teeth bare it?

The answer is surprisingly simply: no way as they do not have any. However, their strong jaws are covered sharp horny scales. With them like a sharp scissors they cut, bite and chop their prey. If we swim with open eyes in the sea (it is worth wearing a mask though) we can often see turtle-bites on sponges. It is because these animals do not die after being a nice dish on the menu but regenerate their colony well.

It is surprising that turtles can prey on fish or crab although they seem to be slower than these animals. It is not a problem for their incredibly strong jaws to break open a hard shell crab or snail. Therefore, it is rather silly to dip your hand into their mouth out of sheer curiosity (although, we can easily play the role of Nine Fingered Frodo after that).

A bit of turtle eroticism – or I breed, therefore I am (but not for long though) At the back of the shell a tail sticks out between the hind legs. It is easy to determine whether we face a lady or a gentleman turtle (or gentleturtle). The tail of the females is very short, while males have a long one. (Hmm. Déja vu.

Maybe other creatures are the same like that?) So sexual dimorphism of turtles is quite striking. They date in the sea but lay the eggs on the land as the required temperature for hatching out is provided by the sand-nest heated up by the sunshine. The temperature is crucial for the sexual determination of the litter. If the temperature of the hole reaches 30 ºC than teh embryos will become females, if its lower than that, then they will be males. They need about two months from laying eggs to hatching out. Besides the temperature, the humidity of the sand is also important.

In case of dry sand the eggs suffocate and emrbyos die.

That’s why they choos their breeding place so carefully. It can be observed that during digging the holes and laying eggs turtles „cry”. But these are not the tears of strain but a special salt secretion method. They get rid of the great amount of salt taken by the food through the salt glands around the eyes. This process takes place in the sea too, but there it is not visible.

Sea turtles lay lots of eggs compared to other reptiles. The number differs by species and is between about 70 to 200. The table-tennis ball sized eggs are soft and start out their career in a hole in the sand dug by the females. The females return every year to their favourite sandy beaches (they are similar to Homo sapiens sapiens in this custom too) and lay their eggs two or five times in two weeks periods. The hole can be even 1 meter deep. Although, compared to other reptiles turtles are considered to be prolific, every species of them is on the brink of extinction. The reason for this that the time of egg-laying is known not just by female

turtles but predators which dig out the nests or catch the little nestlings on their way to the sea.

Their mainland predators are varanuses, monkeys, viverrids, seagulls and other bigger marine birds. The nestlings’ predators in the sea are sharks, barracudas, moray eels and other big fish of prey. (For mature turtles only sharks are dangerous.) The other – and likely more significant - reason for their extinction is man itself. Partly because man building in and polluting their egg-laying places, and partly because eggs considered to be aphrodisiac (which increases sexual desire) so they are searched for and collected.

Which turtle species are our closest neighbours? – Turtle population of the Adriatic Sea I could count on one hand the number of divers who have ever seen a sea turtle in the Adriatic. But they live there too. As visiting guests, several species have been registered, so the presence of the following species is proved:

1. Loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) 2. Hawksbill sea turtle (Erethmochelys imbricata) 3. Green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) 4. Leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) Out of them Loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) has a bigger population in the Adriatic Sea. In Croatia about 2,500 (!), in Italy 3.500 db (!) Loggerheads are caught by fishermen. This number might include re-catching too, but still we can talk about a Loggerhead population of thousands. Why do not we encounter with them as a diver?

Because they do not search for food near the shores but in the open sea and they sleep there too. And they go to breed to the sandy beaches of Greece, Cyprus, Turkey or Tunesia. This year in Pula I was lucky enough to participate in the resettling of the cured Loggerheads which were nursed in the local aquarium. It was so moving as the two turtles, popping up time to time, swam out nice and slowly to the open sea.

Every sea turtle are listed by CITES so they are strictly protected. They cannot be owned live or dead, moreover, buying any products made out them is prohibited. Who know how much time left for them on the big stage of life? One thing is sure that the story of 200 million years can easily end if we do not

care. „What can I do?” – the common diver might ask. The answer is: „A lot.” It is already a great help for turtles if they are not disturbed underwater and divers do not hang on to them for a „funny” haul.

Since sea turtles also breathe air and the diver would not be happy either if a big sea turtle would clutch at his leg when his oxygen flask is running out – because it is so funny...

Kép: Selmeczi Dániel Szöveg: Németh Szabolcs tengerbiológus

Old lady is waiting for the end of her life at the Hospice next to the cremation ghรกt

People-Cultures-Cities

A glance at India

VARANASI, the Nearness of Death, Part 2 Varanasi, India: death, widows, orphanage, giving away food to the poor, mysticism, modesty and an incredible energy surround the City of Shiva.

In the first part I introduced you to the holy city and now we will have a look at Shiva and the strength of faith, the life of widows and those who are waiting for death – fates which seem incredible for the European man and the world of feelings which are unknown for us. Come and see it with me at this time too.

Váránaszi House of Widows

Old widow’s every day routine

Young leper girl

The House of Widows On our next shooting day we asked for help from a local Islam trader. We told him to take us to the house of widows in Varanasi so we could photograph and talk to the local women who were widowed. Through narrow alleys, dirty streets and the swirl of armed soldiers we got to a small, hidden gate which was silently waiting for us. Widows whose husband died and their family did not want to support them any more live in this house or those who were simply left and according to their faith could not marry any other man, so they have to live their life this way.

This visit was very important for us since nobody has ever been here before as a photo reporter with professional equipment and getting in is not as simple as to any other institutions. Walking through the gate we got to a two-storey building. Widows live in many small and dark, separated sleeping chambers between blue-painted walls. Some of them have been living here for more than sixty years. Conditions are terrible. Almost nobody speaks English, but finally a nice, not too old widow emerges who speaks Hindi in four different dialects and she speaks English too, so we could manage to talk to her. She was not really happy to see us, first she told us to put our cameras away and asked for our journalist cards to check whether we said the truth. She asked what we wanted there and who we wanted to take the photos for.

A long introduction and conversation followed and, as a result, the rest of the widows also appeared from their tiny, four square metres, dark rooms and listen to our talk with smile.

Lots of things were revealed: not everybody had come here of her own accord – there was a very young girl, around twenty, who was a leper and was waiting for her fate in a dirty and smelly sleeping chamber. The women said that her condition had been deteriorating day by day and even the doctor check her only once a week. I was really shocked by the situation that here we were in the twenty-first century and I had to see with my own eyes that a young widowed woman was disinherited by her family and - after she caught infection from the dirt – was resigned to her fate in a dark, smelly and mucky room, at the age of twenty.

Sad widow

The widow is spinning wool in the corridor

Several pyres are burning at the same time

Old pilgrims are coming here to die

It was really hard to acccept, I guess I still has not been able to. I was so interested in her fate that I went back to Varanasi this November to visit her and I had to hear sadly that she passed away. The traditional Hindu society considers widows as useless creatures who should have died with their husbands, however, the present laws do not allow this – that’s why they have to live the rest of their life in such houses. If they do not choose this and go back to their parents, they are treated the most menial way by their family – they are not allowed to wear jewellery, they have to do the dirtiest jobs and actually they become the most disdained servants in the house.

For Hindu widows it might make some difference which indignity they choose, but for us, Europeans these are all weird and unacceptable traditions. We asked about the different fates during the talk – someone got into here at the age of 16, others have just thrown to Varanisi by fate recently. I saw sadness in their eyes and all of them said that they have to accept this life as if they remarried that would be the worst indignity for them as they would be despised the most.

But this way, according to their faith, they can wait for death in the city of Shiva and after their cremation they can unite with the mother god.

Varanasi „Shiva and the city of death” In Varanasi, are burnt continuosly, 24/7. Two crematoriums work in the city which is according to the Hindu faith – the last stage of reincarnation. The Hindu religion says that Shiva’s city is that holy place where this cycle ends and the soul meets the mother god and resigns from the worldly life finally, the suffering ends, that’s what they call moksha.

Every day ten thousands of people make a pilgrimage to die here and they are not afraid of death, moreover they actually wait it. According to the elderly this is the biggest bless what they can receive.

Manikarnika Ghåt, India’s busiest crematory We found a guide here too who introduced us to the chief of the Manikarnika Ghat who told us that photographing the burning of corpse is possible only by permission. We could not see a single tourist who dared to lift his camera up as locals take it very seriously. The objective our journey was to show some exclusive photos to Europeans about the local ceremonies.

After a long negotiation we agreed on what and where will be published and the management gave us a local escort who secured that family members would not protest against the photos we would take during the ceremony. Our guide was very nice to us and provided precious information about ceremony. Among others, he took us to the central fire in the temple.

There he told us that this flame is about 3000 years old and never burns out as they keep it burning permanently. The fire of Shiva is guarded by night and day by the untouchables who belong to the group of outcastes. In the traditional Indian society the untouchables (asprisyaks) are the lowest ranked people, however, they are highly respected at Manikarnika Ghat.

They usually burn only those who died by natural death or at old age.

Those who died in an accident or very young or as a child will not be burnt but thrown to the water of the Ganges witha stone attached to them to let their body vanish as this way they will reincarnate since they had not lived enough to step out of the cycle.

Logs are constantly arriving on the Ganges

The last journey

Two quintals of wood needed for one pyre

Blessing

They bring the fire for the pyre from the eternal flame of Siva

Dust and ashes, all that is left

We could see the body of a little, one year old infant as the water throw it up to the surface and it was floating on the river just about five metres far from bathers.

They wash the dead at the river bank, then they wrap them in a white sheet like a mummy, then roll them in colourful, ornate clothes and fastened

to two bamboo poles they carry the corpse above their head through narrow alleys to the crematorium. Only men are allowed to participate on the ceremony.

They settle the wherewithal with the chief of the crematory – the ceremony cost a lot compared to the local wages but the family sacrifices for it as it

is the holiest thing they can do for their loved ones.

They use about 2 centner (200 kg) wood to burn up a man, the huge piles of wood in the surrounding streets shows the quantity used here daily.

The corpse lie in line on the steps and when the time comes the male family members and the untouchables unpack the corpse out of the

ornated, colourful ribbons and put them on pyre along with the white sheet. At this time the oldest man in the family walks to the eternal fire with his hair cut and by a handful straw in his hand takes Shiva’s fire to the funeral pyre, walks around the corpse several times murmuring prayers and set it on fire.

A spirit looks back from the fire to an untouchable worker

The body is in flames for one or two hours and burns to ashes. The families were not bothered that we photographed the ceremony but it was really hard to take close pictures as it was unbearable hot around the pyres. The camera almost melted in my hand. A local untouchable poked a nearly burnt down pyre what a shot.

My vision was present the faded feature of the man working near the fire and the hotness.

Checking up the picture after exposure I spotted at the top right corner that a form reminiscent of a human face watches the asprisyak what he was doing. I thought I throw the camera away of fright as I had the feeling if a soul was looking back

to the moments of the worldly life before its last journey. It happened to be a very mystical picture.

He was not there at the next moment, Shiva took him in forever, moksha was fulfilled.

The untouchables pick up the burnt ashes of the bodies and pour them into the Ganges. Here two

untouchable worked on filtering the ashes of the dead to find any jewellery.

As a photo reporter sometimes we have to report in pictures even in the hardest situations, although, according to my heart I would not exposed at all.

Even at night in my dreams I encountered the halfburned body parts of the dead and their faces.

On top of the pile

Collection of the ashes from the corpses

Pyre

Washing the ashes for good luck

Old pilgrim in an alley

Mother Theresa’s orphanage

Beggar at the temple

Women making nan bread

Orphanage and paupers, donation and distribution of food The next day we went to Mother Theresa’s orphanage.

There were plenty of little children, mostly disabled and infants in the place which is maintained by the Catholic church. We were told by the sister (nun) in service that it was silent rest when we arrived so we made an interview with her and talked about the role of the church in India. The sister told us that children have a better life here than out in the street.

Everybody was an orphan there so they escaped from begging, and the possible leprosy or other deadly infections. Many children, mostly girls were accomodated on about fifty beds, seperated by age ranges. When we appeared the ten years old ones woke up and attacked us but when I lifted up my camera one of the little girls piddled in of fright. That was the point from which I could not photograph anymore, I was utterly shocked by the depressing experiences of the previous days and satisfied with my picture of the nun and paying the donation we left the orphanage. We spent the rest of the day by photographing the swirl of the streets and the scenes of daily life.

The next day we returned to the gaths and interviewed the archpriest of the Vishvanath Temple who told us that he did a lot for the poor of Benares.

By the donations of the pilgrims he feeds more than two hundred penniless people who spend their last days in the street waiting for the death, in the city of Shiva. He asked us to be at the entrance of the temple at 9 in the morning where we could witness his charity. We were there the next day at the agreed time and he took us to the upper floor of the temple where the skilled hands of the women kneaded the dough and baked the hundreds of naan bread for the poor. The paupers arrived soon, there were women with kids among them, holy men (sadus), elderly and lepers too. The archpriest asked my friend to take part in the distribution of foof and we could photograph them. It was an interesting and mystical experience to be among the poorest penniless of Varanasi and giving food to those who had nothing except their faith.

After the several days of trial we said goodbye to the holy city and flew to other regions of India but this is another story.

To be continued!

Free food on the terrace of temple Visvanรกth

Beggar at the temple

The poor

Free lunch

Szรกdhuk on the street next to the burning ghรกt

Planning Place: North of India.

Accessibility: from Delhi Airport to Vรกrรกnasi with change.

What can you photograph: people, cultures, temples, markets, religious ceremonies.

What to take with us: wide-angle lens of 24-105 mm, a medium telephoto lens of 70-200 mm, with a 1,4x teleconverter if possible; memory cards and batteries as much as you can.

Accomodation: in Varanasi everybody can find affordable accommodation.

The best time to go: it is worth visiting India all year round as it shows another face in each season.

Photo: Anikรณ Imre and Tamรกs Imre Text: Tamรกs Imre

Book review Iceland – land of contrasts Erlend Haarberg and Orsolya Haarberg

© Erlend Haarberg

In November 2011, Orsolya and Erlend Haarberg (multiple prize winners at several national and international photo contests) have published their second book in Hungary, entitled “Iceland – land of contrasts”. The book was written by Unnur Jökulsdóttir, the author of several bestselling books in Iceland, and it was published by Geographia Publishing in Hungarian and English.

Orsolya and Erlend spent 10 months in Iceland, photographing the images of this book. In contrast to the dozens of Iceland books found in the market, in which the photographers focus either on the landscapes or the wildlife of the “saga” island, Orsolya and Erlend included a mixture of landscape and wildlife photographs in this album, also from the winter season.

The title of the book is a well-known phrase, but it has never been worked up as a concept of a book. After a short and informal introduction about the natural history of Iceland, the book is divided into six chapters, each of them illustrating strong contrasts in the natural world that can be easily observed in Iceland. As the writer of the book says: “Iceland’s nature has many of these contrasts, indeed: light in the darkness, patches of forest neighbouring vast stone deserts, vibrant colours attracting the eye in a greytoned landscape. When you watch the red fire of a volcanic eruption flaming from the ice of a glacier, it becomes even clearer to you how hot the lava is, how cold the ice – and on a bright summer night you recall the dark days of winter.”

Š Erlend Haarberg

“Iceland – land of contrasts” is a hardcover photographic album, containing 192 colour photographs on 256 pages.

“When you visit Iceland – if you do – try to get out into the wild. Perceive the eternal in the wilderness. Take a few steps away from your travelling companions, out into the black sands, down to the sea-shore or up the hill; lie down in the sand or on the bare rock, and listen to nature’s heart beating.

This may be embodied in birdsong, in the babble of brook or in the thundering of a waterfall or perhaps in the deep silence of the wild. And if you cannot make it to this land, Orsolya and Erlend’s photographs will go a long way towards giving you a real feeling for the place.“ (Unnur Jökulsdóttir)

© Orsolya Haarberg

Text: Unnur Jökulsdóttir Photos: Orsolya & Erlend Haarberg http://www.haarbergphoto.com Design: Zsolt Czakó http://www.plusminus.hu Price: 45 EUR It can be purchased in any Alexandra book stores in Hungary, or online at www.haarbergphoto.com/books © Erlend Haarberg

© Orsolya Ha

aarberg

Š Erlend Haarberg

Interesting places Budapest, Hűvösvölgy

Most people would not think that there are really good photo opportunities even on the fringe of a big city, you just have to be in the right place at the right time. The protected area of Mount Fazekas is primarily preferred by those who are interested in geological rarities, however, it is a favourite hiking place for the people of Budapest as well.

Mount Fazekas – which is less known by tourists can be found in the vicinity of Hűvösvölgy „Dinkey” railway station and Nagyrét. From Nagyrét, you can go hiking to Mount Hárs or Mount Feketehegy.

Luckily, the more intact forests of Buda provide a proper ecological corridor for the wildlife of Mount Fazekas.

I shot this picture back in 2003 with a Canon EOS 1 VH shell on Velvia 50 reversal film.

On that very day we stayed at the head office of the Hungarian Ornithological and Conservation Association working on an conservation project.

We heard on the radio that every should go home as due to the suddenly arrived sleet and frost the whole Hűvösvölgy got frozen down, icicles hanging from the trees and walking in the forest is highly dangerous.

My wife and I thought that we go and see this phenomenon as it could be a rare opportunity to shoot interesting landscapes in the capital.

We drove up the the scene by car and to our greatest surprise we spotted a beautiful scenery: the branches of the trees were bended like in a fairytale forest, it was a fantastic experience.

We searched for a viewpoint where we were not under the trees to avoid any accident and - as it was an extremely clear and dry weather – we were waiting for the sunset. The flat and warm beams of the sun fondled around the bent branches of the forest in the frost and the icy woods sparkling in the backlight started to dance in the wonderful shades of the light. I shot from a tripod at the right time and the unrepeatable picture was made.

Text and photo: Tamás Imre

Planning Scene: Middle-Hungary, Budapest

Accessibility: Within Budapesten by dinkey line, by bus or What to shoot: primarily landscape.

What to take with us: wide-angle and telephoto lenses, tr remote release, polar filter, graduated grey filter.

Accommodation: there are plenty of inns, pensions and g houses in Hűvösvölgy.

Best time: You can shoot such rimy pictures in the January

r car.

ripod,

guest

y cold.

Bence Máté - From the book

The Establishment of Hide Photography Building hides in Hungary, Brazil and Costa Rica

I was in my second year at secondary school when it first occurred to me that I could organise nature photography tours. This was one of the ways that I thought I might be able to make a living from my hobby of nature photography.

When I first started to take pictures eleven years ago, nature photography, at least in Hungary, was cloaked in secrecy. Photographers kept quiet about where they had taken their pictures and how they had got them. If someone asked where a particular photo was taken the “diplomatic” answer would be something like “in inner Somogy County...”. Because of this attitude, at first I also gave such evasive answers, especially about the my hides.

© Bence Máté

Then I started to think that it might be a good idea to rent my hides out, rather than just keeping them secret. Maybe I could cover the future costs of building more hides from this income. In this way I might even make a profit and living out of photography. My imagination was fired further when private photography schools began asking me to conduct presentations in my hides about bird photography. I did some of these and several students even asked if they might return and use my locations. I did not think that the enthusiastic community of Hungarian photographers, though growing in number, would be enough for the long-term development of this project. I would need to learn other languages as soon as possible.

Off I went to London for half a year to boost my rudimentary English as I would need to be able to converse correctly with future guests and clients.

For several years in a row I was awarded prizes at the Nature Photographer of the Year event in London. I was able to travel there and meet the greatest people in the profession. I made many friends there, even amongst people who I looked up to as demi-gods – photographers whose work I had admired in the most important international magazines. At the same time my work started to be published, too, often in books that I could not afford a short time ago. Many people heard about the awards I had won and had now seen my photos. I was frequently invited to give lectures at nature photography seminars abroad. I did not realise it at the time but in effect this added up to a free, long-term, advertising campaign.

I was invited to all kinds of places to talk about bird photography, the new style of hides that I was building and about the kinds of photos I was taking from them. I also spoke of the opportunity that everyone had to try them out for themselves.

Within two years I had been to seminars in eight European countries and at each one hundreds of photographers had seen the pictures I had taken from my hides.

I was just eighteen when I formed my own company and became an entrepreneur. I was not to know at that time how hard that was going to be!

In the beginning I imagined that, along with a good friend of mine, we would simply be working in the tourism business. Turning our friendship into a business relationship did not work at all.

In fact, it ruined it, and ultimately we went our separate ways.

A lot of planning and preparation was needed before I could host visiting photographers.

First, I renovated a farmhouse in the Pusztaszer Landscape Protection Area where guests could

stay. This took me out of circulation for a time, but it was also a period when I built most of my hides, some of which I still use today.

The first photography season started with great excitement. I knew that despite all my field experience, the unpredictability of the weather would mean days when it would make more sense to play poker in the farmhouse than waste time sitting in hides.. Fortunately for me this period coincided with the arrival of major technical advancements in photography. It meant that the number of people possessing professional equipment, but having little spare time to learn the craft, grew exponentionally. Now I could search out wildlife subjects, learn their behaviour, create ideal conditions in which to photograph them and then impart this to my clients. It was often the case that the two or three people whom I accompanied felt more like friends than tourists!

I felt I had found the best job in the world! People came to spend their holidays with me and, we celebrated together when a good picture was taken. I had managed to make my hobby my profession and instead of getting bored with it, I became more of a fanatic. It was so enjoyable to see people excited by their pictures, as I had been when I first started.

By the end of the second photo season Ákos Hivekovics, a tour operator from the USA, approached me with the idea of combining our forces and building photographic centres around the world. At first I was not too thrilled about the idea since I still remembered how it could be when friends become business partners.

But Ákos went ahead and bought the www. hidephotography.com web domain address and harassed me with e-mails about various opportunities. Folks worldwide would welcome us with open arms if we wanted to build hides at their property. Travelling interested him just as much as photography interested me. He was always on the road. One week he sent an email from Tierra del Fuego in Antarctica, the next week from Africa. By the time he was thirty-one years of age he had managed to visit to a hundred and seven countries. Through Ákos I got to know Csaba Gődény, better known as Pelikán (Gődény means “Pelican” in Hungarian) whose life was also all about travelling and photography.

The next bird photography season went very well indeed. Again, many excellent photos were taken and several photographers returned home with satisfaction written on their faces. On one of those successful photography sessions I met Ági who I have lived with for three years. Anyway, my friends’ persistent bombarding of my email

forced me to see that it would indeed be worth building up a worldwide network of hides. So, finally, from April 2008 on, each one of us started to plan our lives in such a way that we could build a photo-centre outside Hungary. We looked for the right site for a long time. At first we thought of building a European base, because of the known clientèle and the proximity to Hungary. We settled upon Costa Rica! Ákos had been the manager of lodge at Laguna de Lagarto and kept up a friendly relationship with them ever since. He thought that this place would satisfy all our needs. Besides its superb rainforests and wildlife, Costa Rica is one of the very few countries in Central America whose government has no military influence . As a result it is safer and more advanced than most other Latin American countries. Since the elimination of the army in 1948 the country had been spared civil war and is justifiably called the Switzerland of Central America.

By September we had designed the hidephotography.com website where we described our Hungarian hides. In October we set up a share company and Ági, Csaba and I purchased our plane tickets to Costa Rica for November 8th. Ákos (who stayed with us for just a month) was to show up as usual from another remote part of the world. Finally, everyone was together in Costa Rica. After one week of exploring the five hundred-hectare of Laguna de Lagarto, we struck a deal with the owner. We were getting a taste of the place by becoming acquainted with the local people, their habits and searching for possible places for our hides. By watching the bird feeder in the garden of the lodge we were fairly sure that fifteen or twenty different bird species could be lured almost anywhere with bananas (these included the birds with the most colourful bills, toucans and aracaris).

We faced a huge task. Within a very limited period of time we had to learn about the wildlife here. Little information was available in the literature about Costa Rican wildlife. The size, shape, accessibility, direction and exact location of a well-built hide needs a lot of background knowledge. We needed to gather the best information available, but by and large we had to base everything upon our own experience.

The best solution would have been to be able to spend a whole year on the site before we started to build the hide. I had watched birds for years back at home before I built my first hide.

However, we did not have that kind of time, so I planned two hides in two weeks. I located the exact sites for them. One was for photographing King Vultures and would be placed under the

ground and made of stone. The other was for banana-eating birds and was to be made of wood seven metres high and placed at the edge of the rainforest. Time was short because we wanted to have all the construction materials at the lodge before Ákos left. Even though all of us spoke some English, it was not much use here. We depended greatly upon Ákos’s knowledge of Spanish. We soon learnt that in this country everything was built on “Pura Vida”, a term which combines the expressions “All is OK”, “Life is good”, “Don’t worry”, “Don’t care about problems!”, “Mañana”, etc., into everyday life.. “Mañana” made our life tough. Our return flight tickets were for the 16th. We had planned to have four or five hides ready by then, and some photos to take back with us to tempt photographers to spend a few days with us in Costa Rica.

After a delay of a few days, the raw materials for the vulture hide arrived. Two huge trailers fought their way along a 45 km dirt and muddy road from the nearest town, Pital. Their arrival was followed by a “Pura Vida” solution. The twenty-four tons of bricks, gravel, cement and other construction stuff were then transported to their final destination by a combination of tractor and manual labour.

The only tractor owner in the region, Leoncio, agreed that he would help us carryi everything, but his vehicle had seen better days. For four days shovelled and packed materials onto the trailer pulled behind tractor. Every turn in the road was another challenge because something different broke down every time. On the last day, for example, the front left tyre punctured but Leoncio was not discouraged by this. He just used a board as a wedge for the suspension of the tyre and as a result lifted it up ten centimetres higher than the opposite tyre. The last five turns were done in this cross between a Hummer and a tricycle!

In the first month we started to build our first hide at full steam. Nobody told us that the rainy season was about to arrive. As you would imagine, this season is one when it rains... a lot.

Obviously, mixing cement in the pouring rain is not at all easy! We had no other choice left but to wait for a blessing from the sky. It was raining continually and there was no sign whatsoever that the sun would break through the thick cloud cover. In response to this, in the manner of “Dumb and Dumber”, we decided to start by knocking together a shelter with a temporary tin roof under which building work could continue.

Unfortunately, I was told not to get a concrete mixer on site since no one here used such a thing and concrete is always mixed by hand. I thought that if everything was indeed mixed that way,

then it would not be a problem for a hide. My suspicions should have been raised because concrete in the village was conspicuous by its absence. I had never built a concrete hide before and my attitude towards it was the same as it had been with every other hide I had built. In order to build a hide that met our requirements we must not try to save on cement or on iron reinforcing bars. In the meantime we contracted the owner of a sawmill to produce the material for the towerhide. He promised to deliver the raw materials for the first tower within fifteen days. This multiplied by the “Pura Vida” factor still sounded good. Ákos left Costa Rica so we carried on by using signlanguage, which had now developed to a master level, supplemented with our rather slim local vocabulary. To compensate for a lack of language skills I simply pronounced every English word in a Spanish way and added an “o” sound at the end.

Soon the locals understood about one tenth of the words we uttered when we reinforced them with hand gestures and body language!

We were about to finish cementing the ceiling of the vulture hide. After much begging and countless phone calls the timber arrived, a month late. Before unpacking the trailer it struck me that no two beams were the same size and the majority of them had been cut from much softer wood than we had chosen. The wood was not planed and to cap it all they had delivered less of everything that we had ordered. To rub salt in the wound they let us know that the bill was also going to be more than what we agreed upon. Welcome to “Pura Vida” country! After some heated debate, we had no other choice than to unload the shipment, start sawing, and plane the timber by hand. If we had sent it back without paying, who knows when a new load would be delivered. In any case there was no guarantee that another supplier would be able to fulfil our order. The approach of the locals towards construction was similar to mine towards learning English. We had to reconcile ourselves to the fact that this was the way it was here, and the way it would be. That was when we reached rock-bottom in the story of the construction of our hides in Costa Rica. The half finished construction materials of the second hide arrived at the time when the hide itself should have already been standing. We only had two months left before we were due to go home and we were not at all sure that we would be ready by that time. We were working every day with two helpers from dawn until dusk but things still moved at a snails pace.

Thirty degree weather, pouring rain, basic tools, and moving things by hand, made everything a real challenge. Building the kind of a tower-hide

at home was a piece of cake when my carpenter friend Sanyi Grósz was involved. The biggest headache in Costa Rica was usually being able to obtain scaffolding. For an astronomical price we rented a truck and crane that was used to fix electricity-poles. We used this to place the legs of the hide into the steep and muddy ground. We cut them to equal heights at the top and then lifted up the six hundred-kilogram prefabricated cabin. This was the most exciting work day so far.

The work of eight people had to be coordinated and the work planned and thought through with great care. It was a relief when finally, without accident, the last safety bolt was in place and the hide was up and standing on its own legs. The happy crew danced on the high roof of the cabin in celebration. After experiencing this first success, we worked flat out on our original plans as we had no time to do anything else. We only downed tools when someone found an interesting snake that just needed to be photographed. For its size Costa Rica has the highest diversity of snakes in the world... and most of them are dangerous. We saw sixteen different species during the course of our construction work so the fashion trend was, for practical reasons, to wear high rubber boots. Not counting our unscheduled, improvised photos, we only had our cameras in our hands every two weeks. We still managed to take some great pictures of the unbelievably diverse macro world of the area. I wanted to spend some time on two specific subjects. The first was a lizard, the Common Basilisk, which is arguably the most spectacular creature of the lagoons there. It can be easily observed, often running on the surface of the water at amazing speed. This is a real challenge for photographers. The second was Leaf Ants, the most persistent and busiest workers in Costa Rica’s rainforests. I had to keep postponing the day when I was to photograph them so despite getting a few frames just before my departure, I would have to leave getting serious pictures until I returned the following year. These ants, which cut and carry leaves, occasionally visited the garden of the lodge to slice colourful flower petals before carrying them off to their underground fortress.

There they use the petals to cultivate fungus which serves as their food. This seemed like a subject that was not to be missed, so I looked for an appropriate place to photograph them. I finally found a spot where the worker ants went along a twig. I planned to snap as many ants as possible here as they carried colourful plant parts along.

When Adolfo, the manager of the lodge, heard what I was up to, he complained that he was not happy at all about the ants. From time to time

they invaded his garden and stripped his flowers bare. Since these ants usually turned up during the night, I illuminated the scene with four flashes.

In the first photo session I took two thousand frames, from which few were acceptable. The ants only appeared at the optimal focussing distance a couple of times. Getting more than three ants in focus simultaneously seemed hopeless. I needed to trick or force them into going about their business in single file. I placed a thin, twocentimetre wide twig, in their path. If they had marched along it, they would have fallen within a good camera range but it was clear that they had no intention climbing on to it. They only trusted the trail left by their fellow workmates and would not take the shorter but unknown route that I had offered them. I put a few twigs in their colony in order for the ants to get used to them and to cover them with their scent. This worked! I took the twigs out, placed them on the track and the ants accepted them at once as their highway. Because of the three or four millimetres depth of view, I was not getting the shots I wanted. I needed to find a fast, effective, simple solution that I could execute on site. I borrowed the 12V cooling ventilator from the computer of the lodge, hooked it up to the battery of the lodge car and placed it underneath the twig. When ants appeared in the viewfinder I turned on the fan. As a result, all the workers carrying leaves moved to the top of the twig which was the place with the least air resistance.

With this method I had multiplied the efficiency of my photography by ten and I took much better pictures than before.

After two months in the humid conditions of Costa Rica, fungus started to grow inside my macro lens. Thanks to this I had to take shots at speed of 8 or lower to increase the contrast of the now veiled pictures. Dismantling and cleaning the lens crossed my mind but I did not have the proper tools. I did not want to lose any of the two-millimetre screws which held things together.

We experienced an earthquake with a force of 5.7r, which tested the stability our half ready concrete hide. The quake demolished a 15 km long mountain ridge about a hundred kilometres away, which meant that the shortest road to the capital was blocked and so construction materials became even more difficult to obtain.

Faithful to a tradition of ours, we spent New Year’s Eve in the hide. We photographed King Vultures for the first time from this partially completed structure which still smelt of drying cement! After this, we had no doubts at all that our hide would be a success. During January, we found a fantastic site in the forest on which to put a second tower

hide. Since hardly any light penetrates down to the rainforest floor through the closed canopy, it made sense to be able to photograph a few metres higher up. The chosen site, which seemed especially ideal for photography, in addition to being surrounded by pristine rainforest, was accessible by walking along a twenty-five-metres long tree trunk. The timber needed for our latest construction arrived in a similar condition to the first load. I was less than happy about this but I knew that this was the way things were done in Latin America. At least we could now get on with our construction plans simultaneously at several sites! In the dense, primary rainforest we could not use a crane as before, so we dug the holes by hand and erected each leg of the hide with brute force, securing them by lashing them to surrounding trees.

We built the second tower hide using electricity from the lodge but at the other sites we used generators to work the machinery. Of course, we wanted our hides to be not only appropriate for taking excellent photos but also to blend into the habitats around them. They also had to be durable, exclusive and comfortable too. We quickly learnt that they were durable as they survived a hurricane and an earthquake while most of the trees of around them fell down. On the inside we covered the walls with tiles from the floor to the ceiling. We covered the outside with clay and blocks of turf in a thick layer which helped it fit nicely into the landscape whilst having a comfortable interior climate. We used our favourite Stopsol Classic Clear glass for the windows, brought all the way from Hungary since we could find nothing like it here. Doing this came with a “small” compromise – I had to design every windows, in every hide, to be 100x50 cm in size order to be able to transport the glass safely on the airplane.

We also arranged cow heads to be delivered every three weeks to stock our deep freezer. We would feed these to the vultures daily. In the meantime, we started to get the other birds used to our supplies of bananas. We also observed which species seemed to show some interest in them.

It rained almost continuously for four months.

We got used to being soaked through to our underwear almost every day. In fact, I can only remember four days with no precipitation at all.

The continuous rain was only topped by mother nature when the dry season arrived. From that time on, we worked under a burning sun for half a day and then in pouring rain for the other half.

As a consequence of this, we had high humidity coupled with a sea of mud. It made only sense to

go around in rubber boots and indeed I wore out four pairs of Wellington’s in five months.

It became clear that we would not be able to build more than three hides during this first visit.

Finishing them was a sacrifice in itself. We were running short of both money and time, so partly because of this, we changed our return flight tickets. Ági had to rebook hers as she had been accepted by a college and her courses were due to begin at the end of February. As the Hungarian photo season started at the end of April the rest of us decided to go home on April 24th.

As our construction work gained momentum, so did the complications, which steadily increased.

The vulture feeding station became a popular place for stray dogs so we had to fence the whole area off. Next up on the agenda was the continuous, dry heat. This arrived in March and, unfortunately, had the same effect on the activity of animals as hot-spells at home did. So we realised that the photo season in Costa Rica would be over by the end of February. Nevertheless, we were getting on with our building work, often progressing on two or three fronts simultaneously.

It seemed feasible that we could finish it all by the end of April, we were still very far from being in a position to offer these hides to photographers as we could with those in Hungary. We decided that “Pelican” would stay on longer than the rest of us and work on getting the site finished. In the meantime Ákos was back and signing a contract with the owner of the Xaraes Lodge, which was to be the site of our next hide project. It seemed that this place could fulfil our expectations. We planned to start building work at the end of June.

We soon realised that it would be better to move along at a slower pace, taking smaller and safer steps. Pelican stayed right through to September, testing and trying out the hides. Ákos, on the other hand, left our newly founded company due to other commitments. In early September the rest of us, including Ágnes, set off for Brazil to explore that country and plan hides there. We found places that suited us and our plans better than the rainforest did. The Pantanal is one of the largest wetlands in the world. Though much bigger, in the dry season it recalls a place back home. Bugac in the Hungarian Kiskunság, is a sandy lowland interrupted occasionally by wooded areas. Before the regulation of rivers in Hungary, the Kiskunság must have had an appearance like the Pantanal.

The first few weeks in Brazil, we were content to get a feel of the area, sample its character and try to learn the behaviour of its wildlife. Upon arrival in this wilderness, we trod carefully in the yard of the first lodge we visited. If we were to consider

the density of birds in the area, then it was clear that it was unsuitable for the kind of photography we had in mind. Besides birds the area was rich in other animals – jaguar, cougar, giant and pygmy ant-eaters, capybara, ocelot, caymans, a range of snakes, amphibians and reptiles. The most exciting thing to us was to know was that we were in the presence of a jaguar. This king of the Pantanal savannah was capable of killing a fullgrown cow. To what extent should we be afraid when wandering about in the area? The first local we asked just laughed. He said that we should be careful, and take it all very seriously because his elder brother had been attacked by a jaguar which left him barely alive.

“What exactly happened?” I asked.

“Well, they were on an excursion in the Pantanal and came across a jaguar cub which they took into their tent for the night.”

I whispered to Ági that maybe we should not take this too seriously…

Yet, it was true that not far from the lodge we were staying at, a jaguar had eaten one of the locals just two years prior. This was kept quiet and not reported abroad. After seeing some photos of the incident we did not dare step outside the lodge for a couple of days…

The lodge lay at the centre of the Pantanal, on private land covering four thousand hectares some one hundred and thirty kilometres from the nearest settlement. Away from the lodge itself, it is visibly free of human intervention except for a cattle fence. The hotel was equipped with airconditioning, spacious, quality rooms, satellite TV, internet, a swimming pool, tennis court and offered an ideal environment for travellers wishing to relax. The owner was an-expatriate Portuguese farmer with whom we were on the same wavelength. We understood each other very well and believed we could work together.

Previously, I had always had agreements to build quite inexpensive hides, in order to reduce the financial risk. You get what you pay for and cheap hides mean just that. In the first month of our stay we had already managed to lure one of the most valuable birds in the region, the Blue Macaw, onto the branch of a palm tree. I realised that we could not simply design and erect tiny shacks at this wonderful place!

We tried to use the experience we had gained in Costa Rica wisely. We made sure to set aside more time for photography as well as construction work. We presumed that we would not find too many suitable workers hereabouts, so we brought a workforce with us. András Fodor and Csilla Szűcs volunteered to come and help us for three

months. Altogether, we planned to build eleven hides to cover four different themes – one tower hide for the macaws, two bird fountains, five different smaller hides for the vultures and three by a wetland. At first, we only made the stilt legs for the hides that would be in water. We wanted to learn more about the fluctuations in water levels before deciding anything else. Luckily, from our point of view, we had arrived in a year of drought so we were able to work in dry conditions. When looking at the landscape it was difficult to imagine how it would be when everything turned into an inland sea after the rains. The locals had told us about the water to come and we could see the proof of this on the trunks of trees where a faint mark was painted to record the water levels of 2002. When choosing the sites for the hides I had to bear this in mind, I did not want to end up like the Kiskőrössy Fishermen’s Inn back in Hungary, where they had to paint a mark on the building in remembrance of the last great flood. We took it as sheer luck that every wooded spot grew on the top of a hillock where the waters never reached.

Maybe this was not luck at all. Are the woods there because these patches of high ground are the only places where the soil is not washed away?

We thought about this and decided to dig into the ground for fifty centimetres when building the fountain hides. Down to that point we only had to shovel through brown forest soil and roots but below that a layer of hard limestone awaited us.

We built five different test fountains before finally putting the ones we would use in the best places.

During our work every form of the “Pura Vida” we had met in Costa Rica manifested itself here in Brazil, too. The locals call it “tranquilo”. It reflects the lifestyle of the descendants of Portuguese settlers and the native American Indians. The first two locals we employed disappeared just before the second days work was to begin. We did not have a clue where they could have gone. Though Joao, the owner of the lodge, had around six hundred workers come and go at his place in just eight years!

They tried to sell us the idea of mixing the concrete we needed with our bare hands, but I still had vivid memories of concrete mixing sessions in Costa Rica.. Out of necessity we had brought the semi-permeable panes of glass with us, as we had done before. We had managed to carry twenty panes as luggage and this was almost enough for the hides. When I designed the macaw hide, I had drafted a five-metre wide panoramic view from east to west. This used up half of the glass we had brought. This ambitious project was a real challenge here in the middle of nowhere! In Brazil

it was not really the rain but the unbearable heat and the long distances from civilisation to the hides that made the work difficult. Before every shopping trip to a town we had to think deeply about what we might need later since popping back there to the corner shop for a bag of nails was not an option. The giant pylons of the tower hide were ordered from a eucalyptus plantation 800 km away since it is forbidden to cut down trees in the Pantanal. In the absence of a crane we dug the two metre deep holes for the pylons by hand and moved the three hundred kilo heavy legs by lashing them with wire to a tractor. Then came a memorable boiling, hot day when we decided to switch over to working night shifts as temperatures drop below thirty degrees after dark. We illuminated the construction site, which seemed a good idea at the time. We soon realised that the light would attract millions of insects. We went back to working in the daytime heat after four night shifts. Despite all this, building a tower hide in this country proved to be the ultimate challenge. Compared to this, we considered the one-person vulture hides and the two fountains everyday routine tasks. except for the mosquitoes.

The little bloodsuckers attacked us in swarms. We fought back with fires lit at ten different points on the work-site, thick clothes and mosquito repellent applied in layers. Truth be told, there were some good days when we managed to keep the bites per person below two hundred. Working in mosquito infested forests was probably more difficult than labouring in pouring rain or burning sunshine.

Because of the distances between the hides, we came to the conclusion that we would have to buy a car. Our budget allowed for a thirty-two year old Toyota Bandeirante off-road vehicle, a kind of pickup truck clone. The main advantage of this vehicle was that, apart from ourselves, everybody in Brazil knew how to fix it. We did not need to drive more than a few kilometres to find this out. Indeed, the only thing that was guaranteed with our new vehicle was that a part of it would break down every single day. This was not boring because it would be something different every day!. The speedometer was out of order by default and the petrol gauge was dodgy right from the first day.

We always filled up and took with us a two-cubic meter diesel can from the lodge. The clutch did not disengage properly when we bought it. This problem got worse until it completely packed up, which meant we could learn how to change gears without a clutch. Things went smoothly when changing up, but it was impossible to change back down without a clutch. We had to stop completely

and start the whole procedure from the beginning . This was followed by diminished brake strength then, finally, no brakes at all.

Once, while on the way home, I was practising driving without a clutch and a brake when I realised that we were going too fast to stop in front of the door of the lodge. I turned off the engine, threw the thing quickly into first gear and trusted the engine to brake. The vehicle started again and we were thrown out at full speed with my friends hanging onto the back. Overall we had attained some level of driving skills. After the accelerator packed up and we continued to drive with the engine idle and without any of the three pedals working. The whole process was made more colourful when one of the tyres punctured or the starter This meant that we could only to stop when in a downhill position. Even when the problems with our vehicle seemed serious, it was a rare event indeed to find that it could not be fixed by someone with a piece of wire.

One day we saw a huge bushfire while driving home at dusk. We quickly went to the lodge and got our photographic equipment and headed back towards the flames. It was easy to find the fire which was glowing for five hundred metres.

When we got to the scene we were treated to an extraordinary experience. The play of the lights, the smells and the sight of the fire raging around us told me that this could be my greatest photo experience in the Pantanal. I needed to think fast about how I could capture the beautiful, star lit sky and the huge tongues of flames in one photo since the light of the two differed so much. To photograph the stars I applied twenty and thirty second exposure times which is usually enough, when the lens is fully opened and set at a high sensitivity. Meanwhile, I placed my hand over part of the lens to block out the rapidly spreading, glowing fire, removing it in the last one or two seconds so that that the flames would also be in the picture. I played for a couple of hours with this method until András and the others told me that they wanted to leave. I thought I would take them back and then return alone. On the way home, we got lost and ended up hopelessly driving around.

Two hours later we found the lodge. Then, a thunderstorm arrived and I was I was even more motivated to go back and take shots of the flames, this time together with the lightning. I was almost there when the car got stuck in a swampy spot.

The nearest flames were licking the sky only some twenty metres from me and on top of all that they were being wafted my way by the wind. I could not help but imagine the abandoned car burning down to its wheels, so with no better option I

started to extinguish the fire.. I flapped the flames away from me with a piece of rope., By this time it was so dark that I could not see my hands in front of me. Quite by accident, I stumbled upon my vehicle. I must have looked like a homeless chimney-sweep. Stripped of my determination I chose sleep instead of photography. Sleep alluded me because I had to share my sleeping quarters with five hundred mosquitoes. A long night lay ahead of me but since I was five kilometres from the lodge (and with pictures of the jaguar incident still fresh in my mind) I decided to wait for the morning rather than head off on foot.

The next day we did some cementing around the fountains. We were only able to do this because, incredibly, the cement and sand had been brought to the site on time. One week after our delivery of construction material the bridge to the lodge collapsed. A warning sign on the bridge posted a maximum load of fifteen tons. A truck attempted to cross carrying a fifteen-ton excavator on its twenty-ton trailer. That was more than double the advised load.

Four months after our arrival and with the help of our friend, the prefabs of all the hides were ready.

In January I travelled to Costa Rica to meet some photographers. The others got on with the final phase of construction. The annual flood was about to make the work of the team even more difficult.

Within two weeks, the dry and dusty terrain was turned into a sea. By the time I got back to the Pantanal it took three hours on horse back or canoe to reach our tower hide. This journey took so long that I attached a hammock to the ceiling of the hide and spend the night there. We had to completely halt the feeding of the macaws because they had started to roost in the hide when we were not there. With their giant bills were working flat-out to dissemble the foundations of the half-finished structure.

No matter how better prepared we were after our Costa Rican adventures, we were unable to finish the Pantanal hides due “local difficulties”. Perhaps more importantly, we simply lacked the necessary experience. Once again Pelican agreed to take on an extra shift on his own for a few months in order to put the finishing touches on the hides and to test them out. I was overjoyed with the hides but saddened by my recent photographic activity.

I had spent another half a year in an exotic place but had managed just twenty-five hours of photography. The Hides were now ready on three continents and soon there would be as many photos taken from them as we had mosquito bites. Now we just had to wait to hear from determined photographers…

editorial Editor in Chief : Tamás Imre Tamás Imre

Anikó Imre

János Szekeres

Béla Szabó

Árpád Krivánszky

László Suhayda

Adrien Imre

Iván Éder

tamas.imre@naturephotomagazine.com

Editors: Anikó Imre

Árpád Krivánszky

Béla Szabó

János Szekeres László Suhayda Associate Editors: Adrien Imre

Ágnes Kiss

Bence Máté

Dániel Selmeczi Iván Éder

János Eifert Martin Perhiniak Copy Editor:

Árpád Krivánszky Art Director: Anikó Imre Graphical Design: Martin Perhiniak Web Design: FX designport Web Product: Thomas Picture Translators: Péter Pál Tóth Advertising: Anikó Imre aniko.imre@naturephotomagazine.com

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