Lion Stalks the Wildebeest

On safari in Tanzania, Africa Anyone who has ever owned or spent time with a cat would feel right at home in the Serengeti of Tanzania while watching the behaviour of this male lion slinking up to it's prey. After hanging around with his brothers he decided to head off towards the herd of wildebeest that had wandered into their midst. Us watching in our vehicle with baited breath, our camera trigger fingers were itching with anticipation as this male expertly crept towards the wildebeest and vultures, keeping his body low to the ground with every deliberate and careful motion. At last the moment we thought had arrived: the big cat revealed his presence to the wildebeest as they scattered away from him, the vultures filling the sky with in an explosion of feathers.

This powerful and successful hunter bolted towards the wildebeest, took one look at them, and proceeded to lap up water in the nearby watering hole hidden by the tall grass. All this work, and all this teasing was just practice and fun on the lions behalf. We looked at each other and laughed as the now quenched lion returned to his resting spot among his brothers.

Photographic Details: Sitting as low to the ground as I could get I was able to make the lion in the foreground visually closer to the wildebeest in the background. More interested in showing what the lion was looking at I decided to focus on the wildebeest to put the viewer more in the lions perspective. I also set the white balance to "cloudy" mode, to add an extra warmth to the image to help convey the extreme heat of this environment. Canon EOS 7D 1/200s f/8.0 ISO100 400mm (35mm eq:640mm)

Superb Starling catch

Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania, Africa The aptly named superb starling impresses his mate with an offering of a juicy insect while the iridescent colours shine off his back in a beautiful flash of blue and green. The tree branch he is standing on is of the iconic acacia tree, the thorns meant to protect the tree make these trees a safe haven; a suitable place for the many thousands of species of birds that call africa home.

photographic details:This bird was standing here for quite a while, normally I would prefer sunset or sunrise conditions but the overhead light by the mid day sun was perfect to light up the back of this bird, who would look mostly black in the wrong light. I could not ignore this opportunity despite it not being the golden hour. I don’t like to place my subjects in the centre, nor do I want to loose myself too much in the details of the animal. With this in mind I left the bird on the right side of the image, looking into the frame, I made sure I could include the acacia tree to create a sense of context also illustrating the incredible thorns on this famous tree. One picture, two subjects, my kind of photo.

Samburu Dance

Samburu Village, Kenya I’m currently on Safari in Africa, here is my latest story:

The Samburu people of Northern Kenya are the traditionalists of Kenya, one of 42 different tribes or cultures that make up the origins of many people here. This is one of the few tribes that hasn’t adopted a more western lifestyle.

The man depicted here is doing a traditional dance, jumping straight up and down high in the air. One after the other the men display their prowess, impressing the ladies by the heights they can reach.

Photographic Details:Laying on the ground I was able to get low enough to properly show the space between the dancers feet, given that the men do the same thing over and over again, it’s somewhat easy to predict where they are going to be. Instead of using a sepia filter, I simply increased the white balance on my camera to give my photo a warm tone, combining this with decreased colour (saturation) I get a warm old fashioned look the image without losing the colour completely. This look gives an impression the heat and dryness of Samburu and the rich and ancient history of the Samburu people.

Reticulated Giraffe reach

Sweetwaters game reserve, KenyaTaken on safari mere hours ago.

This subspecies of giraffe is known for it’s dark spots separated by cream coloured lines. As we drove up in our safari vehicle this giraffe stared at us blinking with her huge eyelashes then continued browsing on the acacia tree after determining we were of little importance.

Photographic Details: I wanted to get a more unique photo of this giraffe while still expressing the daily life of this graceful animal. I liked the curve of the neck while she reached out parallel to her body on the top of the small tree, the open mouth and purple tongue clearly illustrating she was munching away.

I cropped the bottom of the image and kept the sky in the top third of the image, the giraffe in the middle and the green foliage in the bottom, conforming with the rule of thirds for this composition.

Canon EOS 7D 1/320s f/7.1 ISO100 400mm (35mm eq:640mm)

Elephant Sunburn

Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Animal Orphanage, Nairobi, Kenya, Africa This photo just taken hours ago is of a baby Elephant who lost his mother. Elephants are prone to sunburn too, and as a result the caretaker follows this little guy around with an umbrella on top of the sunscreen applied to him. In the wild elephants use mud to help prevent sunburn, but the young ones haven't learned how to properly slather on some wild mud sunblock yet. In addition a baby elephant is used to being in the shadow of his mother, being orphaned a caretaker with an umbrella is the next best thing to the sun protection his mother can provide.

To watch this little pachyderm bumble around while his caretaker hastily chases after him with an umbrella is hilarious, but entirely necessary to emulate the loving family environment that an elephant needs to survive. Without love and attention the elephants will to live wains eventually leading to death. It's this formula of creating a family of caretakers that created the first successful rearing of an orphaned african elephant, a program that has rescued over a hundred elephants from the loss of their families due to poaching.

For more on the animal orphanage see http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/

Almost to Kenya

Camera gear, luggage and 50 pounds of medical supplies destined for a slum hospital in Kenya. These supply drops are all organised by health partners international. A little bit of humanitarian aid while on a safari makes it all the more meaningful! Flying out to Nairobi right now, I really can't wait.

I'm heading Out on Safari!

Today I fly out for Kenya, on a 19 day trip through some of the most fantastic wildlife and scenery in Kenya and Tanzania! I'm guiding 10 lucky people with two local guides to sharpen their photo skills and get the most inspiring shots! I don't know how well connected I will be to the internet but I will try and keep you all posted on happenings and sightings that we encounter. I may only have enough bandwidth for quick twitter updates in which case you can follow @kylefoto at http://twitter.com/kylefoto I can't wait to show you the pics when I'm back!

Polarised Sky

Svalbard, Norwegian ArcticFrom the blog http://www.kylefoto.com

This sky was particularly beautiful. Sometimes it’s not about the extraordinary landscapes that are under my feet, but the canvas of ever changing colour and texture above in the sky.

Photographic Details: Shot at the brightest exposure I could allow myself in order to capture the most detail, I also used a circular polarizer. A handy little filter known for darkening the blue sky in order to get the sky to pop. If the sun is in the right direction often the piece of sky 90 degrees perpendicular to it is greatly effected by the polarizer, adding a bit more drama to the image.

The best way to visualise which part of the sky will be greatly effected by a polariser is by making a 90 degree angle with your thumb and index finger, like making a pretend gun with your hand. If you keep your thumb pointed directly at the sun at all times, any direction you can then point your index finger will tell you where the sky is mostly effected by the polariser, voila! Your hand is a polarised sky finder!

1/125s f/9.0 ISO100 16mm

Village Child, get down to their level

Mto Wa Mbu, Tanzania, Africa Mto Wa Mbu is a village sitting on the edge of one of the greatest natural areas in Africa, the Ngorongoro conservation area. With over 16,000 people in this dense fertile volcanic area, there was a lot to see. I was somewhat apprehensive coming here as I feel that bringing a troupe of photographers and big lenses would be an invasion of privacy, but our tourism is bringing much needed revenue in to bring in fresh water, maintain pipelines and build schools, thus we were welcomed with open arms. A huge part of my travel philosophy is to be respectful and to leave the place in better condition than I left it, if I can make a difference just by being here then I'm going to be here!

In a world where electricity is often bought a lot like a drink in a bar to power Nokia cell phones that have battery lives of up to two weeks, you aren’t going to be seeing children tweeting about how they didn’t get an ipad for christmas. I was asked how long the batteries lasted in my Android phone, and they laughed at the idea that I had to charge it almost every night. Tires and soccer balls seem to have a long life here compared to other toys, and most likely have the longest life out of anything else around here.

Photographic details: I was walking with a photographer that has a keen eye for people, while I was photographing some soccer players I noticed my buddy completely change in body posture, kneel down and shoot towards this kid. She had the right idea in getting close to the ground and at the level of the child. Shooting across at them the ground tends to fall out of focus and a much more interesting perspective is achieved. We are so used to seeing everything from eye level that it’s no longer an interesting perspective. I like the fact the child is waving, creating a connection between the viewer and the subject. I of course gingerly waved back as this kid smiled, giggled and swung the little tire around as far as his little arms could let him.

1/500s f/2.8 ISO100 200mm

Hagia Sophia by night

Istanbul, Turkey The Hagia Sophia (or ayasofya) is a place so rich in history I can merely scratch the surface of this ancient centre of religiosity. Originally conceived as a greek cathedral of constantinople in 360AD this monolith has shifted theological allegiances numerous times, lastly becoming a mosque in 1453 which was finally converted to a museum in 1931.

One of the coolest things about the building is it’s restoration, and with it’s long history of being both a church and a mosque a careful extraction of the newer islamic art reveals the ancient christian mosaics behind them. The resulting experience is a beautiful mix of both cultures in one breathtaking monument to architecture and history.

Photographic details: This building being the largest cathedral in the world for nearly a thousand years is certainly deserving to look as grand as possible. Believe it or not once you get close to this building, most of it’s minarets, great architecture, and city behind it is blocked by it’s surrounding buildings. I really wanted to show the context of this building as it stood the test of time in the ever changing city landscape around it.

I decided to climb the roof of some hotels nearby to get a view of the city lights. With a tripod I shot a 2 second exposure at 70mm to zoom in enough to get details, while also keeping enough foreground and background. This is another great example of landscape shots being taken with a telephoto lens.

2s f/3.5 ISO100 70mm

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Bird Cliffs Alight

Coburg island, Canadian Arctic These steep cliffs are completely inaccessible for any person on foot and out of reach for any land dwelling animals. For this reason these cliffs make the perfect place for a bird to build a home. Free from the prying eyes and jaws of Arctic fox, Polar bears and anything that could take home an egg as a prize, birds have been nesting in places like this for millions of years. Hundreds of thousands of birds swarm the cliffs, changing the colour of the rock with their guano and filling the air with their calls.

Photographic Details: Waiting for a glimpse of sun to come out of the clouds I wanted the cliffs to be highlighted by the light. The rare sight of fog on the cliffs adds enormous amounts of texture and depth to the already dramatic scene. Look closely at the image you will see white dots peppering the image, as the sun lit birds show up against the darker shadowy cliffs.

1/250s f/6.3 ISO50 135mm

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Viburnum opulus berries

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada This plant was something that was hard to ignore. While walking along the snowy park with my family the landscape was mostly devoid of colour until a flourish of red caught my eye with a patch of bushes carrying these beautiful red berries.

Many of them were covered in bits of ice and snow, and I had to shoot quickly as the sun was setting. After marveling over the wonderful colour we couldn’t help but see if the berries were frozen too. I suspect they must have a natural anti-freeze in them like many plants fish and amphibians have in them because they exploded in my hand in the -10 degree weather like any berry would on a warm summers day. To me and my brother’s discontent, the berries had a very unpleasant smell to them, we nicknamed them “stink-berries”, and postulated why a plant would want to emit such a fetid aroma.

Photographic Details: Using my macro lens I was able to get very close to these berries. Mere centimeters away from my lens I had a very shallow depth of field so there was not much in focus at any given time, this makes for a very soft feel to the image. I decided to centre my subject and give it a square crop, as the near symmetry of this subject calls for this compositional arrangement.

ISO 640 100mm F2.8 1/60SEC

Also what is my new years resolution? it's: Do more, do it faster, do it better, and inspire as many people as possible!

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World's top travel blog gadling interviews me

I've been featured on one if the biggest travel blogs in the world, a blog from the Huffington post no less! It talks about my travel philosophy and much more, I think it's worth a read:

Gadling: Travel the world through the photography of Kyle Marquardt

Podcast interview on my career in Photography

I've had the absolute pleasure and privilege to be interviewed by social media, photographic and culinary aficionado KyleWith! Check it out! KyleWith: Photographer Kyle Marquardt

Get festive outdoor photos with light painting!

Wheeler Hut, B.C. CanadaMake sure you look at all three photos in this post to see the before/after

It was a cool festive evening at wheeler hut as the moon rose in the foggy night sky. A long day of backcountry skiing was well rewarded with hot chocolate, and a delicious meal. Even though we were “in the sticks” I couldn’t help but cook a hearty meal with turkey stuffing, asparagus and boursin stuffed chicken breast, can you tell I love food? A game of jenga on the dinner table brings bouts of laughter as we tell stories by the cozy wooden fireplace.

Photographic Details: I found the angle and composition I was looking for to show the front of this beautiful hut with the moon shining behind it but the hut itself was dark in the photograph. I had to add some light if I wanted the logs and the white fluffy trees to be visible. I knew I would be getting shots like this so I planned ahead to bring my massive maglite, it’s my favourite light painting tools as I can focus the beam of light and it’s bright enough to be very useful photographically.

Before Photo:

You can see the first photo is atmospheric but I had a vision for more detail in this photo.

So I set my camera on a timer on a tripod stuck in the snow and frantically ran to the right of the camera with my maglite (not easy in deep snow). Once I heard the click of my shutter set at 15 seconds I shined the light on every part of the photo that I wanted illuminated. I made sure to light up the part of the tree by the moon to help draw the eye toward the sky, I wiggled my flashlight all over the skiis, snow and front of the cabin. After 15 seconds my camera finished it’s exposure and the light that I shone in that timespan was “painted” onto the surface of everything it touched.

After Photo:

You can see the result is dramatically different and the image has a much brighter feel. Be sure to try standing in different places and avoid light painting from behind the camera, a light source too close to the camera may look too much like an in camera flash which doesn’t produce flattering results. light painting is a great way of illuminating subjects at night, the beauty of it is that you don’t have to be exact, and it’s easy enough to have a flashlight handy in your kit!

Lighting Diagram:

15s f/2.8 ISO800 50mm

Inuit boy portrait

Grise Fjord, Ellesmere Island, Canadian ArcticA continuation of this post: http://www.kylefoto.com/2011/12/inuit-boy-in-seal-skin/

In continuation with one of my other shots here is a more detailed close up of this inuit boy. This has much more details on the bone slit eyewear to prevent snow blindness. A very effective solution to cut out all the radiation in the arctic that I would most definitely use if I wasn’t privy to adequate sunglasses.

1/200s f/5.6 ISO50 400mm

Explorer's silhouette

Svalbard, Norwegian ArcticFrom the photo of the day at http://www.kylefoto.com

Exploring the arctic tundra is somewhat of a contemplative activity. Mostly bare rocks will seem uneventful to the inattentive eye, but if you take your time you will become aware of the subtle flora that populates the land. As guides, we establish a perimeter where it’s safe for us to explore, investigating the land for polar bears and keeping armed guides within view of everyone and everything just in case. This group was looking out into the horizon to our expedition vessel, the Akadamik Sergey Vavilov.

Click for larger image

Photographic details: I noticed how at this moment everything seemed to just fit together. I often use the “rule of thirds” to line my subjects up and this is a great example. I split the image into thirds and my subjects are placed in the intersections of these divisions. The silhouette of the group and the ship are both important parts of the image but they are both 1 third of the way into the image. In addition the sky takes up the top third, the ocean the middle third and the land on the bottom third. The eye has a lot of paths to follow, from one subject to the other. The centre of the image has nothing in it, it forces the viewer to look around and linger a little longer on the photograph.

The original full colour photograph was interesting but I wanted more drama, it had a lot more details and I could even see the faces of the silhouettes. In lightroom I shifted to black and white and increased the blacks, this gave me the the contrasty look I wanted.

1/400s f/8.0 ISO100 100mm

Original colour version: Click for larger image

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Breaking through the sea ice

Svalbard, Norwegian Arctic, Ship: Akademik Sergey Vavilov Navigating open water is a great experience, but winding through big pans of sea ice, pushing them out of the way and slicing through other chunks is a past time I will never get tired of. Some chunks bounce off the hull making way for us with a thud, while others split right before our eyes with a very satisfying crunch and scraping sound. Thumps and bonks echo throughout the ship while mild tremors wiggle their way through the hull, making me smile as I watch my green tea on the table tremor with excitement. Having no worries about danger with the adept crew in the bridge and the ice strengthened hull I enjoy a day that is full of these little events as this landscape of little icy continents drift past.

Photographic details: Standing up along the wing bridge, I can get a grand view of the ship and the ice below. With an ultra wide 16-35mm lens I can capture a lot in just one view at 16mm. Positioning the bow of the ship as it pokes into the middle of the photo gives it a sense of motion as it travels towards the centre of the image. Having the ship take up less than a quarter of the image helps express the grand view presented in a scene like this. I love seeing the passengers looking out at the ice, they add a human element and help express that travelling in such a desolate looking place doesn’t have to be a lonely affair. I’m not some lone photographer who disappears to the edge of the earth while taking photos in complete isolation to magically appear with great images, I’m a social person and believe me I can’t do what I do completely on my own; everything I do in some part is a team effort.

1/160s f/8.0 ISO100 16mm

230 degree Arctic vista

Svalbard, Norwegian Arctic In the hopes of pursuing a polar bear a great place to look is the very platform that bears depend upon for hunting: sea ice. Our vessel being ice strengthened we have very little to worry about when navigating around frozen areas like this. In fact given that we had some time and wanted to scan the horizon for bears, we end up ramming into the sea ice to park the ship, with no need of an anchor we can rest here and take a look at the view.

Photographic Details: I was admiring this view when I thought I would have fun with a panorama. Taking multiple photos with my wide angle lens I was able to capture over a 230 degree view, which as a photo tends to play with the mind. It looks like two ships are right beside each other when in reality it’s just the left and right side of the main deck I was standing on. Each photo was automatically stitched together by photoshop after being processes in lightroom.

1/125s f/9.0 ISO100 16mm

Click for full image

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Glowing sea ice

Ellesmere island, Canadian ArcticFrom the photo of the day at http://ww.kylefoto.com

The sea ice in the arctic is usually quite featureless, but after a while it piles up on top of itself into large conglomerates. The tides are still prevalent in the arctic and can ground the sea ice by the shore, revealing interesting features that would normally be underwater. I waited until the kittiwake that was flapping around above me was in the patch of sky exposed, just to give the photo an extra element.

Photographic details: Back lighting situations are usually thought of as a disadvantage by photographic enthusiasts, but I have found that more difficult situations provide unique opportunities. Instead of just lighting the surface of the ice, now the light is travelling through it, making it glow! Walking through this little cavern of abandoned sea ice felt like having my own personal fantasy land, as I knew in a short time the tide would come and take it all away, never to be seen exactly like this again.

1/50s f/4.5 ISO50 16mm