I timed my first mountain gorilla trekking experience in Rwanda to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the 1967 founding of the Karisoke Research Center by Dian Fossey. Many of the principals continuing her conservation efforts gathered at the Volcanoes Safaris Virunga Lodge for the opening of a map room in her name and the unveiling of its permanent exhibition Explorers and Conservationists of the Virunga Volcanoes." Dr. Tara Stoinski, president and chief scientific officer of The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, summed up the results of the late primatologist's efforts: Dian was critical to ensuring the survival of mountain gorillas for generations to come. While the circumstances surrounding Fossey's murder in 1985 remain a mystery, the positive results of her efforts to save her beloved gorillas aren't. Before boarding a Brussels Airlines flight from New York to Kigali via Belgium, I went online and secured an East Africa visa, which covers Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya, filled a prescription for malaria pills, and packed my yellow fever certificate along with my passport. For trekking, I added long pants, long-sleeve shirts and gators to minimize contact with stinging nettles. Touching down in Rwanda's capital, I transferred to the Htel des Mille Collines, the actual name and location featured in the film Hotel Rwanda. The next day I toured the city, which included a sobering visit to The Kigali Genocide Memorial, before heading northwest to the Karisoke Research Center and then onto the Virunga Lodge. Fifty Years Later: Dian Fossey's LegacyOver the past five decades, the Karisoke Research Center has evolved from two tents Fossey pitched near the forest between Mt. Karisimbi and Mt. Visoke to study gorilla behavior, to a modern two-story building in nearby Musanze used by scientists, trackers and other field staff to research, monitor and protect mountain gorillas. Early on, Fossey came to the conclusion that without positive human interdiction, the subjects of her studies could be extinct within a decade, victims of poaching and farming and cattle herding incursions into their natural habitat, the latter happening soon after Rwanda won independence from Belgium in 1962 and Hutus forced thousands of Tutsi to flee into the relative protection of the forests of the Parc National des Volcans (Volcanoes National Park), along with thousands of their Ankole-Watusi cattle. Fifty years later, the mountain gorilla population is nearing between 800 and 900, thanks to the daily protection that is now provided. While some of Fossey's militant techniques to ward off those who threatened the mountain gorillas can be questioned, her motivation shouldn't. While meeting anthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey at Olduvai Gorge and observing Jane Goodall's research methods with chimpanzees at the Gombe Stream Research Centre were pivotal moments in Fossey's career development, several photographers also played vital roles in her efforts. Wildlife filmmakers Joan and Alan Root from Kenya, who were shooting footage of the mountain gorillas for a documentary, allowed Fossey to camp behind their cabin and took her into the forest to search for gorillas in 1963. She describes the experience in Gorillas in the Mist: It was their individuality combined with the shyness of their behavior that remained the most captivating impression of this first encounter with the greatest of the great apes. In December 1966, Fossey returned to Africa, this time with the support of Dr. Leakey, to conduct a long-term field project on mountain gorillas. Alan Root traveled with Fossey from Kenya to the Congo, helping her to obtain the necessary permits to work in the Virungas, as well as recruiting porters to carry her supplies and gear to the Kabara meadow and others to help her set up and work with her in the newly established camp. Fossey worked out of a 7-by-10-foot tent in Kabara. Senwekwe, an experienced gorilla tracker who had worked with the Roots in 1963, taught her much of what she came to know about tracking. By applying the knowledge she had gleaned from George Schaller's book The Mountain Gorilla: Ecology and Behavior to her own studies and habituation efforts, Fossey identified three gorilla groups on the slopes of Mt. Mikeno on the Congolese side of the Virunga Mountains. At first the gorillas would flee into the omnipresent vegetation as soon as Fossey approached. She wrote in Gorillas in the Mist about her early efforts: I learned to accept the animals on their own terms and never to push them beyond the varying levels of tolerance they were willing to give. Any observer is an intruder in the domain of a wild animal and must remember that the rights of that animal supersede human interests. Over time, Fossey gained their acceptance by at first observing them openly and from a distance, then by imitating their regular activities such as scratching and feeding-in her case chewing celery-and mimicking their contentment vocalizations. She also found knuckle-walking rather than being bipedal afforded her greater intimate access. Fossey began to identify the individuals by their unique noseprints. In 1967, Fossey moved to the Rwandan side of the Virungas at Karisoke, where she partially habituated four groups of gorillas in 1968. In the same year, National Geographic photographer Bob Campbell came to document her work. At first Fossey saw his presence as an intrusion, but they would eventually become extremely close. His photographs of her working among the mountain gorillas helped change the image of the gorillas from dangerous beasts to gentle beings. They also drew attention to their plight and gave Fossey a certain celebrity status among the general population. Campbell observed that in the course of her years of research, Fossey developed a particularly close bond with a gorilla she named Digit because of a damaged finger on his right hand. His photograph of Digit appeared on posters around the globe. On New Year's Eve, 1977, Digit was killed by poachers, stabbed multiple times and his head and hands severed. While mourning the death of her friend, Fossey used the incident to gain further support for gorilla conservation, establishing the Digit Fund to raise money for her active conservation and anti-poaching initiatives. The Digit Fund evolved into the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. Gorilla Trekking In Fossey's FootstepsAfter getting a much clearer picture of the life and work of Fossey, it was time for me to head to my luxury base camp and prepare for my next day's first encounter with one of our closest biological neighbors. Perched high on a ridge, the Virunga Lodge has breathtaking views of twin lakes and the Virunga volcanoes, offering dramatic photo ops when not tracking the gorillas or other wildlife that call these mountains home. After a dinner in The Dian Fossey Map Room hosted by Volcanoes Safaris' director Praveen Moman, a leading force in East African ecotourism, it was time to set the alarm. Dawn comes early in Africa. Leaving the lodge at 6 a.m. for gorilla tracking in Parc National des Volcans we rendezvous at the ORTPN (Rwandan Office for Tourism and National Parks) headquarters in Kinigi at the park entrance at 7 a.m., where trekkers are divided into groups of eight and assigned a guide to visit one of 10 habituated gorilla clans. Human access to the 100-square-mile park is limited to 80 visitors a day with arranged-in-advance permits secured for $750. While time on the mountain varies depending on the location of the gorillas, one tightly monitored hour is enforced once contact is made. Since some gorilla families are more elusive and further up the mountain than others, tracking can take a full day, especially in wet and muddy conditions. As we get to within the vicinity of where advance spotters have located our assigned clan on the lower slopes of Mount Visoke, we are told to leave excess gear in a clearing where our porters will stay while we push on. This means leaving my bag and carrying one camera body with a 24-70mm /2.8 over my neck, another body with a 70mm-200mm /2.8 over one shoulder and my 300mm /2.8 over the other. I have back-up batteries and extra cards in my pockets. We go off trail following our guide and trackers macheting their way through thick brush. Fifteen minutes later, I round a corner and come within 20 feet of a silverback. The official distance you are required to keep is 27 feet, but in reality the mountain gorillas themselves violate the rules as they make their way through the thick brush. Soon other members of the group appear. Though I have done my homework, I am still surprised by the proximity to these noble creatures, so close in fact and in such small clearings that my 300mm is useful only for tight close ups, my go-to lens becoming the 70-200mm. The dense jungle eats up much of the ambient light, making my fast lenses particularly valuable, especially since flash is not allowed. Since the Virungas border three countries, Rwanda, Uganda and the Congo, I take a two-hour drive further north to Mount Gahinga Lodge, a short walk to the entrance of Uganda's Mgahinga Gorilla National Park. Part of my first day there is spent wandering through the villages for the opportunity to interact with the locals. The next day is for trekking and tracking for golden monkeys through a bamboo forest. After an hour and a half, we locate them high in the jungle canopy. Where shorter lenses worked with the gorillas, longer lenses are ideal, especially when the monkeys take to the trees. A 500mm with a tele-extender would not have been too long for many of the photo ops. The drive back across the Uganda/Rwanda border, then onto Kigali for my flight home, gives me a chance to reflect not only on the past week but also on the legacy of Dian Fossey. On a late December night in 1985, a machete ended her life but not her life's work. Perhaps it was a symbol of things to come. The genocide in 1994 took an estimated 800,000 lives. Thankfully, today the country's denizens identify themselves first as Rwandans, not as Tutsis or Hutus. Their national symbol is the mountain gorilla. It's a symbol of pride. Fossey, who was laid to rest in the graveyard behind her cabin at Karisoke among her gorilla friends, is a beloved figure in the country. She is recognized as the driving force behind many of the successful conservation efforts taking place today in the region. As she wrote in Gorillas in the Mist: When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate on the preservation of the future. The post Virunga Gorilla Trekking Adventure appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.
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News of the Sony a7R III is hot off the press and we've just gotten some hands-on time with the camera at an event in New York. So what's the first thing to try? Why, 10 fps mechanical shutter bursts, with continuous autofocus, of course. It's impressive on paper and sure enough, it's darn impressive in person. Take a look for yourself. Sigma was teasing a lens announcement for PhotoPlus 2017, and today they (sort of) delivered. The company has announced development of the upcoming Sigma 16mm F1.4 DC DN | Contemporary-a compact, high-speed, wide-angle lens designed for Micro Four Thirds (MFT) and Sony APS-C E-Mount cameras. (Note: this lens is designed for crop sensors, and will produce vignetting on full-frame cameras.) The company is calling this, "the large-diameter wide-angle lens for which mirrorless camera users have been waiting," and also claiming it's the world's first lens for Sony APS-C E-Mount to pair a 24mm (equivalent) focal length with a bright F1.4 aperture. The lens follows in the footsteps of Sigma's 30mm F1.4 DC DN | Contemporary, which was released in 2016 and attempted to marry "F1.4 brightness with top-level optical performance" for APS-C and MFT shooters. The goal was to create a lens for crop sensor (DC) mirrorless cameras (DN) that combined a fast aperture with "top-notch optical performance." In the upcoming 16mm lens, Sigma will achieve this by using an optical design featuring 16 lens elements in 13 groups, a stepping motor for smooth autofocus performance, and a dust- and splash-proof mount. No word yet on when this lens will be released or how much it will cost when it is, but Sigma did reveal that the 16mm is the second of three lenses it intends to release as part of the DC DN | Contemporary line. The first was the 30mm F1.4, the second the 16mm F1.4, and the third will be an as yet unspecified "telephoto lens" that some believe will be a 50mm F1.4 DC DN | Contemporary, although that's still just speculation at this point. To learn more about this lens, check out the brief press release below or visit the Sigma website. Press Release Development of SIGMA 16mm F1.4 DC DN | ContemporaryThe SIGMA Corporation is pleased to announce the development of a new high-performance, large-diameter wide-angle lens, SIGMA 16mm F1.4 DC DN | Contemporary. This is the world's first interchangeable lens for mirrorless Sony E-mount cameras in the APS-C format to offer a 24mm focal length (35mm equivalent) and F1.4 brightness. This is the large-diameter wide-angle lens for which mirrorless camera users have been waiting. With an optical system that rivals that of interchangeable lenses for full-size SLRs, the lens features a wide variety of high-tech optical elements. SIGMA has crafted a lens that leverages optical aberration minimization via the in-camera digital correction. This lens effectively minimizes optical aberrations and offers superb resolution at wide-open aperture and throughout the aperture range. The optical design and stepping motor deliver smooth autofocus during video shooting, while the mount features special sealing creating a dust- and splash-proof design. Release date and price: TBD Sigma 16mm F1.4 DC DN | C specifications
Today's video isn't really a ReEdit episode per se, but more of a comparison of Adobe Lightroom Classic CC vs Capture One Pro 10. To do this comparison, I'll show you guys how I'd go about editing the same image in Adobe Lightroom vs editing it in Capture One Pro 10. Lots of photographers swear by Lightroom and those who tend to want more controls and an arguably better RAW processor tend to go for Capture One Pro 10. But with Adobe Lightroom Classic CC, we got a number of powerful upgrades. In addition to that, I'm editing these photos on a very good machine. So which does the better job? Neon Dreams exploring Tokyo through the lens of Matthieu Bhler.Matthieu Bhler is a German-French graphic designer and photographer who currently lives and works in Tokyo, Japan. Mostly armed with a camera, he likes to explore the streets of his neighborhood at night.Matthieu's photo series 'Neon Dreams' features views of various places away from the famous tourist spots. Below you can find a small selection of images. For more, please visit the full series on Behance or have a look at Matthieu Bhler's website to see some examples of his designs. All images by Matthieu Bhler. Feel free to find more inspiring images in our Photography section. On WE AND THE COLOR we feature both emerging and established photographers from all over the world. The post Neon Dreams Tokyo Photography by Matthieu Bhler appeared first on WE AND THE COLOR. Yashica has updated the campaign page on Kickstarter for its Y35 digiFilm camera amid some criticism from commenters that the company isn't being honest about the camera's specifications. Yashica has uploaded four videos of its team taking pictures with the Y35 digiFilm camera and then downloading images onto their computer. Yashica has also posted the images their team is shown taking in the videos. The move was in response to a number of comments both on the Kickstarter campaign page and elsewhere online questioning the validity of what Yashica says the Y35 digiFilm camera can do. Some people have commented questioning the validity of the campaign when it says the project location is Tokyo, but Yashica is owned by by a company in Hong Kong. Others have asked questions about the camera specs, while others have wondered whether the Y35 can actually do what's advertised. In addition to the videos, Yashica has responded by saying:
Yashica has now easily met its fundraising target, raising more than $1 million in two days. The post Yashica updates digiFilm camera Kickstarter page with Y35 demo videos amid criticism appeared first on Camera Jabber. Photography, especially nature photography, is the art of capturing a scene to represent a slice in space and time of reality. Right? Well, not exactly, not always. That's definitely part of it, but from very early on in the history of the art, photographers have experimented with the possibilities and limits of technique and imagination to create abstract art. Art that aims not to be accurate, but to let the imagination run free to create an effect disconnected from the obvious. So what exactly is abstract photography? And can nature photography be abstracted? Should it be? What is abstract photography?The word itself comes from the Latin abstractus, which means drawn away or detached, and is often used in opposition to concrete. In terms of art, the abstract is a space for impression and imagination, for the elusive, for fuzzy borders. That doesn't mean abstract photography is blurry and dim it can be bright, clear, and sharp. It just doesn't aim at the common, concrete representation of the world that we're used to. That's why abstract nature photography is so intriguing. By creating a distance from form, abstract art opens up a space to explore associations, feelings, and reactions. Because it lacks an anchor for your interpretation, there is room for an uninhibited association. Through detachment from the concrete, you're allowed to create your own way. Capturing nature with photographyIn nature photography, most work tries to clearly capture an object, a scene, or a process to the point where the photography might cross from artistic into scientific. Abstract nature photography is obviously different in that it doesn't try to represent physical reality. Its potential is to create something ethereal from the ordinary, to find something unique in the mundane. To create abstract nature photographs, you need to step beyond the obvious and try to capture a sensation, a mood, a movement things that might not be part of physical reality, but are just as real to the artist and the viewer. Think of it as music, using very concrete instruments and elements to create a reaction beyond that of the individual notes and sounds. Getting startedTo create something abstract, you need to begin with something concrete. Painters create abstract art using concrete tools: their paints, their substrate, brushes or other painting tools, and their imagination. Photographers use different tools, but a more significant difference is that the artist is inescapably aware of the reality from which the abstraction in the finished work stems. However, the viewer's vantage point is the same, whether the piece of art is an abstract painting or an abstract photograph. The camera and your imagination are the only limitations on how you create abstract art. Below I list some easy ideas to begin experimenting with because by now I hope you're intrigued enough to try your hand at abstract nature photography. To be clear, all of these tips also work for abstract art that has nothing to do with nature photography, but they focus on abstract art rooted in nature photography. 1. DistanceGetting very close to something or far away from it are great ways to create abstractions. We don't often get that view in our everyday life, so it's easy to disconnect what's captured from what's immediately familiar. Here is an example from the realm of macro photography: And an abstract photograph taking advantage of an unusually distant perspective: 2. FocusJust because something is abstract doesn't mean it has to be blurry or unfocused, but playing with focus is certainly one way to make a scene abstract. This requires that you use manual focus. By either squinting or defocusing your eyes, you can get an idea of what the scene might look like as an out-of-focus image. Use that to find an interesting scene just because something is out of focus doesn't mean it's interesting! Play around, and also try combining it with movement (see next point). 3. TimeTime is always of the essence when it comes to photography, and abstract photography is no exception. By combining a chosen exposure time with somemovement you can create some really interesting abstract art. Your exposure time can be anything from a tiny fraction of a second to several minutes (or even longer), and in terms of movement, it can either come from the subject moving (e.g., light painting), or from the camera moving (e.g., intentional camera movement). A bonus for advanced (and daring) photographersEarly photographic attempts at abstract art were based on the medium itself: the metallic or glass plates or sensitized paper in combination with the necessary chemicals used to create photographs, and light (without a lens). This kind of extreme back-to-basics experimentation also works with a digital camera. For instance, through something called refractography, where a naked sensor is exposed to light reflected from a refractive object. It's both beyond the scope of this article and my photographic experience, so I won't talk more about it, but I thought it was worth mentioning. A quick warning, though: removing your lens from your camera always exposes the sensor to dust, so doing photography without a lens is obviously not healthy for your sensor. You've been warned. ConclusionFor photography newbies, trying your hand at abstract photography is a great way to get to know your camera and try out different photography techniques: using manual focus, light painting, intentional camera movement, and so much more. For more advanced photographers, it's a fun way to explore and expand your art and to try something new. What do you think of abstract nature photography? Have you tried it? Please share your photos and thoughts in the comments below. The post How to do Abstract Nature Photography by Hannele Luhtasela-el Showk appeared first on Digital Photography School. Documenting daily life in plantations is one of the most beautiful projects that every photographer should take on if they have the chance. Every location holds a different story and shows a certain scenery but the messages are always eye-opening. Case in point is the excellent documentary work by Milan-based Giacomo Bruno, simply titled Ceylon Tea. |