This little guy passed by me clinging to his mother’s back and seemed particularly interested in my camera. When she stopped and sat down he was behind her, but he crawled round to this spot and continued to watch.
Aug 082012
Aug 012012
This guy has featured in a few of my previous photos. Click the “mountain gorillas” category to see a few of his different emotions… including grumpy, really, really grumpy.
Jul 282012
I’ve got a LOT of gorilla photos and I’m struggling to think of what more to say about them. If you want to know more about my experience with the gorillas in Rwanda click on the “Mountain Gorillas” in the categories to see all of my gorilla posts.
Jul 242012
Another shot of that spectacular, lingering sunset on the Upper Zambeezi. At this point the liquor had been flowing and the group was in good spirits. We can’t say the same for the morning. When we woke up the next day to take on the category 5 rapids below the falls we weren’t the happiest campers. It was still a great day, and most of us had recovered by lunch time. But here’s a pro tip, if you get the white water rafting + booze cruise combo at Jolly Boys, Livingstone, do the booze cruise after the rafting… not the night before!
Jul 172012
My Shot on My Modern Met
A friend sent me a note today to let me know that one of my pictures has been featured in an article on My Modern Met about the Niagara Falls’ Stunning Festival of Rainbow Lights by Katie Hosmer. I love it when my photos appear on people’s websites. I normally spot them when people start linking into Traverse Earth or Flickr from the article. I think I like it even more when I hear it from people that have recognized one of my shots! So, if you spot anymore of my photos about the web, let me know! There’s no prize, but I’ll definitely say thanks.
Also, I’ve had a number of people point out that my photos can be copied from this website, or on Flickr, or on Smugmug. That’s okay with me. My images are all available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.. That sounds complicated but all it means is if you’d like to use one of my images for a non-commercial purpose that’s fine. Just link back to me. I prefer a link back to my homepage, www.traverseearth.com, but a lot of my images that end up being used out on the web are found on Flickr and typically link back to there. So, want to illustrate a point on your blog? Go right ahead. Want to use a photo for your cover photo on Facebook? Fine by me. Just remember to point a link back to where you found it! If you’d like to know more on Creative Commons, feel free to go ahead and click the link above and explore that site.
Today’s Photo: More Tourists
When visiting the mountain gorillas in Rwanda one conclusion is really easy to draw. Silverback gorillas are truly formidable. All the other gorillas seem intrigued by your presence. They pause to watch you as they go about their daily routines. The silverbacks, on the other hand, just seem grouchy. They don’t pay you much mind but maintain this look like they could snap at any moment. I got the pleasure of watching one charge through the bush and slap another gorilla out of the way. I thought it was incredible. Cameron and Chris had a different viewpoint; they were the focus of this gorillas mock charge. Chris happened to film a video of this on his iPhone as it careened through the bushes at him at great pace. Somehow that video disappeared before I got a chance to see it. I’ve got a theory that it’s because you could hear a whimper of fear or two in the background. Chris did admit that when he played the video back it was clear that his hands were shaking during the ordeal.
This photo was taken later, at a much calmer moment. I’m not sure if this was the same gorilla or not. He doesn’t look particularly happy with our presence there. Maybe someone had just accidentally stood on a particularly tasty plant.
Originally, when I was working up these gorilla shots, I was combining three exposures and using the ghosting tool in Photomatix to deal with the subjects movement. I was happy with the results at the time, but looking back I’m not so thrilled. Now I am using one RAW exposure. In Photoshop’s Camera RAW I adjust this exposure to simulate varying exposure levels and produce three images ranging from -2 stops through to +2 stops. This is resulting in much crisper images with far less artifacts. It also takes a lot less time.
Something Interesting: A link for traveler’s wanting to fly for almost free
I don’t know exactly how much truth there is in this, but I think I’ll give it a go. Nora Dunn has written an article, “The Travel Hacking Cartel: Fly Around the World For Almost Free” outlining how she travels the world for almost free. I’m particularly interested in Chris Guillebeau’s “Travel Hacking Cartel“. I read one of his books on his somewhat alternative life path making money while on the move. His goal is to visit every country in the world by the time he turns 35 in April 2013. His blog is definitely worth a look: chrisguillebeau.com
Jul 072012
We’d turned the canoe sideways and were drifting down the Zambezi as I photographed a huge group of elephants taking a refreshing dip. I had my big lens on… 70-300mm. I started out fully zoomed in and was gradually zooming out as we got closer. Suddenly, I couldn’t zoom out any further. I dropped the camera from my eye. We were VERY close to these elephants. Then I heard Chris’s voice from the back of the canoe, “Keep taking photos J. I got this.”
I kept taking photos.
Jun 272012
Late Night Tonight
I’ve decided to stick with my rule of not posting photos from the same country two days in a row (I know I’ve broken it in the past), but I’m desperate to work up some of my Iceland photos. I expect I’ll be up late tonight doing just that. On top of that I was in the middle of redesigning the site when I had to take a break to travel to Iceland. I really want to make a little more progress on that tonight.
For those of you patiently waiting for my tutorial, I did make a lot of progress before leaving. I find I work best on the weekends when I can really dedicate a lot of time to it. I’ll be putting in some more effort this weekend.
Today’s Photo: The Journey
Canoeing down the Lower Zambezi makes use of the old cliché “the journey is half the fun” really come into its own. Drifting casually down the river (while carefully keeping your limbs in the canoe) is punctuated by moments of intense activity and excitement. A lot of the time this is brought on by hippos hanging about in the shallows. The problem posed here is that when hippos get scared they head for deep water. So, if you’re in between the hippos and the deep water, you’ve got a problem. As a result, the approach is simply a bold game of chicken, in which you steer straight at the hippos in an effort to move them into the deep. Other exciting moments resulted from elephants coming down to the water to drink and play, which Chris and I may or may not have gotten dangerously close to. Other times the excitement was that we had an opportunity to get out of the canoes, whether it was to eat lunch, make camp, or go for a swim in a “safe” stretch of river. I say “safe” because, when asked, our guide said we were safe from crocodiles in the shallow water because we could fight off a crocodile there. Now, I don’t know about you, but in my opinion, if I’m having to fight off a crocodile I am already in serious trouble!
This photo was taken at one of the calmer moments as we floated through a narrow channel of the river. I’ve changed my approach to photos with moving subjects. Rather than trying to combine three different exposures I’m working with one RAW. Using Photoshop’s RAW converter I create three images by adjusting the exposure of the original. Then I combine these three images using Photomatix. This way, I don’t have to deal with loads of ghosting issues. If you look through my gorilla photos by clicking the category to the right, the last few have employed this method and you should be able to see an improvement over my earlier attempts.
Jun 252012
I’m back home from Iceland now so can get back to my daily photo posting. It was difficult to get them done while in Iceland as any time that I wasn’t desperate for a few hours sleep I was out exploring. I’m looking forward to processing and posting the photos I took there. That being said, I’m still pretty worn out so you get a quick post today and a photo of a really cute, fuzzy Gorilla.
Jun 162012
Where in Iceland is Johnny (hopefully)?
I’ve written these posts in advance so can’t tell you where I actually am. I can tell you where I hope to be, if everything goes to plan. There’s actually not much to report today. I arrive at Keflavik Airport at 11:50pm. Fortunately, my travel buddy will be getting in a day ahead of me so I’ll have a bed all ready for me. But, I expect I won’t be able to resist a first photo session under the midnight sun.
Today’s Photo: Jus’ Chillin’
The first question I get when I talk about visiting the gorillas in Rwanda is, “was it scary?”
Who could be scared of this guy?
Jun 132012
Today’s Photo: Snacking Elephant
I wrote about this experience previously, here. We’d pulled our canoes up to an island in the middle of the Lower Zambezi. I thought we were there for a closer look at these elephants and started firing away. When I turned around I realized that our guides were setting up for lunch. We sat and ate lunch with these giant animals no distance away. They didn’t seem to be bothered by our presence. After about half an hour they walked to the other side of the island where they splashed into water and swimming off down the river, trunks raised like snorkels.
Something Interesting: How to Survive a Suicide Shower
I had the pleasure of using a few of these shower contraptions while traveling through Bolivia and Peru. They use electricity to heat the water… in the shower head. Bare wires are not uncommon. I thought they looked a bit questionable but didn’t give them a second thought, I was typically desperate for a shower. None of the shower heads actually shocked me, though a few friends of mine got zapped. I did get a pretty nasty shock off of a light switch hanging from my ceiling with bare wires on the back though. This is an interesting little article on suicide showers with a bit of advice in how to go about showering safely when faced with them: How to Survive a Suicide Shower.
