Snarl by MarselvanOosten

Well, not really. Quite often when you see a photograph of a yawning lion, the photographer will try to make you believe that it was snarling. When a lion starts yawning, the first part of the yawn will clearly look like a yawn, but at the very end of it, the expression on the face of the lion will indeed look like a growl or a snarl.

To make people believe that a lion is snarling when it is actually yawning, will spread the wrong idea about these cats, and will unnecessarily portray them as monsters. Humans like to monsterize predators, and that’s why we get Predator Week, Shark Week, The Deadliest This and The Deadliest That on television. It’s a shame, because these beautiful animals are so much more than just killing machines.

This lioness looks pretty vicious, but you guessed it – she’s yawning. Lions spend most of the day sleeping. A male may sleep from 18 to 20 hours a day. However following a large meal, these male cats may actually sleep an entire 24 hours of a day. Female lions are not far behind their male counterparts. They will easily sleep 15 to 18 hours a day. They spend more time caring for the pride and hunting.

In just a few months, I will lead two photo tours in Botswana where we will focus our attention on lions, and especially on lions hunting buffalo.

One of the places we will visit is Duba Plains, an island in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. The island has a herd of about 2,000 Cape buffalo, and a large pride of lions. Both buffalo and lion got there over a decade ago in a year when crossing the channels was possible. Since then both have pretty much been trapped on the island. For reasons nobody fully understands, the Duba lions mainly hunt during daylight – the reverse of the situation in most parts of Africa. This is obviously perfect for photography and our chances to see some lion action are much bigger here than anywhere else in Africa.

If you’ve never been to Botswana, then you absolutely should. It’s wildlife photography heaven. Our first tour is fully booked, but we have three openings on the 25 April – 4 May trip.

If you’re interested, then please check out our website for more information on this trip:
Buffalo, Lions & Wild Dogs

Hope to see you there!

Marsel

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©2016 Marsel van Oosten, All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.

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Travel Photographer Of The Year 2015 – VII by MarselvanOosten

Last month I won the overall title Travel Photographer Of The Year 2015 (www.tpoty.com) with two black and white portfolios – a landscape portfolio and a wildlife portfolio. Here’s the third image from the wildlife portfolio. Don’t worry, there’s only one image left after this one 🙂

All four images in this portfolio were shot on our Namibia Untamed tour earlier this year. Two years ago we decided to add a surprise boat cruise off the coast of Walvis Bay. This is a great opportunity to photograph thousands of seals, dolphins and pelicans. My personal highlight of this boat cruise is the pelicans – amazing creatures and very photogenic. This year we had a couple that landed on our boat and I was able to get very close with my wide angle lens. I’ve got plenty of pelicans in flight shots, so I was interested in creating something different. I decided to turn my pelican shoot into a study of shape and light, creating very graphic images.

After a while, the pelicans got so used to my presence, that I was able to move in closer and closer. So close actually, that depth of field was turning into a problem – I had to stop down quite a bit to keep everything in focus, especially with some of the other shots in this series that I will show later.

The processing was pretty straightforward, apart from the conversion to black and white. Black and white is so much more difficult than colour photography, because you don’t have those pretty colors that people like so much, and colors are helpful to separate shapes. Without colour, certain shapes that were separated from each other in the colour version, will suddenly merge in a black and white version. Good black and white images are therefore often created on location – that’s when you can already see what is needed for a good bw image.

If you would like to join us to Namibia, then you’re out of luck for 2016 as we’re fully booked. Even our 2017 tour is already fully booked, but we opened a second tour for 2017 that is going to be led by amazing landscape photographer Ryan Dyar. It will take place from 17 June to 1 July 2017.

If you want to visit Namibia, look no further. There is no better organized Namibia tour out there. We were the first company to offer photo tours to Namibia, the first to do night photography in Deadvlei, and we are still the only one that offers microlight flights over the famous Namibian sand dunes – the best and most exciting way to do aerial photography.

If you’re interested in joining Ryan to Namibia, please check out our website for more information, images, video clips, and a very detailed tour PDF: http://www.squiver.com

Marsel

©2015 Marsel van Oosten, All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.

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Travel Photographer Of The Year 2015 – VII by MarselvanOosten

Last month I won the overall title Travel Photographer Of The Year 2015 (www.tpoty.com) with two black and white portfolios – a landscape portfolio and a wildlife portfolio. Here’s the third image from the wildlife portfolio. Don’t worry, there’s only one image left after this one 🙂

All four images in this portfolio were shot on our Namibia Untamed tour earlier this year. Two years ago we decided to add a surprise boat cruise off the coast of Walvis Bay. This is a great opportunity to photograph thousands of seals, dolphins and pelicans. My personal highlight of this boat cruise is the pelicans – amazing creatures and very photogenic. This year we had a couple that landed on our boat and I was able to get very close with my wide angle lens. I’ve got plenty of pelicans in flight shots, so I was interested in creating something different. I decided to turn my pelican shoot into a study of shape and light, creating very graphic images.

After a while, the pelicans got so used to my presence, that I was able to move in closer and closer. So close actually, that depth of field was turning into a problem – I had to stop down quite a bit to keep everything in focus, especially with some of the other shots in this series that I will show later.

The processing was pretty straightforward, apart from the conversion to black and white. Black and white is so much more difficult than colour photography, because you don’t have those pretty colors that people like so much, and colors are helpful to separate shapes. Without colour, certain shapes that were separated from each other in the colour version, will suddenly merge in a black and white version. Good black and white images are therefore often created on location – that’s when you can already see what is needed for a good bw image.

If you would like to join us to Namibia, then you’re out of luck for 2016 as we’re fully booked. Even our 2017 tour is already fully booked, but we opened a second tour for 2017 that is going to be led by amazing landscape photographer Ryan Dyar. It will take place from 17 June to 1 July 2017.

If you want to visit Namibia, look no further. There is no better organized Namibia tour out there. We were the first company to offer photo tours to Namibia, the first to do night photography in Deadvlei, and we are still the only one that offers microlight flights over the famous Namibian sand dunes – the best and most exciting way to do aerial photography.

If you’re interested in joining Ryan to Namibia, please check out our website for more information, images, video clips, and a very detailed tour PDF: http://www.squiver.com

Marsel

©2015 Marsel van Oosten, All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.

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Travel Photographer Of The Year 2015 – VI by MarselvanOosten

Little over a week ago I won the overall title Travel Photographer Of The Year 2015 (tpoty.com) with two black and white portfolios – a landscape portfolio and a wildlife portfolio. Here’s the second image from the wildlife portfolio.

All four images in this portfolio were shot on our Namibia Untamed tour earlier this year. Two years ago we decided to add a surprise boat cruise off the coast of Walvis Bay. This is a great opportunity to photograph thousands of seals, dolphins and pelicans. My personal highlight of this boat cruise are the pelicans – amazing creatures and very photogenic. This year we had a couple that landed on our boat and I was able to get very close with my wide angle lens. I’ve got plenty of pelicans in flight shots, so I was interested in creating something different. I decided to turn my pelican shoot into a study of shape and light, creating very graphic images.

After a while, the pelicans got so used to my presence, that I was able to move in closer and closer. So close actually, that depth of field was turning into a problem – I had to stop down quite a bit to keep everything in focus, especially with some of the other shots in this series that I will show later.

The processing was pretty straightforward, apart from the conversion to black and white. Black and white is so much more difficult than colour photography, because you don’t have those pretty colours that people like so much, and colours are helpful to separate shapes. Without colour, certain shapes that were separated from each other in the colour version, will suddenly merge in a black and white version. Good black and white images are therefore often created on location – that’s when you can already see what is needed for a good bw image.

If you would like to join us to Namibia, then you’re out of luck for 2016 as we’re fully booked. Even our 2017 tour is already fully booked, but we opened a second tour for 2017 that is going to be led by amazing landscape photographer Ryan Dyar. It will take place from 17 June to 1 July 2017.

If you want to visit Namibia, look no further. There is no better organised Namibia tour out there. We were the first company to offer photo tours to Namibia, and we are still the only one that offers microlight flights over the famous Namibian sand dunes – the best and most exciting way to do aerial photography.

If you’re interested in joining Ryan to Namibia, please check out our website for more information, images, video clips, and a very detailed tour PDF: http://www.squiver.com

Marsel

©2015 Marsel van Oosten, All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.

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Travel Photographer Of The Year 2015 – V by MarselvanOosten

Little over a week ago I won the overall title Travel Photographer Of The Year 2015 (tpoty.com) with two black and white portfolios – a landscape portfolio and a wildlife portfolio. I’ve already posted all the winning landscape images, so here’s the first one from the wildlife portfolio.

All four images in this portfolio were shot on our Namibia Untamed tour earlier this year. We were the first company in the world to offer photo tours to Namibia, and every year we make small changes to the itinerary to stay ahead of all our copycats. Two years ago we decided to add a surprise boat cruise off the coast of Walvis Bay. This is a great opportunity to photograph thousands of seals, dolphins and pelicans. My personal highlight of this boat cruise are the pelicans – amazing creatures and very photogenic. This year we had a couple that landed on our boat and I was able to get very close with my wide angle lens. I’ve got plenty of pelicans in flight shots, so I was interested in creating something different. I decided to turn my pelican shoot into a study of shape and light, creating very graphic images.

After a while, the pelicans got so used to my presence, that I was able to move in closer and closer. So close actually, that depth of field was turning into a problem – I had to stop down quite a bit to keep everything in focus, especially with some of the other shots in this series that I will show later.

The processing was pretty straightforward, apart from the conversion to black and white. Black and white is so much more difficult than colour photography, because you don’t have those pretty colours that people like so much, and colours are helpful to separate shapes. Without colour, certain shapes that were separated from each other in the colour version, will suddenly merge in a black and white version. Good black and white images are therefore often created on location – that’s when you can already see what is needed for a good bw image.

If you would like to join us to Namibia, then you’re out of luck for 2016 as we’re fully booked. Even our 2017 tour is already fully booked, but we opened a second tour for 2017 that is going to be led by amazing landscape photographer Ryan Dyar. It will take place from 17 June to 1 July 2017.

If you want to visit Namibia, look no further. There is no better organised Namibia tour out there. Also, we are still the only one that offers microlight flights over the famous Namibian sand dunes.

If you’re interested in joining Ryan to Namibia, please check out our website for more information, images, video clips, and a very detailed tour PDF: http://www.squiver.com

Marsel

©2015 Marsel van Oosten, All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.

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Botswana Sunset by MarselvanOosten

Well, there you go, I’ve done it: the subject is in the middle of the frame. The composition police will not be pleased. Yet I like it as it is. Sure, I could have shot it as a vertical with less dead space on both sides, but then I would have lost the interesting clouds and the sense of space.

Anyway, after months of running tours we’re finally back home, and home means office work. The good news for me is that office work often equates to image processing, so I guess it’s not so bad. I’m currently going through my archives for several reasons, and this image of a meerkat is one of many that I found in my Botswana folder.

If you’ve never been to Botswana, then you absolutely should. It’s wildlife photography heaven. We’re running two tours there in April/May, and due to a cancellation we now have three openings on the 25 April – 4 May trip. I hope you haven’t spent your Christmas bonus yet!

If you’re interested, and of course you are, then please check out our website for more information on this trip:
Squiver Photo Tours & Workshops

Hope to see you there!

Marsel

WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER

©2015 Marsel van Oosten, All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.

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The Fire Within by MarselvanOosten

As we’re nearing the end of 2015, I finally have some time to look back at all the places that I’ve visited and photographed this year. It’s been one big rollercoaster ride, and although it was a lot of fun, it’s good to have some time off and reflect. And to process my images, as that seems to be the one thing that I never have time for. 414,733 images on my hard drives, of which I processed 6,664. I won’t get bored anytime soon.

Well, this is #6,665 and it was shot earlier this year on our Iceland Winter Wilderness tour. It’s pretty straightforward, but I liked how the light of the rising sun seems to illuminate that chunk of ice from the inside.

I used the LucrOit filter system on my Nikon 14-24/2.8 to slow down my shutter speeds.

– – –

If you’re interested in joining us on a Squiver photo tour, please check out my website for more pictures, tour impression video clips, and detailed PDF’s: http://www.squiver.com

Marsel

WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER

©2015 Marsel van Oosten, All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.

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Travel Photographer Of The Year 2015 – IV by MarselvanOosten

Four days ago I won the overall title Travel Photographer Of The Year 2015 with two black and white portfolios – a landscape portfolio and a wildlife portfolio. Here’s the last image from the landscape portfolio.

All four images were shot from a kayak or while standing in the water, on a scouting trip last year in the swamps of Louisiana – off the beaten tracks, and far away from all the usual photographic hot spots. This is surely one of the most magical places on this planet.

You can read more about this series on my blog: http://ow.ly/3yzTBj

In short: two years ago we decided to check out the swamps in Louisiana and Texas to see if we could set up the world’s first Cypress Swamp photo tour there. Last month we returned from our second scouting trip to this amazing place, where we searched for additional locations, finalized the accommodation, and fine tuned the logistics.

We will officially announce the new trip somewhere next week. As usual, we will first contact our most frequent flyers to give them first choice, but after that we’ll open the tours for the rest of you as well.

Special thanks to Daniella for her help setting up these shots.

Marsel

– – –

If you would like to join us on one of our photo tours, please have a look on our website. Only a few trips still have some openings left: www.squiver.com

©2015 Marsel van Oosten, All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.

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Travel Photographer Of The Year – III by MarselvanOosten

Three days ago I won the overall title Travel Photographer Of The Year 2015 with two black and white portfolios – a landscape portfolio and a wildlife portfolio. Yesterday I posted the second of four images from the landscape portfolio, today the third one.

All four images were shot on a scouting trip last year in the swamps of Louisiana – off the beaten tracks, and far away from all the usual photographic hot spots. This is surely one of the most magical places on this planet.

If you don’t want to wait for the rest of the series, you can also check out the entire story behind the images on my blog: http://ow.ly/3yzTBj

Two years ago we decided to check out the swamps in Louisiana and Texas to see if we could set up the world’s first Cypress Swamp photo tour there. Last month we returned from our second scouting trip to this amazing place, where we searched for additional locations, finalized the accommodation, and fine tuned the logistics.

Somewhere next week we will officially announce the new trip. As usual, we will first contact our most frequent flyers to give them first choice, but after that we’ll open the tours for the rest of you as well.

Special thanks to Daniella for her help setting up these shots.

Marsel

– – –

If you would like to join us on one of our photo tours, please have a look on our website. Only a few trips still have some openings left: www.squiver.com

©2015 Marsel van Oosten, All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.

via 500px http://ift.tt/1RYTMMo

Travel Photographer Of The Year – II by MarselvanOosten

Two days ago I won the overall title Travel Photographer Of The Year 2015, a great honour. Two of my portfolios were selected by the jury – a landscape portfolio and a wildlife portfolio. Yesterday I posted the first of four images from the landscape portfolio, today the second one.

If you don’t want to wait for the rest of the series, you can also check out the entire story behind the images on my blog: http://ow.ly/3yzTBj

All four images were shot on a scouting trip last year in the swamps of Louisiana – off the beaten tracks, and far away from all the usual photographic hot spots. This is surely one of the most magical places on this planet.

Two years ago we decided to check out the swamps in Louisiana and Texas to see if we could set up the world’s first Cypress Swamp photo tour there. Last month we returned from our second scouting trip to this amazing place, where we searched for additional locations, finalised the accommodation, and fine tuned the logistics. Somewhere next week we will officially announce the new trip. As usual, we will first contact our most frequent flyers to give them first choice, but after that we’ll open the tours for the rest of you as well.

Special thanks to Daniella for her help setting up these shots.

Marsel

– – –

If you would like to join us on one of our photo tours, please have a look on our website. Only a few trips still have some openings left: www.squiver.com

©2015 Marsel van Oosten, All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.

via 500px http://ift.tt/1Pd8H4T