Hold The Eye Images

The Maasi Mara and the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy with Frans Lanting

The last leg of our trip was a few days in the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and then on to the Maasi Mara to conclude the trip with four days of amazing wildlife photography. Let's start with Lewa, a unique place where wildlife preservation is the purpose of the Conservancy. Like the rest of Kenya, there are lots of animals in Lewa, migrating across Africa, but the population most focused upon is the Rhino. Poaching is a serious problem for Rhino's and you will hear more about this on the podcast in this blog. Here is a Rhino from Lewa, that I photographed on one of several days we observed these majestic creatures.

One example of the White Rhino in Lewa

Be sure and listen to the podcast to hear about the efforts and costs in protecting these animals from extinction. Lewa has the full range of animals you see in Africa, the major difference is the extent to which The Lewa Wildlife Conservancy goes to protect the Rhino. A small army of armed police roam and watch over these creatures from poachers. With all the animals free to roam and move on, the task is daunting, but best described by Frans when he discusses the issue. In the meantime, check out http://www.lewa.org/ for more information.

Next we stopped in the Maasi Mara for four wonderful days of photography. We stayed on the Mara River at the Serian Camp(to get a glimpse watch this) , a great place with the sounds of Hippo's snorting at night. As you will hear in the podcast, the abundance of wildlife in the Mara is unbelievable. You land on a dirt road, no buildings, just your Rangerover(hopefully or you are screwed), to drive you into the bush. We did game drives twice a day, balloon rides, tracked animals, watched, saw and photograhed so much wildlife, at the end of this Safari, I had nearly 10K photographs. The Mara is truly a wildlife photographers paradise and here are just a few examples of what we photographed. The young and the old Giraffe.

The young and the old lion and going out with Jonathan Scott of The Big Cat Diaries. Jonathan went out with us one day to visit the Marsh Pride. Check out his work at http://www.jonathanangelascott.com/

The young feeding, in this case on a Zebra

The young and the old showing affection.

The handsome young posing like a "rock star"

  And one of the most feared animals in Africa

The Topi looking like a sentry for predators but not really, he is staking out his territory. A common citing on the Mara

And for birders the Lilac-breasted Roller(hope I'm right), one of the prize birds of the Mara.

Also common the Gray Crown Crane, on beautiful bird with quite a mating dance.

To hear more about this place, from the perspective of others and listen to Frans and Christine talk about their work, click on the podcast embedded in this blog or click on the Maasi Episode listed in the right column.

Safari Lewa, Maasi Mara

Well this is the last of the podcasts while on the Safari, I plan on an upcoming one, talking about what I learned about the "right gear" for such an adventure in Africa. To say the least I learned a lot, but I was lucky with my choice of equipment but most of all with choosing Frans and Christine as the Safari Leaders, they are wildlife specialists, world renowned as videographers, photographers, and writers, and their explanations as well insight helped make this a trip of a lifetime. Also a special thank you to David and Patrick our guides as well as Lydia and William of Origins. All of the camps I have written about were wonderful as well as great experiences. There is so much to see, to learn about, to appreciate, that at times it is overwhelming. Africa is a wonderland of opposites, great good and evil, chaos and tranquility, but most of all change. Rwanda with a terrible past just a few short years ago is peaceful, clean, and tranquil today. The wildlife that is abundant today is struggling, no one knows what a decade will bring, or when the last wild Rhino will disappear. There is nothing profound that would do Africa justice, it is what it is, and as a westerner, I have never seen anything like it.

 

I'm Back from the Masi Mara, East Africa!

With thousands of photo's, I'm back from my journey to East Africa. I started from Nairobi, Kenya, journeyed to Kigali Rwanda, drove to the Virunga Mountains on the border of Uganda, Congo, and Rwanda. From there we hiked to 10K feet through the thick bush to meet up with Gorilla families for a couple of days. Came back to Kigali, flew to Samburu via Nairobi, and on to Elephant Camp Watch. A wonderful place in the bush where wildlife roamed the camp at night. After two days of wildlife photography, meeting local conservationists, and activists, we went on to Lewa Conservancy where we spent 3 days meeting with the likes of Alex Root who introduced Dian Fossey to Gorilla's and others who are concerned about the future of Africa's ivory horned animals. We talked with security people who are charged with protecting wildlife from poachers, a dangerous and difficult job. Poachers offer as much as 35K for Rhino horns to people who earn less than a dollar a day so the task is difficult. We also spent lots of time each day photographing this special place. The final leg of our journey was the Masai Mara where we spent four days, in one of the highest concentrations of animals on this planet. We even did a shoot on lions led by Jonathan Scott famed for the "Big Cat diaries". Jonathan has spent a lifetime studying and documenting big cats on the Mara for documentaries, filming, and books. His knowledge is second to none. We also worked with a young woman, Sarah Blackburn who is going to Oxford for her Ph.D but currently is doing field research identifying lions in the Mara.

The trip which lasted nearly 3 weeks, was lead by Frans Lanting who incidentally has an article in this month's National Geographic on Namibia. Frans and his wife Chris have been photographing and writing about Africa for over 30 years, so we were able to meet people and go places based on their experience. And yes, I did podcasts from these places, which involve the whole group and their personal experiences. Finally, a limited edition book will document our experience with our photo's and stories, put together by Frans and Chris.

But to start with, here is a podcast with Frans talking about the trip

Introduction to Africa

 

What Has Technology Done To Me?

I was watching the BCS football game tonight, reading the latest "Mac" magazine, downloading recommended apps, figuring out what I needed next with my photography(app wise), looking for the rating or reviews of each app that was suggested.....thinking about streaming to my TV, managing Twitter, ....and you know, I had to pull the plug so I could go download Lightroom 3. All of a sudden I'm blinking and I come to the realization, I'm turning from a photographer into another piece of technology dependent other pieces of technology to function. If I pause for a moment and recall the days when I just took pictures and the most difficult decision was what film to buy. I didn't do anything with the images(except black and white), dropped them off or mailed them. Only actual saw them when the negatives or chromes were returned, and then even asked someone else to print them. Today, all of that happens almost instantly, and is all done by me. Additionally, when taking pictures, I didn't just snap away, I planned, was careful, because you could not make adjustments to mistakes since you didn't see your image, and film cost money so you had to be careful about just snapping away. Today, I can shoot as much as I want, make adjustments on the fly, and who cares, the images are virtually free.

I know, I sound like a caveman complaining about having to wear clothes, but the world of photography has changed so much along with the rest of technology. I now have an iphone, itouch, ipad, 4 computers, high speed internet connections throughout my house wirelessly, even my TV tells me whose is calling on my land line( from Comcast). My car tells me I have a call, my cell phone shows me movies, my iTouch allows me to talk with people and see them and it's not a phone. And the bulk of this change has occurred withing the last 10-12 years. I constantly communicate with people through email when I fly, order from the back of the seat in front of me, watch any number of movies for free, even live television. And the fun part, they fondle me before I get on the plane to give me a cheap thrill.

I was watching the Ellen Degeneres Show today, and she had someone from the audience who could balance on a skate board, and dribble five basketballs at the same time. What ever happened to the getting the guy out of the audience who could "walk the dog" with a Yo-Yo?

I feel better now, typing on my blog, getting ready for another podcast and planning a Youtube channel that will feature Hold The Eye Images Photography. I'm really not sorry we have so much technology, nor do I feel put upon by the change. In fact, I feel privileged to have lived in a time without cell phones, when you stood in line at airports to use your corporate card to check in at the office. It was like today, a special time, people didn't work all the time on laptops on the plane, no laptops existed. They drank, laughed, wore suits and ties, flirted with the flight attendants, and sleep. I remember my first car phone, called a bag phone, boy was that cool. But I noticed it did up your productivity being able to call in things etc. And my first exposure to personal computers was an old Compaq, that had a big handle on it and it was about the size of 3-4 shoe boxes. We ran lotus and guess what, we could put in data sets and get graphs! I thought that was the coolest gadget in the world. But one of the best things that I wish had not changed were presentations. People would come in with a stack of view graphs and right away someone would say pick 4 and talk about them. With power point, everybody thinks you love to see their creation and hear them talk. Even kids in grammar school do power point presentations. I hate long presentations and often just get up and leave. It's all about story telling, not slide shows, and that art is being lost quickly. Everything has a story, you just have to find it. Like great photographs, there is always a story within.

I feel pretty good now, time to power down.

Cliche? But Wonderful, Big Sur Sunsets!

I know it is the goal of every photographer to find a new perspective, something different, but nature has given us some things that can not be improved. One of these is a setting sun on a beautiful beach with dramatic clouds. Your jaw drops, you hug someone you love, toast someone you want to love, or wish you had someone to love. These feelings are created by the awe inspiring scene.

Photographically, these scenes are difficult to capture. Basic reason is the range of light exceeds the ability of the camera to process. So what happens, you get part of the scene but the rest looks terrible. Fortunately, we now have software that allows photographers to take multiple images, combining these to reach a proper exposure for the entire scene. That's how I managed to capture this scene, merged several exposures and the outcome is pretty much what I experienced. You have seen a thousand of these and so have I. Nonetheless, when I see one of these, my jaw still drops, a smile comes across my face, and I have the sudden urge to hug someone. I'm not alone and I hope you enjoy!

Driving to the Sierra Mountains to hook up with William Neill

I drove over to the Sierra foothills today, specifically Oakhurst for a meeting with William(Bill) Neill of landscape photography fame. On the way, I saw first hand the impact of this recession. Abandoned homes, fields without crops, malls without cars, all with a feeling of general unemployment and depression. I have traveled through this area many times and was not prepared to discover this tragic situation. Back in the early 80's I saw something similar on a smaller scale in eastern Arkansas, but nothing of this magnitude. Watching the news this evening, reporters were talking about how bad it is further north in the same area, unemployment in some communities as high as 50%. Sadly, the financial condition of California prevents help, and is on the brink of getting worse. The 8th largest economy in the world is about to go under. Politics is not my strong suite so I'm just talking about what is,  not the causes, solutions, or even who to blame. For these folks, it may not matter. 

I have friends in the Bay Area who are unemployed, skilled engineers who expect to return to some company as soon as the economy picks up. This picture today hints at a deeper problem, one that is not going to be fixed easily, and could well take years. It's the fabric that's torn, and impacted voices are drown by the politics of squabbling. Detroit and the autoworkers have a voice, big business reports earnings that get attention, and bankers make claims like "to big to fail" but rural folks, small businesses, and farmers who are the backbone of the economy apparently don't get the crisis attention needed. I may not be correct, and this may be a rant in reaction to my drive, but I do have a feeling people have been abandoned, left to fend for themselves. The metaphor that comes to mind is a scene on the Titanic where the Captain and crew are mediating a fight over umbrella's when the ship is about ready to hit an iceberg. This not a slap at the President, Republicans, or Democrats but more generically at the way we are governing. How such a simple hard working group of people have no voice, no media coverage, no governmental focus escapes me. As I said I have no answers, don't know who to blame or how to fix, and maybe my drive was a unique view not existing anywhere else in the US. If so, disregard, if not, it's a sad state of affairs in our country in March 2010.

Web Traffic and how I manage it

I have received several questions about web traffic on the blog and website and how it is measured and managed. My blog which has been in existence for about a year gets about 400 legitimate visitors a month. Legitimate means unique identifiable computers, as opposed to robots and others scanning the web. If you count those, I get several thousand a day on any given day. The higher number comes from the web log, which tracks all activity, while web analytics screens for robotic traffic. Robotic traffic represents software that will capture a screen, often displaying to thousands/millions of viewers. This is just one example of the use, but screen capture does not represent someone on a computer looking at your website or blog. So, this activity is not included in your web analytics. I use Google Analytics mainly because it is free. On my website, the host provides web log analytics which almost always differs from Google, which tells you something about the overall accuracy of web traffic monitoring. You can not get any information about the visitor, since you only see the IP address which is assigned to the router by the ISP servicing the computer. You can use tools like DNS to provide information about the ISP but even then, you only get host ISP, location, zip code, nothing personal. The way marketing companies get your personal info is to place a cookie on your computer which captures screen views, and when you register for something, bingo, they have your name address etc. which they now match to the IP address. If a computer is shared, they only know the people who register for something with an embedded cookie. Enough of that, my blog and website do not embed cookies, so you are free to behave as you would never want anyone to see or know.

About half of the visitors are returning, meaning they viewed the site more than once, and about 40% are foreign from around 30 countries. The foreign visitors are not Europe centric. The US traffic comes from around 40 states, with NY, CA, CO, VA, representing the higher volume. I'm assuming those are the states with the smarter people, thus the traffic.

Static websites like 'Hold The Eye Images" get less traffic because the content doesn't change that frequently(my fault which will be changed this year, website redesign).

I could not leave this topic without commenting on facebook and twitter. I use both of these but not in a social fashion. I use facebook primarily to connect to photographers whose work I follow, and vendors whose products I watch. I think of facebook as a professional marketplace. Vendors put videos on their facebook pages describing new service/products/software, keeping me up to date. Photographers post their latest thinking/photographs so that I stay current in one place without surfing the web to stay current. It is a convenient method to stay in touch with professional content. Twitter is used in a similar manner to connect to the latest information in the photography industry. I follow individuals who have information that I want to get on a regular basis. Information such as the latest photography products, software updates, award winning images, photography activities, are all posted daily. For example, Nikon posted a firmware update today for the D3(which I own), and I received tweets from several sources giving the website location for the update and information about the changes. Without tweeter or facebook, I may have gone several days before I ran across the update. I also use twitter to stay on top of news, following all the major news outlets, as well as columnist whom I read daily. I follow several economist to understand their forecasts, indicators, etc. in these uncertain times. I would caution everyone about twitter, their are a lot of spammers who follow you in the hopes of your following them so they can spam you. Once they get access, it is difficult to rid yourself of them. How do you protect against this? Simply pay attention to whom you follow, don't reciprocate because someone follows you. I use twitter to follow top line news, economic information, and the photography industry, nothing else. If you use these tools wisely, they are a big help in digesting large amounts of information.

Now how do I add my content to these web outlets. First it starts with the blog. My blog is automatically posted as a feed to facebook and twitter. That is the foundation of my communication. Next if I see something interesting in photography, I copy and post either in facebook or twitter or both. I view my audience as photographers, not family/friends(except my sons who are family, friends, and photographers). Where I post depends on the content, if a video is involved I use facebook, if it is non photography business information, I use twitter. If it is something short, I use twitter. If it has a twitter button, I use it(this should give everyone a hint how to market info, put a twitter button on it, make it easy to pass on).

So how do I mange the reading? I look at the live feeds only on facebook daily, which means I miss some things not business related. I scan twitter several times a day for news of all sorts. If I see something in twitter that interests me, I click on the feed, if not, I can wait until later to go through more carefully. 

One last thing, if you want to add traffic to your blog, there are several websites like alphainventions.com that will help you by taking a page and distributing to thousands/millions of viewers. You can also add endorsements to your blog/website as a source of revenue. I'll explore the marketing details in another blog.

All of this is interesting to me, keeps me focused on a personal passion, keeps my juices flowing and makes money. My current interest is in creating a video program which would use all these tools and broadcast from my home office, studio or on location(photography) on a daily basis. Sounds like fun doesn't it.

Uninvited Guest at the Wedding

While the groom prepared for his wonderful day, the bride had been sidetracked by an old demon vampire she hunter. The bride was frozen with fear at the realization she was about to.......  BEHIND THE SCENE:

The single biggest difficulty with this photograph was keeping it serious. The models kept laughing, and could not keep a straight face. We used two strip grids and a third light with a snoot to light the face. The bride had to look frozen, so I asked her to think of a spider dropping down. Jasmine the Vampire got carried away and bit the bride which brought the house down with laughter. Lots of fun but difficult. I guess vampires can't be seen in mirrors but do cast a shadow, at least they did on "Dark Shadows". Happy Halloween for the blood suckers.

Earthquake in Sumatra

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/10/2009_sumatra_earthquakes.html

Harldy Strictly Bluegrass 9 festival outshines the moon

The Golden Gate Park played host to the FREE HDSB festival over the weekend which drew so many people that it shut down AT&T cell phone service and closed one of the cities major arteries. The festival is a gift from billionaire Warren Hellman to the city of San Francisco and it brings over 80 acts of the who's who of bluegrass to six stages over three days. Being free and San Francisco brought as many strange people as acts to one location.
This ain't the bluegrass festival you go to in Kentucky, southern Virginia, or North Carolina, but it does have one thing in common, the love of good music. The people represent all walks of life,
from the beautiful to the just strange.
And since all these people are in one place, everything is for sale from patches
to items the police(which I did not see a single one) might frown on. There was food, and being near a farm belt, no bluegrass festival would be complete without good old corn on the cob
And it does look good, but most came for the music which was difficult to get close to but could be easily heard with many in the crowd bringing their own instruments and playing along
It was interesting but I must admit the heavy crowds, high(and more than a few people) winds, and dust, made the event more of a spectacle than a real bluegrass festival where you get lost in the music. I did like the array of people and the best dressed goes to:

This guy had style. One footnote, a woman(from another country) did ask where she could find the "blue grass". Everything seems strange to somebody.

 I did go into the Marin headlands for a moon shot but didn't get it. Next month the moon is predicted to be larger so I might try Big Sur where some great night shots with a bright moon are waiting to be captured.

David Burnett's 44 Days in Iran(Pics)

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/showcase-58/