GDT Awards 2009 - landscape

In my first attempt at the GDT "European Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009" competition I was happy to receive a "Runner-up" in the landscape category. I was informed of the award earlier this autumn, and should have been at the ceremony in Lünen, Germany, on October 24th. The "European Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009" competition has grown to be one of the biggest in Europe and it is considered a real treat to be recognised. Hopefully I'll get the opportunity to attend next year :-)

Read more about the competition and view the other winners at GDT her.

The image was taken this January and shows Okshornan mountains on the photogenic island of Senja in Northern Norway (Berg kommune, Troms). This spot has actually been recognised as the most picturesque landscape in Norway and I guess that says a lot? However, most people go in the summer, but I wanted to show the true nature of the place under rough winter conditions. In January the sun doesn't rise and the westerly winds are howling, constantly producing heavy swells from the freezing Arctic Ocean.

Hope you like the image?

Second week in Bolivia

At the mo I am resting in the hotel in La Paz after driving into the city at 6 o'clock this morning to avoid traffic. All went well, luckily.

After my last post I travelled to the national park of Sajama. Nevado Sajama is also the highest mountain in Bolivia, at 6542 m. The weather was good and I got some classic shots of the glacier covered volcano. However on day two it all changed and I got heavy rain and thunder. I am quit fund of these conditions since they give the opportunity of getting something else. Above is the top of Sajama behind a rain shower.

There were plenty of wildlife in the park. I spent a night and a morning by a lake, getting nice light on some water birds. The park was also a good place to spot Vicuñas, the wild relative of the Llamas. Estimates suggest there were more than one million Vicuñas in Bolivia during pre-Inca times, however in 1965 just 6000 remained. The numbers are now up again, but the beautiful animal is still considered threatened.

After Sajama I wanting to experience more of Bolivia I travelled further north to Lake Titicaca, on the border to Peru. The lake is enormous and is situated 3810 meters above the ocean. There was plenty of birds along the shore to observe and work with. However, for me it is more important to include more of the landscapes in pristine places like this. Below is a flock of cormorants moving above the Lago Menor in the evening.

The climate on the Altiplano is rather challenging, but at the same time predictable, hot in the day and bitterly cold in the night. Differences during my stay varied between about 25-30 Celsius in the day and -5 in the night. At Titicaca every evening brought winds and as the day turned into night, lightning and thunder struck the shores.

On my last day I went to the nice town of Sorata. At only 2695 it was clearly easier to breath! The town is right in between the Altiplano and the Yungas, and the rainforest. In a way it was a short glimpse of what I might expect on my next trip to this stunningly diverse country.


PS! Now I am really curious to learn more about the new Nikon D3s released two days after I left!!!

Bolivia update

Salar de Uyuni

I have now spent one week in Bolivia and thought I would give you a heads up of what is going on over here. Travelling in this vast country needs a lot of patience. The distances between the locations was a surprise to me, and I feel like I have been spending a lot of time on the road. However, the rewards are even greater. I have met some brilliant people in Bolivia as well as seen some of the most breathtaking landscapes on this planet. In fact you need to go to Mars to something like it (NASA trained for their Mars mission in these deserts).

Sol de Mañana

Anyway, I have spent some time in the far south and am now moving further north to the national park of Sajama. The scenery and the wildlife is surpose to be stunning. After that I have to get the car back into La Paz city. I am not looking forward to that - I have never seen traffic like it in my life!

The rare James Flamingo

I hope the images turn out OK. The screen I am working on is very old, gives some strange colours and doesn´t give the whole image :-)

On my way to Bolivia

First of all I would like to thank all of you who came to see my talks in Oslo. Nice to see so many people at the FotoVideo photo fare.

I am no almost ready packing my gear for a exciting expedition to the Bolivian Altiplano. Tuesday evening I'll be leaving for London where I have to spend an overnight. Wednesday morning I head for Miami and then La Paz, Bolivia. Being the administrative capital, the city is also considered the worlds highest capital city 3660 meters above sea level. From there I will be travelling south along the Andean mountains. My destinations include the Salar de Uyuni, the Reserva de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaros, the volcan Sajama (6542m) and lake Titicaca. I am really looking forward to start exploring these areas and the amazing wildlife that live here.

I will spend some time camping in the desert and don't expect to have internet access so don't expect many blog updates. But hopefully I will be able to get online every now and then. I will for sure put out some images upon my return at the end of this month.

The picture above shows the southern Andean mountains in Chile and was taken at the beginning of my trip to the Antarctic last November.

Nikon talks in Oslo

This Friday I'll be having two talks for Nikon on the photography fare at FotoVideo in Oslo. The talks will be held at Galleri Pingvinen at 12:00 and 15:00. I will present some of my images from the last six months, all taken with Nikon D3, D3x and some D300S. There will be a range of pictures from Finland, Svalbard, Norway and Kenya.

To find out more about the fare check out this link (in norwegian): Messekatalog

I hope to see you there!

Ringed Seal, Spitsbergen

Pine Marten, Norway

Lioness and cub, Masai Mara, Kenya

Kenya gallery added

I have just added a new gallery on the WildPhoto website. Here I present ten selected images from the great trip to Kenya in September. Click your way into www.wildphoto.no and check out this new gallery and all the others.

All these images will be available as high quality prints.

The African Elephant shown above was photographed in Amboseli NP, south in Kenya. The park was extremely dry, having not seen any rain for three years. Amboseli is famous for its great herds of elephants roaming the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, but now almost all of them have moved someplace else. The few that remain are very thin and surviving only by risking their lives in the soggy swamp in the middle of the park. Getting to the food is a great risk as many animals get caught in the mud and drown. But some animals take their chances rather then dying from starvation. October usually brings rain to this part of Kenya, so we can only hope...

Nikon D3, 500mm, ISO 400, 1/1250, f/8

Free October wallpaper

The October wallpaper is ready for download on www.wildphoto.no

The picture presented this month was taken while I was going to eastern Norway for the 2008 annual meeting in the Norwegian association for professional nature photographers (NN). I can not recall seeing such strong autumn colours as nature displayed this year. It had been a very dry and warm early summer and not to much rain during the second half. This probably made the colours really come out. Normally, like this year, the heavy rain and winds make the leafs rot on the tree and the forest just goes from green to brown, and then it's winter.

Check out my website and download this months free wallpaper!