Category: Wildlife Photographs

Wildlife Photographs from around the World

2013: Whats in Store?

Posted in Antarctica, Arctic, Australia, China, Iceland, Landscape Photographs, News and Updates, People Photographs, Photographs, South America, Travel Photography, Uncategorized, Wildlife Photographs, Workshops and ExpeditionsLeave a comment

As has become somewhat traditional on my blog I like to do a post toward the end of each year that looks forward to whats in store for the coming year. Its a good opportunity for me to ready myself mentally for the year ahead and to also close off the previous year. 2013 is shaping up to be very busy with a significant number of workshops and expeditions that I am very much looking forward to. Although I very much choose to specialise in the Polar and sub-Polar regions (which remain my focus) I do have a new exploratory trip planned for 2013 into China. More on this below.

In March I will be co-leading two back-to-back Winter Aurora workshops to Iceland with my good friends Andy Biggs and Daniel Bergmann. These workshops are going to focus on the coastal regions of Iceland including the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, the mighty sea stacks at Vik and the spectacular Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon. We are looking forward to frozen waterfalls, glaciers, icebergs and with a little luck the Aurora (Northern Lights). We are going to be in Iceland at the peak of the eleven year solar cycle which should mean some intense solar activity. Fingers crossed for clear skies and blazing Aurora!In May I will be headed to the remote Xinjiang province in China with my good friend and fellow photographer Antony Watson on an exploratory expedition to the Gobi Desert, Tian Shan mountain range, Kanas Lake and Kanasi. This investigative trip is the culmination of over a year of logistical arrangements and I hope will open up some incredibly beautiful and remote wilderness for a future expedition workshop to this region.

In July I will be headed back to Iceland to lead a summer workshop with Daniel Bergmann into the Highland Regions. We will be travelling into Landmannalaugar; which is one of my favourite locations in Iceland as well as visiting the mighty Dettifoss and Selfoss waterfalls and the iconic Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon. Normally inaccessible in Winter, the Highlands of Iceland are a very special place and simply incredible for photography.In August I will fly from Iceland to Oslo and Longyearbyen for a personal expedition to Svalbard to photograph Polar Bears and Walrus before I return to Longyearbyen to lead two back to back expeditions to Svalbard, Greenland and Iceland – The Jewels of the Arctic. The first of these expeditions will be co-led with Daniel Bergmann and the second co-led with Australian Grand Master of Photography Peter Eastway. Abraham Joffe’s award winning film and production company ‘Untitled Film Works‘ has been secured to join us on the second expedition and will be producing a video of the trip which I hope to share freely here on my blog late next year.In November I am travelling to Ushuaia in South America and will lead an expedition to Antarctica and the Falkland Islands with Daniel Bergmann. This 15 day / 14 night expedition was more than eight months in the planning and is something I am very much looking forward to. We have been able to arrange access into areas normally off limits that are dedicated to Science which is going to provide us with some really unique opportunities. We are travelling early in the season which should give us the best possible opportunities for spectacular icebergs, dramatic weather and great light.In late November I will travel to Patagonia with my friend Martyn Lucas on a personal trip to photograph the spectacular Torres Del Pine and surrounding landscape. Patagonia boasts some of the most dramatic landscapes on Earth with precipitous mountains, jagged granite spires and enormous glaciers. During our time in this area we plan to hike up to the Torres and bivouac to give ourselves the best opportunity for great light. This will be my first visit to Patagonia and will fulfil a life-long ambition to photograph in this spectacular area.

I will then return home to spend Christmas my family. All up, I will be away from my studio for around 4-5 months in total next year which means I am not going to be offering much in the way of printing workshops or Lightroom instruction in 2013. If you are already booked in for one-on-one Lightroom and Fine Art Printing then those dates stand as I will be in Australia during these times.

To those of you who are travelling with me on one (or more) of these trips I am very much looking forward to spending time shooting together. It is going to be a very exciting year for photography. Roll on 2013!

Better Pictures Magazine December 2012 : “Outward Bound” Interview

Posted in Antarctica, Arctic, Australia, Equipment, Landscape Photographs, Media, New Zealand, News and Updates, Photographs, South America, Tasmania, Travel Photography, Wildlife Photographs, Workshops and ExpeditionsLeave a comment

I was recently interviewed by the editor of Camera House’s Better Pictures magazine for their Christmas issue and the article ‘Outward Bound’ is now online. The magazine is free and can be viewed online in a web browser or you can download a PDF of the article HERE. Check it out if you have a few minutes spare.

Canons New 200-400mm F4L IS Lens

Posted in Antarctica, Arctic, China, Equipment, Iceland, News and Updates, South America, Sport Photographs, Travel Photography, Uncategorized, Wildlife Photographs, Workshops and ExpeditionsLeave a comment

I find myself getting very enthusiastic about photographic equipment again lately with the pending release of Canon’s new 200-400mm F4L IS lens with inbuilt 1.4x teleconverter. This new super telephoto zoom lens promises to be a game changer for photographers who shoot at these kinds of focal lengths thanks to its inbuilt 1.4x teleconverter and reported superb optics. Canon claims that this new lens “will offer an unsurpassed combination of versatility, first-class optical performance and an enhanced weather-proof construction.” They also claim it will be just shy of a wallet smashing eleven thousand dollars MSRP; which is going to give a lot of photographers serious cause to stop and consider whether this lens is going to be worth the price of admission. The good news is that Canon had a slew of prototypes of this new lens at the London Olympics a few months ago and by all reports and feedback this lens is an outstanding performer and lives up to Canon’s claims.

For Photographers who need a super-telephoto zoom in the 200mm – 560mm range with superb optics this lens is likely to be worth every cent. After spending time shooting from the deck of ships I have come to the realisation that there is no substitute for a high quality super telephoto zoom lens. For shooting wildlife such as penguins, seals, polar bears, walrus and birds from the deck of a ship where the required focal length is always different I expect this lens will likely prove the ultimate no compromise choice for ‘getting the shot’. It is the lens I have decided to take with me on the expeditions I am running to the Arctic and Antarctic in August and November next year. I will also take it to Iceland in March and China in May.

With a focal length of 200mm – 400mm or 280mm – 560mm with the 1.4 TC in place this lens will also be very popular with sports photographers simply because of the extreme versatility it will provide. It is not quite as fast as a 300mm or 400mm F2.8 but I expect this small sacrifice in speed will be a small price to pay for the added flexibility this lens will bring to many sports shooters. I expect this lens to be in hot demand with sports and wildlife photographers when it is released early next year; even with its horrendous price tag. I am hoping to take delivery of this lens in late January next year and will be doing some extensive testing with it before I head to Iceland in March. Look for a full review early in the New Year.

2012 International Loupe Awards and Photography Competitions

Posted in Antarctica, Landscape Photographs, Media, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography, Uncategorized, Wildlife Photographs8 Comments

The 2012 International Loupe Awards are now in the final stages of judging and if you entered any images into the competition you may have already received an email with your results. If you did enter this year I wish you all the very best and hope you do well. This is the third year I have entered the Loupe Awards (formally known as the Aperture Awards) and I feel it will also be my last. There are now so many online photography competitions that I have decided next year to enter only those competitions that actually judge the final ‘printed image’ (rather than on screen jpegs). In 2013 this will include the Australian Professional Photography Awards, the Victorian Professional Photography Awards and the International Travel Photographer of the Year Award. There may well be more competitions out there that do judge the ‘print’ that I am not aware of but I am going to limit myself to just these three. My decision to abandon the remainder of the competitions is multi-fold and is something I have been pondering for some time. I  have found over the last twelve months that I just do not have sufficient time to devote to these competitions in order to ensure I am conforming with the all the different rules. Secondly the cost to enter many of these competitions has become excessive and I feel that the spirit of the competition in many cases has become lost in the revenue generation machine. Thirdly, more and more of these competitions are proving nothing more than ‘rights grab’ attempts and I feel these particular competitions are muddying the waters for the legitimate ones. Finally the sheer number of photographic competitions has diluted the market and I feel somewhat devalued photography by turning it into a competitive sport. I do not view photography as a competitive sport with my peers where the aim is to out score them. I enter photographic competitions because I want to better my own photography and to continually raise the standard of my work. I am in essence competing against myself and the results I received in the last competition.

Whilst the International Loupe Awards are not a rights grab attempt they have become excessively expensive to enter in my opinion. As a result, this year I decided to enter only two images into the awards.  The first photograph was from my last Antarctica expedition and the second from my summer Iceland workshop earlier this year. I chose these particular photographs as I felt they were somewhat striking and more likely to get the judges attention and stand out from the crowd. It seems I managed to split the judges with two of them scoring the image from Antarctica in the 90’s (including a 95 Platinum Award) and another at a Bronze of 77. Unfortunately the lower score did pull down the average and resulted in a solid Silver Award; which is still a result I am very pleased with. Silver in the Loupe Awards is regarded as a high quality image worthy of recognition in the competition. More importantly for me it tells me my work is consistent since I have consistently received Gold and Silver awards in three years I have been participating. I have no idea as yet what my second entry into the Loupe Awards this year has scored as I have not yet received notification via email.

My decision to abandon the International Loupe Awards next year has nothing whatsoever to do with the Silver Award this particular image scored; or indeed any score any of my work has ever received. Since I have received my share of Gold and Silver awards in the Loupe Awards I feel I have gone as far as I can with this competition and the judging of jpeg files on back lit monitors. I really do not feel like I have completed an image until I have made a print and held it in my hands and as such if I am going to have my work judged in competition my preference is for it to be on what I consider to be the ultimate output – The Print.

National Geographic Photo of the Day

Posted in Antarctica, Landscape Photographs, Media, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography, Uncategorized, Wildlife Photographs2 Comments

It is always a pleasant surprise when a photograph is picked up and featured by National Geographic magazine so I was very pleased this morning to find that one of my favourite images from my last Antarctica Expedition was featured as the photo of the day on the 6th of November over at National Geographic’s website. This photograph was also amongst the editors favourite picks in September this year and was the photograph I chose to use to feature the Antarctica Expedition I am co-leading with my good friend  Daniel Bergmann in November next year. This is the 3rd time I have had my photography featured over at National Geographic’s website. The previous two photographs Blue Berg and Highway to Hell were both taken during my 2010 Iceland trip. A high resolution version of this newly featured image can be downloaded as a desktop wallpaper HERE. This photograph is also available as a 20 x 30″ Fine Art Print on Moab Somerset Museum Rag paper in a limited edition of ten (there are only three remaining in the edition).

If you would like to take photographs like this there are still a few spaces remaining on my Antarctica expedition next year for anyone who would like to join me. Just pop over to my website at www.jholko.com where you can register online for a booking form.