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Almost gone part III

Saturday, 9 December 2017

Welcome everyone to the third and last couple of Alpine Ibex images from this year. When it comes to finding a good composition and a proper framing for my images, I always pay most of my attention to my point of view. The point of view actually defines what can be seen in the picture and what can not be seen. And that's by far the most important thing in photography in my opinion. Since the ibexes live in a quite interesting habitat (which plays an important role for the creation of my images) and they are less shy than other Central Europe wildlife (which allows me to move around carefully), I'm particularly looking for good perspectives there, which leads to a lot of running around on the slopes always trying to foresee where the animals will appear and putting myself in right palce at the right time. And since the light is also crucial, of course, I'm basically shooting in the evening and in the morning hours. Of course, it's much more easy to photograph the animals in the evening, because I can observe them all day long and I know where they're located. In the darkness of the very early morning hours the main challenge is to spot them before the light comes up. But once I discovered them, I try to keep them in sight all the days, but of course I have to leave them every evening.

I was lucky enough to experience some dramatic clouds above this stunning backdrop already during my first evening. What a great start it was.

Right at the edge between light and shadow.

I was already observing the herd grazing on this mountain meadow for some time and I intended to create that kind of an image of the animal in front of the glacier lake with the harsh shadow of the nearby mountain on the water surface.

In spring they scratch themselve a lot to get loose of the winter fur.

Actually Alpine Ibexes are rather big and tough mammals, but in front of the massive glaciers of their habitat they can also look extremely tiny and vulnerable.

They only chance to find them in darkness (I try to avoid the use of a headlamp) is when they are located at a ridge where they can be spotted as silhouettes towards the sky.

It's definitely impressing how they can easily move on slopes which are almost vertical.

There was very intense rain this day and the animals found shelter under this rock wall and just tried to stay dry while the heavy drops fell down right beside of them.

Gentle colors break through the clouds at dusk.
Again I deeply enjoyed my time up there in accompany of these impressive and charismatic animals. Although, especially due to the very short summer nights, these trips are mostly very exhausting they are always extemely delightful and can offer quite good photographic possibilities. Hope I could give you all a little glimpse of the life of these mammals and you could enjoy some of my images. I'm definitely looking forward to my upcoming trips into this particular area looking for "my" ibexes.

Almost gone part II

Tuesday, 5 December 2017

As of now the second Alpine Ibex series is ready for you. As all my ibex photographs, also all the images you will see in these three sets have been taken in the mountains of the High Tauern National Park. This park is Austria's biggest and covers large areas in the states of Carinthia, Salzburg and Tyrol but I took all these photographs in the Carinthan part of the national park. To my great delight I was accompanied by my partner Sabine on my first 2017 tour at the end of May and we were blessed with very inviting sunny conditions. So we took it easy and did some small hikes during the days after/before I focused on the animals in the morning and evening hours.

This was the only time so far I had the pleasure of a close encounter with a female ibex and a few very young ones. Basically they hide in unaccessable terrain and are very shy. So I was very excited about his fluffy experience.

The conditions were lovely that evening and the ibexes grazed on a meadow in front of the great backdrop with the glacier lake, the mountains and the fast changing clouds and light conditions. I knew it would make a great picture if one of the ibexes would pose on this particular rock. So I approached extremely carefully to get the view I wanted and started waiting. And once more one of the animals finally did me a huge favor and placed himself right at the top of the rock for a brief exciting moment.

A spectacular scenery as the last light of the fading day broke through the heavy clouds and the majestic animal appeared at the horizon. I knew immediately that I would like to get this kind of a shot, but I was not located right to get this view and the ibex was moving rather fast. So ran down the slope with my long lense and just took a few images as quickly as I could and I got my intended composition. But since my heart was beating fast and I was heavy breathing from the run and the light was already pretty poor I struggled to get a pin sharp image.

Although they spend most time of the day grazing on the meadows, it seems that they highly prefer rocks to romp around.

This particular image is actually an older one, taken in 2016, but I just noticed, that I never published it here on my website. You can also find this picture in my 2018 calendar.

No matter how steep a slope might be, the animals can handle it with ease.

A big buck posing in the morning sun in front of a glacier lake.

The day fades in gorgeous light as a lone ibex takes a rest right at this ridge.

Although they seem to be pretty relaxed most of the time, they're always attentive.
Of course, in the mean time there's already lots of snow in the habitat of these fascinating animals and the toughest time of the year lies ahead of them. So, I hope they are all healthy and doing well, so that they can make it through the hard mountain winter. ... hope some of you will check back here soon for the third and last image set.

Almost gone part I

Saturday, 2 December 2017

Finally I managed to go through all the Alpine Ibex images I took during the last year. Since this is my most productive project and since I've been up in these mounatins again for a couple of times, I'll post three sets here showing some of the shots I got. Not that much words today, just a few images of one of Austria's most charismatic animals. Hope you enjoy.

The beaten towers – Patagonia part I

Sunday, 29 January 2017

After already five months without posting any new images in this blog, I’m happy I can manage to show a long overdue new set of pictures. As some of you probably already know Sabine and myself spent the two months of November and December in Patagonia this early winter. I still couldn’t find the resources to organize my thoughts and countless experiences I gathered during this time yet. And much less I can write all these thoughts down at that moment. Maybe there will be a longer writing one day. Maybe.

Still lots of snow up there at the beginning of June.

Calm feelings in an extremely windy place long before sunrise. Sometimes we were really struggling to stand our ground.
Of course the trip was an extremely delightful and enriching pleasure. Patagonia doesn’t disappoint when it comes to jaw dropping vistas, endless open spaces and untouched wilderness. Hopefully my upcoming images can show you just a little slice of all the beauty of this incredible place. But I have to admit that I also left South America with a handful of mixed emotions. Patagonia of course has down sides too. Also in this part of the planet the tourism and the popularity of particular areas cause some deep troubles. On the one hand there are the countless visitors with a total lack of sense for unaffected nature („Oh, there’s a wild fox, so let’s feed it with cookies!“) and on the other hand there are national park departments, who desperately try to protect the unique areas from the masses, and there are also lots of people who just try to make money. Same here, like in all the other parts of the world.

The uncommon sunny conditions in the mountains during my first trip in 2017 forced me to limit my shootings to three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening. So I tried to make the best out of the situation and sometimes the animals also cooperated like this lovely subadult rascal showing me his breathtaking home.

The first signs of sunlight.

A pair of quite impressive horns of an older male.

As often we started hiking about 03:00 a.m. and so I was happily facing some warming rays of the morning sun here, as we hiked up Valle Ascencio. (© Sabine Fenzl)
So, that’s why I decided to start with a poor-in-variety-series of images from one of the most beaten places of Patagonia I guess. The Torres del Paine towers of Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park. We actually intended to visit this national park first, but about three weeks prior to our arrival the regulations for hikers were changed. Now it’s no more possible to spend more than one night in the same place and you have to plan your hiking trip exactly, because you have to make a registration for every night before you start trekking. So we couldn’t start to Torres del Paine as we wanted. We finally spent lots of hours in front of a backpacker hostel computer to get all the organizations and reservations done and then we went to Argentina’s Los Glaciares National Park first to come back to Torres del Paine later. This new regulations can bring some troubles, because the Patagonian weather can really be unpredictable and when you’re not allowed to set up your tent for more than one night, you can be forced to hike in dangerous conditions. Also the up to 20 km long day distances with heavy backpacks can be really exhausting and so the one or another resting day could be very useful. But the bigger issue in my opinion is the fact, that hikers are now forced even more in this kind of let’s-rush-from-one-selfie-spot-to-the-next-nature-experience which of course is no nature experience at all and leads to more and more alienating from wilderness.

As you probably already know, my preferred way to capture ibexes are small scale silhouettes.

The golden hour in full effect.
In that regard here’s a little (German, sorry!) excerpt of an essay I wrote some time ago: „Einen Bezug zu etwas zu haben ist nur möglich, wenn man es kennenlernen und erfahren kann. Und nur aus der so entstandenen Beziehung entstehen letztlich Respekt, Anerkennung, Demut und Liebe. Man kann nichts lieben, das man nicht kennt. Man wird nichts schützen, das man nicht schätzt. So ist es für einen respektvollen und gewissenhaften Umgang des Menschen mit dem Rest der Natur unerlässlich dem Menschen den vielfach verloren gegangenen Zugang zur Wildnis zu ermöglichen, ohne dass diese dabei aber durch Rücksichts- oder Gedankenlosigkeit bzw. mangels Erfahrung postwendend Schaden nimmt. Und auch nur dann wird man die Wildnis ihrer selbst willen zu würdigen wissen. Ich bin aber überzeugt davon, dass jeder Mensch, trotz dieses verlorenen Zuganges, eine naturgegebene und positive Bindung zur Wildnis hat. Niemand empfindet einen Sonnenuntergang über dem Meer, eine blühende Frühsommerwiese oder einen herbstlichen Laubwald unter blauem Himmel als unangenehm oder hässlich. Das ist kein Zufall. Es vermittelt ein Gefühl von ursprünglicher Heimat.“

Obviously there’s a lot going wrong when it comes to the appreciation of nature and the way we handle it and I don’t know how to deal with all this issues. As I said I still only have some blurry ideas and thoughts in my mind.

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