Carpathian Brown Bear photography in Transylvania - 75 days to go!

Located at the base of the Hargita Mountains in Transylvania
near the town of Székelyudvarhely (Odorheiu Secuiesc).
It was installed in the quiet valley in September 2012.

Next trip is booked and approaching fast. For years my list of images-to-capture-before-I-die has included Brown bears fishing in the shallows for Salmon as they make their treacherous journey upstream to spawn. However, the majority of the photographic Bear safari tours around at the moment are not only ludicrously expensive, but nearly always combine bears with whale-watching... now much as I think Orcas are awesome, the thought of clinging to the side of a moving boat in the freezing cold with icy winds whipping the sea into a frenzy whilst frantically scanning the horizon for a brief glimpse of a fin for hours on end really doesn't thrill me. I'm not a sea-faring photographer at all and prefer my tripod to be firmly on terra-firma. So a friend and I have opted instead for a trip to the Hargita Mountains in Romania to spend 5 days in this purpose built bear-hide hoping to capture the Carpathian Brown bear on camera, and if the gods be smiling on us, maybe a Wolf or two (although I will be more than happy if I just manage to hear a wolf at some point in my life.

Started to read Dreaming of Wolves by Alan E. Sparks. which is a diary of a guy tracking Wolves through the forests of Romania and recently watched a film called "Druid Peak" (Marni Zelnick) on a similar topic, but it is set in Yellowstone in Wyoming, USA and so I guess I now have 75 days to get my head into Brown Bears of Transylvania and put the idea of Wolves down for a while.

Testing the Wide Angle on Llangollen Canal, Wales

f14, 35mm, 1/200s, ISO 400

First time out with a wide angle zoom lens - loved it and tried all sorts of weird and wacky ideas - some worked and some didn't. It took some getting used to, having such a different angle of vision, but I enjoyed the challenge I set myself and came away with a new found respect for landscape photographers that perhaps I was lacking before.
I had been to a talk by Guy Edwardes some time before the trip and he is a fan of capturing star-bursts using a wide angle and a high f-stop (typically anything over f16), then shooting directly at the sun, and so I thought I would give it a go.... not easy in a moving boat, but thankfully the low Autumn sun gave me lots of opportunity to practise. This image of a sunburst through the tunnel was more of a trial-and-error accident than anything considered - but I love it all the same.

I had wanted to try my hand at "creative-blurring" too whilst away and had an image in my head of swans on the water, similar to one of Guy's he had shown of a pelican in flight, but sadly it was much trickier than I ever imagined and so more practise is definitely needed. I did however get some nice motion effects by mounting the camera on the tripod at the front on a fairly slow shutter speed and focusing on a fixed point in the boat which of course does not move in relation to the camera. This gave the illusion of a boat travelling at seriously high speed along the canal, and of course tunnels, bridges and reflection add some good interest and colour.

f22, 16mm,0.4s, ISO 640

We had quite a punishing route this trip and so there were very occasions to be in position for sunrise or sunset as we had hours of cruising time to cram in, but that said, there were some fantastic autumn colours in the trees at dusk - Llangollen truly is beauty.
Now I'm not a huge fan of tunnels, particularly wet ones with next to no space inside and zero lighting, so again I set the camera up to amuse myself and take my mind off the journey through it. Given the severe lack of light in the lengthy Chirk tunnel I had to bump the ISO right up to 12800, but I was again impressed with the D4's ability to still produce a decent shot.

f8, 17mm, 0.4s, ISO 12800!

I also spent some time interval shooting our journey using the in-camera time-lapse function - quite impressive results in a moving boat... I set the camera up on the tripod again on the front of the boat and used a 1 second interval since the boat does not travel too fast - took a few trial and error attempts, but I'm pleased with the results, particularly the sections negotiating the locks.

Looking forward to the next boat trip where I have set myself the challenge of starlight and torch photography - how hard can it be!?

Heading for the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct ("The Bridge that Connects")

So we are off again - this time to our soggy, but outstandingly beautiful, neighbour: Wales. North Wales to be precise. It's an early start Saturday, heading up to the Anderson boatyard, where 6 of us board the Fjord Emperor for a 7 night cruise along the Llangollen canal. The highlight, and the greatest challenge of the trip will be the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct - the oldest aqueduct in Britain. I say "challenge", not only because it will be a tricky one to photograph, but at 210 years old there are some slightly unnerving facts to get your head round;

• To keep the aqueduct as light as possible, the skinny masonry piers that hold it up are partly hollow and taper at the top.
• The mortar in those piers was made of oxen blood, lime and water. Kind of like treacle toffee!
• It has 18 piers, each 126ft high, and 19 arches each with a 45ft span
• The aqueduct holds 1.5 million litres of water and takes two hours to drain.
• The structure is 1,007ft long, with the River Dee running beneath it.

I will be taking my new wide angle lens of course (16-35mm) still not quite sure of the plan for the shot, having not been there before, but with any luck the autumn leaves will still be clinging on in sufficient numbers and the sun will be providing enough of a glow to add some colour to them. The weather does not look great for the week ahead - so it's waterproofs all the way - including a set for my Nikon. 

Bawdsey Hall in Suffolk

Not sure what I thought before when someone mentioned Suffolk.... Sizewell B perhaps? farmers and flat fields? Minsmere and Springwatch? Now however, whenever anyone says Suffolk I will think immediately of Bawdsey Hall. What a truly amazing find - it certainly is "Suffolk's Secret Hideaway" and I intend to be hiding away there for as many years as David, the owner, allows me to.

We discovered it completely by accident (met some fellow amateur photographers on Skomer Island back in July) and decided to go stay and see whether what we had heard from these two guys was really as good as it sounded.... that they had badgers visiting the grounds every night (we were visited 7 times on one night), that they had wildlife camera feeds direct into your bedroom (true - 8 in fact, all fed into 2 channels on the in-room TVs!), and Tawny Owls visited the feeders almost on demand (true again - they are fed day-old chicks on an old tree stump in the grounds which can be viewed from the bedroom windows!). 

There are hares living in the car park, Little Owls living on the barn roof and a range of deer wandering about, including the strange looking, fanged, Chinese Water Deer, but we saw (and heard) only Muntjac. One of which decided to start barking right next to us whilst we silently waited for Badgers - much to the amusement of the owners who were sat yards away at the house listening and giggling (although they did also ferry out cups of tea to us throughout the evening which was a very welcome and appreciated touch).
We were only staying one night, but what a night. After spending some time wandering the grounds and getting acquainted with the various hides and set up, we returned to the Hall for a cuppa and chat with the owners about what to expect. The Badgers did not disappoint - we settled in to some chairs on the lawn around 830pm half obscured by low-hanging branches from a magnificent and very old Tulip tree. We were set up on borrowed tripods with a relatively low ISO and somewhat slow shutter speed ready on cable release - we were coached into waiting for the moment when a badger hears something and raises its head to listen, pausing motionless for a few seconds. With the first visitor around 9pm this happened quite a lot, but with a new lens and some focussing issues I completely failed to get anything half decent. It took a fair amount of practise but luckily I had plenty of opportunities to try again.... we were visited 7 times! at one point two badgers were feeding together which was nice to watch. One of them came across the lawn right in front of us - literally within a few metres - quite remarkable considering we weren't even in a hide! We stayed out until almost 1am when the last badger left and cold toes forced us to call it a night. 

Moth trap at dawn

Cannot wait to book again for the spring time - or even winter snow - I will definitely be looking round for more potential customers in the area to visit from now on. This is definitely a place to break up the monotony of a lonely salespersons typical hotel stays. 

With only a few hours sleep we still managed to get up for 7am Sunday morning and meet "The Moth Man" who was doing his rounds checking for anything spectacular caught in the dozen or so traps around the grounds. We weren't early enough to go with him, but we did manage an hour in the lane hide where we spotted a large dark bird with a white head and fingered wing-tips fly over - no shots, but neither myself nor Gail could place what it might have been. We later discovered it to be a female Marsh Harrier-  my first in fact.

We returned at 8am for our pre-booked full English which was to die for and more than makes up for the lack of restaurant on site - to be fair there is not the time to eat an evening meal anyway - Gail and I had bought sausage rolls and picnic food instead which was perfectly adequate.

Around breakfast time we met with the bird ringer who had set his nets and was returning with his first catch - two tiny Goldcrests. I have never seen one up close before and was completely shocked at just how small they are. His wings were measured and checked, details recorded in a log book and a numbered ring attached to his leg before being let loose again on the bird feeders. After breakfast we set off with him to check the nets again - I was fascinated to see how they untangled them from the fine meshing, but sadly on the round we chose to accompany him on, there was not a single bird caught. Another reason to return (like I really need an excuse!). Bawdsey you are fantastic and I, and probably Gail, will most certainly be back. Thank you.

Last day in Marrakech

Woke early - hot, tired and grumpy. Had enough of shopping but decided to go into souks anyway and ended up getting the most shopping of the whole trip including gifts for Ant and the usual home-made, obscure musical instrument for the house. This time it was a 3-stringed "Gunibri" made from a tortoise shell.
Back to the Riad for our last yummy tagine lunch before checking out and relaxing in the spa with a bit of reflexology and a pedicure. I'm not one for prodding and poking, massage or creams and potions, so I was a little apprehensive. My last few attempts at this form of relaxation have not gone well - but we had time to kill and it was stupidly cheap so I agreed to have another go. I had booked reflexology which I had understood to mean a fancy foot massage so you can imagine my face when she told me I had to take my trousers off and lay face down on the bed with my face in the hole.... here we go again I thought. It would not have been so bad except the room was directly off the courtyard where reception was and she kept going in and out of the room to fetch things, leaving the door wide open each time. One kid came in and asked where the toilet was at one point! Not my definition of relaxing at all, but I have to say the pummelling my calves got eased a fair bit of the walking pain, but sadly the reflexology did nothing for the arthritic pain across the toe joints. Let's hope the miracle Moroccan Argan oil sorts that out instead.
After a sweaty taxi trip and a wave goodbye to the singing mosques, we arrived at the airport to a delayed plane and no real restaurants. Tried to sleep on the way home, but was stupidly uncomfortable. A shame for the trip to end this way, but couldn’t be helped.  I crawled silently into bed at 2am (well my mattress on the floor in our empty house)  – I needed to be back at work 7 hours later.

Full moon over the Medina in Marrakech

All in all, Marrakech was a fantastic weekend break – although I’m not sure I would go back – it’s a real assault on the senses.  I’m very glad I experienced it for myself. Mum and I had a cracking time as always, I'm just not a great lover of shopping and whilst there was an abundance of subjects to take photos of, every single one demanded payment - and not just payment for taking pictures... payment for every picture and again if you used a different camera. Too many people, and the constant haggling, hustle and bustle was too much for my comfort levels I think.
The ancient mystery of the desert snake charmers was also somewhat marred by the wearing of premier league football shirts and tracksuit bottoms.
As someone who was fortunate enough to be born in the UK, I feel somewhat ashamed that I am complaining about the signs Morocco is showing of making progress and morphing into something akin to Western Europe.  But the trip was a harsh reminder that time is running out to see the old world, and all those places I read about as a kid. Soon there will be no ancient places left that are untouched by the laws of the EU or the inappropriate and irreversible actions of the western world. A very saddening thought indeed.