Secretarybird making its entrance!

“It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds.”
Aesop, (620 BC – 560 BC) from The Jay and the Peacock

Yes, I’m still talking about beautiful animals. How can’t I, after being in such an amazing place where nature is at its best?

A sight to be seen, this peculiar and gorgeous bird appears from nowhere in front of your eyes either running like a clerk late for a meeting,

Looking for the next meal

In all its magnificense

Known as the African ‘marching eagle’, the secretarybird is such an oddity that is placed in its own family, Sagittariidae, and some even go to the extreme of giving it its own order “Sagittariiformes” (Ferguson-Lees, Raptors of the World), but most classifications put this bird as part of the order Accipitriformes which of course makes him a close cousin of the eagles and hawks among other birds of prey.

What makes this bird so different is that it is the only African raptor that hunts on foot, pursuing large insects, snakes and small rodents across the African savanna.

Secretarybirds are endemic to the Sub-Saharan Africa and although nomadic, following food sources, they are non migratory. Their range extends from Senegal to Somalia and South to the Cape of Good Hope.

Secretarybird Range. Birdlife International (2012) Species factsheet: Sagittarius serpentarius

A large and distinctive bird of prey, the secretarybird is said to take its unusual name from the strange and distinguishing arrangement of feathers on the back of its neck. This long, raised crest of black, spatula-shaped feathers gives the secretarybird the appearance of an old-fashioned secretary carrying quill-pens tucked behind the ears.

Very distinctive feather arrangement!

A more recent hypothesis to the origin of the name “secretary” is that is borrowed from a French corruption of the Arabic saqr-et-tair or “hunter-bird”. I have to say that the first explanation makes more sense to me since independently of how they hunt, all birds of prey are “hunter birds” after all.

Posing for the camera

Watching the secretarybird hunt is not only fascinating to the ornithologist but it is a delight to any photographer. The trick is of course to be able to get a good sharp shot of this animal that hardly ever stops when in search of prey.

Food is often discovered by the secretarybirds via stomping on clumps of vegetation flushing out the prey from their hiding places. This very smart bird also waits near fires, eating anything that is trying to escape. They can either catch prey by chasing it and striking with the bill and swallowing (usually with small prey), or stepping on it until it is stunned or unconscious enough to swallow.

Of course my camera settings were not ready for the 'I think I found something moment'

Africa’s ‘marching eagle’ spends most of the time on the ground, walking steadily with head jerking back and forward, at 100-120 paces per minute, averaging up to 3 km/h (1.8 mi/h), it may travel 20-30 km (12-19 mi) in a day. In general it prefers walking to running, and running to flying, but do not underestimate this bird because the secretarybird can fly very well often soaring like a stork, with neck and legs extended. It even has a spectacular aerial display, specially obvious during mating season.

I went to Africa with a bird “wishlist” that included eagles, storks, bustards and hornbills. I had to see hornbills above all, and I certainly wanted to see the famous Kori Bustard, the heaviest flying bird in the world. I had a photographic feast with the Southern Ground Hornbill and although I saw several white-bellied bustards did not see the Kori Bustard, but have to say that spending photographic quality time with the secretarybird was one of the highlights and unexpected surprises of my trip to the Masai Mara.

African Fish Eagle in Flight

“Oh, for the wings of a dove, men, envious, cry.
What bones, what muscles, have birds and not I,
That give them freedom of the boundless sky?”

- Joel Peters

I imagine you would ask yourself, then, why should I read this?…Well for starters there are good pictures of amazing and unique African birds, and as I said these pictures are really very good, and it is not because of luck, but of patience, years…no…decades of practice and adequate equipment.

Hamerkop, one of the unique African birds that has a family of it's own "Scopidae"

Yes, I used to be terrible at bird photography, which was incredibly frustrating, specially because I love birds, I really love birds!

Southern Ground Hornbill, a massive-billed, turkey sized terrestrial bird. Endemic to Africa

For as long as I remember I’ve been fascinated with this incredible animals. So imagine my frustration at not being able to capture with my camera how striking they can be? The final results of my bird photography were so disappointing that for many years I didn’t even try; that changed a couple of years ago.

So what changed? I’ll tell you, but first a little bit about birds and why they are far away my favorite animals.

From The Bird: A Natural History of Who Birds Are, Where They Came From, and How They Live by Colin Tudge: “All animals are equal no doubt in the eyes of God, and all that manage to survive at all in this difficult world are in some sense “equal.” But some, by all objective measures, are far more impressive than others; and none, not even the mammals, the group to which we ourselves belong, quite match up to the birds. Birds have their shortcomings, to be sure, as flesh and blood must. But they are, nonetheless, a very superior form of life. Above all, birds fly.”

The Secretarybird. One species confined to Africa who is so special that also has its own family, Sagittariidae. This distant relative of the Falconiformes is my favorite African bird and will have a post of its own

Yes indeed they fly, and you might say well, but there are birds like ostriches or penguins that do not fly. The truth is many birds have abandoned flight, emphasis on the word abandoned, but not before literally conquering every ecosystem in the planet.

Helmeted Guineafowl. This is the common guineafowl of the bush and savannah. There are 2 other species that are more rare

The bottom line is that the capacity of flying gave birds a huge advantage over other vertebrates; as a matter of fact there are approximately 8900 living species of birds compared to 3000 amphibians, 6000 reptiles, and 4100 mammals. For birds, the atmosphere is an enormous ocean of air that provides them with quick and direct access to almost any spot on earth. As a consequence, birds can inhabit and take advantage of a greater range of habitats than any other class or organism, plant or animal. According to Joe Carl Welty in The Life of Birds,”birds can eat in almost any “restaurant”; they can choose to build their homes anywhere among an almost infinite variety of sites, frequently beyond the reach of predators. Perhaps as a result of their supreme mobility, birds are numerically at least, the most successful terrestrial vertebrates on earth.”

Bare-Faced Go-Away-Birds. This beautiful bird is known to alert other animals and humans of incoming danger with his call, hence the name Go-Away Bird

Of course this ability comes with certain adaptations like specially designed bodies with very characteristic structural bones, superb vision and most importantly feathers. But I’m going to leave it at that, because books are written about each one of these subject, and this post is not about bird biology but why I’m fascinated by them and why I want to master the craft of bird photography.

Back to what changed?

Wildlife photography requires a lot of patience and understanding of animal behavior so you not only know what to expect but you can also understand why animals do what they do in different circumstances. And why is this important? Well in my case I really want to be able to teach something about that specific animal in this case the bird while also capturing the beauty of it.

Pied Kingfisher

Another important change is access to the proper equipment. The advent of auto-focus first and later of digital photography, has made wildlife and bird photographers life much easier. We know how hard it is for kids to stay still for a couple of minutes, now imagine animals in general and birds in particular…it can be a nightmare, but thanks to digital photography we can afford to take hundreds of pictures of one subject hoping to get the golden shot.

Lilac-Breasted Roller. This beautiful colorful bird is a symbol in East Africa.

Keep in mind that long range lenses are a must; most birds will fly or walk away if you try to approach them and even if they don’t the last thing you want to do is disturb them. Finally I learned that when photographing any animal including humans the most important thing is to keep the eyes in focus…out-of-focus eyes and you can say bye bye to that shot…now when photographing birds the area of focus must include the beak. This can be challenging specially when using long range lenses in areas with poor light, but that’s another advantage of digital, the ability to change the ISO to compensate for a low light situation.

Lappet-Faced Vulture. This is a massive bird, the biggest of all the African vultures

I do think though that in this specific case, the magnificent landscape helped me a lot. The African Savanna…there is nothing like this anywhere else in the world.

Saddled-Billed Stork, the most spectacular of all storks and very difficult to see in the wild.

In fact, Africa is one of the best places to go birding. The continent is second only to South America (3400 species) in terms of number of species, and it offers more rewarding birding than any other tropical regions thanks to the large number of visible species associated with savanna and woodland habitats. Africa is home to two endemic bird orders, 10 endemic families, and of the more than 2100 species in Sub-Saharan region. In this post you see pictures of a very small sample of the almost 1400 species that are restricted to the region.

You can see more birds by visiting Birds of Africa

Really?

“There is a place where the grass meets the sky, and that is the end”
-Maasai saying

Now you probably wonder, why? or how did you arrive to this conclusion? Well, first as I always say when I begin a post about something that not everybody will agree with, this is my own opinion based on my experience…and you are most welcome to disagree with me.

So this is how it all began….Most people visiting Africa for vacation normally spend a couple of weeks jumping around between different wildlife reserves, trying to see a much as they can. This is understandable since it is not a cheap experience and worst of all, unless you come from Europe you are doomed to spend almost two days traveling until you get to your final destination.

I bet you can

Because I love to visit one or two places at a time spending quality time exploring those places I decided to stay a whole week at the Serian camp located in the Mara North Conservancy. My decision proved to be great; it not only gave me the opportunity to return several times to areas where certain animals are commonly found increasing my probabilities of getting great shots of them and of the breath-taking landscape, but most importantly allowed me to meet different and very interesting people every day.

It was indeed a very delightful experience; depending on the time you decided to go out to watch some game, some of us would see each other at breakfast or lunch, but it was at night, when the the whole camp would get together for dinner like a big family that the real fun began. During those beautiful African nights we would exchange day experiences, share our pictures (thanks to the iPad), laugh, drink and eat great food while submerged in deep and some times heated discussions.

Gravy Zebra at the Smithsonian National Zoo. Gravy zebras are very endangered

On my very last night at the camp a documentary producer with whom I was chatting about ideal camera equipment suddenly asked me, “well so which is your favorite animal to photograph?” I have to say that I had a sudden blank; of course my thoughts immediately focused on my favorite animals…but that is not what she really asked. So I began to rationalize and said “well, I love elephants and lions and cheetahs and giraffes, but giraffes are so difficult to photograph because they are too tall and you need to learn to position yourself in order to get a good shot of them…and lions and cheetahs, well you have to be lucky because they sleep most of the day”…she interrupted my rumblings and said “I love to photograph zebras, there is something about them”…I said “umh I can see that,” and although I had taken literally hundreds of pictures of zebras during that week I suddenly remembered a picture I had taken early this year of one of the National Zoo Gravy zebras, there was something magical almost unreal about that picture.

Back in the U.S. I began cataloging my pictures, had to go through more than 5,000 images, and to make the process easier I put each species in its own folder and that is when I really saw my zebras…

Zebras Mingling with Wildebeest before crossing the Mara River

Drinking water before crossing the Mara River

At the heart of the Serengeti ecosystem lies an ancient phenomenon that is the largest movement of wildlife on earth. For many millenniums the wildebeest followed the rains and used the Serengeti ecosystem with its mosaic of grasslands and savannahs in pursuit of food and water. This migration is so attractive and profitable in terms of survival that hundreds of thousands of zebras and Thomson’s gazelle join the million and a half wildebeest in their annual 310-mile journey.

Zebra and Wildebeest crossing the Mara river together

During the migration it is very common to find plains zebras marching and grazing next to the wildebeest, they complement each other preferring different parts of the same grass. But zebras are definitively smarter (I know I should not say this), and with their superior vision and hearing, they function as an early warning system for the wildebeest. In turn they somehow know that given the choice, predators prefer wildebeest meat to zebra. So zebras are very happy with the status quo.

Watching me watching them...

I guess all this information doesn’t answer your question, why did I pick the zebra as the most photogenic animal in the African savanna?

Well because of their coat! No animal has a more distinctive coat than the zebra, in fact, growing up this striped horse-like mammal was the ultimate symbol of an African safari in my mind. Each animal’s stripes are as unique as fingerprints are to humans -no two patterns are exactly alike.

Resting on each others back: Head resting is one of this animal most typical and curious social behavior

Scientist don’t have a clear idea as why zebras have stripes, at this points there might be more more theories than zebra in the wild. Many of those center on their utility as some form of camouflage. The patterns may make it difficult for predators to identify a single animal from a running herd or provide some kind of “invisibility shield” at down and dusk when color-blind predators like lions and hyenas normally hunt. Another theory says that stripes may act like a natural repellent by confusing insects like the tsetse fly that only recognizes large areas of singled-colored fur. Other say that because of their uniqueness, stripes may also help zebras recognize one another.

Learning about the behavior of animals in the wild can be very helpful to a photographer. It gives us a frame of reference as what to expect or what to look for when using your camera to describe an animal

Maybe the reason zebras have stripes is a combination of all the above or none at all. Regardless, it probably has to do with survival of the species and natural selection since everything in nature happens or exists for a reason.

Funny thing is that in Africa a herd of zebra is commonly refer to as a “dazzle of zebra” the scientific explanation of that name is because their pattern probably confuses predators. This explanation is probably not true, in fact, they are so conspicuous that when you see them on a picture most times they don’t even look real. If anything the contrast of the zebra’s coat pattern against their background is so amazing that they do dazzle humans.

Mom and Young Grazing

As a biologist I do find intriguing that scientist have not been able to pinpoint the main reason as why zebras have stripes, but as a photographer I could care less because I do believe that those stripes are the reason as why the dazzling zebra is the most photogenic animal of the African savanna.

To see more pictures of zebra please visit the album A Dazzle of Zebras

By Frank Lloyd Wright

Hello! Do you know what I am? No? you might think I'm some kind of skinny bull, but you are wrong! I am a wildebeest, also known by the name of gnu, humans think we are ugly but you know what? My species is the main character in one of the greatest spectacles on earth...

Yes indeed…Every year millions of us along with hundreds of thousands of zebras and gazelles are responsible for the most spectacular mass movement of terrestrial mammals anywhere in the world.

Thousands of people around the world come to the Masai Mara between July and September to watch us cross a river full of crocodiles and set camp to feed from the very nutritious and phosphorous-rich grasses of the Mara in South West Kenya.

Crossing the Mara River

Of course we cross the Mara river back and forth because we are restless creatures, we love to live in danger and we love drama. In return we provide magnificent photographic opportunities. Whether you come to see us with a point-and-shoot or your pro-camera and big lenses we guarantee great shots.

Crossing the Mara River back and forth

Besides crocodiles We also attract one of the highest concentrations of large predators, among them thousands of lions and spotted hyenas, along with some leopards and cheetahs.

Believe me you might want to take some pictures of these animals hunting us, it is a chilling experience.

Two juvenile males having for lunch a captured wildebeest

We are the most abundant large herbivore in East Africa and our name wildebeest means “wild beast” in Dutch/Afrikaans, not very original right? We do prefer our African name gnu. We belong to the family of African antelopes and you can recognize us for our dark grey coat and black stripes (which are clearest on the front regions), short, thick neck, and crooked horns.

The Wildebeest migration route

Our migration characterizes the Serengeti ecosystem and is responsible for the worldwide fame of this region. Based on the rainfall’s timetable and abundance, we depart the Southern Serengeti and the West of the Ngorongoro Conservation area where most of our females calve (have babies) at the end of January or early February, and move towards the North and North-East arriving in great numbers to the Masai Mara around July and August.

Crocodile snatching a wildebeest....but my friend escaped

Aren't we a sight worth taking pictures of?

It is during this stage that the we must pass the Grumeti and Mara Rivers, home to a dense population of magnificent crocodiles. The sight of hurling ourselves into the the water to cross the river is just unforgettable, particularly when there are crocodiles waiting to have their richest meal of the year.

Good bye!

And that’s why our migration and the time we spend in the Masai Mara is considered the most unique zoological drama in the world

For more pictures of these incredible animals visit The Wildebeest and the Great Migration

Who could imagine butterflies could look so pretty in B&W

“Life is like a good black and white photograph,
there’s black, there’s white,
and lots of shades in between.”

-Karl Heiner

My passion for photography began many years ago, too many to count, inspired by the B&W work of the great masters.

Besides collecting portfolios by Margaret Bourke-White, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doineau, Amsel Adams and many others, I went ahead and enrolled in several photography courses. Basic photography, advanced photography, commercial, portrait you name it..but my best course ever was learning how to work in a darkroom. My teacher, Mr. Tanaka, a Japanese-Brazilian, not only taught me the basics but shared with me many tips and secrets of the art of developing the perfect film and producing the perfect print, or at least trying to.

Enjoying Life

Soon after I ended my course I invested in a darkroom. I wanted something portable that I could carry with me everywhere and I found a small Durst enlarger that could perfectly fit inside a suitcase, or even on a carry-on….and so I began this wonderful journey through the world of black & white photography where I could control everything but the manufacturing of the film.

Cattail against a dramatic sky only an effect that B&W can provide

From the moment the film was installed in my camera I had absolute control of the process that would lead to the final product… that “perfect print”. Of course perfection is very relative and what might have been perfect for me was far from perfect for others, but that is part of the subjectivity that characterizes the art world.

B&W helps highlight the beautiful architecture of a rose

Needless to say this darkroom or I would say the enlarger with some other key tools, including a great lens (everything else is easy replaceable) traveled with me around the world. As a matter of fact, I still have it around inside a trunk with the rest of my darkroom equipment decorating my living room.

Every single detail of this gorgeous elephant comes to life

With the advent of digital photography, which I did not embrace right away, I had a lot of trouble getting use to the new technology, particularly with B&W photography. Although pictures were sharp and with great color saturation, the texture was missing. Film photography provides a very subtle perception of threedimensionality that is even more palpable when using B&W films. That special effect totally disappeared from my pictures and with that the magic of B&W.

Drops of water on a dry lily pad

Of course I had and still have a lot of material that I began to scan and improve with the help of my digital darkroom …that is until not long ago when I decided to open my horizons from the Photoshop world and try a new software and voilà I found magic again…

B&W helps us focus on the drama of a scene

Let me say one more thing, I’m not writing on behalf of any company and what worked for me might not work for other people in the same way that what worked for other people did not work for me. Also for those purists that are against any type of photo manipulation let me quote Ansel Adams,“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”
*Pictures were transformed to B&W using Nik Software Silver Efex Pro 2

If you want to see more pictures please visit my album Textures of Nature

Stalactites form when a drop of liquid limestone is precipitated in the shape of a ring upon contact with the ceiling. Ring falls on ring and, in this way, a shape similar to a hollow macaroni is formed whose diameter is that of the drop of water.

“The richness I achieve comes from nature,
the source of my inspiration”
-Claude Monet

Back in 1987, while living in Israel and working for the George S. Wise institute of Life Science at the University of Tel Aviv, I was invited to spend a weekend of adventure at a Kibbutz in central Israel.

My host, the kipper of the crocodile’s farm (story for another post) had the weekend very well organized. The highlight would be visiting caves  where Jews used to hide from the Romans to study the Torah. I said, cool, let’s do it! of course at the time, my understanding of a cave was a big opening on a hill where you could walk in as a too-legged human being. What I found instead was a barely noticeable  “hole” in the ground, where I had to squeeze myself through, and a long tunnel full of bats where I had to drag myself in order to reach the main chamber. Needless to say I had a panic attack! And no, it wasn’t the bats. It was the impossible narrowness of the space and the fact that I couldn’t figure out how I was going to get out of there.

The ingeniousness of these hiding places was so amazing that it didn’t take me long to recover from the first shock. That day we visited four different caves in the same region, each one with its own special quality and as you can see I survived the adventure to tell the story.  That was a glorious day, not only I faced my fears head-on but actually I became addicted to cave exploring.

When the rate of dripping is faster than the rate of diffusion of carbon dioxide, as the drops fall to the cave floor the rest of the carbon dioxide will be diffused and the limestone will crystallize into a stalagmite.

I did visit several other caves that year in many shapes and forms including the “traditional” ones, but I could not leave Israel without visiting a very special cave, one carved by nature and for nature. I’m talking about the Soreq Cave. Compared to other caves in the world, Soreq cave is tiny -5,000 square meters or 53,820 square feet. Yet it is one of the richest caves in the world in terms of variety of stalactites and stalagmites.

The cave was discovered in May 1968, when an explosion opened a crack into a magical and fantastic world hidden beneath the ground in the middle of the Judean Hills. According to geologists, the Soreq cave was formed around 25 million-years ago, when the mountainous range of the Judean Hills rose up above the surface of the water.  The layers of limestone and dolomite rock were displaced and folded with time, forming  cracks which allowed water to enter and dissolve some of the rock. While seeping through the cracks and flowing through the soil this water absorbed increasing amounts of  carbon dioxide from the roots of the plants and the surrounding decay. This process that turns the water acidic is called “Karst” and helped with the cave expansion process.

Citadel-shaped column. Occasionally several of these columns connect into curtains and screens which dived the cave into a number of secondary chambers.

The next stage in the history of the cave began with the retreat of the sea and the lowering of the ground water level. The dissolution of rock stopped and the process was reversed. Drops of water saturated with limestone solution reached the ceiling of the cave the carbon dioxide escaped and the remaining limestone crystallized, creating the huge diversity of stalactites we see today.

Is that the face of a man? Some of the stalagmites and stalactites meet and fuse into one big column. Sometimes we can detect the meeting point, but sometimes the connection is so complete that detection is impossible.

When the rate of dripping is faster than the rate of diffusion of carbon dioxide the drops fall to the cave floor releasing the rest of the carbon dioxide and the limestone crystallizes into a stalagmite. Many of these will merge with the stalactites forming this huge and magnificent sculptures.

Wedding cake-shaped stalagmite. The stalactites are usually very thin and smooth but the stalagmites display a great variety of shapes. "Wedding cakes", "citadels" or "city of pagodas" are some of the most common shapes.

In this case the big challenge was not visiting the cave, which is already prepared to receive tourists but getting permission to take pictures inside it. Doing some research I found out that on Friday mornings they would allow reporters and photojournalists to visit the cave and photograph at will. So there I was one Friday morning with a couple of friends and two bags filled with photo equipment, three quarters of which I knew I was not going use, but with that amount of equipment on tow who could dispute  that I wasn’t a professional photojournalist then?

Water-lily-shaped stalagmites, at the time back in the 80s this type of stalagmites where only found in this specific cave

These pictures were taken in 1987 using  Fujichrome 200 ISO slides and recently digitized. If you want to see more pictures of this Cave please visit Soreq Cave

Romeo and Juliet: Stalactite and stalagmite: the process ended before they had a chance to merge

Pacific Sea Nettle, Chrysaora fuscescens. This magnificent species is endemic to the North East Pacific Ocean

“From nearly microscopic tinkerbells to golden giants whose bells loom larger than beach umbrellas, you couldn’t dream up more exotic jellies than already exists”
-Nora Danes, Jellies Living Art

And terrifying they are, particularly if you happen to be swimming in the ocean and finding one or more pulsating their way in the water right next to you. Or even worse falling on top of them while learning to ski, this actually happened to my brother and not only it was scary but it was very traumatic to see how much pain he was in. Fortunately those jellies were not the poisonous type and he recovered very quickly. But the truth is I did grow up fearing these creatures that we call “malaguas” meaning bad waters, because many times when the sea is infested by them, even if they don’t touch you, it is impossible to get into the water without feeling their stinging effect.

Pacific Sea Nettle, Chrysaora fuscescens. The origin of the genus name Chrysaora lies in Greek mythology. Chrysaor, which means "he who has a golden armament", is the brother of Pegasus and the son of Poseidon and Medusa

So what are these beautiful animals? Jellyfishes along with corals, anemones and hydroids belong to the Phylum Cnidaria, these are very ancient invertebrates who are not really fish. All of them have stinging cells in their tentacles called cnidocytes. These cells are unique to this phylum and are the reason for its name.

As primitive as they are -their fossil record goes back to 700 million years- jellyfishes are among the most successful organisms in the natural history of this planet. If you think about it, dinosaurs have come and gone yet jellyfishes, as well as their cnidarian cousins are still around. The medusae particularly were the earliest animals to evolve muscle powered swimming in the seas. Although they are not strong swimmers this fact has helped them achieve diverse and prominent ecological roles throughout the world’s oceans.  Besides being food for other predators, jellyfishes provide habitat for many juvenile fishes in areas where there are not many places to hide, and many young crabs that are not in swimming mood often hitchhike on the top of their bells.

All this is great, but why I decided to write about them now? Simply because they have an hypnotic effect on me. I can stay hours watching their dancing movements, they look like ballerinas in beautiful and colorful dresses. They have a relaxing effect -as long as there is a big piece of glass between me and them. And because I’ve been collecting video clips of different jellyfishes during many visits to different aquariums in the U.S., I decided to venture into the “movie making” world and produce a short video of all the jellies I’ve seen until now. Before watching the video bellow please note that I’m not a videographer, I’m a photographer who’s just experimenting with video.

A jellyfish swims by using its muscles to contract its bell forcing water out and pushing it along. The muscles then relax and the bell opens again.

The most challenging thing in this process was learning to use Final Cut Express (instead of iMovie) and the most fun part was selecting the background music. I tried many different styles, but the movement of the jellyfishes is not in a standard tempo. The speed is different for every type of jelly including jellies of the same species, it depends on the shape and the volume of their bells. I couldn’t find the right tune until one day while I was listening Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherezade on my car, I had my eureka moment as soon as the second movement began. I knew I had found the ideal music background, but I’ll let you be the judge.

For more information on the biology, ecology and behavior of jellies you can visit The Scyphozoan Wiki

At the end of January during a chilly but gorgeous Sunday I finally went to the zoo, and what a sight it was! I arrived just at the time the whole pride was coming out to delight the great number of people surrounding the exhibit. I fought my way to find a prime spot for me and my equipment and began to shoot away….yep more than 500 shots in a bit more than an hour, but the little guys were so playful and restless that I just could not stop and risk missing a great photo opportunity.

The exhibit as well as the rest of the zoo were covered in snow so the background was incredibly beautiful and unique.

At this point I’m just going to let the pictures speak for themselves. During post production I managed to select down to 100 worth saving shots. This is a modest sample, and there is more at SNZ Lion Cubs

Before I go, I must say that although zoos and conservation organizations have been very successful in breeding lions in captivity. The reality is that like most of its feline cousins, tigers, cheetahs, leopards, etc., the wild lion faces a desperate future. Its wild lands are being consumed by exponentially growing human populations, as are the prey species on which it needs to survive. They are also poisoned, infected with deadly diseases brought by humans and livestock and worst of all they are still victims of trophy hunting ending in a wall or displayed as a carpet in somebody living room.

Numbers are in decline across much of Africa – down from nearly 76,000 in 1980 to less than 40,000 today. And since 2008 the magnificent symbol of Africa has become extinct in three of their former range states.

As Will Travers, CEO of the UK charity Born Free Foundation says: “we have a choice, to destroy or to protect, to squander or to save. If we cannot conserve with compassion, make room for and appreciate the wild lion, then no other species stands a chance. If wild lions go, then for the rest, it’s only a matter of time.”

Pictures were taken with a Canon 5D Mark II and a EF100 – 400f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet
can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about
2,800 times in 2010. That’s about 7
full 747s. In 2010, there were
12 new posts, growing the total
archive of this blog to 22 posts. There were
144 pictures uploaded, taking up a
total of 50mb. That’s about 3 pictures per week. The busiest day of
the year was August 7th with 372
views. The most popular post that day was Arlington
National Cemetery Through the Seasons of the Year.

Where did they come from?

The top
referring sites in 2010 were
alphainventions.com,
photozz.com,
perlacopernikphotography.com,
facebook.com, and
stumbleupon.com. Some visitors came
searching, mostly for asian tapir,
perla copernik, spanish
era, influence on american
architecture buildings, and kasota
stone.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and
pages that got the most views in 2010.

Arlington
National Cemetery Through the Seasons of the Year
August
2010

There
is Always a Dog… October 2010 2
comments

The
Snake and The Firefly July 2010 3
comments

Good
Luck Tai Shan! February 2010 2
comments

Catalan
Modernisme: In Search of a National Architecture December 2010 2
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Since the very beginning, even before the actual word was coined, architecture has been influenced by nature.

Guiche at the Palau de la Musica Catalana (Palace of Catalan Music), built by Lluis Domenech i Montaner. It opened in 1908. It is one of the most representative buildings of Catalan Modernist style.

Whether leveraging existing resources like caves to protect ourselves from the elements, to using the universal laws of physics that govern everything in this world to build the magnificent buildings, temples and monuments we so much enjoy visiting, one way or another, nature has always been present.

Detail of the coffee shop ceiling inside the Palau -Catalan Music Palace-

Although throughout history men have used, for symbolic purposes, representations of flowers, plants and animals in different art forms, it was not until the late eighteen hundreds that a new movement began to emerge. This style had nature itself as a muse.

This movement had different names depending on which European country we are talking about. Perhaps the most well-known name is Art Nouveau, but it is also known as Symbolism, Decadence, and Jugendstill – Jugend was a cultural weekly publication that  soon became a style-setting icon and launched the German Art Nouveau movement, named Jugendstil after the magazine.

The Lleo Morera House was built by Lluis Domenech i Montaner between 1902-1906 with an abundant display of floral ornamentation. The name, Lleo Morera, is not from the name of the original owners but rather the lions (lleo) and mulberry trees (Morera) seen in the decorations. Roof detail

In Barcelona this period was called Catalan Modernisme, and it began as a search for a national architecture, which is the title of an article by Luis Domènech i Montaner, the actual founder of the movement in Spain.

At this point you’re probably asking really? Yes, really! We normally think it was Gaudí, but although Antoni Gaudí is the one that takes this movement to its most glorious moment, it was Domènech i Montaner (1849-1923) the one that defined the architectonic Art Nouveau in Catalonia. In his article “En busca de una arquitectura nacional” (In search of a national architecture) title that I borrowed for this post, he explains how he was planning to develop a modern architectural style reflecting the national Catalan personality.

Casa Lleo Morera, Balcony detail

It’s important to understand that the whole movement in Europe had as an objective to create a unique individual style by moving away from the traditional heavy architecture that characterized the two previous centuries with the imitation and revival of old historical styles. This was accomplished by developing new architectural repertoires, decorative elements and techniques using nature as inspiration and an array of different high quality materials such as glass, marble, colored stucco, majolica, hand-painted tiles and metal applique. Besides architecture, these features were found in decorative and applied arts; stained glass, ceramics, iron and other metals, and furniture.

The lleo Morera House seen from accross the street

Needless to say for a travel photographer like me who is fascinated by architecture –among many other things- these buildings were a “photographer’s feast”. With limited time to explore I focused my “photo safari” on the famous Barcelona’s district know as “The Eixample” Catalan for extension. The best way to discover Modernist Barcelona is just to walk as much as you can through the many streets that are part of this district.

So I began my walk at Plaça de Catalunya (Catalunya Square). The plan was to see as much as I could walking through “Passeig de Gràcia” towards “Avinguda de la Diagonal”, and finish my day at the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia. I should say that almost every building on that avenue is incredibly beautiful and I shot pictures of each one of them, windows, balconies, doors, every single detail but nothing that I had not seen before in other European cities. Now when I arrived at the end of the first block, I finally saw something that I had never seen before, the first modernist building of the avenue the Casa (house) Lleó-Morera built by Domènech i Montaner. This beautiful house stands on the southern corner of the block known as the “mansana de la discòrdia” (block of discord), where the Casa Amatller, by Puig i Cadafalch, and the Casa Batlló, by Antoni Gaudí, are also located. The locals gave this prime property in the heart of the Eixample that name due to the very different styles or should I say modernist approaches of the three outstanding buildings. After taking many pictures of the different details using a 24-105mm L Canon lens for perspective and a 70-200mm L Canon for details, I moved on to the next building, the Casa Amatller.

Casa Amatller (Amatller House), built by Josep Puig i Cadafalch. In 1898 Antoni Amatller bought a house on Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona and commissioned Puig i Cadafalch to redesign it as his family's residence. The house combines the neo-Gothic style with a ridged façade inspired by houses in the Netherlands

The refurbishing of this building was commissioned in 1898 by the Amatller family to another great Modernist and a disciple of Lluís Domenèch i Montaner: Josep Puig i Cadafalch (1867-1956). The architect based his design on the typical Catalan mansion and incorporated Germanic elements. In the case of the Casa Amatller of Barcelona, the basic layout is the typical urban Gothic dwelling.

Casa Amatller, balcony detail

This means that what is really a block of flats looks like a single palazzo, an impression accentuated by the delicate porticoes on the balconies on the first floor. The Germanic element is the bold ridged cornice, highlighted with ceramic tiles.

Antoni Gaudí undertook a radical refurbishment of a building in Barcelona’s Passeig de Gràcia dating from 1875 to create one of his boldest works. Gaudí’s imaginative efforts were key to the development of the project, as was the decorative work of the artisans who collaborated with him between 1904 and 1906.

Right next to the Amatller house is Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Batlló, for me far away the most beautiful of these houses, the whole house is like a sculpture, and the building, either on the inside or the outside, offers an infinite number of photographic opportunities. This house, which will get its own post, clearly shows Gaudí’s evolution towards an organic style of architecture based on the observation of nature.

Casa Batllo view from the second floor, the organic structure of this magnificent house (my favorite) comes to life when we actually enter it.

Still in Passeig de la Gracia and right across the street, another one of Gaudís’ masterpieces was waiting for my camera. The famous Casa Milà, also known as La Pedrera (the stone quarry), which many consider the culmination of Antoni Gaudí’s career.

Built by Antoni Gaudi for the Mila family between 1906 and 1910. The Pedrera or Mila House is one of the Gaudí's residential buildings and one of the most imaginative houses of the history of the architecture, this building is more an sculpture than a building.

Comissioned by Pere Milà as a residential block, the building was tailored to the new social needs, without forgetting his main source of inspiration: nature and organic forms. Built between 1906 and 1912, the Casa Milà occupies an entire corner of the Passeig de Gràcia. The curved, sinuous forms are the main elements inside and outside and its façade resembles the moving sea, the waves interacting with the seaweed-motifs on the wrought-iron balcony railings.

The Casa Milà’s façade resembles the moving sea, the waves interacting with the seaweed-motifs on the wrought-iron balcony railings. The large stone blocks are a type of skin that covers the skeleton of a building free of load-bearing walls.

Once I was done with Casa Milà I began the long walk through Avinguda Diagonal and other streets towards the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia, one of the things on my “must see before I die” list.

Although I never stopped taking pictures of whatever caught my attention, one particular house, made me stop and dedicate a little more that just a a couple of pictures.

Casa Macaya, another house designed by the architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch, built in 1901. The façade is basically finished in white stucco.

Later I learned this house although very different to the previous ones, is also a modernist relic, it’s the Macaya House. Built in 1901 by Puig i Cadafalch, this house has a white stucco-finished façade decorated with baroque-style sculpted stone around the windows, the balcony and the asymmetric platform of the entrance hall.

The foundation stone of this colossal modernista church was laid in 1882, and building work is still progress. Although the architect Francesc de Paula Villar was originally commissioned to carry out the Sagrada Família’s project, just a year later he was replaced by the young Gaudí, who devoted himself fully to the task until the time of his death in 1926. This entrance, known as the Nativity façade is the only one Gaudi saw almost completed.

Finally when I though my legs were going to fall-off I saw the towers and cranes of The Sagrada Familia. What can I say….it was a breathtaking experience! Because this unfinished masterpiece deserves its own post as well, I will only say that The Sagrada Família is probably Antoni Gaudí’s best-known work and has become an undisputed symbol of Barcelona.

The unfinished, forever in construction interior of the Church of the Sagrada Familia

Extravagant, ambitious and controversial, this unique modern temple has been under construction since 1882, and is expected to be completed by 2030…..will we have the opportunity to see this masterpiece finished while still in this world? Well only time will tell…

Closer look at the interior of The Sagrada Familia

If you want to see more pictures of these buildings visit Art Nouveau Catalan