... just another Reinebringen view - Lofoten, Norway, Summer 2012

Thank you +Linda Motoiu for the nice words. I hope you will like this one too :-)


#Lofoten #norway
#plusphotoextract   curated by +Jarek Klimek
#10000photographersaroundtheworld   by +Robert SKREINER 
#LandscapePhotography  curated by +Margaret Tompkins
+Mountain Photos 

Bloody Beach

Mengening Beach, Bali
Colors of the mossy reef on this beach always draws my attention everytime i come here during low tide. From bright/dark green, bright yellow, brown to redish brown ...how can you do better than a color found in nature?

Canon EOS 50D + EF-S 10-22mm +
Filters: Lee Soft GND 3stops + Big Stopper 10stops ND
EXIF: 252secs | 11mm | f/14 | ISO 100

Intense Stare from a Great Horned Owl
#paintography  curated by +Ray Bilcliff +Sherry McBriar +Gail Beerman 
#PlusPhotoExtract  

Long Walk on an Ancient Beach
Hooray, I'm going to see my kids today!  This is my son +Thomas Sullivan, in a remote area of Death Valley National Park on one of our many visits there.  Death Valley National Park is the largest park in the contiguous United States (lower 48 states).  The scale of these valleys is mind-blowing, and often you can walk for miles and never see another footprint.  Its also an incredibly diverse park, with old mining camps, slot canyons, hot springs, at least 7 or 8 sand dune fields in the area, and of course the standard viewpoints like Badwater and Zabriske Point where all the tour buses go.  With about a million people per year visiting the park, it's fortunate that there is a better alternative for nearly every one of the heavily trampled and boot-tracked places.  I know people who live nearby  in the Los Angeles area who have been exploring the park multiple times per year for over 10 years, and never visit the same place twice.  Fortunately I'm just a few hours from the park, so i can visit several times per year.  We've found some very special and amazing places there, but I don't think we'll run out of new things to explore for a long time to come!

Death Valley is also the hottest and driest place in North America, so visits are best made during the November to March timeframe.  In the late Spring through early Fall when temperatures regularly hit the 120s and even night time temperatures can be over 90, many of the park services such as campgrounds shut down!

If you get the chance, check out my son's account on G+.  He has been borrowing my cameras for years, and I had my old Canon XTi body repaired and gave it to him this year.  He's turning out to be quite the photographer!

"Golden Giants"
African Elephant Bulls
Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe (UNESCO WHS)

CALL TO ACTION! SAVE MANA POOLS!!

I absolutely fell in love with Mana Pools on our recent trip. This place is so primal! Walking in these forests among these giants makes you feel like you are in a different Africa - the one Livingstone and Hemingway saw and wrote about. Unfortunately there are some serious threats to the pristine qualities and beauty of this place. Mining licences have been granted against proper governance and without proper EIA studies notwithstanding the UNESCO World Heritage status of the Park.

Please take a minute to check out this petition and sign it - it will be delivered to those in the position to possibly stop this disaster.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Stop_Destructive_Developments_at_Mana_Pools/

If you want to see more images from this pristine location - click this hashtag since I added it to all my Mana Pools photos: #ManaPools  

Guess what? It's still Wednesday in most locations...and besides the fact that this means that it's Wildlife Wednesday (curated by myself and +Mike Spinak), it means it's also Elephant Wednesday, one of my other favourite themes. Elephants are wildlife, so hey, I score a two-for.

These bulls provided us with so many amazing photos and even more amazing memories as +Marlon du Toit (check out his profile!) moved around this forest on foot, photographing their relaxed early morning feeding behaviour. I love light like this that is filtered through the trees - and it basked the entire scene in gold. Photography means 'to paint with light' - and this is key in wildlife/nature photography too - you need to know light, embrace light, work the light, and in the end use it to 'paint' the picture you are trying to convey.

Submit your images to Wildlife Wednesday by adding #WildlifeWednesday to your posts and also including myself and +Mike Spinak (we curate the theme and this makes it easier to pick up on your posts).

Shot using: Nikon D3s, Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II
I deliberately underexposed by a whole stop (EV -1) to make the best of the moody light here.

Feel free to share if you like this image!!

www.morkelerasmus.com


Submission for:
1. #elephantwednesday (+Elephant Wednesday) by +Diego Cattaneo +Louisa Catharine Forsyth & +Matthias Haeussler
2. #plusphotoextract by +Jarek Klimek
3. #vividwednesday #vibrantwednesday by +Ajay Hatti
4. #wowwednesday by +Jan Paul Anthony Zabala
5. #allthingsorange (+AllThingsOrange) by +Nina Piccoli & +Kenneth Williams
6. #paintography (+Paintography) by +Ray Bilcliff +Gail Beerman & +Sherry McBriar
7. #nikonshooters (+Nikon Shooters)
8. #hqsppromotion (+HQSPPromotion) by +Rinus Bakker +Mukundh B +Thierry Raemaekers +Tammy Boldt & +Syuzanna Avetisyan
9. #yisforyellow (+YisforYellow) by +Lucille Galleli 


#wildlife #elephants #Zimbabwe #ManaPools #howtophotograph #moody #light #daw #forest +Africa Geographic +Safari +Getaway Magazine #PassionforAfrica #safaritalk #conservation #endangered +Discover Africa

Isolation

I've been out of G+ for almost a month now due to work and personal problems. But thanks to my recent trip to Hokkaido, its beauty has given me loads of inspiration again to do what I love the most.

This was the shot of the Philosopher's Tree in Biei. The gang and I had to wake up 3am in the morning just the catch this sunrise. 

A big thanks to +Jeff Austin for telling us about this place and +Jeff Matsuya for driving us around and keeping us alive.

For full resolutions, kindly visit my SmugMug or Flickr
SmugMug: http://smu.gs/QgpWD9
Flickr: http://flic.kr/p/cGV7fU

#landscapephotography  #hokkaido #japan  #sunrise

Yesterday I arrived back from a couple of incredible weeks in the Arctic to find that London has come alive with the Olympic Games. I've heard the opening ceremony was pretty good so I might watch that later today. I also intend to catch up with as many of your posts as possible and see what I've been missing out on here during the past two weeks :)

We found this bear on an ice floe while heading to the north of Franz Josef Land. It was one of the few bears we got to see up close, with the ship managing to carefully approach to within perhaps 50m of him. As a real bonus he was part way through eating a seal! I'll save the gory photos for later, though even here you can see a bit of seal blood on his nose.

It was a fantastic encounter I won't forget any time soon. We watched him for about 30 minutes before leaving him to it and continuing on our way.

#WildlifeWednesday  by +Mike Spinak and +Morkel Erasmus
#WholeWildlifeWeek

Hey, it's Wednesday. This portrait is titled Waiting for the Snow.

#womenwednesday #plusphotoextract #bwphotography #portraitphotography   #bwfineart  

Even after decades of studying ants, I still find surprising how male and female ants of the same species look so utterly different.

This photograph shows a worker Odontomachus trap-jaw ant carrying one of her brothers.

An Evening on the Porch

Aigüestortes National Park, Catalunya, Spain

Perfectly tugged away and sheltered from the ever apparent winds during sunset, sits this little tarn in the Estany D'Amitges area of the park, enjoying the sweeping view and huge drops with a few selected people, marmots and chamois. In the distance, the peaks of Els Encantats and Subenoix (correct me if I'm wrong) loom over the Sant Maurici valley.

Haven't been as active on Google Plus as I would have liked in the past weeks due to travel and personal life just being so busy. I just returned from a trek through the Pyrenees, exploring some areas in the Aigüestortes National Park and weather almost could not have been any better. So stay tuned for more images from the trip. Oh, and thanks for the comment and sharing love I received while I was away. You guys rock!

#potd #photography #plusphotoextract #catalunya #espana #spain  

Sailing to the unknown
When you are staring at the sea you are already sailing a little.