Today my blog features Rio de Janeiro, my hometown (home-megacity?). Although it suffers from many political and societal problems, Rio is undeniably a beautiful, colourful, and vibrant place. The real magic of the city comes alive at night, as the sun comes down and lights the sky up with a deep orange that perfectly matches the bright city lights. Here are some of my best images of this magical time…
The fifth and final blog post in the Serra da Capivara series finally zooms out to showcase the wider beauty of the land, including panoramas of the unique rocky formations in the region. The area contains a wild and beautiful mixture of cliffs, caves, rocks, forests, and vast plains and scrubland. These images were taken in the summer, the driest and hottest time of the year, as is reflected by the dry vegetation.
The caves in the Serra da Capivara National Park are truly stunning - even the ones left unpainted by our prehistoric cousins. The fourth blog post in this series features a few of the cave walks through the park, which are best enjoyed on local anthropological tours that will guide you through the history and interpretation of the cave paintings.
The third part of my Serra da Capivara blog series is a little different: these are images of the locally-produced, handcrafted ceramics inspired by the ancient cave paintings discovered in the region. These are made as souvenirs for tourists, and help support the local population that lives in the surrounding areas. Perhaps due to its location, the national park remains somewhat undiscovered, and has yet to properly tap into Brazil’s international tourism market.
For the second post in my Serra da Capivara blog series, I feature some of the amazing cave paintings in its ancient caves. Some of these date back some 25,000 years, giving valuable insights into the lives of early South American communities. Intertwined with the paintings are some of mother nature’s own artworks, such as the ruffling textures of the caves’ walls.
Time for something a little different! This month, I am featuring the Serra da Capivara National Park, in the northeast of Brazil, over five weekend posts. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is of great interest to geologists, anthropologists, and animal behaviour scientists. It houses some of the oldest cave paintings in South America, and, for the animal enthusiasts among us, a tool-using population of capuchin monkeys. In this first blog post, I share some of the fauna inhabiting the park, including these clever primates. I was even lucky enough to watch them crack nuts with rocks for several minutes, and caught a couple of images of this behaviour too.
The beauty of this place is in its name: Bonito is the Portuguese word for beautiful. This town is an ecotourism hub in the centre of Brazil, with no shortage of activities and sights to see. Some of my favourite attractions in Bonito are its caves, the Blue Lagoon Grotto (Gruta do Lago Azul), and its waterfalls. Although I don’t have any images to share from it, Bonito is also home to the Buraco das Araras, or Hole of Macaws, a huge sandstone sinkhole where hundreds of scarlet macaws (and other species, in smaller numbers) live all year round.
Although I admittedly spent much of my time in Belgium eating chocolates and waffles, I did find some time for photography! If I am not mistaken, all the images shared here are of the little town of Bruges, which you might also spot elsewhere on my website. I would love to return some day and spend more time exploring this adorable country.
Another place I have visited but never before featured on my blog is Austria. I visited twice - once for work, then again for leisure -, and both times I spent most of the time in Vienna. It turned out to be a city full of interesting buildings to photograph. I feature some of them in the images below.
One of the perks of my work is that I get to visit some beautiful places and get to see some amazing animal species. For three years, I visited New Caledonia to work with the incredible New Caledonian crows, a species that crafts and uses sticks and hooks as tools to extract grubs from rotten tree trunks. Here are some images of these crows, and a couple other endemic bird species that can be seen in the Grande-Terre island.
I was lucky enough to spend three years studying for my undergraduate degree at the University of Oxford in the UK, and I still miss it at times. The city is a charming mixture of many architectural styles, dating as far back as the 1000s, when it was founded. My college was more modern than most, built exclusively with the purpose of accepting women as students and academic staff at the University in Victorian times, but I still got to explore almost every other college in my time there. The collection of images below is a little longer than my usual blog post length, but I hope it will be a fun one to scroll through.
Burano is a Venetian island full of colourful fisherman’s houses and quaint little shops. It is a short ferry trip away from Venice, but a world away in its aesthetic. The residents clearly take a lot of pride in their homes: every faccade (which originates from an Italian word - facciata -, by the way!) is uniquely decorated to suit the owner’s preferences. Burano is also much quieter than the mainland city, providing a perfect escape in the busy summer months.
From all the places I’ve ever been, Italy was definitely one of my favourites. The food, the views, the architecture, and the culture of this country are all incredible and like nowhere else in the world. Back then I used to photograph with my first ever DSLR camera, my trusty crop-format Canon 7D. Even so, I still like many of my images from Assisi, a little town in the region of Umbria surrounded by beautiful countryside.
Although the border between Australia and New Zealand is shut again due to the ever-evolving pandemic situation, the images featured here date back to a roadtrip through New South Wales several years ago. We drove from Sydney down the coast to Merimbula, spotting lots of wildlife and endless beaches along the way.
Over the past few weeks, I shared images of my 2016 trip to Greece, especially the Cyclades islands. For my last blog post from this trip, I return to the mainland.
I had always dreamt of travelling to Greece prior to that, and this trip delivered in every imaginable way. However, if I were to do it over again, I would be spending less time in Athens and instead visit a few more islands (I hope to make it to Rhodes some day!). Nevertheless, I loved exploring the Acropolis ruins, and learning about Greek history and mythology.
This week’s blog post is a mishmash of a last few images of the photogenic island of Santorini, in Greece’s Cyclades archipelago. Again, you will find the relatively common white-and-blue theme, and variations on it… Next week, it’s back to the mainland for a final Greek blog post!
The villages of Fira, Imerovigli, and Emporio in Santorini are just as stunning as their more readily recognised cousin, the exclusively blue-and-white Oia. Here, the houses and churches take on different architectural styles and residents get a little more creative with their house paint colours. So here is a little more Santorini…
The Catholic Church of Dormition is another famous spot in Santorini. However, it is located in the village of Fira, where the architecture is a bit more mixed and buildings come in light yellow, orange, and pink shades, besides the traditional white. The image of the church is taken from a very narrow staircase, which makes sunset a bit annoying, as it will involve constantly readjusting your tripod as people need to get through… Still, it is definitely worth stopping by this spot for another must-have postcard Santorini moment.
Another classic part of Oia’s landscape are its white windmills. They are actually part of a villa which can be privately hired. I presume that the residents unfortunately miss out on the very best sunset view in Santorini - that of the windmills themselves, from a nearby hill!
As we were there in the (pre-pandemic) summer, there were countless other tourists around, and with this being a coveted spot, we arrived at the lookout and set up our tripods about 3 hours before sunset to guarantee the best views. It was worth it, as about an hour later, hundreds of other people started trickling in, many with their own large tripods and cameras that they set up alongside us. So if you ever want to capture this iconic view, make sure you plan ahead and arrive early.
Oia village, in Santorini, is a minimalist photographer’s dream. The white buildings and their blue details sit crisply against the cloudless blue skies. Everywhere you look, you see only the colours of the Greek flag. The whole town is one large postcard you can walk through, with photo opportunities at (very literally) every corner. To me, this was one of the few places I’ve been where I found the harsh afternoon light in the middle of Summer to make for just as stunning images as sunrise and sunset. Oia took my breath away - enjoy some of my highlights below!
