On this 15-day photography tour we will cover most of the highlights of Morocco including imperial cities of Fes, Marakech and Meknes, Casablanca, Sahara sand dunes, Essaouira at the Atlantic coast and Volubilis Roman ruins. We will photograph ancient crafts that are still alive in today’s Morocco, local markets and beautiful sceneries of Atlas mountains and Dades gorge. And the highlight for most of us will be two days at Merzouga where the Sahara desert starts and where we can climb the sand dunes, barefoot or on a camel.

More details about the tour can be found here.

And secondly we were featured in an article about photo vacations published by Executive Travel Magazine. Article was written by San Francisco based journalist Kimberley Lovato and the online version can be read here. Thank you as well Kimberley!

And happy Easter to all of you!

At Tim’s suggestion I posted a few shots from Iceland to National Geographic website and just a few days later I got notice that one of them was selected as “travel photo of the week”! Great surprise and honour!

This is the photo that was selected by National Geographic:

Here it is possible to download the wallpaper.

Winter in Iceland gallery

To check out some of my favourite shot from this Iceland trip check out our photo archives on the link below.

Go to photos

Plitvice lakes national park is situated in Lika region, somehow in the middle of the way from Zagreb to the Adriatic coast. It is one of the top natural attractions of Croatia and for a good reason. Its numerous lakes, waterfalls and cascades, its pristine and lush forest and fresh mountain air have put Plitvice lakes on of UNESCO’s world heritage list.
For all this Plitvice lakes NP is very busy place. In peak season there are thousands of visitors per day and walking around the wooden boardwalks can become more a hassle than pleasure. It is wise to do a little planning before a visit and one should book accommodation well ahead to get a room. Despite all the crowds the place is well worth a visit and it makes a convenient stop on a long drive from/to the coast.

What to Photograph at Plitvice lakes?

• Landscapes from higher ground. There are numerous view point conveniently placed along the pathways.
  
• Long-exposure shots of waterfalls and cascades. This is what makes the best shots at Plitvice lakes national park.
• Details of nature. It is well worth to bring along macro lens. You can photograph still nature or interesting animals such as butterflies or dragonflies.
• Birds. There is rich bird life in the park and some of the bird species are used to people and will allow you get close. Mallard duck are the most obvious choice but also smaller species like Robin or Great tit will allow you to take photos.
• People. Instead of complaining and cursing the throngs of people you can include them into the photo.

Plitvice with us

On our workshops and tours we always spend at least one night at Plitvice lakes national park. This allows us to cover the most interesting parts of the park and we have plenty of time for photography and to enjoy the nature. To avoid masses of tour groups we start early, with sunrise, when most of the people still sleep at the hotel. In the afternoon we will be the last to come back to hotel cause we wait that most of other people head back. When we have peace and quiet we can focus on photography easier. Our photography leaders know all the photo locations within the park intimately and are able to provide advice about best techniques to use at specific location.

Further reading & more photos

Plitvice lakes national park official website - http://www.np-plitvicka-jezera.hr/
Local tourist organisation with information about the whole region - http://www.tzplitvice.hr/
Plitvice lakes on Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plitvice_Lakes_National_Park
Luka Esenko’s blog about Plitvice lakes – http://blog.lukaesenko.com/2008/09/the-wonder-of-plitvice-lakes/

Dubrovnik is the most famous coastal city of Croatia. And for a reason – its medieval old town will impress everyone that walks into the city’s mighty walls. For centuries Dubrovnik was the biggest rival of Venetian republic in the Adriatic coast. With trade it grew rich and with smart diplomacy independent for most of the time. In late 18th century both Dubrovnik and Venice were met same ending – Napoleon. Since then Dubrovnik has seen good and bad times. From rich trading city it became just another Austro-Hungarian coastal city but later in Yugoslavia and now in Croatia the pearl is shining again! It attracts thousands of tourists every day but fortunately it managed to keep its unique atmosphere and its local life.

What to photograph in Dubrovnik?

• Lively street scenes – don’t forget to walk into narrow side alleys and explore
• Old town as seen from the city walls
• Details – Dubrovnik’s wealth is hidden in small delicate architectural details
• Cityscape from one of the view points
• Blue hour and night photography within the old town
• Interiors of churches, monasteries and other historical buildings
• & much more!

Dubrovnik with us.

We start our Adriatic2Alps photography tour in Dubrovnik. We spend there two nights which gives us enough time to capture the highlights of the city and to experience its lively atmosphere. The places we stay are carefully chosen for their location and hospitality. Being a part of a small group (or on a private trip with us) will also allow you enough flexibility and free time that you can also explore Dubrovnik on your own. And with a help from our experienced local photographers you will be able to capture the city from all the best locations and at the same time learn some new photography techniques.

Further reading & more photos

Dubrovnik on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubrovnik
Luka Esenko’s blog on Dubrovnik – http://blog.lukaesenko.com/2008/11/dubrovnik-the-adriatic-pearl/
Dubrovnik’s travel website – http://www.tzdubrovnik.hr/eng/

Thank you Jim and Fred for this interview – I had a great time talking to you guys and hope we do it again sometime in future!

To follow the Fotobug you can like their Facebook page where they update with every new podcast they make. And there are some very interesting interviews with different photographers already in their archive.

Kikinda is a small town in the Vojvodina province in Serbia and lies close to Romanian border. Vojvodina is flat, mainly agricultural area with excellent bird watching possibilities throughout the year. In winter it is especially interesting with thousands of migrating birds such as Common cranes, Greylag geese and Long-eared owls to name a few. The latter were the reason for our weekend trip to Kikinda.

Every year 500 hundred or so Long-eared owls spend the winter in the main square of Kikinda. There are thousands more in the neighbouring villages and cities but the Kikinda colony is the biggest. No one knows for sure why and where exactly do they come from but there they are - in the middle of the city, ignorant of all the people walking by.

In December my ornithologist friends from Novi Sad invited me to come to Kikinda to join them for monitoring Long-eared owls (Asio otus) that spend winter in the city. With fellow birdwatchers from Birdlife Slovenia we drove to Novi Sad to meet Dimitrije who gave us instructions for the following morning. Then we drove further to Kikinda where we checked in to Paparazzo hostel. The hostel has an excellent location only 50 metres from the main square where the majority of long-eared owls overnight. It also has a convenient bar named Sova (Owl) with excellent local beer  and a bit loud music.

Next morning we went to Slano Kopovo for birdwatching. Our main goal was to observe Common cranes (Grus grus) and other water birds. it was difficult to get up early in the morning after a full day of driving. But it was totally worth it. When we arrived  it was still dark but it wasn’t difficult to navigate – we just followed loud noise that cranes were making  more than a kilometre away. It was a delightful sunny day and in the afternoon we met our Serbian friends of Serbian Owl Conservation Centre. We joined them for the evening and visited exhibition about long-eared owls in Kikinda’s city museum (organizer). Very well organized and very informative – great job guys!

Next day we went looking for Great bustard but with no luck. And in the evening we went for ringing and monitoring of the Long-eared owls. Dimitrije, Drazenko, Milan and Katarina are all very experienced and skilled ornithologists and we caught 4 owls in less than one hour. The record in one night is 37 owls and so far they ringed more than 300 of them in the last three years. Every owl was carefully examined ringed and released back into the night.

It was very interesting experience and we promised to come back in Spring when the bird life is the most abundant. Personally I already reserved a week for bird photography in May.  If you want to know more about birds and nature conservancy in Serbia visit this website run by Milan Ruzic: Wild Serbia. And to check out some excellent photos of Serbian wildlife, check out Katarina Paunovic’s photography website.

And don’t forget to check out our new gallery of photos from Serbia too!

Borut tried newly acquired Voigtländer lens but we did not get good results. The portraits we made were not sharp and we decided to try with much smaller (still very big though) camera Kodak Brownie. With this camera a large format film can be used but we wanted to stick with the 19. century techniques so we used aluminium plates and a wet collodion technique called ambrotype or collodion positive. The difference is that you get a positive image as an end result and not negative as with glass plates.

It took us about four hours to set up everything and to make three portraits. The exposure time is very hard to determine as there is no light meter in the camera and the sensibility of the wet collodion is approximately 8-12 ISO equivalent. It also depends on the thickness of the layer you put on the plate itself and on the development of the photo in the darkroom. For these three photos below the exposure time was around 4-5 seconds at f11. You can notice Borut’s dog is all blurry cause he moved during the exposure. it gives the photo even more vintage feel.

We were both pleased with the results and somewhere in the future I might even try this technique myself – it’s quite addictive! Below you can check out few more shots from that day.

To read more about these cameras and techniques visit Borut peterlin’s blog where he describes his experiments in 19.century photography.

Kim kindly sent us a testimonial that you can read below and allowed us to post some of her best shots from the September tour.

Booking the tour with Adriatic2Alps was one of the best decisions I’ve made. Initially, I had my concerns. While I had a desire to develop my photography skills, I had very limited experience. In fact, I only owned a point and shoot and didn’t have any clue about how to take my camera off the automatic settings when I sent in my trip deposit. I managed to procure a new DSLR, a new lens or two and some filters, but I was a long way from being proficient, let alone skilled, with a camera. I was worried that other more experienced photographers on the tour would be annoyed and that I was in over my head. As it turned out, I had nothing to worry about. Luka brought me up to speed on the use of my new camera so much quicker than I expected. It certainly didn’t hurt that the tour provided the opportunity to focus on photography without the distractions of everyday life. The trip was a transformative two weeks for me and gave me a solid base of knowledge to start a serious photographic hobby. The other photographers on the tour were also generous with their time and happy to share their expertise with me; I could not have asked for a better group of travel companions. Then there is the gorgeous scenery: colorful coastlines, dramatic waterfalls, lush river valleys and the rugged Alps. You could not ask for more engaging subject matter. In addition to being a wonderful photography teacher, Luka conveys a love for Slovenia and Croatia and a passion for nature and architecture. He has a way of instructing that is accessible and never preachy. We learned about photography, but also about the history of the region and each of the sites we were visiting. Luka certainly has a gift with organization and seamlessly transported the group from one magical location to another. The accommodations, a mix of bed and breakfasts, hotels and apartments were unique and charming, adding to the overall quality of the tour. The restaurants, cafes, teahouses and even the ice cream stands where Luka took us were all exceptional. There was no aspect of the tour that I would change. There was time to see all of the popular locations, time for special requests and even plenty of time set aside for everyone to explore on their own. In addition to the photography, I was able to swim in the Adriatic, walk the city promenades at night and even to engage in one of my personal passions…shopping! I returned from my trip with wonderful memories, thousands of the best pictures I have ever taken, and new skills that I look forward to sharpening.
- Kim Allegretti, Denver, Colorado.

Thank you Kim for everything! It was a pleasure to travel and laugh with you!