Panda Book of the Year 2011

I almost can't believe it - I am back online after 2,5 months without a proper connection besides my mobile phone. I have recently moved from Denmark to Italy together with my wife and children and I thought it would just be a smaller technical issue to get online in our new appartment. But unfortunatly the small village that we live in had run out of phonelines and we had to wait for some sort of antenna to be installed for a long range WiFi solution. Unfortunatly the antennas were sold out due to the high demand but today it happened. I am finally able to sit down in my own chair and log on.

This also makes me able to send out the the exciting announcement that my latetst book called Tiger Spirit has been awarded the distinction of Panda Book of the Year by WWF in Sweden. Last week I flew into Stockholm to give a short presentation of the book and accept the distinction, which was handed over by the H.M. the Swedsih King at Ulriksdal Castle.
The book also features some amazing photos taken by my good friend and one of the worlds best tiger guides Satyendra Tiwari. Satyendra himself is a fine photographer and true conservationist.

Foto: Germund Sellgren / WWF

The jury wrote: Tiger Spirit is an exiting journey trough the rich and diverse habitat of India, from the foothills of Himalaya to the dry decidious forests of Gujarat and the jungle of central India. The readers will meet the tiger, the Indian rhino and the Asiatic lion and the people who lives in their proximity.

Tiger Spirit is out now in Swedish and a Danish and English version will hopefully follow as soon as I have found the right publisher. So if you know anybody worth trying - Please let me know :o)

I also made small video for the presentation at Stockholm intended for Youtube to promote the knowledge of these animals that are all endangered and might very well be gone within a few years unless we do something about it now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d7eNTTEdAM&feature=mfu_in_order

I hope that you will enjoy it.

A tale from the Volcano in Iceland

Over the past few months I have been working together with Gitzo and Manfrotto and have started collaborating with them as a tutor and contributor to the Manfrotto School of Xcellence. There I will be writng articles and blogs on my photography and will try to give a real insight on what it is like to work in the field for a nature photographer.

My first story is on the work I did at the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in the Filmvordurhals area. I spend three days there photgraphing the first eruption and you can read the story here: http://manfrottoschoolofxcellence.com/2010/06/22/uri-golman-a-tale-from-the-land-of-fire-and-ice/

I will make sure to let you know as soon as there are any new stories up on the site.

Internationl Conservation Photography Award

Hi everybody,

Just a quick announcement to tell you that I have just won 2nd. place at the International Conservation Photography Awards in the category Wildlife. This competition was founded by photographer Art Wolfe  and all the winning images are now on show at the Burke Museum in Seattle.

My winning image is a photo from Kaziranga in Northern India of a Indian rhino. The Indian rhino has been on the verge of extinction with only about a few hundred left in the wild. Now it is on its way back and around 2500 of them exist today.

Photographing the rhinos of Kaziranga was an amazing experince and you don't really realize just how large these animals really are untill you are very close to them. A fully grown male can weigh between 2,5 - 3 tonnes and as I was photographing this male above I would like to add that my pulse was definetly above average. What an experince that was.

Well check out this link to see the image and the rest of the winners as well.


http://www.icpawards.com/Slideshows/slideshow_wildlife.html

I was also lucky to get my snowy owl from Canada chosen to be a runner up at the Photography Masters Awards in the wildlife category as well so even though the last few months have been very busy with a lot of hard work at the computer there has been some highlights in between ;o)

http://www.icpawards.com/Slideshows/slideshow_wildlife.html

Both photos are off course availiable as limited edition prints, check my website for details

http://www.urigolman.com/golman_images/shop.html

I will be back soon with more on my upcoming trip to Greenland.

I wish you all a great summer with lots of great shots.

Close to deadline...

First an update...

The past two months have been hard work trying to finish my latest project on wildlife and conservation in India. It has been a lot of late nights working hard at the computer and now I am finally near deadline. But will this mean some much needed vacation? No, not for now - This summer has turned out to become very busy indeed...

Greenland and Finland
Unfortunatlythe deadline of my India project mean that I had to cancel a trip to Iceland but shortly after my deadline i will be going to Greenland. I have'nt been to Greenland since march last year and i thorougly miss it. I am still working on my Arctic Fox Project and I have decided to visit a spot in Greenland which I know is rich in foxes. 
This place is way out of reach of the cellular network and i will spend 7 days there alone in a tent with my camera, coocking gear and a sattelite phone to keep in touch with my family.
Hopefully the foxes will be collaborative and the weather will be good. I will have good light almost 24 hours a day so I foresee quite a lot of working hours and very little sleep. But just photographing in Greenalnd again will feel like a vacation after all.

After that I will be going back home to celebrate the birthday of my oldest daughter and then it is off to Finland where I will be leading a tourgroup to see the wild brown bears near the Russian border. Here we will be spending 5 nights in hides looking for these cuddly brown teddies.

So July looks to be all set and after spending almost two months in front of the computer I really look forward to getting some time back in the wild.

I will be posting some more articles to this blog as soon as I have news from the trips and some photos to show.

I wish you all the very best summer.

NEWS: National Geographic chooses volcano Image for interactive edition.

Check out this link to the National Geographic interactive edition.

http://dk.zinio.com/reader.jsp?issue=416126293&o=int&prev=sub&p=

This edition is only available for sale in the US and can be downloaded for laptops, computers and ipads.

You will find one of my images from Iceland in the slideshow called “Iceland Erupts” in the middle of the main article about Mount Saint Helen.

I really like the whole idea about an interactive edition like that and I truly believe that this will be a huge part of our future. The extra features like slideshows and small filmclips embedded in the magazine is great and just think about what it can do to our planet. Wow where wil all this be going in just a few years?

Volcano Video on National Geographic Nordic

Hello everybody,

When I was in Iceland I spend most of my time working with the new Canon 1D Mk IV. I had just received it a few days before my trip but did not have time to test i thoroughly  before leaving. So naturally i was quite excited to test the video capabilities of the camera at the site of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano.

After arriving there i quickly mounted my 1D Mk IV on a tripod together with the EF 70-200mm 2.8 lens. Switched of the IS and had a quick read in the instructions manual. I adjusted the settings to full HD video and started shooting my first film. Naturally i did not have the time to check out the quality before being back at my hotel room. I sorted out a few pics and decided to check the video...

Now the only thing that bugs me is that i did'nt shoot some more :o)

Well - Have a look for yourself and see what you think. The video is up on National Geographic Nordic in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland and the music is a beautiful piece called Lightin made by Antony Raijekov from Bulgaria.

But let me hear what you think about it?
Just click on the title of this post and you should be able to add a comment.

All my best,

Uri

Volcano slideshow on National Geographic Nordic

Hello everybody,

Wow - what a fun and busy week this one have been.

I started out giving a 3 hour talk to a danish photoclub and had to make a brand new slideshow for the occation. I have sorted trough most of my images from Iceland and India and at the same time i have done some serious layout on my new book that will go to print in june/july.

It has been a lot of long nights working at the computer listening to good music on the Ipod and let my creativity run freely.
Then, today i decided to take a day off and found out that Politiken (One of Denmarks largest papers) had run one of my images from iceland on the frontcover. To top it all off, I had a call from National Geographic Nordic that wanted to run a slideshow on their webpage http://natgeo.dk/ with 10 of my images from Iceland as well.

What a great way to end the week.