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.

Rhino in the Mist - ICP Awards at the Burke Museum

The Burke Museum in Seattle has chosen my image: Rhino in the Mist to promote the upcoming ICP Awards show. The exhibition will open on June the 19th and there will be a great exhibition of the awarded images of this years International Conservation Photography Awards.

I took this image of a lone male Rhino in Kaziranga, India in january 2010 on a misty day. The Indian Rhino is listed as vulnerable with the IUCN and is under great threat from poaching and serious loss of habitat. But fortunatly the numbers in Kaziranga are increasing and now Rhino relocations to other parks such as Manas are taking place. So hopes for the Indian Rhino are fortunatly going the right way.

I remember that when i took this photo i was struck by a real sense of awe. Here i was, just a few meters away from a very large animal, the size of a small car. It had definetly noticed me but was grazing slowly just looking up to check on my location. As it stood there it in the mist, it looked so vulnerable and I just shot a few frames and spent a few seconds enjoying the scene. After that I slowly got up and moved on to leave it to itself in the middle of the tall elephant grass.

Frontpage on Danish newspaper "Politken"

Congratulations (Tillykke), says the headline on the danish newspaper Politiken today. Although the headline is not meant for me, but for the queen of Denmark as it is her birthday, I was quite happy to see that i had one of my photos of the Eyjafjallajoekull volcano in Iceland on the frontcover today.

The story is that the current eruption there is sending large amounts of ashes and glass into the air. This cloud is now drifting in over Europe and the airports are closing down due to the dangers of flying trough the clouds.

I got home from Iceland about two weeks ago after spending three days at the volcano site. What an amazing experience that was and i am still spending time, sorting trough the many images. I will be posting some on this blog later on today.

Snow – Finally…

The last couple of weeks have been busy to say the least… I have been working on getting the whole Arctic Fox Project (AFP) up and running. It has been a lot of writing, emailing and phone talking. The project is growing bigger and bigger and I am constantly in contact with other photographers, biologists, researchers, editors and possible supporters. What started out as a small idea is now growing in size and starting to make sense? The whole idea of the project is to raise awareness about some important issues happening up north. But more on that in my next post…

Meanwhile I have got some great news – I have been in contact with Canon and National Geographic Nordic and both have agreed to support the project. National geographic Nordic will be the project main Media Partner and Canon will be Image Partner. I am really happy that two such great partners have joined in the efforts of telling this important story.

But while all this has been happening, there has been no snow on Iceland. The place I am going is close to the Arctic Circle and let me say it again… “THERE HAS BEEN NO SNOW” Incredible, what is happening? Down south here in Denmark we have had more snow than for decades and temperatures have plummeted way below zero. Some people have even started debating the reality of global warming. But way up north in Iceland, Greenland and Canada, the winter has been warmer than ever. In the Disko Bay area snow conditions has been so poor that it has not been possible to go out with the dogsledge and we are talking about a place 400 km north of the Arctic Circle. My friend even joked about going on winter holiday to Denmark.
But then yesterday I got an email from Ester at the Arctic Fox Centre. They had just had a snowstorm for some days and now the whole landscape is covered in beautiful white snow. So now I hope that it will last until end march so that I can go to photograph the foxes in a proper winter landscape. So, I for one do not hope for an early spring. At least not in Iceland…

Back to the Arctic

Hello everybody,

Sorry about the waiting time, i guess i will have to pick up on my blogging skills ;o)

I am now finishing up my project on conservation in India and what an exiting project that has been. Especially my last trip to Kaziranga was incredible and i got some amazing shots of Rhino and Elephant. I am now planning my last trip to get some more and i will be writing some more about that later on...

Being in India has been an incredible experience and the fact that i actually saw and photographed wildlife each day has been a nice change after many years spent tracking down elusive animals in the cold. The warm weather, the good food and the colors has given me a creative kick but also made me realize that i miss the far north. The loneliness, the cold breeze and all the gearing up before an expedition into the wild has been drawing in me all the time. The Arctic bug has bitten me and i will have to admit to some kind of addiction with the place, the people, the wildlife and the really wild nature. OK - Call me crazy but the Arctic is where i feel at home, what can i do about that?

So here is some news that have just got out today. I have just been named Official Photographer for The Arctic Fox Center in Sudavik in Iceland. The AFC and I has made an agreement on a new project for 2010 and 2011 which means that i will be spending A LOT of time in the north photographing and documenting the life of the Arctic Fox. You can read more about the news here: http://melrakki.is/news/An_official_photographer_of_the_Arctic_Fox_Centre/

So back to the Arctic (Subarctic really) it is. I can not wait to start the project and i am all ready checking up on my winter gear. I even picked up my daughter from kindergarten on my telemark skis and dragged her all the way home on her plastic sledge to get some practice. What an expedition that was :o) and now i can only sit in my chair writing on my laptop because of my sore legs. Surely i will have to work on my physical condition and burn away some of that good indian food, before venturing back into the cold.

I will keep you posted as soon as there is news.