Travel Photography

When the physicist Shelden Cooper ruined his friends' lunch with the story of the faecal eating capybaras in the series Big Bang Theory, these cute giant rodents became somewhat unhappy. These capybaras from the guinea pig family certainly deserve more appropriate consideration - so it was a pleasure to watch these social animals in a marshland in Gamboa and to see how the adult animals shelter their offspring, they play with each other and together to search for information set out.

White-tailed eagles are among the largest birds of prey in Europe and can hardly be confused either in flight, on the ground or in trees. In Norway we were able to take photos of them from our little house right by the sea, but the most impressive pictures were taken on a boat excursion to the Trollfjord, where we were able to take pictures of them hunting fish. The towering rocks were ideal as a background for the eye-to-eye recordings.

Blood moon, wolf moon - when the full moon has moved completely into the umbra of the earth (umbra eclipse), then only the long-wave red components of sunlight reach it and it glows reddish copper. However, the light reflected by it is very weak, so that low light pollution and little dust and haze in the atmosphere are prerequisites for successful recordings. Even then it is still an art to achieve halfway short exposure times so that the moon movement does not lead to image blurring.

The Common merganser (Mergus merganser) belongs to the genus of sawyers and to the family of duckbirds (Anatidae). They feed mainly on small fish that they hunt together. It is an impressive sight when many of these birds work together on the water and drive schools of fish into a corner.

Milford Sound is a fjord on New Zealand's South Island. It belongs to the Fiordland National Park, which is listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Boat tours along the many waterfalls and through the narrows lined with pointed mountain cones are impressive.

Moeraki Boulders are a large number of spherical rocks on Koekohe Beach on the South Island of New Zealand near Moeraki. The unusually symmetrical shapes have led to legends. Maoris suspect that the balls are eel baskets, bottle gourds and sweet potatoes from the wreck of the legendary canoe Arai-te-uru.

We were able to photograph the impressive balls in the best weather.

Cefalu in the province of Palermo in Sicily is a pretty little town by the sea that lives mainly from tourism. The colorful boats on the beach are a popular photo opportunity. A hike up the nearby mountain offers a good balance to the narrow street canyons and attracts with beautiful views of the town.

The black-browed albatross or Mollymauk (Thalassarche melanophris) from the albatross family (Diomedeidae) spends almost its entire life in the air over the Southern Ocean. We were able to photograph these wonderful birds in Saunders, one of the Falkland Islands, where a large colony of this species is situated.

The place Þingvellir or Thingvellir has a special meaning for two reasons: One is geological. because one is here in a rift zone at the boundary between two tectonic plates. On the other hand, one of the oldest parliaments in the world met here. Since about the year 930, the traditional Althing assemblies have been held annually in Thingvellir, which have both legislative and judicial functions.

The place impresses with the high basalt rocks and its waterfalls. It is not far from the capital Reykjavík.

When the Hvítá river in the Haukadalur falls over two cascades into the depths, it has gathered enough energy to make its way through the adjoining gorge - a natural spectacle that is second to none. Since the Ice Age, the river has cut itself every year around 25 cm deeper into the rock and the 2.5 km long gorge is now 70 meters deep.

Its first cascade is 11 meters high, while the second, at 21 meters, almost doubles the first fall. The waterfall is approached on the so-called Golden Ring, the route with special sights of Iceland.