Apex Traveler Photo Gallery
Posted by Guest Blogger
in Of Interest
The Aurora by Kevin Clement
Ingrid’s story begins: “I am sitting on the beach, in Southeast Alaska; it is late September…the darkness that’s around me is primordial.” And then, the ghostly northern lights appear. Now it’s September again, the Alaskan skies are dark, and the same scene was repeated just this last weekend. But this time, Kevin Clement was on hand to capture the moment. Though he claims no special expertise in night-sky photography, Kevin’s image is so compelling that we had to feature it this week.
Cheetah in the Serengeti by David Hoar
We sent out a call to our Apex travelers: search your hard drives and memory cards, and send us your outstanding images. We’re looking for unique once-in-a-lifetime shots to share with our Apex community.
This week’s special image was submitted almost by accident. It was sent by David Hoar, as one of several illustrations to accompany his Travel Calamity story (to see the others, including his time-lapse taken while waiting for rescue, click here). But the photo is so good and so interesting that we immediately appropriated it for our Apex Traveler Photo Gallery. Thank you, David—all that misfortune was worth it!
Hippo in Tanzania by Judy Garb Weiss
This week’s selection comes to us from Africa, through the lens and the eye of veteran traveler and photographer Judy Garb Weiss. Many people have pictures of this beast, but none we’ve seen is quite like hers. She writes:
“Hello, friends at Apex,
Here is a photo taken in May 2018 on safari in Tanzania with Jonathan and Marco. We were in the Serengeti and stopped the vehicle at a small watering hole filled with hippos. As we were chatting together at water’s edge, one reared his head in front of my camera, a trusty Lumix FZ200 (which I plan to upgrade as soon as we are ready to embark on another Apex expedition).
Happy memories, Judy”
Lemur Selfie in Madagascar by Gary Krosin
It was no surprise to receive something amazing from dedicated and proficient photographer Gary Krosin. From our expedition to Madagascar in 2016, he sent us what can only be described as a “Lemur Selfie”—the first known example. As he tells the story:
“I was quietly walking alone along a path at Berenty Reserve when I came across this Verreaux’s Sifaka. He became intrigued with my camera, but especially the LENS. He could see another lemur—actually his own reflection—in the front, nearly hemispheric glass element of my very wide-angle lens. Since he thought it was another Verreaux’s Sifaka, he gently reached out to “touch” it!
I guess you could say he was part of a “selfie,” in a most unusual way.”
Star Trails in Mongolia by Karen Hoffman
We recently received a truly remarkable photograph from veteran traveler Karen Hoffman. It was taken during our expedition to Mongolia last year to see the Kazakh Eagle Festival. Those who were on that trip will remember Karen standing out in the frigid mountain air till all hours of the night, manning her tripod, occasionally waving a flashlight over our nomadic gers to bring them out of the October darkness. The result speaks for itself. But Karen wrote:
“I like trying to get star trail photos, and this one came out particularly well. I took this on the shores of Dorgon Lake with a few of the gers in the foreground, and (miraculously!) the pole star in the frame.
To capture the star trails, I set up my camera on a tripod and programmed the cable release to take a 25-second exposure every 30 seconds (to give the camera a bit of time to store each image). The moon was very bright, so I had to set my alarm for 2 a.m. in order to get up and start the process after moonset—and man, was it cold in the middle of the night!! Good thing the yak pelts were nice and warm. The battery lasted for about 3-1/2 hours, giving me around 300 usable images. I combined the images in PhotoShop to produce this image.”
Wow! Karen what an amazing shot! Congratulations!
Awesome shots…job well done!
Quite spectacular!
Fabulous shot!