June/July - Cooling off

"...I have never questioned the route this journey took: it seems a single trip, the sole option, driven by that same potency that drew me into grizzly country in the beginning." (Doug Peacock)





Weeks have gone fast by since my last post on this blog. I have driven really many kilometers during this time, with my sixth trip to Tichà and a quite big event in my life: after four years in Berlin, I've moved back to Italy -Abruzzo, in the shadow of my beloved mountains. Coming straight from Central Europe and the high peaks of the Tatras to the sunburned center of Italy, can't deny now a certain need for cooling off and spending some time indoor to sort out books from the boxes and images from my hard drive...

I've spent three full weeks in the wilderness of Tichà this time. Long days of June, with their scary (and almost daily) thunder storms which give a beautiful light to the mountains, and really many wildlife sightings. My main target were bears, of course, with yearling cubs, red deers in the alpine meadows and landscapes. Despite big efforts and several bear observations (up to ten animals per day), we had only one cub from this year and mostly families we already knew from 2007. We watched several times cubs playing in the snow and we even had a very interesting 2 years-old cub still nursed by its mother. All this, though, only for a few days, before the rising temperatures, the long photoperiod and the unrelenting flies forced the animals back into the darkness of the forest. Moreover (and despite my 960mm-equivalent lens and very careful stalking) the distances with the animals were always a bit too far for any close-up shot. I must say it is very frustrating to film bears side-to-side with my friends and their HDV camcorder and 2800mm-equivalent lens...You take the environmental shot and cheer, then give a look to their video in the small display and see a super sharp, full-frame bear cub looking straight into your eyes...Mmm, don't know how I will afford it, but now I definitely feel the urge to buy a 500mm...Has anyone there maybe one for me? ;-)

POTM May - Rites of spring

"...animals are always the observed. The fact that they can observe us has lost all significance. They are the objects of our ever-extending knowledge. What we know about them is an index of our power, and thus an index of what separates us from them. The more we know, the further away they are." (John Berger)


PIGMY OWL ON DEAD SPRUCE. Slovakia, 2008.

As wildlife photographers we often live of dreams and projects. We try to know as much as we can about the animals and their habits. We want to predict their movements and plan ahead our encounters with them. We strive to surprise them in the field, possibly in good light and get close without scaring them away. We think we can actually have full control of the situation, but in reality we don't know anything of what is going to happen...

In my recent trip to Slovakia, I had the plan to photograph two species I considered absolutely necessary to have in my next book on the valley of Tichà. Two quite elusive birds, these, which beat the time for spring to take place over winter in the mountain ecosystems. The first, the capercaillie, plays its rytmical courtship song in the deep of the pristine forest during the dusky hours at the end of the night. The second, the black grouse, being a loud and social performer in the leks on meadows -still covered by snow, of the mountain slopes and summits. Having been for a long time object of an heavy and continuous hunting pressure and showing a large decrease in their numbers due to habitat loss, these two subjects require some remarkable effort to be approached and even more if to be photographed. Therefore, I thought three full weeks of work in the field after months of research, planning and preparation would have been enough to get some decent shots of these shy creatures. Well, I couldn't be more far from reality.

Despite countinuous rises in the middle of the night, walks on frozen snow under the moonlight, countless hours of still waiting in the darkness, these animals eluded me and my camera in every possible way. I've actually witnessed their displays every morning and observed them in many different situations, but Luck was looking always on the other side that time. Once it was the light, once it was the timing, once the position of the animal, once its behaviour, once some external factors...
So, after twenty days spent in the mountains, I still don't have any good image of these species and will probably have to go back there next year.

But why am I writing about this? Because in these three weeks I've learned one of the hardest lessons in my life as a nature photographer. It is incredibly difficult and frustrating to accept a complete defeat when we think our work is flawless. It takes our attention away from all the beautiful things which are still around us. It spoils the experience itself of being out in the wild, which is still the most important thing. It took me a lot of effort to take over those bad feelings and still enjoy what I was doing. It has been difficult. But it seems I've finally managed to do it, looking beyond the apparent lack of success and being eventually rewarded by great emotions and sights - above all, a very pleasant encounter with a relaxed and obliging pigmy owl.

Now, what I can advice to all my photographer friends is to never let unfortunate circumstances bring us down too much when we are pursuing wild things. Planning and experience play surely an important role in being successful, especially if blessed by an hint of luck...But failure can just be round the corner, together with a truly bitter professional frustration. Only by keeping our eyes (and heart) well open, then, we will still be able to see the beauty always around us. And isn't this the ultimate meaning of nature photography, after all? Doesn't it lie in its complete unpredictability, which sometimes can still reward us with unexpected generosity? So, never look too long down if things don't go as you've expected, there may always be a little fellow observing you from the top of a nearby tree!

**********

Some months ago, the friend and great photographer Sven Zacek from Estonia kindly asked me to publish a small portfolio of my images on the nature photography magazine LOFO. As I put for the first time my hands on some copies of it, I have been blown away by the great quality of the magazine -great photography shown with a very nice layout on beautiful matt paper, and delighted to see all my images published as huge double-spreads. I can only recommend you to get one or more copies of it! If you want to know more about it or purchase LOFO, click here.

Of bears and men

"All good things are wild and free." (Henry David Thoreau)



This is my first post and I would have liked to begin my own blog adventure writing of something nice about me and my photography. I had in mind a report from the last September, which I've entirely spent in the beautiful mountains of northern Slovakia, photographing wild Brown bears in their habitat. An intense experience of wilderness and freedom, in a large territory where these animals can still roam undisturbed. Nevertheless I feel the urge to write about something I thought could not happen anymore; something, which I, as nature enthusiast, find at the same time unbelievable and terribly shocking.

On the 2nd of October and in the following days, three Marsican brown bears, a male and two females, and two wolves have been found dead in an area of the Abruzzo National Park, Central Italy. The animals have clearly been killed by a poisoned bait (a dead goat) strategically placed in the forest. This is just the last in a long series of episodes of its kind in the history of the relationship between Man and Bear in this sector of Italy. The history of an ancient and unique coexistence in a rough and beautiful region, where a small population of bears (possibly an endemic subspecies) lived for millennia in the close proximity of humans and their agro-pastoral activities. A cultural "coevolution" of these two species, severely compromised in the last century, wich makes this area of lymestone peaks and vast beech forests worth of an exceptional conservation effort. The loss of three individuals for a population of just 30-50 animals of this endangered subspecies represents a true ecological disaster.
Moreover, this episode touches and affects very deeply all the people, who like me, come from this region of Italy and had the extraordinary privilege of observing these rare bears, free in the beautiful and fragile Apennines landscape. A sense of deep sadness and schoking confusion pervades me as if I had lost a very close friend.
One of the three killed bears, a large male named "Bernardo" (on the left in the above image, which shows it together with a female, May 2003), was a quite famous animal living in the western part of the protected area, showing a distinct synanthropy in its feeding behaviour with a taste for chickens and other livestock in the villages. Despite the problems due to the attacks to domestic animals, its fame came from its visibility in spring, which allowed many enthusiasts to observe its movements in the lushing green meadows on the look for a mate and, then, glimpse even the most intimate moments of a bear life. That is something many people of all ages and different countries had the chance of witness and won't forget. The public opinion, once in a while, is one and angry. The Italian section of the Worldwide Fund for Nature called for a 10,000-euro bounty to be put on the heads of the perpetrators. There's also a petition to ask for a reinforcement of the regulations concerning handling and purchase of poisonous and dangerous substances: you can sign online here.

May this be the very last episode of its kind!
May the culprits truly pay for what they've done and live forever with a sense of guilt!
May these bears have finally the freedom, the tranquillity and the protection they deserve!

For more information, read here.

The one below is an image from my last trip to Slovakia and shows a large female with one of her three cub feeding on blueberries just above the treeline. The autumnal colors and a stormy afternoon light gave to this rare scene an almost painterly look. I dedicate this picture to the memory of Bernardo and all the other bears killed by the ignorance of Man.