My camera documented Africa lions in montane rain forest for the very first time!

Last January I have been working for a second time on assignment for the German NGO NABU in the Unesco Man and Biosphere Reserve of Kafa, in Southern Ethiopia.

My "top-secret" duty there was to search for lion signs in the lush montane rain forest of the Region, where frequent rumors of sightings and attacks on livestock spread among local people seemed to confirm a constant presence of the species at such unusual altitudes and thus claimed for an inquiry.



It has been a rather unorthodox search for lions. I didn't only work, in fact, from a Land Rover driven along dusty roads, but went also backpacking on the steep slopes of Kafa only with the company of my interpreter Muluken and the aid of local hunters. For days, we crossed streams, bushwhacking in the forest and sweating a lot: the guides kept on saying that we were close, that "they have been seen there yesterday", that the "grass has been bent by a lion sleeping" and so on. It reminded me of my search for bears in the European mountains. I was very skeptical.
But then we came across a very large scat, about 50 times the size of what a cat would make: I was thrilled. It was at sunset and we were all on our own, three people, more than two hours walk from the nearest settlement and with no equipment to sleep with us. Then we heard the first roar: a male was calling maybe five hundred meters from our position. I was scared. We had to move and quickly reach a village where to spend the night, so we started this exhausting, almost onirical march in the complete darkness, surrounded by the velvet warmth of the African night, a lion roaring and hyenas chuckling. I gave all my trust to our confident hunter-guide; we followed him for what seemed an endless trip through the night, straight to "the heart of darkness" of the forest, as I felt, indeed, a character of a Conrad's book. Eventually, we did reach a homestead that night and we slept hugging each-other around a fire, as the lions were moving all around: it has been a long night...

Well, I will make it short for now and save the end of the story for a future, longer post or magazine article together with many more images. What matters now is that, on the next day, I was finally able to spot and photograph a lioness half-hidden in the lush, evergreen vegetation of the Afromontane rainforest: a sighting so beautiful and unusual, that it reminded me of Henry Rousseau's paintings, and which possibly represents the very first time that this species has been documented living in the rain forest at more than 2500 meters above sea level.

So, yes, it is true: in the jungle, the mighty jungle... the lion sleeps tonight!

The news is so groundbreaking that the press release is now echoing through all the media and getting really viral! I am glad to have contributed with my images to the amazing conservation work carried out by NABU staff and partners to save this last wild corner of Ethiopia and its unique forests: again an example that conservation photography does exist and does really work!

Some of the articles:
http://www.nabu.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/index.php?popup=true&show=5811&db=presseservice
http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0813-hance-lions-ethiopia.html
http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/44798
http://web.de/magazine/wissen/tiere/15962790-erstmals-loewe-afrikanischen-regenwald-fotografiert.html
http://www.abendblatt.de/ratgeber/wissen/article2362983/Erstmals-fotografiert-Loewe-im-Regenwald.html

Reconstructing trees

"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself." William Blake



These days autumn is really showing off here in Abruzzo, with the foliage-cliché at its best. I went out photographing my beloved beech forest and experimenting with stitching together multiple images of nice, old trees. It forces yourself to analize the complexity and harmony of each plant. This is a technique first used for photographing giant sequoias by James Balog, then recently also by Michael "Nick" Nichols. I must say it works and I love to reconstruct big trees from pieces: it is fun like solving a puzzle...

P.S. I built this from 9 horizontal images. The resolution is amazing, now let's see how the prints look like...

The moon, the mountains and I. 24 hours alone

"We live as we dream: alone..." Joseph Conrad

August is holiday time for many. The usually quiet mountain village where I live gets crowded. Woods and meadows serve as dining rooms for hundreds of people (and the garbage left behind often echoes their lively voices for a long time...) Even the highest mountain peaks become a common destination for the adventurous citizens on vacation. But this doesn't necessarily mean that I dislike this month or its crowds. It can be fun, just that it spoils a bit the holiness of many places I love and makes really hard to find that special intimacy with nature I am so often looking for.

"If the sun lights up people holidays", I thought, "then the moon can show me the way through the wilderness!" I had luck: the turbulent summer weather gave me a lucky break in correspondence of the last full moon. So, once again, heavy backpack on my shoulders, I was hitting the slope leading to the top of Majella massif with the plan of exploring its vast altitude plateau at night. Alone.

I started at 12AM and met the last people at 5PM: then the mountain was all for me. I walked on and on. Explored ridges and crossed saddles. Looked down to the deepest valleys and up to the fast-moving clouds.

At sunset, I had the purest and simplest light. When night came, I was tired but exhilarated, so I kept on. I dropped my backpack in a little cave and took only a bunch of nuts, my camera and tripod with me. Wind came in full force and didn't leave until the morning. At 11PM I was still shooting the landscape, holding fast my camera to not let the wind toss it to the ground. The moonlight gave the round, barren mountains a touch of indefiniteness. Dark shadows and silvery colors. Deep contrasts and vague horizons.

It was midnight when I went back to the cave, crawled into my sleeping bag and dropped dead. At sunrise, I enjoyed the most perfect stillness. The moon, still high, was now competing with the first sunrays. All around me just blocks of blue, pink and gold.

At 6.47AM, I spotted the first two hikers and then I realized how much exhausted, dehydrated and hungry I was...