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~ Selections from Tim Bird's travel photography archives

Six Images

Tag Archives: Taj Mahal

Six Images: Six photos to check from the bucket-list

18 Wednesday Oct 2017

Posted by Tim Bird in bucket-list, travel photography, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

aurora, Baltic, Bandhavgarh, bucket-list, finland, himalayas, India, mountains, northern lights, Stromboli, Taj Mahal, tigers, travel, travel photography, volcano

There are certain things you simply have to get shots of. As a travel photographer you can never exhaust the photographic possibilities of the world around you, whether it’s the people or the places or the natural phenomena. I know I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to tick off quite a few items on my photo bucket list. On the other hand, if you don’t go looking for those opportunities they’re not going to fall into your lap. So luck is only part of the story. You need to be at least a little bit adventurous and resourceful.

Here are six images of things I really wanted to photograph and managed to. Some of them, like the Northern Lights, I could happily photograph daily – or nightly – if I had the chance. But then I wouldn’t have time to shoot all the other amazing people and things I see on my travels.bucketlist-9397

Walking on water: I live in Finland and large parts of the Baltic Sea freeze every winter, although climate change is affecting the extent to which ice forms. But it’s still possible to walk on water – an enthralling experience. I shot this during a cruise on the Sampo icebreaker, converted to tourist use from the north-west port of Kemi.

http://www.visitkemi.fi/en/sampo

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2. An erupting volcano: Shooting an active volcano has always been an ambition. I went through a period of travelling throughout Central America peering into dramatically smoking craters, even glimpsing red hot lava just a few metres away. But I didn’t see a properly erupting volcano until I went to Sicily and the island of Stromboli, probably the most frequently and visibly active volcano in Europe. When I was there the lava spewed out every 20 minutes or so. This was shot from a ledge about half a kilometre from the eruption. Less intrepid volcano-watchers have the option of viewing more distantly but very comfortably from the terrace of a pizzeria further down! Or like my even more intrepid companion, trek for several hours almost right to the rim of the thing, where shooting has to be done at far greater speed.

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3. Wild tigers in India: The first time I tried this, I got one shot of a tiger’s head emerging from the bush and another of its tail disappearing into the undergrowth on the opposite side of the track! My second visit to the Bandhavgarh tiger reserve in the state of Madhya Pradesh was much more fruitful. This little family (minus Dad) came strolling along the track towards our jeep and passed within a few feet of us. A breath-holding moment.

Thanks to my hosts at http://junglemantrasafaris.com/ for helping me on this one.

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4. The Taj Mahal: This extraordinary building has a lot of hype to live up to as India’s most famous tourist destination – but it succeeds. It really is magnificent. It also is really crowded during the daytime, so get up early (getting up early is an essential thing for photographers to do if they want to get the most interesting light) and head across to the other side of the river just before sunrise. When I did this I was rewarded with this wonderful view of the marble domes wrapped in mist. The night before I had seen it in moonlight. Go out at different times, see the same places in a different light…

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5. The Northern Lights: The aurora borealis is without question – in my view at least – the most magical, transfixing and addictive spectacle on the planet. It reduces me to blubbering infancy every time. You can’t just see the Northern Lights once, you have to keep trying to see it again once you’ve seen it. It casts a spell. I still haven’t got what I think is the perfect shot and the alerts I have on my phone frustratingly let me know that activity is sometimes strong – even when the sky is covered in cloud! This shot was from a lakeside near Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland, almost bang on the Arctic Circle. Note the reflections on the water – this was taken in September before the lake was frozen and snow-covered. So you don’t need freezing temperatures but you do need clear skies.

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6. The Himalayan Mountains: This dawn shot of Kanchenjunga, the summit of which is in Nepal, was from Darjeeling in India. I love mountains, all the more for their rarity in Finland where I live! I remember waking in a village in Nepal on the Annapurna trail and parting the shutters on my guesthouse window and seeing the Annapurna range in this kind of light, shaking my room mate awake and telling him: “Juha, you have to see this!” Is there anyone who cannot be humbled and awestruck by a view of mountains?

That is my bucket list shortlist. If you have enjoyed this visit (and thanks for dropping by), do come again, and feel free to share, but contact me if you have something commercial in mind – copyright for all photos is mine, all mine. If you’d like to find out more about me and my photography, visit my website at www.timbirdphotography.com

I am also in Instagram at @tim_bird_photo

and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/timbirdtravelphoto/

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Six Picks: highlights from India

21 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by Tim Bird in Golden Triangle, India, photography, travel photography

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Tags

agra, Amritsar, Assam, darjeeling, Delhi, Golden Temple, himalayas, India, islamd, jama masjid, Kanchenjunga, mamallapuram, mountains, photography, religion, Sikh, Taj Mahal, travel, travel photography

I travel a lot but I find myself returning to India more and more. For a photographer there is nowhere more rewarding. There are surprises, some small and quirky, some funny or tragic, some vast and majestic, around every corner.

Recently I have been organizing some of my best material, compiling a single gallery of highlights from the many visits I have made over the last decade or so. It made me appreciate the distances I have covered and the variety contained in this extraordinary continent, in which the mountainous regions of the north, for example, are as different from the tropical jungles of the south as Norway is from Spain. There are common threads running through India, of history and culture, but the landscapes and traditions vary immensely from one area to another.

So far I have added well over 1,000 images to my India gallery, which is on my website at this link:

http://timbirdphotography.photoshelter.com/gallery/India/G0000irlXmGr5Dyg/

I still have to add several hundred more images, from places like Varanasi, Srinagar in Kashmir, Haridwar and Mumbai, and complete the inclusion of key words and other info, so it’s a work in progress. I’m well on my way to making it one of the most comprehensive single galleries of photographs from India available anywhere.

Meanwhile, here are a few samples:

kanchenjunga

The peak of Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world, illuminated at sunrise as seen from Darjeeling in Assam. The peak itself is across the border in Nepal but the mountain is a precious cultural icon to Indians, too. 

mamallapuram2

Fishermen on the beach at Mamallapuram. This small town, on the coast of the Bay of Bengal between Chennai and Pondicherry, is famous for its ancient temple carvings, but I spent more time photographing the fishermen early in the morning and in the evening than looking at the carvings.

jama-masjid-mosque

The Jama Masjid mosque in Old Delhi is reckoned to be the biggest place of Muslim worship in South Asia and was built under the rule of the 17th century Mughul emperor, Shah Jahan.

subrata

At its most colourful, there is no more dazzling country on the planet than India. This is my friend Subrata at her wedding in the state of Assam in the northeast. I wanted to photograph her all day, she looked so stunning. Sorry, Subrata!

amritsar-punjab-golden-temple

A Sikh pilgrim at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. 

india-agra-taj-mahal

Like the Golden Temple, the Taj Mahal at Agra lives up to the hype. The cool marble changes shade and mood during the day and is especially mysterious in early morning mist and dazzling in the late afternoon.

I hope you enjoyed this quick tour of India and introduction to my photos. If you are interested in taking advantage of my considerable photo resources from India, please get in touch through my website at www.timbirdphotography.com  And of course, I would be delighted if you follow this occasional blog. Thanks for dropping in!

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Six Picks: Finalists and winners

13 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by Tim Bird in Uncategorized

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Blue Wings, competitions, final, finland, helsinki, India, Kensington, London, Royal Geographical Society, Taj Mahal, Thailand, Timothy Allen, TPOTY, Travel Photographer of the Year, travel photography, triumph, Udaipur, Vappu, World Cup Final

Six images in a weekly photo blog from my constantly expanding archives at www.timbirdphotography.com and bulging hard drives.

It’s World Cup Final day, and this week I’m taking the opportunity to recall some of my own photographic triumphs and near-misses.

Last week I was in London for the opening of the Travel Photographer of the Year 2013 competition exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society in Kensington. The creator of the competition, Chris Coe, and his wife Karen have developed this contest to be among the world’s top showcases for travel photography, encouraging amateurs as well as professionals to enter their work and giving a boost to young aspiring enthusiasts. I’ve entered the competition every year for at least seven of the ten competitions judged so far – number 11 is open for entries right now until October 1 – and I’ve had varying degrees of success. I’ve entered again this year, so keep your fingers crossed.

I like entering competitions, partly as a way of increasing my confidence as a photographer and partly to match myself against other photographers. You can always learn something new in photography and you can do that by seeing what other people are doing. Being able to tag “Award Winning” to my description also helps to convince editors that I can shoot as well as write, not something that everyone can do. At the TPOTY opening I had another chance to meet and compare notes with photographers from all over the world. The deserving overall winner this year was Timothy Allen (bad move on my part, this – now I’ve linked you up to his page, you’ll probably never come back to mine!), an intrepid and talented photographer whose professional credits include the stills for the BBC TV series Human Planet.

So in this week’s Six Picks forgive me if I take the opportunity to indulge in some celebration of some of the prizes I have won in recent years.

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Planet Ant, a highly commended entry from the Digital Photographer of the Year competition a few years back. Taken in Koh Chang in Thailand in 2009

prizes8

The Travel Photographer of the Year competition celebrated its tenth anniversary last year with a separate “10 for 10” contest. My Splash of Colour shot won the overall prize and it’s on show at the exhibition in Kensington until August 17 (see below). It was shot in Udaipur in India in 2013. I won a handy and versatile Fujifilm X20 compact camera for this one.

prizes10

May Day (Vappu) band in Helsinki. This shot earned me a Highly Commended in the TPOTY competition, single image Festivals category, in 2006.

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A young cricketer in Agra, India, with the Taj Mahal looming through the mist. This won the Famous Places category in the AA Holiday Photographer of the Year 2008 – and earned me a cruise for two in the Canary Islands.

prizes12

Buddhist monk novices in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India, the site of the original Tree of Enlightenment. This was one of four images published in the Finnair inflight magazine Blue Wings that earned me the title of British Guild of Travel Writers Photographer of the Year for 2012 – and a commission to shoot for the Sarawak Tourist Board in Borneo.

prizes11

Ghost ship to Stockholm: third prize in the Finnish Readers’ Digest / Matkaopas magazine / Kamera magazine Travel Photographer 2009 competition. Taken on the island of Suomenlinna in Helsinki with the help of the Silja Line ferry. The prize for this was a Canon Powershot camera.

If you are in London, drop in to the TPOTY exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society in Kensington. It’s free of charge and runs until August 17. Many of the pictures are displayed outside in the courtyard, with the pervading and exotic perfume of jasmine flowers lending an appropriate sense of far-off places. The exhibition shop includes postcards, prints and posters from the competition Collection, soon to include another of my own short-listed entries, as well as the Journey series of compilations of previous competitions. The shot from Udaipur above is included in the latest volume, Journey Six.

Please feel free to share this weekly photo blog and to follow future issues. But please request permission before re-using this photos in any other context, including commercially – copyright remains with the photographer, that is, me, Tim Bird.

You’ll find more of my photos at www.timbirdphotography.com.

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