Tag Archives: travel photography

Hazy Crazy Days of Lathmar Holi

14 Friday Mar 2025

Posted by in festival, India, Travel, travel photography

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In March 2016 I spent unforgettable – and very colourful – days around the town of Barsanar in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh to immerse myself in the special Holi celebrations that take place there.

Lathmar Holi is celebrated in the towns of Barsana and Nandgaon, some days before the main Holi festival in the rest of India. During the celebrations, women hit men with sticks, a tradition based on the Hindu legend in which Krishna (supposedly born nearby) threw colours at women and the women shooed him away, beating him with sticks. At a stretch, it might be seen as a symbolic ceremonious enactment of women’s rights, since it’s the men who get beaten.

Due to some typically Indian travel confusion, I missed the stick hitting ‘play’ part of the festival, but I more than made up for that by being present at the temples during the extreme colour-throwing proceedings, as well as submersion in the general local ambience. Without actively intending to (honest!) I probably inhaled a fair amount of the suspiciously scented smoke hovering around the proceedings.

Photo tips for anyone attending Holi celebrations in India: Things get a little wild and there’s no point politely or even impolitely asking the locals not to throw any coloured paint or powder in direction – it will probably only goad them into throwing even more colours at you. So wear your grubbiest tattiest clothes, wear a hat, and wrap your camera in a plastic bag, sealed with an elastic band , but with the front of the lend poking out and covered with an affordable protector filter. Try to make your camera settings before sealing the camera, working out a versatile compromise for shutter speed and aperture. It could even be one of those occasions when setting everything to Auto makes perfect sense!

Here’s a gallery of images from my Lathmar Holi adventures.

2024: celebrating a year of brilliant auroras

15 Sunday Dec 2024

Posted by in Arctic travel, aurora borealis, Finland, lapland, northern lights, photography, Travel, travel photography

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2024 was a vintage year for Northern Lights viewing and photography.

Looking back over my photo folders from the various adventures of the past year, one phenomenon jumps out from everything else: the amazing aurora borealis shows that I was lucky enough, like many other stargazers this year, to witness over the course of 2024. We’ve reached the peak of the 11 year solar cycle when the aurora – in this part of the world, otherwise known as the Northern Lights – is especially active, and that should continue into 2025. It was even clearly visible in southern Finland, in and around Helsinki where I live, on a number of occasions – not something we can take for granted with the amount of development and subsequent light pollution in the capital area. On my annual autumn trip to Sapmi – also known as Lapland – my timing was brilliant, with three clear nights out of four and increasingly intense shows on each night.

The aurora is triggered by the collision of solar wind’s protons and electrons, released by flares on the surface of the Sun and directed towards the polar regions by the Earth’s magnetic fields. The colours depend on the concentration of gas molecules with which the particles collide. Green is the most common colour, and also the easiest for the human eye to register, and results from the collision with oxygen at relatively low altitudes, from about 60 to 180 miles. Red displays occur at higher altitudes where oxygen is more rarified. Less common blue and purple auroras are caused by a collision with nitrogen at up to about 60 miles. 

Myths and legends

So much for the science. The myths and legends, conceived long before any prosaic and scientifically devised theories were applied, are almost easier to believe, and much more fun. The Finnish name for the Northern Lights, revontulet, which translates as ‘fox’s fires’, derives from the idea, as plausible as any when they evolved, that the apparition was caused by sparks set off when the tails of scampering foxes brushed the fells. Believing the aurora to be a bad omen, the indigenous Sámi were reluctant to converse about the aurora, believing them to be the souls of the departed, capable of scooping the living into the sky. Other Arctic tribes were similarly in awe, but attributed more benign functions to the aurora, believing them to be a guiding light for the deceased on their way to a well-illuminated afterlife. If I had been alive in a pre-science Lapland, I like to think my own proposal might have gained some traction, that the Northern Lights are orchestrated at the whim of an invisible giant – a specially designated auroral god, perhaps – using a series of mystical hand gestures.

Anyway, I thought I’d post a big selection of my best aurora moments over the course of the 2024 as a celebration as the turn of the year approaches. I hope you enjoy the show! The first block of images are from my September trip to the village of Sevettijärvi in Lapland, way above the Arctic Circle in northern Finland.

The following selection were all captured in the locality of our Helsinki home, on the northern edge of the city, in the Central Park area and close to the River Vantaa at the end of our road, in early May and August. It’s very rare that we get such vivid displays, although the occasional faint flicker isn’t so unusual.

Singing the praises of the beautiful book

26 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by in books, bookshops, helsinki, Uncategorized

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It’s probably hopelessly old fashioned of me but I love books and bookshops. Books in covers, made of paper, lovingly conceived, designed, produced and edited. I feel protected, safe and at home walled-in by them in a bookshop. Especially proper bookshops, where the books are piled high in apparent disorder but whose shopkeepers know exactly where to find the book you might be looking for.

I took to reading novels and guidebooks with Kindle on my iPad for a while, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. The most important thing is that people write and people read, and to some extent the format is irrelevant as long as that continues. I would say that the digital format is less conducive to concentration, however. And rumours of the death of the book are premature.

In any case, to my mind the physical, tactile, artifact book is in the top tier of creative production. Books are to keep or, at worst, to resell. Unlike newspapers and magazines, books are rarely thrown out for recycling. Opening a box of new books fresh from the printers (as long as the printers have done their job properly) and inhaling that fresh print aroma is one of the great joys of life.

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In the running for Finland’s Most Beautiful Book of the Year, with text in English and Finnish

So I was thrilled this week to learn that my latest book, Suomenlinna – Islands of Light, is being entered in the Most Beautiful Books of the Year awards in Finland by the publisher, Docendo. This is the kind of book that wouldn’t work well on an iPad. It’s a book for browsing at leisure in a way you couldn’t really do on a digital screen. Bear in mind too that Finland was rated as the World’s Most Literate Nation in 2016, so it should know a thing or two about what makes a good book.

The honorary awards (no cash or other prizes are handed out) are judged by the Finnish Book Art Committee, whose aim is…

…to draw attention to the book as an artistic whole. When choosing the Most Beautiful Books of the Year the Committee tries to find works in which form and content support each other as well as possible. The starting point for evaluating works is the overall graphic design, beginning with the typography and ending with the finished printed product. As well as classical printing skills, the Committee values fresh and new creative solutions.

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Back cover shot from Islands of Light. Suomenlinna feels a world apart from Helsinki, although it’s only a 15-minute ferry ride away.

The beauty of book, which is a collection of photographs of Helsinki’s most atmospheric and historic quarter, its UNESCO World Heritage-listed sea fortress, is largely thanks to its designer, my friend Ea Söderberg. She also designed my eBook, Motion Pictures – a travel photographer’s companion. OK, so I’ll snatch some of the credit for the contents. Especially since I’ve spent countless hours out there in all weather. But I can’t design books. That is a different talent with which Ea is blessed. The shots here are from the book.

View of Suomenlinna from Vallisaari island, Helsinki
View of Suomenlinna from Vallisaari island, Helsinki. Vallisaari is one of several islands that used to be restricted to the military for many years but which are now opening up to the public. A good thing too: why should the military get all the best islands?
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As well as showing view of the islands throughout the year, the book introduces some members of the community who live and/or work in the fortress – artists, musicians, craftspeople, museum curators, naval officers, all sorts of interesting people. This is traditional boat builder Mikael Holmström.
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If you get the chance to visit Suomenlinna on a really cold winter’s day, when the steam is rising from the sea as the mercury plummets, you might be rewarded with scenes like this. Your fingers might also drop off if you’re not wearing gloves. Then how will you turn the pages of my book when you’ve bought it?
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The view of Helsinki looking north across the South Harbour from Suomenlinna. I wish I had a euro for every time I’ve made the ferry crossing over this little stretch of water in the last few years.

Obviously I’m not going to wind up without urging you to consider Islands of Light for your Christmas shopping list. Not as a stocking filler, unless you want big book-shaped stockings, but as a full-blown gesture-of-love top-class gift! You can order it online at this link or contact me directly if you have any trouble getting your hands on a copy! And wish me luck in those awards.

The Northern Lights are in my mind

19 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by in Arctic travel, aurora borealis, lapland, northern lights, Uncategorized

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It’s a glum wet day in Helsinki and I intend to brighten up your virtual inner sky by sharing some photos of the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis. The techies among you will know that this wondrously surreal phenomenon – for my money the most profoundly moving, beautiful and enchanting on or around the planet – is the result of collisions between charged particles released from the sun with gaseous particles in the Earth’s atmosphere. I don’t really care what causes them, but I thought I’d better let you know that. While you’re watching them, you won’t care either, you’ll just gawp in wonder. You’ll feel like laughing. It’s too ridiculously amazing to be true.

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Minus 25, but worth crawling out of my lakeside glass igloo in Finnish Lapland just after midnight. Wrap up warm if you intend to indulge in this kind of madness: jumping around just isn’t enough.

I first heard about the Northern Lights in a song by the 1970s band Renaissance. “The Northern Lights are in my mind, they guide me back to you,” their beautiful woman singer sang, to an irresistibly catchy tune. I had no idea what she was on about then. I thought she might be singing about the nighttime attractions of Blackpool or some other northern English city. Now I know what they were on about, I wonder why there aren’t more songs about it.

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This was one result of a spectacular night that I spent entirely alone at the Joulukka Christmas theme lodge near the Arctic Circle in Lapland. It was September, so the lake wasn’t yet frozen. It is often assumed that the aurora can only be seen on cold winter nights, but autumn and spring are also good times.

The first time I actually witnessed this awesome – and I really do mean awesome – natural phenomenon was on a frozen lake in Finnish Lapland in about 1984, when I jumped around in the company of two other more-than-slightly intoxicated Englishmen, like children on a sugar rush at a magic show, shouting and pointing at the sky in mesmerized disbelief, wondering if our drinks had been spiked.

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Appearances of the Northern Lights in Helsinki in southern Finland, which is on the same latitude as Lerwick in Shetland, are not quite as unusual as people think, but sightings this spectacular, with this corona effect, are rare. I shot this from the top of my road in March 2015. I’m not sure I’ll ever see it this powerful again in Helsinki.

You can’t just see the Northern Lights and tick them off your list. Once you’ve seen them, you have to see them again. And again. It becomes an obsession. I’ve got three Apps on my phone and another one on my iPad telling me when a ‘performance’ might be possible. I’ve flown to Lapland and travelled to remote locations to freeze under starlit skies with the sole intention of watching the aurora. I wander around bumping into trees by the river near my Helsinki home, staring at the sky, in the often vain hope of photographing, or just catching a glimpse of the curtains of colour being shifted around the sky by some giant unseen hand.

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Not my best aurora shot but one that illustrates that you can see the Northern Lights as far south as Helsinki – and even in August. This is on the edge of Helsinki’s Central Park and the artificial light is from Helsinki Airport.

So that’s another confession off my chest. If you’d like to share my obsession, assuming you don’t already, you need to be a long way north, the sky needs to be clear, and it helps to get away from urban light pollution. And although it’s great fun to photograph them, try to remember not to get too obsessed with photographing them. Submit to the spectacle. Be transfixed!

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In the Norwegian mountains. My host was a fish factory manager who offered to take me for a drive into the mountains in case we could see the aurora. We waited in this spot for two hours until just after midnight to get this show. Some people in ‘aurora countries’ are inexplicably blase about the phenomenon. This fellow shared my excitement, even though he’d probably seen it a thousand times.

The Alaska Geophysical Institute has quite a good site here, with regional maps giving predictive information: http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast  But unlike some of the tourists who flock to northern Finland with a sighting at the top of their list, don’t assume that you can flick a switch on any given winter’s evening to make the aurora appear.

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Another rare Helsinki sighting, from the island of Harakka. I was shooting the frozen Baltic in the afternoon and started getting aurora alerts on my phone. I hung around until after dark and this was my reward.

Oh and that song by Renaissance – you’ll find it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvFPlWh1yQY

 

My name is Tim, I’m a Facebook-aholic

12 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by in addiction, social media, travel photography, Uncategorized

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I gave up smoking in the early 90s. I decided that changes of scene and routine would be the best circumstances in which to make the break, and my companion, now my wife, also reckoned this would be a good plan. So we decided that a trip to Singapore and Bali would be a good time to kick the habit. We had been upgraded to Business Class (those were the days) so we sat in the Lounge at Helsinki Airport waiting for our flight to Singapore to start boarding. We had bought one last ceremonious pack of cigarettes (yes, kids, you could smoke in airport lounges in those days) and sat puffing away over our gins and tonics.

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An Indian pilgrim at a festival in Allahabad lights up for the first smoke of the day. But has he checked his Facebook yet?

The time to board arrived. There were maybe a dozen cigarettes left in the packet. Solemnly, we crumpled up the pack, making its contents unsmokeable, and gathered our bags to make our way to the plane. This was the allotted time at which we had decided to quit. Then came the announcement: a delay of 40 minutes. Damn. We could have smoked at least four more cigarettes each in that time.

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Temple offerings in Ubud, Bali. Notice the cigarette in one of the baskets. Even the Gods like a ciggy.

I haven’t smoked another cigarette since. It was actually quite easy. I had tried many times before, aware that I was getting a reputation for smoking that special brand known as OP’s – Other People’s. This time I realized that I really wanted to give up and it wasn’t difficult. Sometimes I still lift a cigarette to my nose and inhale the scent of dry tobacco, finding it strangely pleasant. But I’m never tempted to light it. Sometimes I dream that I’m smoking too, but I never wake up reaching for a packet at my bedside.

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‘Giving up’ probably wouldn’t have been in the vocabulary of these smokers in Hanoi, Vietnam.

So I don’t think I have an addictive personality. I can go a whole week without a drink. Like most people of my age and circumstances, I dabbled with drugs in my youth, but I never tipped into the abyss, although I might have looked into it a couple of times. Until now tobacco was the most addictive drug I’ve ever sampled, and I managed to kick that instantly. But now I find myself facing a much deadlier addictive beast: Social Media.

If you share my addiction you’ll understand. The urge to look at my phone in the morning – before I have my breakfast, before I shower – to gorge on the Facebook ‘likes’ being offered to me, or to feel a deadly slump at their absence, must be familiar to many of you. Likewise the thrill at that throbbing red heart in my Instagram account.

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Delegates at a Helsinki start-up conference try to look important while actually liking silly videos on Facebook.

Largely, I blame Brexit and Trump. Both of them make me so angry that I need a way of venting my fury and receiving confirmation that my fury is shared. But I also blame my work, not because of the pressure it incurs, but because Social Media (or ‘Some’ as it’s now being called – oh dear) is the canal de choix for anyone involved in media production, especially if you’re freelance. A large part of my work is as a travel writer and photographer. So I get to boast about all the cool places I’m lucky enough to visit. It’s actually desirable for me to do this, so that people know that I ‘walk the talk’ in terms of travel. You’re not much of a travel writer/photographer if you never go anywhere, are you?

The conventional wisdom is that a presence on Social Media, whether Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Sprinkle or LumpedUp – OK, I invented the last two – is essential if you want to build and maintain the kind of visibility that converts to financial income. You don’t even exist without a presence on SM. Only a few brave souls are prepared to challenge this idea.

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Russian vodka in a St Petersburg store. If you had to give up Social Media or Social Drinking, which would you choose?

The knowledge that I am addicted means that I have a love-hate relationship with Social Media, especially with Facebook. It doesn’t stop me living an active and interesting life (and lets me brag about its best moments), but it’s like speaking in a parallel voice that I don’t always recognize. I find myself getting sucked into outraged political arguments with people I haven’t even met, for example, afterwards suffering from the kind of guilt that you feel after a night in a pub making a lot of noise and with the vague sense that you misbehaved in some way. Or am I the only one who knows what that’s like?

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A casino in Las Vegas. Those cynical designers of Facebook aimed to replicate the addiction of gambling. I wouldn’t bet against it.

Meanwhile, my dependence continues. And I am relying on yours to spread the word. So please feel more than free to share, tweet, re-tweet, post, re-post and like this blog to your (and my) heart’s content.

If you follow this blog you won’t have to keep looking at Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/timbirdphoto) to see when I’ve published a new one. And like a barman at happy hour, let me tempt you to visit my Instagram account at @tim_bird_photo

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

18 Wednesday Oct 2017

Posted by in bucket-list, travel photography, Uncategorized

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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/

Six Images: Mad about mountains

26 Tuesday Sep 2017

Posted by in mountains, Switzerland, travel photography, Uncategorized

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Time to revive my sadly neglected photo blog, formerly Six Picks, now rechristened Six Images, in which I present six themed photos – sometimes a few more if I am feeling especially generous – from my uncontrollably mushrooming archives. Visit my Instagram site at @tim_bird_photo for more regular postings, and my website at www.timbirdphotography.com – the home page features a ‘slide show’ portfolio of selected images.

I was inspired to kick-start the blog again by memories of a visit to the Swiss Alps, specifically the region dominated by the three mountains of Mönch, Eiger and Jungfrau. Living in Finland, we have to travel to see mountains although there are a few in northern Lapland. That’s OK, Finland has other charms (the climate not always being one them). But I do love a good mountain and I think that if I woke up to the view across the Lauterbrunnen Valley every day, I would never cease to be amazed by it. It doesn’t seem fair for some places to have more than their share of mountains. I thought I should show a few views to press the point home.

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The sheer sides of the Lauterbrunnen valley reflect spectacular morning sunlight. Waterfalls cascade down the cliff face.
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Another view along the valley from the Trümmelbach falls, towards the town of Lauterbrunnen.
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Outlying farms and cottages close to the town of Mürren, at the foot of the Schilthorn mountain. The Schilthorn Cableway takes you up from the valley to the Bond World museum at mountaintop Piz Gloria, where scenes from the Bond movie, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, were filmed. I wasn’t ready for wintery snow, nor temperatures of minus seven centigrade – in September, for goodness sake. But it was beautiful.
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Mönch, the smallest of the three peaks, glimpsed through the clouds from the blissfully traffic-free town of Mürren.
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OK, so it could be Eiger, it could be Jungfrau, but it’s magnificent anyway, especially in the magical light just before sunset.
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A night shot of the ridge of mountains further along the valley from Mürren. I spend an hour in the darkness here gazing at the Milky Way and making a few wishes on shooting stars (I’ll tell you only if they come true).

To see more of my pictures visit my website at www.timbirdphotography.com, or my Instagram site at @tim_bird_photo, and occasionally on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/timbirdtravelphoto/ and https://www.facebook.com/timbirdphoto .

Thanks for dropping by. Do follow the blog so you don’t miss future posts! And tell all your friends and families the good news – in fact, shout it to the mountains: Six Images is back!

Visit https://schilthorn.ch/en/Welcome to find out more about the local attractions and the Cableway.

Want a nice hotel to stay in? Here’s one:

http://alpenruh-muerren.ch/en/Offer/Willkommen

Six picks: join my workshop for a photographer’s day out in Helsinki’s sea fortress!

04 Sunday Jun 2017

Posted by in Finland, photography, travel photography

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There are still places available on all three of my summer photo workshops on Suomenlinna, Helsinki’s fabulous Baltic sea fortress, the top highlight of Finland’s capital.  Workshops are on July 8, July 29 and August 19.

Contact me by email at timothy.bird@kolumbus.fi !

Spend a summer day exploring the limitless visual attractions of Suomenlinna, discovering new views and comparing notes with fellow photo enthusiasts of this beautiful UNESCO World Heritage-listed destination. I’ll be your English-language workshop tutor, not least as photographer and author of “Suomenlinna – Islands of Light” (Docendo 2017), a celebration in photographs and encounters with some of the islands’ most colourful residents.

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The emphasis will be on creativity and ways of seeing rather than technical issues, so this is not a “how to use your camera” course, although we’ll discuss and compare techniques where appropriate. Enthusiasm is more important than your knowledge of photography!

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Choose a date that suits you best from three separate workshops:

  • July 8 from 10 to 17
  • July 29 from 10 to 17
  • August 19 from 10 to 17

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Your tutor – me, i.e. Tim Bird

Workshop fee of €165 includes:

  • Tutoring, assignments and experienced advice in a compact group (maximum 8-10 per group, 7.5 hours)
  • With the group, use of a secure and cosy meeting room with all facilities in one of Suomenlinna’s historic buildings
  • Coffee/tea and fresh Finnish pulla
  • Buffet lunch at Suomenlinna’s Chapman restaurant
  • A signed copy of my book “Suomenlinna – Islands of Light” (Helsinki retail price €35-39)
  • Entry to the museum at Suomenlinna Centre to view my exhibition “Islands of Light”
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Fee does not include:

  • City ferry transport to and from the island (9.20 a.m. departure from Helsinki Market Square)
  • Meals and refreshments not included above

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You need:

  • a camera (preferably a digital DSLR, although point-and-shooters are also welcome, with a formatted memory card)
  • enthusiasm, open eyes and a sense of adventure!
  • Suitable clothing for the weather (wind and waterproof clothes, protection from sun, good shoes)
  • Suomenlinna’s streets are often cobbled and other surfaces are rocky and uneven, so do bear this in mind

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How to guarantee your place at the workshop

  • be quick and confirm your place by replying to timothy.bird@kolumbus.fi
  • Please include your name, phone number, e-mail address, special diets and information about your experience of and aspirations for your photography

Six picks: Face to face with an Indian tiger

12 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by in travel photography, wildlife, wildlife

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I’ve just returned from India where I visited the Bandhavgarh National Park Tiger Reserve, as a guest of the delightful Junglemantra resort, right on the edge of the park’s buffer zone and close to the core area. The park is home to a great deal of wildlife including what is probably India’s highest concentration of wild tigers.

Hosts Sheilin and Rhea are effusively enthusiastic and very well-informed about the abundant wildlife – all sorts of birds, jackals, wild boar, leopards, spotted deer, sambar deer, monkeys, peacocks – on their doorstep. Sheilin is a keen wildlife photographer himself and was great company on the drives I took in the park.

The couple also do a lot of good NGO work in the nearby villages, where they arrange health clinics at the local school, for example. In their own words: “It is our policy to provide training and employment opportunities to local villages thereby reducing the dependence on the forest resources. We also support the local village school with books and teaching aids. At Junglemantra, we believe in sustainable eco-tourism, where tourism is for the forest and its denizens.”

My first evening started with a frenetic but exciting search in the dark for a tiger that had been feeding on a ‘kill’ a few hundred metres from the resort entrance! We didn’t find the tiger then, but I had some great sightings over the next few days of a mother and her three cubs. I was there during the pre-monsoon hot season, when the vegetation is dry and the animals make frequent visits to the watering holes in the park.

If you want to see tigers in India – and there are only a couple of thousand left – Bandhavgarh should be top of your list, and Junglemantra is hard to beat as a base – good food, comfortable bamboo huts, a nice lounge area, and expansive grounds that include a small lake frequented by lots of birds. Here are a few tiger shots to whet your appetite. .

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Thanks for dropping by!

Six Picks: highlights from India

21 Saturday Jan 2017

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

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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!