BBC Earth (March 26, 2023) – Vienna’s Danube is known for its bustling nightlife and mighty skyscrapers, but one surprising resident has also found a home here. Animals are learning to survive and thrive in one very surprising habitat – cities. Join wildlife presenter Hannah Stitfall as she sets out on a mission to meet our new neighbours. #CoExistence
Eurasian Beaver (Castor fiber)
The beaver is the “master builder” of riverine landscapes. By felling trees, the beaver makes a significant contribution to biodiversity by providing habitats for many other species.
In Austria, in the Danube-March-Thaya wetlands; migrates to the Weinviertel (“Forest Quarter”) and the Vienna Woods, but also from the Inn and Salzach down the Danube to Linz.
Endangerment and Conservation Status In Austria, beavers had been extinguished by the middle of the 19th century. Starting in the 1970s, they were restored on the Salzach and Inn rivers as well as in the Danube wetlands east of Vienna. Protecting the riparian forests is essential to the conservation of the beaver.
“This is going to change the world as we know it.”
“The pictures are a documentation of the brutality within the conflict itself. It’s about civilians and civilian casualties because they are the ones hit the hardest. “
“The Russians are terrorizing the civilian population. They are hitting civilian infrastructure, may it be water, electricity, or heating. That brutality is extremely important to show. For me, it is about getting as close to these people as possible.”
Grarup is convinced that the ongoing war in Ukraine will mark the beginning of a new area that will isolate Russia from the Western World for generations to come: “I have been covering wars and conflicts for the last 35 years – just about every conflict you can imagine. In many ways, the brutality of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 is second to none. But the war in Ukraine comes really, really close. It’s basically a country which is desiring democracy and freedom and independence – and because of that, its people are killed.”
Grarups also reflects upon his feelings covering the war, such as his general discomfort with silence as “you can be sure that something is about to happen.” On the other hand, he sees the necessity to document the war for future generations and the possible prosecution of war crimes. “What I like about black-and-white photography is its timelessness. We think in our part of the world that the world has changed, developed, and moved far away from what we have seen historically.
But the fact is: It hasn’t. It’s still the same atrocities. It’s still the same victims.” Jan Grarup was born in Denmark in 1968 and is today regarded as one of the leading and most experienced war photographers globally. Already in 1991, the year of his graduation, he won the prestigious Danish Press Photographer of the Year Award, a prize he would receive on several further occasions. In 1993, he moved to Berlin for a year, working as a freelance photographer for Danish newspapers and magazines. Afterwards, Grarup covered many wars and conflicts worldwide, including the Gulf War, the Rwandan genocide, the siege of Sarajevo and the Palestinian uprising against Israel in 2000.
His coverage of the conflict between Palestine and Israel led to two series: The Boys of Ramallah, which earned him the Pictures of the Year International World Understanding Award in 2002, followed by The Boys from Hebron. His book, Shadowland (2006), presents his work during the 12 years he spent in Kashmir, Sierra Leone, Chechnya, Rwanda, Kosovo, Slovakia, Ramallah, Hebron, Iraq, Iran, and Darfur. In the words of Foto8’s review, it is “intensely personal, deeply felt, and immaculately composed.”
His second book, Darfur: A Silent Genocide, was published in 2009. In 2017 he released the prizewinning bestseller And Then There Was Silence. He is currently working on a follow-up called While We Bleed with Danish author Adam Holm about the war in Ukraine. Jan Grarup has won numerous prizes for his dedicated work, for example eight World Press Awards, the Pictures of the Year International World Understanding Award, the UNICEF Children Photo of the Year Award, Visa d’Or, Leica Oskar Barnack Award, to mention a few of the more prestigious ones. Jan Grarup was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The interview took place at the Danish War Museum in March 2023 on the occasion of Grarup’s exhibition One Year With War. Camera: Jakob Solbakken Edited by: Helle Pagter Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Tales of Justin (February 28, 2023) – Iceland, an island nation in the North Atlantic Ocean, lies between Europe and North America. The country is situated on a strategic location between North America and Europe, about 840 km north west of the United Kingdom and about 460 km south east of Greenland‘s coast. The closest bodies of land in Europe are the Faroe Islands (530 km).
The island lies just south of the Arctic Circle at the northern end of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR), where the tectonic plate of Eurasia meets the North American Plate, causing a lot of volcanic activity in the region. Iceland’s extraordinary landscape offers hot springs and geysers, icefields and volcanoes, glaciers and wild waterfalls.
Iceland has 30 active volcanic systems, of which 13 have erupted since the settlement of island in AD 874, only about 20 percent of the country is habitable.
From bees hunting for a mate to a giant sea star procreating, these incredible images are some of the winners in the prestigious wildlife photography competition.
We spoke to three photographers, who tell the stories behind their award-winning images at this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year photographic competition, and why biodiversity and climate change are top of the agenda. Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.
A Great Blue Heron strikes a pose as they walk down the log runway.
A Blue Jay challenges a female Red-bellied Woodpecker. She was startled off the railing, but she immediately flew back to her spot and the Blue Jay gave way.The unusual pairing of a sandhill crane and Canada goose
May 11, 2022 – In this episode of Getty Art + Ideas, Getty photographs curator Paul Martineau discusses Imogen Cunningham’s trajectory, focusing on key artworks made throughout her life.
“When Cunningham passed away, I think in part her reputation was based on her personality, the fact that she had lived so long, the fact that she was full of witty quips, and she wouldn’t let anyone boss her around. But I think in some ways that eclipsed the work.”
Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1883, photographer Imogen Cunningham joined a correspondence course for photography as a high schooler after seeing a magazine ad. Over the course of her 70-year career, Cunningham stirred controversy with a nude portrait of her husband, photographed flowers while minding her young children in her garden, captured striking portraits of famous actors and writers for Vanity Fair, and provided insight into the life of nonagenarians when she herself was in her 90s. Although photography was a male-dominated field, Cunningham made a name for herself while also supporting the work of other women artists. Her long, varied career is the subject of the new exhibition Imogen Cunningham: A Retrospective at the Getty Center.
Discover the story behind one of this year’s most dramatic images through the lens of Highly Commended wildlife photographer Buddhilini de Soyza.
When the Mara and Talek rivers broke their banks in January 2020 due to unseasonal flooding, the famed Tano Bora coalition of cheetahs were faced with a difficult choice.
The Natural History Museum in London is home to over 80 million objects, including meteorites, dinosaur bones and a giant squid. Our channel brings the Museum to you – from what goes on behind the scenes to surprising science and stories from our scientists.
Kilian Schönberger – I’m a professional photographer & geographer from Germany; born in 1985. My aspiration was always to cut my path as a photographer with an own creative perspective – despite beeing colourblind. I recognized that I could turn this so-called disadvantage into a strength, too and developed my own unique photographic view: E.g. while getting a picture of a chaotic forest scene, I can’t clearly distinguish the different green and brown tones. Brushing aside this “handicap” I don’t care about those tones and just concentrate on the patterns of the wood to achieve an impressive image structure. Currently I have two residences: One in Cologne and one near Ratisbona in Bavaria. My photographic work concerns the whole range of topics from natural landscapes to cityscapes. Remote rural areas are photographically as interesting as the lifestyle and architecture of urban melting pots. Both worlds fascinate me and so I try to capture my individual view of these changing and challenging environments. For landscape photography I prefer temperate and high latitudes and alpine landscapes. I like the harsh beauty of those areas and the peculiar melancholy that surrounds them. Regions which I am interested in are Norway, Iceland, the Alps, Scotland, the Pacific Northwest, Saxon Switzerland, Kamchatka, Patagonia, New Zealand, the Altai Mountains, Canada and Siberia. After a dozen years in the Rhineland (Bonn & Cologne) I’ve moved to the Bavarian Alps close to Lake Chiemsee in 2021. So large parts of the Alps like the Dolomites, but also my home region in Eastern Bavaria is easier to reach for me now.
Animal photographer, Tim Flach’s latest project is a testament to the diversity of birds. “I’m celebrating this extraordinary wonderment out there”, he says. Shooting birds like a fashion photographer might photograph human subjects, Flach’s images are purposefully anthropomorphic. “There is a role for an anthropomorphic approach,” he says, “I want to grab people’s attention to think about the wonderment, beauty, character and maybe their stories”. Which, he hopes, will elicit in the viewer empathy for birds “We became who we are because of this rich biodervisity if you took that away we would be lesser”.
Boomers Daily 