International Photography Award Winner!

For the last 20 years I have refrained from entering photography contests. I am not sure why, but it was just something I didn't do. I think the main reason was that I saw so many other photographer's images and thought that mine just would not hold up to that standard. 

This year I decided to enter a couple of the largest photo competitions to see what would happen, and as it turns out, I am getting some nice recognition for my work. Earlier in the year, I was selected as one of the Sports Photographers of the Year and then this week I was notified that I took second place in the International Photography Awards. 

Interestingly enough, it was the same image taken of a skateboarder at the Paris Summer Olympics that has garnered the most attention. I did have four other images take Honorable Mentions in this latest competition. 

Looking at all the winners from these competitions makes me feel incredibly honored, as there are some incredible images capture by some really talented artists out there. But I am very happy to be included in this group.

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Alaska and more.

• You can purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
_________________________________________________________________

Galapagos - Day two - Iguana and more on Isabela Island

I just looked at my images from the Galapagos tour to grab images from our second day of the trip, and even I am surprised at how much we saw in one day. We woke up off the Southern coast of Isabela Island for our first full day of the photo tour. All of us were excited to capture some amazing wildlife amongst the volcanic rock.

Whenever I have heard people talk about Galapagos, I have never once heard anyone say anything about the colorful crabs, but we all loved them! They are all over the islands, and so much fun to photograph. Right after we got off our Zodiac we saw these crabs and walked around looking for the crabs with the best colors, and in a location where we photograph them at eye level. This one got up high and posed for us. I didn't think this would be the first subject of the day, but it is still one of my favorite images from the trip.

As we walked onto the island we saw Sea lions everywhere, and they are so used to people that we had to be careful not to step on them. This one decided to have a rest on the bench. No sitting there for us!

For those who have never been to the Galapagos, the islands are very protected. You can not bring food onto the islands and one guide is required for every 10 people. The guides are excellent sources of information, but also help to guide us in how close we could get to the wildlife.

This was our first time seeing Water Iguanas. We all had fun capturing photos of this one, not knowing if we would see more...

...but we saw LOTS more. They were everywhere.

There were so many that I had to help my guests figure out how to frame them for a shot. We looked for interesting clusters of the iguanas, both close up...

...and wide. 

Whenever I teach, I remind my guests that when they take a photo, they should focus on a "subject". In this case, it is the iguana that was closest to me. Remember, people will be drawn to which subject is most in focus.

It was fun to see so many of these iguana piled into a small area. A couple of days later, we watched as these iguana fed under water, but that is a future blog.

I had no idea that they had penguins in the Galapagos. Now I can say that I have photographed them in South Africa and off the shore of Ecuador.

This was also the first time that we saw a Blue-footed booby and we were all very happy to get a photo of this un-official mascot of the islands. You will see in a future blog post some really cool photos of these birds in action.

Towards the end of the day, we had some free time to walk around a beach to either relax or look for more interesting photos. I saw our boat (and home) just off the shore and thought I would take a photo to share with you all.

I found some more Water iguana on the rocks, and decided to get down low for a good shot. Laura captured this image of me doing my thing. :)

This is one of the photos that I captured while in the water.

I saw this iguana hanging out, with the tide washing in and out around it. I decided to slow the shutter speed of the camera to try and get some motion of the water. This was taken at 1/4 sec which was the slowest shutter speed I could get (at ISO 50, f/36).

This iguana was licking the minerals off of a rock, and each time it would turn towards me and open it's mouth. I waited for that moment and grabbed this shot. 

After we returned to the boat, we had a really nice dinner and then watched the sunset. It was an awesome first full day of the trip. 

More to come!

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Alaska and more.

• You can purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
_________________________________________________________________

Galapagos - My first time there and it was totally amazing! - Day one

For many years now I have been talking to other photographer friends and my photo tour guests about their favorite places that they have visited. Consistently the answer came back - Galapagos. It has been on my bucket list for a long time, and last month marked my first visit to these amazing islands. After spending more than a week there and seeing what we saw, I expect to be back there many times in the years to come. 

Actually, I have already added another photo tour to Galapagos for 2027, which you can see HERE. I just added it to my web site about a week ago and it is already half sold out.

What makes this area so special is that every island (or different sides of the larger islands) has something totally different from the previous stop. The terrain is different, the wildlife is different, and the photo opportunities are plentiful.

Today is the first of numerous blog posts from the Galapagos trip last month, and we start from the beginning. Well...actually we did a day tour of Quito, Ecuador before we headed to the islands, but I will save that for another time.

After landing on Santa Cruz island, we were transported from the airport to the coast, where we would get on board our boat. As we approached the dock, we stopped to see this beautiful view of the water. It was gorgeous!

We checked out our rooms on the boat, met the crew, had a nice lunch, and then headed back onto the island to go see the Giant Tortoises. 

The Galapagos islands are most known for the Giant tortoises and the Blue-footed boobies. On this first day, we got to spend hours with the tortoises and were thrilled to see so many of them. The light was perfect and I encouraged my photo tour guests to get down low (those that could) to get photos at their eye level.  I was using the Canon R5 Mark II with the RF 24-105mm lens and took most of the photos as low and wide as I could.

As I mentioned, we had overcast skies which was perfect for photographing these guys without harsh sunlight and shadows.

The Giant tortoises can grow up to 600 pounds and live as long as 150 years. I took this group shot to show the size of the animal compared to us. I also took individual images of all my guests with the animals.

After shooting many images with the RF 24-105mm lens, I switched to the Canon RF 100-500mm lens to get in nice and close. 

I encouraged everyone to shoot in burst mode to get nice photos showing their movement.  We all decided that Steven Spielberg must have used the face of the tortoise as his inspiration for "ET".

There must have been 40 of these tortoises in the area that we visited, and we had the place to ourselves, which allowed for images without any other people in the shot. We watched as they ate...

...and went for a swim. 

It was really fun to watch them move around and capture them in their environment. After hearing about these creatures for so long, it was awesome to actually be in the Galapagos photographing them.

Just before leaving the area, it was time for me to get my portrait with the tortoise. It was an amazing start to an incredible week in the Galapagos. Stay tuned for so many more photos, above and below the water!

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Alaska and more.

• You can purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
_________________________________________________________________

Peru Photo Tour - Our last days in the Amazon Rain Forest

Each time that I do the Peru photo tour, we end with 3 nights in the Amazon rain forest. It is a welcome change from the high altitude and cooler weather of Cusco. On this trip, we did something a little different, taking a sunset boat ride on canoes looking for wildlife on the day we arrived.

The first thing we saw were some Muscovy ducks (thanks to Google Images for identifying this one) flying in the distance. I was using the Canon RF 100-500mm lens, but it was still way out there. Even though this was a pretty heavy crop, the high resolution of the Canon R5 Mark II meant that I still had a nice photo.

As we paddled along the water, we spotted a bunch of Parakeet around a hole in the tree. While watching them, a Woodpecker flew over and took their spot. It was funny to watch the Parakeet sitting off to the side and watching the Woodpecker from a nearby perch.

Just after taking the previous photo of the birds, the sun dropped below the horizon and we headed back to the dock. But not before taking this photo of the pretty scene. 

The next day we do a walk through the rain forest (on a raised path) to get to a nearby lake. There is always lots to see here, including this beautiful Ibis that flew by us. 

Our guides paddled us around the lake (with some assistance from me) so that we could spot some good subjects. We did get some nice close-up photos of the cayman in the water, but I like this one because it shows "the scene".

The lake is known for their Giant Otters, and we caught a glimpse of some of them playing around in the water. 

Right as we got off our boat, we looked up and there was a group of Red Howler monkeys above us. If you read the blog a lot, you know that I have seen countless Howler monkeys in my 15 trips to the rain forest of Costa Rica, but those are the Mantled (black) Howler monkeys so it was fun to capture an image of the red species. 

We also saw a small group of Capuchin monkeys, which look a little different from those in Costa Rica.

On our last day, we got up VERY early in the morning to visit the clay licks of Peru. After many hours of travel, we were treated to a half hour show of Blue-headed parrots which were covering the face of the clay. It was really fun to see for the first time, but difficult to capture in photos.

We did get a chance to photograph the birds as they flew over us.

We had hoped to see the Blue and Yellow Macaw on the clay lick, but that was not to be. We had numerous groups fly over, but none of them came down to the clay.

Regardless...it was fun to capture images of them in flight.

As we were wrapping up at the clay lick, one of our guides pointed out this owl that was perched right near us. We all had a great time getting photos of this Burrowing Owl as it kept an eye (or two) on us.

We stopped at a local place (located just off the river) for some lunch, and some of us caught a glimpse of this Brown-mantled Tamarin. This is a species of monkey but almost looks more like a bear. Another first for me!

While eating our lunch, we were surrounded by beautiful butterflies...

...and hummingbirds. It was the perfect way to wrap up the trip. We then went back to the hotel and relaxed for our last afternoon in the Amazon before packing up and heading to Lima the next morning. Another successful photo tour to Peru and I look forward to going back in 2027. Make sure to join me on that trip! 

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Alaska and more.

• You can purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
_________________________________________________________________