Galapagos Photo Tour - Day 4 - Land iguanas and more

On our fourth day in the Galapagos, we visited Fernandina Island and Isabela Island (morning and evening) and spent some time in the water in between. I will be sharing the snorkeling photos soon, but not just yet. 

While making our way over to Fernandina Island, we saw many species of birds flying around us.  I captured this image of a low-flying Pelican as it flew along the coastline.

We also saw the Flightless cormorant birds for the first time. You can tell by the small wings, that these birds have, over many generations, lost their ability to fly. Amazingly enough, they swim very well and we saw many of them under water.

As always, we were greeted by many Sea lions.

While on Fernandina Island, this was our first really good sightings of the Land iguana. Unlike the Water iguana, these creatures are much more colorful and larger. This was one of the first Land iguana that we saw, so we all took turns getting down low to get a nice portrait of the face.

As we walked around, we came across numerous other Land iguana.

We all had fun photographing them at different angles.

It was fun to get down low with the Canon R5 Mark II and RF 100-500mm lens, to get right into their faces.

This one was in nice sunlight and even posed for us.

This was also the first time that we had seen the Giant tortoises since day 1 of the trip.

Towards the end of the day, as we pulled away from island, I saw these two birds sparring in the air. I loved the late-day sunlight on them and fired off a bunch of frames to see if I could capture them interacting. This was the best "peak of action" shot of the bunch.

After our multiple land visits and time in the water, it was time to head off towards our next destination. Before meeting for dinner, we all had a chance to relax on the boat. I was standing on the bow, when I noticed that we were joined by a bunch of Frigate birds. They were riding the air current of the boat and stayed with us until the sun set. I had all of my guests (minus one) who were in the area, get together for a group shot with out visitors.

Stay tuned for more from the Galapagos.

__________________________________________________________

• 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 Photo Tour - Day 3 - Blue-footed Boobies in Action!

On our third day in the Galapagos Islands, our group woke up to a whole new environment, even though we were still off the shore of Isabela Island.. As we came out of our rooms on the boat, we could see that this western side of the island was covered in endless lava rock.

After breakfast, we took a short zodiac ride over to the island and did a walk through the lava field to see the terrain up close.

After our walk, we got back in our zodiac boats and cruised along the shoreline in search of wildlife. We were all excited to see more penguins. 

We watched as this penguin hopped up on a rock and then jumped into the water.

Just like the days before, we were all captivated by the colors of the crabs, and had to get more photos of these creatures.

Weirdly enough, as we were cruising along the coastline, we saw this feral cat that swam from one rock to another. That is an animal I did not expect to see in the Galapagos. It turns out that people brought cats as pets many years ago, and now the Charles Darwin Foundation is trying to eradicate them from the islands since they pose a threat to the native wildlife. 

The subject we were hoping for the most was the Blue-footed booby. As I mentioned in a previous post, this is the bird that the islands are most known for.  We took photos of this one on the rocks, but hoped to see many more.

It was not long after we saw the booby on the rocks, that we came across an area where the Blue-footed boobies were dive bombing for fish.

Watching these birds diving in formation reminded me a lot of the US Navy Blue Angels flying in their formations. 

We watched and captured endless photos of these birds as they repeated this pattern over and over again. I really liked it when they exited the water, since it showed action and showed their blue feet really prominently. 

For all these photos, I was using the Canon R5 Mark II with the RF 100-500mm lens. I had the camera set to high speed burst mode and kept my shutter speed to a minimum of 1/2000 sec.

Capturing photos of them in flight was fun, but the most fun was hearing them splash down into the water just feet from us..

We captured photos of them flying in all directions...

...but one of my favorite photos was this one, when one of the boobies flew directly at us. The Canon R5 Mark II locked in perfectly on the eyes of the bird and I got this shot. I love the intense look on it's face, the wing position, and the water droplets that are flying out from behind the bird. This would have been a much harder photo to take with the old DSLR cameras, but with the subject and eye detection of the Canon mirrorless cameras, it allowed me to capture the eyes of the bird perfectly. 

More to come from Galapagos...including some underwater photos and video.

__________________________________________________________

• 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.
_________________________________________________________________

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.
_________________________________________________________________