In the June issue of ANWB REIZEN (Travel) a ten-page article on the best squares of Barcelona with some nice blow-up images. The opening spread is one of my favorite images from last year, one thet I really had to crawl into the crowd to get: the wedding ceremony with all the rice. Next week I hope to find some time to upload all the images from this shoot, one of my favorite ones by far as I really tried to get up close and personal with my subjects.
Text: Femke van Welsenes
Photography: Fotograferen.net (except the nightshot of the fountain).
Defqon.1 widescreen (1600×1000) and XL (1600×1200) wallpapers, ready and done! Just click on the image for the widescreen or the link below for the normal ratio (4:3).
And here they are: 265 photo’s of this years Q-Dance Defqon.1 at the Almere Beach. please enjoy, it was simply an amazing day with plenty of sunshine and a crazy liveshow to finish (Headhunterz). Wallpapers will be ready tomorrow (Monday) so you’re welcome to have another look again. As there are so many images to choose from PLEASE let me know which image(s) you’d like to see as a wallpaper!
Finally some fresh wallpapers, I’ve been lacking the past few months but there’s just so much to do! Please enjoy these colorful underwater images from this amazing tropical Caribbean island.
Click here full the full set of scuba wallpapers or click one of these (widescreen) images below. Just remember, they are also available in a normal (non-widescreen) XL hi-res size!
Some guys have all the luck I guess, quite often I feel like I’m one of them but last week there was no doubt about it whatsoever. After doing a small press-release for the Telegraaf (the largest Dutch newspaper) on heli-diving in Curaçao, which is exclusively organized by a good friend of mine he suddenly asked me if I’d like to do it myself tomorrow?
After less than a nanosecond, a huge smile on my face and a big “Are you kidding me?” things were taken care of and a day later we were setting our gear up on a small industrial platform near the huge oil-harbor of Willemstad. With me were Belgium adventurer Marc Sluszny, underwater photographer Peter Verhoog and Walther Bruckschen, a German Journalist, the lucky bunch so to speak!
As a heli-dive is not completely without danger we had to do a full-gear practice inside the hangar which had a very good airco. Just imagine practicing this sort of thing with full wetsuit and heavy scuba gear in the soaring 35 degree weather of this tropical paradise! Most importantly is the jumping out of the heli: if this isn’t done in perfect sync the heli can easily tilt and that’s something you don’t want 2 meters above the surface of a sea! The trick is a third person inside the heli that holds both divers hands while they climb outside and hang backward fully. Literally your faith is in this guys hands as he controls the moment to drop, it’s simply out of your hands.
The Amazing view over Willemstad from the chopper.
And what a drop it is! After an intensely beautiful flight under the impressive Julianabrug, along Willemstad and all its bright colors, the low pass over the Pontjesbrug with many people waving and taking photographs (the helicopter is open so they see you in full scuba-gear) it’s time for a sharp right turn over the stunning blue seawater and the approach to the wreck site. Niels Jorissen, the owner of DivecharterCuracao and the organizer of these heli-dives, is already waiting with his 25 feet Tornado RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) so all we have to do is climb out and wait for the right hovering height of the helicopter.
Now that’s a heli-drop!!!
So there we are, hanging outside, arm and legs stretched out fully, one hand over mask and breathing equipment, waiting for the plunge…. Then suddenly we’re falling, we pretty high so we have time to soak it up! above us the heli shoots upwards as it suddenly lost about 200 kilo’s in weight. Then the splash comes, water all around us and the tail of the chopper quickly vanishes from our viewpoint. We’re done, floating about while the heli goes for the next bunch of drop-outs! What an insane feeling and what a way to go diving, knowing one of the nicest wrecks of the Caribbean(the Superior Producer) is waiting for us below…. we ARE truly lucky!
The front deck of the Superior Producer.
Belgium adventurer Marc Sluszny enters the hold of the ship.
German travel writer/photogrpaher collegue Walther Bruckschen.
Underwater photographer collegue Peter Verhoog.
With many, many thanks to:
Niels from DiveCharterCuracao who organizes these heli-drops, unique in the world.
George from Blue Skies for making his heli available to us.
Chilo from Chilo.tv for editing the movieclip.
Full gallery on the heli-dive here.
More images from the Dive Festival Curaçao 2009 here.
360 Degree super Hi-res view over the Grand Canyon from Sab Bani Khamis.
It’s called Jabal Shamss, which translates to “Mountain of Sun” and what a fitting name it is. At an altitude of approximately 3.000 meters (10.000 feet) it’s majestically situated under an almost allways blue sky with the intense Arabian sun shining above it, casting it’s deep shadows into the depths below.
The hiking path of Jabal Shams.
Jabal Shams is not really a mountain as you’d expect, it’s a mindboggling crevasse of immense proportions, therefore the name “Grand Canyon of the Middle-East” is way more fitting. Not only is the viewpoint [Google Earth] at the road through the Al Hajar Mountains range one of the nicest stops in the region: an actual hike through the Canyon is even better as the path is situated halfway up the cliff face of about a thousand meters.
Tiny village 600 meters below us.
In order avoid the worst shadows we leave early for our hours-long trekking, the sun will be nice above us for most of the trip so we’ll be able to enjoy the best of the views. And boy, are those views amazing! From the early start till the final bits it’s hard to keep your eyes on the small but pretty manageable path. At points it gets close to the edge and one viewpoint is just simply breathtaking when we can see a tiny village more than 600 meters below us. Even with my biggest telelens it’s hard to get it fully visible. Apparently the few kids that live in the dozen or so houses are picked up daily for school but it’s just hard to imagine living there.
Mill stones in the deserted village of Sab Bani Khamis.
Even harder is imagining living in the deserted village Sab Bani Khamis [Google Earth] that we come across after an hour or so. It was abandoned after a dam closed off their water supply that made it possible to live there. Just simply imagine a rocky ledge of no more than thirty meters wide with a deadly drop to the depths of the canyon. A couple of terrasses where they managed to grow crops and a few mud houses underneath a hanging ledge that towers above for hundreds of meters. Now that’s remote living!
