One of my favorite views has got to be the top of the Roque Nublo, or the “Cloudy rock”. One of the highest parts of Gran Canaria, one of the Spanish Canary islands west of the Moroccon coast, can be reached with a pleasant 45 minute hike. Just stepping onto the plain top with the two massive volcanic remnants is amazing. They still look so small but after walking the last bit you just are in awe because of their sheer size.
A few images from the World Championships Snowboarding 2011 in La Molina, Spain. For the full story join my Facebook and see all images.
[Update: January 21st 2011]
Images from the Coca-Cola FIFA World Cup Celebration in the Amsterdam ArenA (The Netherlands) during the second qualification game between Holland and Japan at the 2010 World Cup. With: Waylon, VanVelzen, Alain Clark and Leona. Presented by Martijn Krabbé.
About time to add some panoramic images from all over the world, a section that I will be updating more over the coming months.
Most of these have been stitched using the excellent Hugin stitching tool.
View over Nagasaki, Japan, from the Clover Garden elevator. 2004
My most viewed photo of 2009 has got to be this Armin van Buuren wallpaper with a steady 10.000 photoviews since I posted it in early March. So, here it is in laptop wallpaper format now as well (16:9 that is) plus a few other ones of the world’s number one DJ. Enjoy!
Due to the setting up a completely new interface for Fotograferen.net I’ve been lacking in my “Views of the World” postings. Sorry about that, but I’ll try to keep it a monthly affair from now on.
This months view is a truly classic: the Victoria Falls [Google Earth] as seen from Zimbabwe and Zambia. For several magazines and newspapers I have covered “The Route of the African Sun” in the 2005: a route between three of Sun Internationals greatest hotels in the Southern part of Africa. The final one on our route was the Royal Livingstone, a stunning five star hotel at the edge of the Victoria Falls in Zambia. With Zebras and Monkeys playfully surrounding your private hotelroom this is truly one of the most spectacular places to relax. Sipping good wines at the veranda while the sun sets, the African wildlife surrounds you with its noises and the water of the great Zambezi river floats underneath to a certain drop just hundreds of meters away.
However, the only right view is from the Zimbabwe side ,not an easy undertaking with all the horrible problems created by its dictator Robert Mugabe. We managed to get a (quite expensive) taxi-driver who proved his worth right after reaching the border facilities. We were through in minutes in what would have taken us an hour or more if we hadn’t have had him. A lot of money later (the Visa was ridiculously expensive too) we were finally there: Zimbabwe and a stone’s throw away from the falls. Not before spending way too much money again at the entrance to the falls we were finally allowed in and boy was it worth it!
Despite the gruelling 45 plus degree weather (exactly 24 hours later I was on the tarmac on Heathrow at minus 5!) the site was too stunning not too walk around for a long time. And even though it was very much dry-season for the falls, it was still an amazing sight to have experienced!
Finally, three high-res panoramic images to enjoy: The entrance of the falls.
Some final images of the past two days before I leave for Switzerland Tomorrow.
Yesterday’s half-pipe saw some amazing action but the light was horrible for photography. Still managed to pull a few nice shots, especially from the winner Ryoh Aono from Japan.
Ryoh Aono 2x
If yesterday was cold, today was Arctic. With heatpockets in both hands I managed to keep my fingers a bit above freezing temp but the conditions weren’t as nice as they were in the first few days. Guess we saw it all this week: full sun, biggest snowfall in 20 years and freezing windy icechills to end the week with.
Last contest was the Big Air which had horrible angles from all sides so no real great images here too. Perhaps tonight for the finals things will be nice with my slaves and all the lamps they’ve put up at the jump.
David Mol (close-up) and Pim Stigter (action)
That’s it for this amazing Korean week, what a great place for such a contest. I’m off, Laax (Switzerland) is next… see you after the weekend.
Some more shots of todays action: the half-pipe contest which sadly turned out to be a bummer for Dolf van der Wal (missing the finals by 2/10 points on a disputable judging score). Some nice shots even though the waether was a bit bleak.
The nights Big Air practice turned out to be fun again while stressing the camera to the limits, using the high ISO range and two slave flashes. Happy with the results and ready for the contest the day after tomorrow.
Todays carving action wasn’t too succesfull for Nicolien either but fortunately I was able to do some decent freestyle shooting today. First some shots at the half-pipe (in between parallel slaom heats) and then some difficult shots with slave-flashes at the nightly big-jump practice session.
Tomorrow: half-pipe qualification and perhaps a couple more bigjump shots…
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