On my way to the Galapagos Isles it was worth while spending some time in the Ecuadorian volcanic highlands, in Quito with it's colonial era capitol and in coastal Guayaquil the economic center of the country and our departure airport to the Galapagos. The main attraction in Quito is it's magnificent colonial "old town." The three hundred plus year old beginning of the city boasts impressive original colonial architecture and hundreds of years old churches. There are endless photo ops in the square mile that is colonial Quito. Guayaquil is a thirty-minute flight from Quito, a modern city with miles of a beautiful river front promenade and a colonial times artist neighborhood in which the neighborhood it's self is art. In general, costs of visiting these cities can be done, nicely, on a cheap South American fare or an expensive New York City expense account, your choice.
The Galapagos Islands are located less then a two-hour flight from Guayaquil. As you are approach landing, the overhead luggage compartments of the plane are sprayed for unwelcome, non-indigenous bugs, you begin to better realize you are going to visit a special place. The tour operations are well organized by the tour operators and most weeklong tours start and end on Saturday. The tour companies chartered flights land in the small airport in Isla Baltra, buses are waiting your arrival for the short trip to the docks and the harbor where the live-on-board yachts and boats are anchored. A quick trip in a zodiac, or panga as they are called locally, brings you to your boat. The options of tours range from large, hundred passengers ships to eight passengers sailing yachts. The two or three days tours are land based and use speed boats to transport you to near by isles where many other tourist are also visiting. For the weeklong boat tours, in my opinion, the smaller the better, as I will explain.
The Galapagos Isles are a highly regulated and protected National Park. Isles tour destinations are mandated by the park and not the tour company and are subject to change. Itineraries are similar although some maybe a bit better then others. Virtual all itinerary include all the target species that visitors come to see. The one important exception is the giant tortoise. The place to see these creatures in the wild is in the highlands of Santa Cruz Isle and requires a special bus charter from Puerto Ayora to take you to the sanctuary where they can be found.
The Galapagos Islands have been on my destination list long before I aspired to photograph nature. Reading and seeing photos and National Geographic programs of the islands put them on my “places to see before you die” list. After doing some research about how to photograph in this place, I decided, to join a Galapagos photo Safari tour. Let me say that the best way to photograph nature in the Galapagos is with a specialized photo tour. Although there are all kinds of tours to the islands, unless it’s specific to photography, it will be a frustrating and unproductive experience. While these trips are more expensive, they are well worth it. A photo tour, unlike others, allows you and your small group to set up tripods, be at the site at the right time, and spend the time to capture the wonders that are all around you.
The photo destinations in Galapagos National Park are small and uninhabited islands, which are essentially low volcanic mountains, and cooled lava flows. Pangas transport you to the landing site which maybe on a beach in the shallow surf or on slippery rock out-cropping. Short, marked trails, some consisting of large sharp lava rocks and boulders, wind around the sights on the islands, namely, birds, sea lions, fur seals, lizards, tortoises and iguanas. A park’s naturalist accompanies all landings and guides the walk. Remarkably, the wild life has not learned mankind to be a threat, which permits for close up observations of behaviors and appearance that cannot be experienced elsewhere. Photography can be an intimate affair between you and the subjects.
This brings me to focal length for the Galapagos. Before I went on the trip, I e-mailed the group leader, a very experienced nature photographer who has been to the Galapagos several times, asking him to recommend lenses to bring out of my six lens array. His cautious but unhelpful reply was “bring them all” and maybe there was some wisdom in the advice. I did not follow his suggestion; for my Nikon DSLR I brought my 18-200 VR which I used for most shots and my 80-400 VR which I used some of the time. The photography on the islands can be well accomplished with focal length from 35 to 200, but the longer reach and wider angle is critical for some photos so I’d say that 18-400 mm would be optimal. Few opportunities presented for my 12-24 that I also had with me and I found no occasions that required my 60 mm macro.
Image stabilizing lenses are a significant advantage on a Galapagos outing. Some photography, of marine iguanas and penguins for example, takes place from aboard bouncing panga, no tripod possible. Generally, there is plenty of light in the Galapagos, the exceptions maybe sunset or particularly cloudy days. Park rules do not permit use of flash. Most in my group of eight photographers used tripods almost all of the time. I thought they missed a lot of great moments of wild life behaviors since their tripod was set up in the wrong direction or on a different subject. A booby bird pointing, sea lions frolicking, birds in flight or about to fly with wings spread, are momentary events that are over in seconds; tripods in my opinion, do not allow the spontaneity of subject and composition that hand holding brings. The wildlife is literally all around you, constantly moving, doing and changing, I wanted to be ready for any eventuality, I hand held my VR lenses and only used my tripods on a couple of sunset shoots. I was very happy with the results.
Of course, we all have our styles, objectives, and visions. A photo visit to the Galapagos, however, requires, some special focus on your photo objectives. What do you want to do there? I asked this question of my fellow travelers; some had no idea other then “take photos,” others had specific objectives for example: documentary photography of the islands species with particular attention to gender, mating rituals and care of the young, the wild life in their natural habitat context, birds in-flight, wildlife portraits and so on. Knowing what your primary objectives are help with selecting the focus of your photo activities from the endless possibilities at any given time. Let me illustrate from my experience what I mean by recounting my first landing on the Galapagos, which as it turned out, was typical.
Cruising all night from the island of Baltra, where the airport is located, brought us, early in the morning, to the Isle of Genovesa. The target species there were Nazca booby, Magnificent frigatesbirds and Petreus owls. After a 5:30 breakfast we loaded onto the panga and arrived at a wet, black lava rock wall ten minutes later. We quickly discovered carefully placed boulders that made sort of a “stair case” to the top of the steep forty-foot wall. Some of the less fit members of the group wondered what they got themselves into. As we neared the top of the wall and set foot on the isle, which was essentially a large flat lava rock outcropping, we first heard the very loud screeching, calling and chirping of birds. As we topped the wall, in front of us lay an open plateau covered by scrubland inhabited by thousands of birds in various sizes, shapes and colors. On the scrub and land the birds were perching, standing, running, flying, nesting, building nests, incubating eggs, feeding their young, and as we approached the trail head the birds would not move, we had to go around them. As we were standing at the trailhead bewildered at the sights, our naturalist, who came up the wall last, joined us and began to talk about what we were looking at. His talk began to organize my thoughts and focus my objectives, but you can guess at the random shots I might have begun to fired off with my two cameras each with a different focal length zoom and four gigs of CF cards, had I not had some ideas of what I wanted to do. I was looking for wildlife in unusual poses or ritualistic behaviors that can be captured from novel angles and composition, perhaps lofty, but nevertheless I wanted images that would endear the subject to the viewer so that by looking at the photo the subject would become cherished and treasured. Well, you judge if I succeeded, photos are enclosed and for more about the Galapagos please visit my web www.traveling-images.com.
About the Author
Photography has always been part of Joe Liftik’s love for the outdoors and travel. His photographic vision is to capture what makes all that is around us unique, beautiful and cherished. Landscape and nature are his passions but any subject is fair game for his lens. More of his worked is available thought his website www.traveling-images.com
