Want to see what it’s like to photograph wild gorillas up close and personal? Check out the clip above from the 1974 documentary Gorilla by Dieter Plage. It shows Belgian photographer and conservationist Adrien Deschryver in heart of Kahuzi-Biega National Park in Zaire, snapping pictures of gorillas from a short distance away.
In dramatic scenes the tale of an abandoned baby is shown in heart-stopping detail. Brought into the forest by Deschryver to help it adjust to its natural habitat, it begins to scream when it hears other gorillas, and is subsequently snatched from him by the dominant silverback. Stunning photography captures the sheer force of the silverback’s intimidating demonstration before he grabs the youngster.
Deschryver demonstrates one of the things you learn in Photographing Gorillas 101: don’t run when they charge. Read more…
Ever wonder how much you’re paying to keep your rechargeable camera batteries juiced? The answer: probably around a buck or two a year. Researcher Baskar Vairmohan of EPRI conducted a study to determine the effect of popular gadgets on our nation’s power grid, calculating the annual electricity costs of various devices. He found that an iPhone uses $0.25, an iPad uses $1.36, a 60-watt light bulb uses $1.61, a laptop uses $8.31, a desktop uses $28.21, and a fridge uses $65.72. Camera batteries probably fall somewhere between an iPhone and a light bulb, meaning they’d cost less than a Starbucks coffee to power for a year — though you still need to pay for the (often pricey) batteries themselves.
Here’s a simple tip by photographer Benjamin Von Wong for traveling abroad: you can make recharging your devices overseas a breeze by building a charging station using a single power adapter and your own power strip.
