looduskalender.ee

The consistent theme in the recent book by acclaimed nature photographers Urmas Tartes and Arne Ader is the path to the story and the magic impact – the wow – of a nature photo. How to capture an engaging story in a photo? How to catch the moments when words become superfluous? The basic principles of photography are universal. It makes no difference whether we concentrate on close-up photography, telephotos or ordinary photography. Neither does the subject of the photo change the fundamentals of photographic thinking. So those too who haven’t yet arrived at photographing nature find material for reading here. It is a lavishly illustrated handbook for nature photo enthusiasts, beginners as well as professionals.

One of the authors, Urmas Tartes, professor at the Estonian University of Life Sciences, recently received an award at one of the world’s most prestigious nature photo competitions, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year. Urmas Tartes is also the first Estonian to achieve this. The winning work was the photo of a snow springtail on a snowflake, competing in the category “Animals in their environment”. The story of the photo is also told and explained in the book.

Arne Ader is one of the first Estonians who dared to devote himself wholly to photographing nature when Estonia’s independence was re-established; for him photography is a life interest as well as a profession. About 400 000 nature photos are viewed each month in the Loodusemees (www.loodusemees.ee) image library, created by Arne Ader in 2000.

*UT – University of Tartu; TÜ, Tartu Ülikool