An arachnid from the island of Tasmania is seen above in a photo by Shahan Derkarabetian. Its tall eye-mount, which looks like a neck and a head, is very unusual. And after capturing the rare creature with his camera, the reactions to it have been sort of strange.

“When I put photos of this on social media a lot of people thought this was from the ocean. I had to correct multiple people (who said) ‘That’s crazy! It’s amazing what you can find in the ocean.’”

“This is from underneath a log!” said Derkarabetian, the entomology curator for the San Diego Natural History Museum.

Derkarabetian took up macro photography after he got frustrated with the poor photos he was trying to take through his microscope. He says taking these super-close photographs help you get to know the creatures a lot better.

“You see how they move, you’re paying attention to the fine details of how they look and maybe things you wouldn’t notice from somebody else’s photograph, right?” Derkarabetian said. “When you’re looking through the camera, and you see this weird structure, you want to focus on it.”

Derkarabetian attended San Diego State University and got his Ph.D. from UC Riverside. He spent five years at Harvard as a postdoctoral fellow.

He has focused his studies on arachnids called Opiliones. You may know them best as daddy longlegs or harvestmen. He said the name comes from Leiobunum Vittatum, which is very common in the U.S. and typically appears around the fall harvest.

Opiliones are not spiders and they’re easy to tell apart.

“Spiders will have two body parts. But Opiliones will have those fused. So they are basically a ball with legs,” Derkarabetian said. “Harvestmen don’t have venom. They don’t have fangs. They don’t make silk. They don’t make webs or anything like that and they are completely harmless.”

Harvestmen come in many varieties. Triaenobunus Pilosus is another native of Tasmania. Trogulus Tricarinatus originally came from Europe and it’s now seen along the Eastern Seaboard. Derkarabetian found one in the park where he’d eat lunch while going to Harvard.

Derkarabetian is a Southern California native who fell in love with nature at a very early age, growing up on the edge of development in Rancho Cucamonga. He says, to go into nature, he just had to cross the street.

“There was one day I remember. I wasn’t really paying attention to bugs or anything but I flipped this rock and there was a giant centipede. And it scared me but I couldn’t look away,” he said. “And ever since then I’d be flipping rocks and looking at the rolly pollies and the snails and things so it kind of started there.”

And now he’s collecting those strange, hidden creatures for The Nat in San Diego.

For a lot of photographers, the act of traveling is a double-edged sword. We travel to be able to see the world and draw as much inspiration as we can from everything we see and experience. At the same time, the act of traveling often requires pushing out of our comfort zones and leaving behind a lot of the things that allow us to operate with fewer worries and limitations.

Traveling often involves the unpredictability of new surroundings, the randomness of photographic subjects, and the requirements (and limitations) of our gear. Travel is a huge equalizer that requires a lot of planning and a lot of energy to make sure that the experience is both productive and refreshing at the same time. Here are four things to keep in mind that might help you make the most out of your travel experiences no matter where you are going.

1. Don’t Let Unfavorable Weather Stop You

A lot of photographers get discouraged when the condition outdoors don’t seem to be optimal for photography. One reality that many of us have to accept is that the weather won’t always be pleasant, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be anything worth photographing. Of course, one should always prioritize safety when the natural environment becomes dangerous, but for days when clouds cover the sky and maybe even a bit of intermittent rain falls, it might just be advantageous for you to push yourself to go out and make the most out of the day. This is especially true for trips with very limited time because you probably want to make the most out of the time, effort, and money that you dedicated for such an experience.

When we travel for the sake of photography, we do so with a wide variety of photographic goals. Personally, I spend my time yearning to see and photograph beautiful places around the world, both natural and man-made. Other people like to travel to photograph scenes on the streets, faces of the people they meet, and unique objects that represent and tell stories of that particular place. One important thing to remember is that these stories never stop due to bad weather. People in a particular place continue their way of life amidst gloomy and cloudy skies. Landscapes have distinctly unique appearances even in rough weather, and city life goes on to glow even on a rainy night.

While the weather may change what you see and photograph, it doesn’t meant that there isn’t anything to capture at all. If you find ways to continue exploring a place even when the conditions are not what you expected, and you learn to adapt to what the place is offering to show you for that particular day, you will never run out of discoveries and stories to tell.

2. Give Yourself Some Wiggle Room

As travelers and even as photographers, we are told to always plan, plan, and plan. With limited time in a particular place, there is, of course, undeniable value in having a solid plan on when and where to go at a certain time in order to make the most out of your trip. However, we also have the tendency to be too fixated on following a schedule and simply getting from one place to another that we forget to actually experience the place and gather personal memories along the way.

We must always remember that there is so much value in allowing yourself to get lost (to an extent) in order to feed your curiosity and make memorable discoveries. It is, of course, not advisable to start a trip with absolutely no plans, but it’s great to know when you can take a few steps back and play things by ear.

In our recent trip to Hong Kong, we made a simple list of the things we wanted to see and the places we wanted to photograph. We put them in no particular order and assessed what was feasible on one particular day and basically chose where we felt like going. At the same time, we gave ourselves a couple of hours in the afternoon to see new and random places where we don’t even know what we will see. With just four days in the city, we can definitely say that we made the most of the experience because our craving to do photography in the city was satisfied equally by the shots that we planned to do and the scenes and stories that we stumbled upon along the way.

3. Don’t Forget To Be a Tourist

It’s important to take into consideration everything that you need to be able to survive being away from home for a few days. Of course, one of the most basic steps is arranging for transportation and lodging, and both of them have so much impact on your overall experience. Remember that being in a place where you don’t feel safe or comfortable will affect every other aspect of your trip, which is why it is definitely reasonable to pay for a little extra comfort if you can afford it.

You’re also inevitably going to have to eat, which is why it makes sense to also explore when it comes to food. This doesn’t really mean that you should splurge on the most expensive restaurants, but instead, make the search for good memorable food part of your exploration. Travel guides and articles will probably tell you all the popular places, but it’s also beneficial to ask locals where they like to eat around the area. If you’re into other things worth checking out such as coffee, tea, or even shopping, these give you opportunities to rest for a few minutes while still experiencing life in the place you’re visiting.

4. Connect With People

In most travel destinations, it is inevitable that you will meet people along the way. The world may be beautiful on its own, but a lot of the things we photograph when we travel are due to how people bring places to life. No matter where you go, you never lose anything by meeting people and making new friends.

Everywhere you go, you will meet people who embody the identity of the place that you’re visiting — people who work at hotels and restaurants, fellow travelers, or random strangers living their daily lives. If you’re looking for unique stories and if you want to learn about a place on a deeper level, it will be from the stories of the people around you.

At the same time, in a world where communication happens very quickly no matter the distance, it is very likely that you have talked to or even worked with people from this new place that you are visiting. Taking a few hours to meet with them in person and learning about them and their place will literally open more doors for you.

Traveling for photography can be both relaxing and stressful at the same time. When your passion to take photos bring you around the world and push you to leave your comfort zone, making the most out of the trip should also mean giving yourself room to be comfortable enough to actually enjoy the experience.

Photographer Gauri Gill has won the 10th Annual Prix Pictet Photography and Sustainability Award, taking home the massive prize of 100,000 Swiss Francs (about $109,219), one of the largest if not the largest sums for a photo award in the world.

The Prix Pictet is described as the world’s leading award for photography and sustainability. It was founded in 2008 by the Pictet Group — a Swiss multinational private bank and financial services company — with the goal of harnessing the power of photography to draw global attention to critical environmental issues.

Not everyone can enter the competition, as entry is only allowed through nomination through Prix Pictet’s global network of over 300 nominators which includes critics, curators, and other specialists in the visual arts. Nominators are asked to recommend portfolios that have the power and artistic quality demanded by the prize. Since it was founded, the organization says that more than 5,000 photographers have been nominated, “all of whose work in one way or another testifies to the fragile state of our planet.”

Once the nominees have been collected, an independent jury shortlists those who are considered artistically outstanding and also tell a compelling narrative that is related to the theme of the year. From that shortlist, the jury selects a winner who is awarded the 100,000 Swiss Francs.

This year’s winner is Gauri Gill, an Indian photographer who was selected from the short list of 12 photographers for her series Notes from the Desert.

“On my many visits to rural Rajasthan, I have witnessed a complex reality I knew nothing about as a city dweller. To live poor and landless in the desert amounts to an inescapable reliance on oneself, on each other, and on nature,” Gill says of her series.

“These fragments of shared experience now inhabit a large photographic archive called Notes from the Desert, encompassing different narratives and varied forms of image taking.”

“In a world facing unprecedented challenges, from social inequality to environmental crises, it was crucial to turn the lens towards humanity itself. The theme Human provides a platform to explore the complexities, vulnerabilities, and strengths of the human condition. It allows the artists to capture and communicate the stories, struggles and triumphs of individuals and communities around the globe,” Executive Director of Prix Pictet, Isabelle von Ribbentrop, says.

“Through this theme, Prix Pictet aims to foster a deeper understanding of our shared humanity and inspire meaningful conversations about the issues that impact us all. Especially when thinking about the theme Human, I strongly believe that instead of the future of photography, we should think about photography of the future. The power of the image lies in its ability to foreground critical and urgent environmental issues in a visually impactful yet direct way.”

Gill’s winning series along with a selection of images from each shortlisted artist’s portfolio will tour up to a dozen locations worldwide. A full list of all events and exhibitions is listed on the Prix Pictet website. All of Gill’s photos as well as all of the shortlisted images can be perused in the Human gallery.

Image credits: All photos by Gauri Gill and provided courtesy of Prix Pictet

Mondo Psycho part 1

From the series Mondo Psycho. ‘Too loud, too soft, too high, too low, too thin, too fat, too tall, too short, too quick, too long, too little, too much, too hard … mondo psycho!’

Photograph: Daniel Noone

Landscape photography can be a real trudge sometimes, both literally and metaphorically, with tremendous amounts of effort exerted for just the chance at the photo you are looking for. And with that can often come frustration and a lack of motivation. Nonetheless, the best landscape photographers often have a few traits in common: they repeat shots and they persevere through challenges. This excellent video essay discusses how those qualities can serve you. 

Coming to you from Mads Peter Iversen, this awesome video essay discusses the importance of repetition and perseverance in landscape photography. While these traits are important in just about any genre, they are particularly important in a specialty in which you do not have full control of all the elements of the process. Planning ahead can do a lot to increase your chances of getting the right conditions and light, but at the end of the day, it is just that, a chance. Being willing to accept that you might not get what you had hoped for and more importantly, being willing to try again are crucial. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Iversen. 

And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out our latest tutorial, “Photographing the World: Japan With Elia Locardi!”