In cooperation with the Society of German Nature Photographers (GDT), photokina 2012 will present different lectures every day on the community stage about the fascinating world of nature photography

“The stage is set for nature!” will be the daily theme on the community stage in Hall 5.1 during photokina week, from 18th to 23rd September. Together with the Society of German Nature Photographers (GDT), photokina will present a new lecture each day from Tuesday to Saturday on the theme of nature photography.

On Tuesday, 18th September at 1:00 p.m. Markus Botzek will start things off onstage with his presentation “Nature photography through changing times”. Botzek looks into the question of what makes nature photography so fascinating and why it’s not only a “fair-weather hobby”, as people who aren’t photographers sometimes suspect.

Winfried Wisniewski will turn his attention to the habitat of the Serengeti on Wednesday, 19th September, at 5:00 p.m. He has made more than 25 photographic expeditions to East Africa and in his talk, “The Serengeti lives — a natural World Heritage Site in jeopardy”, he calls our attention to the beauty of this region with the aid of stunning photographs.

For over three months the nature photographer and natural scientist Paul Kornacker travelled in Namibia, one of the most colourful countries in Africa. With his camera in hand, he explored the oldest desert in the world, visited the Himba, a native people with one of Africa’s richest sets of traditions, and was a guest of the Bushmen. He will talk about his photographs and experiences on Thursday, 20th September at 5:00 p.m.

On Friday, 21st September at 5:00 p.m. the focus will be on the Japanese winter on Hokkaido. In his lecture, “Winter spirits of Hokkaido”, Martin Eisenhawer will present authentic photographs of three fascinating types of bird that can be found during the hard Japanese winter on Hokkaido, the northernmost of the Japanese islands. He will report on the difficult photographic conditions presented by Hokkaido in winter.

Ariane Müller and Marcus Sonntag will round out the lecture series event on Saturday, 22nd September at 12:45 p.m. with their report on central Norway as the habitat of musk oxen. Over the course of two years, these two nature photographers documented the life of this unique species in the Dovrefjell National Park in Norway. Sometimes on skis and pulling a sled, they accompanied the herds in the colourful autumn as well as the hard winter near the North Pole.

In addition to the lectures, the Society of German Nature Photographers will present an exhibition in Hall 5.1 at photokina 2012 featuring the best images from the “GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year” competition.

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