Rainy season brings new life

I have devoted some of my time to sea turtle conservation. I work as a volunteer or an intern in projects and help local organizations with their effords to save these beautiful animals from extinction.

Thse sea turtle conservation projects have taken me to some fasinating places on earth. Mostly fairly remote islands with limited infrastructure and loads of time to kill. As most work on these projects is done either during the night or early morning, it gives perfect opportunities to watch and follow wildlife around me. And my gosh, there is so much of it. I can not go anywhere anymore without my camera, beacuse if I do, then that is exactly the moment when I see something amazing.

Currently I am working in a project in a small island of Carriacou in Caribbean. The rainy season has just started and the nature is blooming with flowers and new life is starting all around me. Another project worker just told me that he saw a cow giving birth when he walked the road to the nearest shop. The cows roam free here. He did not have his camera with him, but I surely will not leave mine behind for a small moment.

Ecotravelling and protecting sea turtles

People who love to travel and care about the environment are somewhat torn between these two aspects of life nowadays. How to justify travels with airplanes to far away places when you know that it is bad thing from environment point of view.

For me the answer is volunteer work in environmental and animal conservation projects. I find a project in a place that I would like to visit and make my contribution towards the environment by working in a project. It is also excellent way to get to see more than normal tourist and gets me near the nature and animals.

Since I started this way of ecotravelling, I have been to Galapagos Islands, Thailand, Australia, Costa-Rica and Carriacou, a small island in Caribbean. Most of these places I have chosen because they offer projects in protecting sea turtles.

Here in Carriacou, I am working especially with two critically endangered sea turtle species; leatherback and hawksbill. I help with measuring and tagging the nesting females, protect the eggs from poaching and natural dangers and finally I sometimes get to see the little hatchlings go out to the sea.

I find this way of travelling very satisfying. I get to see more than what a "tourist" sees of the place and I can do some good with my time. And it is not all just work and no fun. In volunteer projects there is always some time to get around and do stuff you enjoy the most.

I have still 2 weeks to go here in this project, but I am already starting to think about my next project: maybe animal sanctuary in South Africa or Bolivia. I would be able to work with many different animals and help to nurse them back to health and release back to the wild. That would be so awesome!

More about volunteer projects www.ekomatkaajat.fi/english

Kaisa Ylituomola, House manager of Kalliolan kesäkoti.

Kalliolan kesäkoti, built 50 years ago for families who did not possess the finances or the opportunity to travel during the Summer seasons in Helsinki City.

The Summer home has not been renovated since the 1970’s and is in severe need of full refurbishment.
Now it seems aid is on the way after a resident who had spent her childhood there addressed the proceeds of her will to the Summer home.

A High mid day sun proves difficult at the very best of times, today's location was under canopy of fairly tall tree's, so I tried to avoid the stray beams of intense light penetrating through the leaves and branches by finding more of the consistent shade.
Two strobes were used, one Nikon SB-28 high up and close on camera right at 1/4 power accompanied with a Stofen Omnibounce, then a second SB-28 on camera left fired into a gold reflector on 1/8 power. Both strobes fired remotely using Pocket Wizards.

Photographer: Tomas Whitehouse
Client: Kalliolan Setlementti
All Images © Tomas Whitehouse. All Rights Reserved.
If you would like to read more visit: Helsinki Kuvaus

Opening of Cartina photo-blog

Photo Agency Cartina is one of biggest digital photo agency in Finland with priority in nature photography. We also offer photographing services, mainly in Helsinki, but also in most bigger citys in Finland. In this blog our aim is to let photographers speak, tell about what they are doing, thinking or planing. Hope it will give some idea about how, what and who we are.

And of course new photographers with unique material are welcome to join us.