Posted on 16 May 2023
By Marsel van Oosten Introduction Last month, I spent two weeks on the frozen sea ice along the coast of Baffin Island, Canada, searching for female polar bears who had just emerged from their dens with their newborn cubs. Knowing that encounters would likely not be closer than 100 met > Read More....
Posted on 18 May 2021
Two of the gear-related questions I get asked most are 1) what camera bag do I use, and 2) how do I get all my camera gear into the plane as carry-on luggage. 1) The camera bag Every nature photographer, whether it’s landscape or wildlife, is on a never-ending quest for the perfe > Read More....
Posted on 23 April 2021
We are very excited to announce Marsel’s new book! MOTHER — A Tribute to Mother Earth You may have noticed that Marsel has not been very active on social media the past year, and this is the reason. For a full year, Marsel has been working his way through over 666,000 images, re-processing s > Read More....
Posted on 1 April 2021
Having been involved in the global introduction campaigns for both the Nikon D850 and the Z7, I can honestly say that working with the Z9 — Nikon’s new flagship mirrorless camera — has been nothing short of a life-changing experience. For the past month, I have extensively tested the Z9 in rea > Read More....
Posted on 22 January 2020
The results are out, and I’m very happy to share that one of my images was successful in the Travel Photographer of the Year awards. With over 20,000 images submitted from 144 countries, it’s reason to be cheerful :-) What makes this one extra special for me is because so much thought we > Read More....
Posted on 21 October 2019
Dragon Blood is a short documentary by Awi Rabelista about my journey to Socotra, Yemen. Enjoy! Marsel – – – DRAGON BLOOD A Photographer’s Journey to Socotra, Yemen. Some 240 kilometers (150 mi) east of the coast of Somalia and 380 kilometers (2 > Read More....
Posted on 20 October 2019
Dragon Blood. A photographer’s journey to Socotra. Coming soon. Stay tuned. > Read More....
When I decided to travel to Yemen and visit the island of Socotra, I knew that it was going to be something really special. Not only because Yemen is currently fighting a brutal civil war and governments from over the world warn their citizens to absolutely not go there, but also because Socotra is > Read More....
Every photographer has a bucket list. Or sometimes even two: one with locations, and one with specific subjects. For many years my two bucket lists had something in common – both the #1 location and the #1 subject were in the same country: Yemen. Some 240 ki > Read More....
Posted on 9 October 2019
The EIZO CG2730 with an image that I shot in Antarctica with the Nikon Z7 Introduction Little over a year ago, I wrote a review on my EIZO CG247X that I got as a replacement for my trusty CG245W, the world’s first self-calibrating monitor. The downside to having offices in two countries, T > Read More....
Posted on 23 May 2019
Mission control in South Africa. Introduction When I first started in photography, there was no method to my data management madness. When shooting on location, I downloaded my cards onto my laptop and upon my return home I copied everything onto my computer. Every now and then I would make a > Read More....
Posted on 15 May 2019
I’m very proud to announce that I am now officially a Nikon Ambassador. Many of you thought I already was a Nikon Ambassador because of the global introduction campaigns for the Z7 and the D850 that I worked on, but no. In 1988 I bought my very first camera – a pink Haking Pix point-and-shoo > Read More....
Posted on 17 October 2018
I am both extremely proud and totally shocked that I just won the overall title Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2018! My image ‘The Golden Couple’ won First Prize in the Animal Portraits category and then suddenly also won the grand title. I did not see that one coming, which explains why I th > Read More....
Posted on 7 September 2018
Impressions from the field of the new Nikon Z7 mirrorless camera. Introduction Earlier this year I got a phone call from Japan asking whether I would be interested in working on yet another important global introduction campaign for a new Nikon product. As I very much enjoyed creating the Her > Read More....
Posted on 28 August 2018
Here’s another one from our Nikon Z7 project. I was very keen to try out the low light capabilities of the Z7 with the new 35/1.8 S lens, so with new moon we set up our tent in a cool spot and switched to vampire mode – get up in the middle of the night! […] > Read More....
Daniella created a short behind-the-scenes video of our Nikon Z7 project, on her iPhone. It gives you an impression of the terrain we were in while photographing with the new mirrorless Nikon camera for the global launch campaign. > Read More....
Posted on 24 August 2018
When Nikon asked me to shoot for the global introduction campaign for the Z7, they gave me the freedom to decide where I wanted to shoot. After they explained about the larger lens mount and the increased level of sharpness they were able to get because of it, I decided to pick the sharpest landscap > Read More....
Posted on 16 August 2018
Nikon Asia has published a video on how they test the ruggedness of its DSLR cameras – specifically the D850. The video opens with some Dutch photographer with an outrageously charming accent :-) I just returned from a spectacular trip to the Arctic where I spent 10 days on a ship, searching f > Read More....
Posted on 6 July 2018
Dutch online camera store CameraNU.nl has published a short video about me. You can see me at work while hearing me talk about my passion (sorry, its all in Dutch). All footage was shot by Awi Rabelista in Botswana, Namibia and China. > Read More....
Posted on 1 July 2018
Squiverati Sabrina Binkert has created a spectacular drone video on our recent Where Dragons Roam photo tour in China, check it out! If you would like to see and photograph this amazing landscape yourself, then also have a look at the Where Dragons Roam photo tour page! > Read More....
Posted on 4 May 2018
Today – exactly 10 years ago – we hosted our first Squiver tour, which also happened to be the world’s first photo tour to Namibia. Squiverati Daryl Godkin was on that very first tour (followed by 14 (!) more trips with us) and he organized a huge cake to celebrate our 10th anniver > Read More....
Posted on 24 April 2018
At the recent NAB Show in Las Vegas, Nikon had a large booth to showcase the new D850. It was a bit surreal to see they used a double life-size portrait of Marsel for the center wall… > Read More....
Posted on 16 April 2018
An incredible event to witness: seaweed harvesting! Something to remember next time you eat sushi! This time-lapse was shot by Daniella on her iPhone. All editing, music and supers was also done on her iPhone. If you would like to see and photograph this amazing event yourself, then also have a look > Read More....
Posted on 28 February 2018
Daniella edited a short video of our shoots with the swans on our White & Wild Japan tour. She did everything on her iPhone! Unfortunately, all our White & Wild Japan tours are fully booked, but if you’re interested, please let us know so we can put you on the waiting list. > Read More....
Posted on 18 February 2018
We’re off to a good start on this year’s White & Wild Japan tour – absolutely stunning conditions. Daniella shot a short video on her iPhone to show you what it was like. > Read More....
Posted on 5 February 2018
Nikon has just published a video where you can see me shooting for the Hercules Rising time-lapse movie, and where you can hear me talk about the lenses I have used on the D850. > Read More....
Posted on 26 January 2018
I don’t often photograph birds, so that makes it even more special that three of my images were awarded at the international bird photography competition ‘Festival de l’oiseau et de la nature’ in France. This image of a black-browed albatross getting ready for some serious down(sorry)time, w > Read More....
Posted on 21 December 2017
Introduction For the past six years, I have been doing all my processing on an EIZO CG245W – the world’s first self-calibrating monitor – and it’s still going strong. It wasn’t cheap, but if you’re serious about your photography, it makes very little sense to get yourself the bes > Read More....
Posted on 11 December 2017
Nikon has just published a new video in which I talk about some of the features of the new D850. > Read More....
Posted on 8 December 2017
The making of the official Nikon D850 time-lapse ‘Hercules Rising’. Introduction Late 2016 I got a phone call from Japan asking whether I would be interested in shooting a night time-lapse video for the global introduction campaign of the new Nikon D850. It’s not every day t > Read More....
Posted on 8 November 2017
Over the past few months we have been working hard on an 8K night time-lapse for the global introduction campaign of the new Nikon D850. It was an amazing project with an amazing camera – arguably the best DSLR in the world at this moment. We are very proud with the results and hope you’ > Read More....
Posted on 29 October 2017
Just a few short tour impression video clips from our Into The Cypress Swamps tours in Louisiana and Texas – it’s totally amazing here! If you would like to see, experience, and photograph these surreal landscapes yourself, then check out the Into the Cypress Swamps photo tour page! &nbs > Read More....
Posted on 24 July 2017
We’ve had to keep this a secret for a very long time, but we can now officially announce that we have worked on the global introduction campaign for the new Nikon D850. This is the teaser video that we made with some of the footage from the soon to be released time-lapse video ‘Hercules > Read More....
Posted on 15 September 2016
Introduction Last year I shot 66,561 images, using three cameras: Nikon D4: 13,373 Nikon D4s: 28,537 Nikon D810: 24,078 A single D810 file is around 50 MB, so those files alone require 1,2 TB of storage. The other two cameras fill another 960 GB. In total that amounts to over 2 TB of data, [& > Read More....
Posted on 11 February 2016
Every time a publisher asks me for an image, or someone orders a fine art print, the same thing happens. I search for the file on my computer, open it in Photoshop, and think: why did I process it like this? Then I start fine tuning the image, correcting small mistakes, and I end up […] > Read More....
Posted on 15 January 2016
It’s official: we have set up the world’s first swamp photography tour in Louisiana and Texas, and we’re very proud of that! It took us two scouting trips to find all the good shooting locations and sort out the rather complicating logistics, and it turns out it was more than worth > Read More....
Posted on 5 January 2016
Well, not really. Quite often when you see a photograph of a yawning lion, the photographer will try to make you believe that it was snarling. When a lion starts yawning, the first part of the yawn will clearly look like a yawn, but at the very end of it, the expression on the face […] > Read More....
Posted on 16 December 2015
The great things in life always seem to happen when you least expect it. Last week we were still in Antarctica when I got an email from the Travel Photographer Of The Year competition asking me for my high res files. I knew I was in the finals, and I thought I had already uploaded […] > Read More....
Posted on 29 November 2015
The artwork for the upcoming Soul Asylum album ‘Change of Fortune’ will feature my famous snow monkey with iPhone image. And even though I’m more into death metal myself, I think it’s pretty cool that these guys have chosen one of my pictures. > Read More....
Posted on 26 October 2015
Around the same time last year, Marsel and I were scouting for a new photo tour in Louisiana and Texas, and we didn’t really know what to expect. It turned out to be a very pleasant surprise and we managed to get some really good shots. The judges of this year’s European Wildlife Photogr > Read More....
Posted on 26 September 2015
We are proud to announce that photographer Ryan Dyar has joined the Squiver team. Ryan is known for his atmospheric landscape images and his popular post processing video tutorials. Not only that, he is also a great guy to travel with and to learn from, which is why we asked him in the first place. > Read More....
Posted on 22 September 2015
On our Squiver tour to Botswana we stay in two world famous camps: Duba Plains and Selinda. Apart from the fact that these lodges offer us spectacular photographic opportunities, it is also important to know that the conservation fees that we pay for our visit are really put to work by Great Plains > Read More....
Posted on 23 April 2015
At Squiver we try our utmost to set up tours of the highest quality. That is also why Squiver only works with the best people in the field, because we want to make sure to give you the best photo tour available on the market. We are very excited to announce that we have decided […] > Read More....
Posted on 21 April 2015
A few more weeks to go, and we are back in Namibia. We love Namibia. It was the first ever Squiver tour we set up, because we thought it was a location with absolutely stunning and unique landscapes. Marsel has made Namibia “his own” and won many awards with images shot on various locati > Read More....
Posted on 19 March 2015
Botswana is the ultimate safari country when it comes high quality safari tourism: small camps in private concessions, luxurious accommodation, superb wining and dining, so what more do you want???? Oh, right, ABUNDANT WILDLIFE. Well… needless to say we have that part covered! We have put toge > Read More....
Posted on 12 January 2015
That’s a question I get asked a lot, and it’s not an easy one to answer. It all depends on where I’m going, when I’m going there, and what I’m going to photograph. On a landscape trip I take very different things than on a wildlife trip. I was recently asked this questi > Read More....
Posted on 12 December 2014
Well, 2014 has turned out to be another very successful Squiver year – full tours, happy guests, and some great results in the major international photography competitions. The latest addition to Marsel’s award list is First Prize in the Travel Photographer Of The Year Awards. In 2012 Marsel > Read More....
Posted on 22 October 2014
Just ten days after Marsel’s multiple wins in this year’s IPA, he has won yet another award – and it’s a big one: First Prize in the People’s Choice Award category of the Wildlife Photographer Of The Year! In this new category the public could vote for their personal favorite, choosing > Read More....
Posted on 12 October 2014
The prestigious International Photography Awards (IPA) has announced the winners of this year’s competition. An international jury of photography professionals selected Marsel’s series ‘Beyond the veil of death’ and his famous snow monkey with iPhone shot ‘Facebook update’ from over 27,0 > Read More....
Posted on 22 September 2014
The Natural History Museum has published a new book: ’50 Years of Wildlife Photographer of the Year – How Wildlife Photography Became Art.’ With only 180 photographs in the book, I am proud to be one of the featured photographers. It’s a real honor to be amongst so many truly great a > Read More....
Posted on 4 September 2014
With all the terrorist activity going on at the moment in so many countries, it reminded me of the fact that it is still very unsafe to return to Libya, the beautiful country where Daniella and I traveled for two months during our big Sahara expedition. The so called Arabic Spring turned out to be [ > Read More....
Posted on 27 August 2014
I’m a big fan of science, so it’s a great honor that the prestigious scientific journal Nature has used one of my rock arch images on the cover of their August issue. The image is called ‘At The Gates’ and features Double Arch, shot at night at Arches National Park, Utah, USA. The li > Read More....
Posted on 22 June 2014
Interesting. Ashton Kutcher – the actor from Two and a Half Men, and the guy that plays Steve Jobs in the movie Jobs – has posted a filtered version of my snow monkey image on his FB page. I am not credited as the photographer. However, there is a tiny watermark near the bottom of [&hell > Read More....
Posted on 2 March 2014
The shot I made of a lion charging is without a doubt popular. Unfortunately that also means that publishers, or cunning business people think they can just steal it and make the image work for them. I’ve seen it appearing as screen savers, iPad covers, iPhone covers, buttons, pacifiers (!), a > Read More....
Posted on 17 December 2013
We’re back in Ushuaia. Antarctica was awesome. The weather was extremely good – as a matter of fact a bit too good. Lots of sunshine and blue skies, not something I would pick for this place. But I guess it’s better than being stuck on the ship because of storms. We got none of tha > Read More....
Posted on 29 August 2013
We are very proud to announce that Marsel’s image ‘Resurrection’ was successful in the Creative Vision category of the 2013 Wildlife Photographer Of The Year Awards! It was shot in Deadvlei, Namibia, and here’s how it all got started: One of the many aspects of my preparation > Read More....
Posted on 23 July 2013
Photography Masterclass Magazine is a magazine designed exclusively for the iPad Newsstand, and their latest issue features my popular giraffe image on the cover, as well as two other images in the Capture Wildlife Masterclass. The giraffe image was shot on our Wildlife Boot Camp in Spain. This year > Read More....
Posted on 22 July 2013
Here’s the latest blog post that I wrote for National Geographic: Antarctica is without doubt one of the wildest places on earth. It is seriously remote, it is not easy (or cheap) to get there, there is no infrastructure, and the climate is as extreme as it can get. When I traveled there for t > Read More....
Posted on 24 June 2013
The sun has a heartbeat – every eleven years or so it beats. This is known as the solar cycle and is measured by the number of sunspots visible on the sun. The more sunspots, the more solar flare energy is being released into space, which means more aurora activity. Luckily, this solar cycle i > Read More....
Posted on 14 June 2013
The latest issue of National Geographic Traveler features one of my less known images: a romantic dinner set up at a safari lodge in Namibia. :-) Taking shots like this is not much different from any other type of image. It’s all about composition, framing, point of view, light and perspective > Read More....
Posted on 12 June 2013
One of the first photo accessories I ever bought, was a set of LegCoat covers for my Gitzo tripod. Each cover consists of two parts – a soft closed cell foam padding that wraps around each leg and sticks to the leg with the help of a strip of double-sided adhesive tape. The second part [&helli > Read More....
The latest issue of UK’s top selling photo magazine Practical Photography now features my popular giraffe image Looking Up in their Gallery section. Looking Up – a giraffe image done differently The caption says: “This image was shot on a Boot Camp in Spain where I teach photograph > Read More....
Posted on 29 May 2013
Outdoor Photographer now features a blog post that I wrote on night photography in Arches National Park, Utah, USA. Of all the National Parks that I have ever visited in the US, Arches National Park is without a doubt the most iconic. Many millions of photographs have been shot here, and to come up > Read More....
Posted on 17 May 2013
National Geographic (Dutch edition) has asked me to write blogs on photography and my travels for their website. The first one was posted today. Snowmobile An important quality of a wildlife photographer is the ability to predict animal behavior. That means that you should not only look at your subj > Read More....
Posted on 15 May 2013
Earlier this year I was on assignment for National Geographic Traveler in India to shoot for an article on tiger safaris. I was there for a week and visited both Bandhavgarh and Ranthambore, their most famous tiger parks. It turned out to be a very frustrating experience – only on our very las > Read More....
Posted on 26 April 2013
My popular image Ice Capades, shot on our Winter Wilderness tour in Iceland, is now used by Synology in an ad to promote their NAS servers. I’m a big fan of my Synology DiskStation DS1812+, so I can honestly say that I’m behind this ad 100%. If you’re looking for a fast, reliable b > Read More....
Posted on 23 April 2013
Nature’s Best has announced the names of the photographers who will be displayed in the upcoming awards exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. My winning hippo shot from Zambia is one of only 40 images that will be on display. The Awards exhibition > Read More....
Posted on 12 April 2013
I’ve been on safaris in all African safari countries, and Zambia is easily one of my favorites. It’s not as crowded as the Masai Mara, the Serengeti or Kruger, not as expensive as the Okavango, you can drive off road, you’re not limited to opening or closing times of the parks, you > Read More....
Posted on 22 March 2013
We’re back from Iceland – it was awesome. We ran two tours in this amazing country, and they couldn’t have been more different. On the first tour we got everything from Iceland’s famous weather menu: cloudy skies, rain, wind, lots of wind, ice, snow, wind chill factors of min > Read More....
Posted on 14 March 2013
Well, that’s the title that The Weather Channel came up with for showcasing Marsel’s work :-) There’s also a short interview with Marsel on the website of The Weather Channel: 21 Landscapes That Will Blow Your Mind > Read More....
Posted on 10 March 2013
Photography Masterclass Magazine is a magazine designed exclusively for the iPad Newsstand, and I am the Featured Photographer in their current issue. > Read More....
The Namibian Tourism Board has asked me to give their readers a personal account of what it is like there, and share some tips on photography in Namibia. You can read it here. > Read More....
Posted on 27 February 2013
We’re back from Japan. Well, actually we’re already in Iceland now, but we’re no longer in Japan. It was a great trip, thanks to a fantastic group. Thank you guys for all the laughs, it was great fun! There was plenty of snow at all locations, which was the most important thing. We > Read More....
Posted on 22 January 2013
Namibian Nights, our timelapse video that won First Prize in the Travel Photographer Of The Year Awards, is now online! Please visit our Squiver channel on Vimeo for more videos from us! > Read More....
Posted on 11 January 2013
I’ve never had any serious problems with my Nikon gear, but after the expensive repair on my 24-70, I had some other issues.First, the sun shade of the 24-70. When I put the lens in my camera bag, no matter whether it’s on the body or not, I put the sun shade on the lens […] > Read More....
Posted on 6 January 2013
Marsel’s Iceland picture ‘Ice Capades’ is Image of the Month on Naturescapes. Here’s the background info that accompanies the shot:‘Early this year I was travelling in Iceland, scouting for locations for a new tour. I was prepared to see a lot of spectacular landscapes, > Read More....
Posted on 5 January 2013
Just when we thought that 2012 has been such a successful year in terms of awards and recognition, the new year already starts with yet another award. Marsel’s photograph At The Gates has won First Prize in the Nature Photographers Network Awards. NPN is the internet’s top-ranked nature > Read More....
Posted on 1 May 2012
Introduction For years I’ve been using rain covers from StormJacket for a number of reasons: they’re compact, lightweight, quick and easy to put on, effective, and cheap. But you can’t get all that without making some compromises. The StormJackets are not breathable, not quiet, and > Read More....
Posted on 7 March 2012
For years I thought I had a camera bag fetish. Whenever I walked into a camera store, I would spend considerable time at the bags department – picking them up to feel the weight, opening and closing the zippers to see whether they ran smoothly, counting the amount of compartments and dividers, > Read More....
Posted on 7 February 2012
When I first started with photography, I shot mainly slides. I framed them, put them in a box, and the box went into the closet. After a while I started scanning some of my slides onto my computer for some additional work in Photoshop, and suddenly I had a digital backup of my best pictures [&hellip > Read More....
Posted on 25 January 2012
A little bit of history: the M20 Seven years ago I wrote my first review on the Markins M10 ballhead. Shortly after that I upgraded to the M20, and I have been using it ever since. It is still in perfect working condition, and my guess is that it will easily outlive me. From the […] > Read More....
Posted on 31 December 2011
My first serious computer monitor was a LaCie Electron Blue IV, an incredibly heavy, blue beast. It served me well for many years, until recently. It can no longer reach the desired brightness, so I had to start looking for an alternative. At the time when I bought the massive LaCie CRT screen, it w > Read More....
Posted on 3 January 2010
It is with great pleasure that we announce our partnership with Storm Jacket. Storm Jacket Camera Covers are the fastest and easiest way to protect professional cameras and lenses from inclement weather conditions such as snow, sleet, wind, rain, sand, dust, and harmful UV rays. Keeping your camera > Read More....
