17 Apr 2018

Bali

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In order to get to Raja Ampat, I flew to Bali, stayed there for two nights and took the flight to West Papua. On the way back, I stayed in Bali for another three weeks. I had made a mistake with my fight dates back to Bulgaria and had booked a date that was a month further in the future. I managed to arrange to change the date, but I still decided to give myself two weeks more than the initial week and a bit, that I was planning to stay there. I just wasn’t so keen in staying in a place that was so touristy and popular, like Bali. But after being there for a while, I decided to give it a chance and explore the island further.

Kuta and all of the Denpasar Area is very urbanized, with lots of traffic and tourism. When I saw it initially, I thought that I will never drive there. Ubud, where I stayed the second part of my visit to Bali, amazed me with it’s ancient architecture, lively traditions and amazing little shops. The streets we covered with rice and flower offerings every day and the air smelled of incense sticks. The local people were honoring their hinduist traditions very strictly and certainly not for tourist show.

Getting more used to the traffic in the South of Bali, I got braver and hired a scooter with which to explore the island. I quickly got used to riding amidst the craziest traffic and learned the local ways of behaving on the road. Almost every day, I would ride to a different place, but the island is quite big and I managed to see only a small part of it.

The people of Bali are quite positive, relaxed, friendly and helpful. I made some local friends and learned more about their life and culture. I happened to experience the Balinese New Year, where for a whole day, you switch off all lights and stay quietly at home. There are even special people patrolling the streets to make sure that no one goes out.

I also spent a few days filming the monkeys in the specially designated local park. These creatures are quite interesting and funny to watch and the little ones are just adorable. But make no mistake to think that they are friendly to humans. They are only interested in getting something to eat out of you and can be very aggressive. Once I was trying to shake off the monkey that got on top of my rucksack and tried opening the zipper. In an instant another monkey darted towards me and bit my leg. Fortunately, she didn’t manage to brake the fabric, but I still got a bleeding bruise and went to the medical station for them to disinfect it. They assured me that these monkeys are all healthy and don’t carry any diseases, but just bear in mind to be very careful when interacting with them. In the end, I collected quite a bit of footage of these monkeys, but the final video is still in the making, as some of the files got damaged.

After all, I was quite amazed by the colorful life of Bali, it’s diversity of landscapes, beautiful traditions and the lovely and welcoming locals. I will certainly want to go back and see and film more of it.

I am preparing a few videos with the footage, I managed to film on the island, but for the moment only one is ready and available: https://youtu.be/JdlTsEoJtLA

Some footage from Bali can also be seen in this one hour long collection of aerial shots, that I have filmed over the last few years: https://youtu.be/Wiw5kYi1TL0

  • Sunset in Kuta.
  • Storm is coming.
  • The amazingly decorated architecture in Ubud. Every traditional house has it’s own temple.
  • Every day there was a ceremony somewhere, that didn’t have anything to do with tourists.
  • The beautifully sculpted rise gardens.
  • Enjoying the view.
  • I rarely have my picture taken, let alone by a talented professional photographer like Nargiz Suleymanova 🙂
    Check out her soulful photography at: https://www.instagram.com/nargiz.suleymanova/
  • Beautiful memories…
  • Sweet old lady, that makes you smile 🙂
  • Many shops in Ubud were so beautiful just to look at.
  • So much colour…
  • Babies playing in the tree.
  • The incredible Banyan trees.
  • Peaceful meeting…
  • The most amazing Banyan tree that I have seen.
  • As above…
  • …so below.
  • I love the view of big, strong roots, that hold the earth and rocks in a strong embrace.
  • This side of Bali is not suitable for diving, but is loved by surfers, for it’s big constant waves.
  • You have to be very specific in your needs 😀
  • The freedom…
  • Just normal traffic in Denpasar.
  • Long stretches of quite empty beaches.
  • Evening in Ubud.
  • One of the many scary monsters that come out on the streets on New Year’s Eve.
  • The beach in Seminyak is full of tourists, but is so wide and beautiful with the waves gliding over the sand for ages.
  • Surfers love Canggu.
  • Amazing little hidden waterfall.
  • Guests on my table for lunch 🙂
  • The famous water temple in Beratan Lake.
  • Bali can get pretty wild too.
  • Lots of people were riding their motorbikes and scooters on these long empty beaches.
  • Storm is coming, I need to leave.
  • But it’s too beautiful to stop filming and photographing 🙂
  • Traditional Balinese dance performance, depicting a story of gods, kings and battles and… love, of course.
  • Find the differences 😉
9 May 2017

Thailand

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On my first trip to Thailand, I spent a month on an island in the South of the country. I flew to Bangkok and took a bus to the Sounth on the same night, as I didn’t want to stay in this big crazy city. When I arrived on the island I was amazed by the totally new for me sounds of animals and birds, that could be heard in the daytime or in the night. On the first evening I was shocked by the sight of a big gecko on the ceiling in my bath. I quickly moved to get my camera, but when I came back, it was gone. Later I heard a strange sound, that turned out to be the same kind of tokay gecko. It is still one of the most adorable sounds for me. You can hear it in this video of nighttime frog, chickets and gecko sounds that I recorded: https://youtu.be/9xyUEVeJPO8

I couldn’t wait to start exploring the jungle there and to see all these exotic types of plants and trees and hear all the sounds of these tropical forests. Unfortunately it rained, and rained, and rained… It rained most of the time for nearly two weeks, even though it wasn’t supposed to be the rainy season. In the end I decided to try to film and record the rain. After many successful and less successful tries, I managed to collect enough footage and sound, to make this video: https://youtu.be/c9pQYOGIWM8

When the sky finally cleared, I started exploring and filming the island’s and jungles and beaches. I also went on a two-day boat trip to the nearby marine national park – an amazingly beautiful and wild place on it’s own. I made a video of one of it’s many wild beaches: https://youtu.be/xGRjCa49C6U

The jungles in the area were lush and rich with vegetation and wildlife and there were some very big old trees and exotic plants. One sound that I didn’t particularly like and I was trying to avoid in my recordings was the sound of what I later found out to be a type of cicada. It sounds like a very high pitched constant noise and I didn’t imagine that the people watching the video would find it relaxing. This is the result of my few hikes in the local jungles: https://youtu.be/MCuFfW3X324

On my way back to the airport, I spent a whole day in Bangkok and started to appreciate how relaxed, peaceful and friendly it’s atmosphere was, despite the constant traffic, crowds and noise. Overall I loved Thailand and will certainly be coming back there.

Here’s a video collection of some of the most beautiful and peaceful beaches, that I managed to film: https://youtu.be/BZYMzs0Jt94

And here is a short film with music with different scenes and aerial shots of the tropical beauty that I saw in Thailand: https://youtu.be/c8vN7Llnyqo

  • I cannot describe how peaceful a warm tropical evening like this one feels…
  • Little huts in the jungle.
  • No rain at last!
  • Mangrove plants.
  • Boat trip to the local marine national park.
  • The dense and lush jungle vegetation.
  • A local man quietly fishing in the evening.
  • Pristine wilderness.
  • The steps to get to here are pretty steep and exhausting, but it’s surely worth the effort.
  • My driver for the day.
  • Sometimes there are moments like that too 😉
  • Local fishing boats.
  • Cosy restaurant on the rocks.
5 Feb 2017

Cosy Cove

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During my last summer’s holiday with two friends to the Northern part of Greece, I had a chance to film some beautiful beaches and rocky little coves along the coast. The weather was amazing and the water of the sea crystal clear. Unfortunately a lot of the footage was ruined by human made noises. Anyone that has tried recording nature sounds, knows how difficult and sometimes impossible it is to escape the noises of modern civilization.

During the trip, we stumbled across an area of the coast where the sea and the wind have shaped the rocks into some amazing forms. The forms were so incredible, that I could spend hours just exploring and photographing them. At the end I managed to make a long loop relaxing video of a cosy little cove, surrounded by those rocks. You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/lxNXf9fBv0g

  • Perfect beach.
  • To me this rock looks like the famous Japanese painting of an ocean wave.
  • Greeks know how to take it easy…
  • Maybe not ideal place for recording sounds, but still a great place to be 😉
  • The cosy cove…
  • Peaceful sunset.
  • Getting up really early is not my strongest side, but when I do, I really enjoy photographing the landscape at this time of the day.
9 Oct 2014

UP to Paradise

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Central Balkan National Park is one of my personal favourite pieces of pristine nature to visit. On one of my hiking trips to Paradise Hut, whilst taking the usual photographs, I decided to try experimenting with more video and to film different scenes on the way. In the end I had a large enough collection of them to make a short film. The video is following the path towards the “Paradise Waterfall” in Bulgaria. “Raisko Praskalo” is the highest waterfall on the Balkan Peninsula. It falls from a height of 124,5 metres and is situated right under Botev peak (2376 m) in the Central Balkan National Park. The area is a reserve, protecting a rich diversity of wildlife, plants, majestic old natural forests, pure mountain streams, waterfalls and impressive rock formations. “Paradise Hut” (“Hizha Rai”) is the name of the tourist lodge situated under the waterfall, that is only accessible by foot. You can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/2eAdXwZjHNA

  • Me posing for my camera on a tripod.
  • The way down…