A little background story.

 

When I was 19 I bought my first camera. the Canon 400D, A fun and cheap camera to start with. When I finished my education in Graphic Design that same year, I decided to go learn Spanish abroad. I chose to go to Guatemala for 8 weeks. During those 8 weeks I learned Spanish 5 days a week, 4 hours a day. In my free time I explored Guatemala and even visited Honduras and El Salvador. These 8 weeks where a good opportunity to get to know my camera and of course, I took many many pictures. It was during that trip that I fell in love with Central America. When I got home after 8 weeks I was determent to go back. I started saving up right away. Being only 20 at the time I started another education so making my next trip would have to wait till after. That gave me 4 years to continue saving money. Slowly but surely going back came closer and closer. Finally I set a date on going. January 2015! Six years after the first trip. During those six years my love for photography, nature and animals grew. When I bought my macro lens, macro photography was almost the only thing I did. I got really interested in finding and shooting butterflies. In the Netherlands I went on countless trips in order to find as much butterflies as possible.

 

Just before I went on ‘the big journey’ I wanted a new tele-zoom lens in order to capture monkeys or birds high up in the tree or in the sky. I also bought a Gopro to be able to capture awesome moment in the water. Now my camera kit was complete. I had a ‘ordinary’ lens, a macro and tele-zoom lens and a Gopro. I was ready to shoot everything I was about to go see.

The years leading up to the second journey, it evolved from just wanted to go back to a true photography trip with a goal of seeing as much animals as possible. During my trip I decided to start a checklist in order to keep track of all the animals that I saw. After a while that became an obsession! I now started to look for the animals that I hadn’t see yet. Everywhere I was I went on organized nature trips or just by myself to spot animals. Before I went on a daytrip I did research to know what kind of animals there where in that specific region. After knowing that I set myself a goal to go find those 1 or 2 animals that I had in mind. Of course seeing other animals was a big bonus. During my 3 months there I was fortunate to see many animals and beautiful nature. check out my animal checklist           if you're curious to how many and which kind of animals I saw! Although I saw a lot, there are still animals that I hoped to see but didn't like the Quetzal, Jaguar, ocelot, Whaleshark and Manta ray. So I guess I have to go back a third time...

 

-Tjarda de Rooij-