Carolina Yañez - Chilean Bird Guide
We don't travel independently, so guides are a very important part of our trips. I've decided to try and get nice photos of them, something I find quite challenging, mainly because taking pictures of people is hard. Birds don't care what their photos look like, whereas people do - and you don't want to let them down. Also, I'm carrying a non-traditional portrait lens - 500mms, which isolates faces nicely, but hampers communication by setting you a fair distance from the subject.
For the photo below of Sergio Urrejola, our guide at Parque Nacional Patagonia, I shouted "Stare into the middle distance!". For Carolina Yañez, our leader for the first couple days of the trip around Santiago, I yelled "Stop smiling!", because she was laughing at me too much.
Yáñez is a marine biologist. ln addition to work on various bird-related research and conservation projects, she's also does environmental education in Valparaíso area schools. As a guide, she was fantastic. Deep knowledge of natural history is a prerequisite for the job, but hardly sufficient by itself. Carolina also brought the other necessary skills - organization, leadership, communication, and social that inspired confidence and delivered a perfect introduction to birding in Chile. A big thank you to her, and to BirdsChile.
Carolina Yañez - Chilean Bird Guide
We don't travel independently, so guides are a very important part of our trips. I've decided to try and get nice photos of them, something I find quite challenging, mainly because taking pictures of people is hard. Birds don't care what their photos look like, whereas people do - and you don't want to let them down. Also, I'm carrying a non-traditional portrait lens - 500mms, which isolates faces nicely, but hampers communication by setting you a fair distance from the subject.
For the photo below of Sergio Urrejola, our guide at Parque Nacional Patagonia, I shouted "Stare into the middle distance!". For Carolina Yañez, our leader for the first couple days of the trip around Santiago, I yelled "Stop smiling!", because she was laughing at me too much.
Yáñez is a marine biologist. ln addition to work on various bird-related research and conservation projects, she's also does environmental education in Valparaíso area schools. As a guide, she was fantastic. Deep knowledge of natural history is a prerequisite for the job, but hardly sufficient by itself. Carolina also brought the other necessary skills - organization, leadership, communication, and social that inspired confidence and delivered a perfect introduction to birding in Chile. A big thank you to her, and to BirdsChile.