Laurence B. Didion, our fomer president of IFWP, has written some beautiful and shared feelings about our missed friend and companion Karlo.

We will never honour him as much as he deserved.

"Several years ago, as I was coming to visit the IFWP Swedish club PhotoNatura for the first time, an unknown member and his wife volunteered to put me up for a few nights. I did not know then that I was meeting my best photography partner, a man like no one I ever met before. His name was Karlo Pesjak, he was buried some weeks ago and many nature photographers, not only in Sweden, already miss him as much as I do.

We all try to live a loving life, to ve a loving individual. We help others to show our love and to be loved in return. I discovered with time that for Karlo, helping was just motivated by the pleasure of sharing life with fellow humans. He did not try, did not want, was not passionate or excited.

He was simply in love with all forms of live: you, me, this couple walking down the street, this plant here, the fox there, or anything animal, vegetal or ethereal as a beautiful landscape. And because joy suffused his relationship to the whole world he had a great warm sense of humour that showed in his images and in the way he talked about them. Though his eyes, a water spider became a satellite in the night sky, the viewer was turned into a voyeur witnessing two crows private life, common months turned into out-of-space aliens.

His love of life, his trust, allowed him to try and try again, and that is what made him so creative. It is only now,, missing him, that I realise that his art was deeply suffused by his very unique personality. It is only now that I realise how much we (I) can learn from him in relation to creativity and what being a (nature) photographer is about.

I am sure Karlo would smilingly agree with Oscar Wilde saying: «Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. »

Laurence B. Didion"

We sadly have to announce that our IFWP Board member (Vocal) and dear friend Karlo Pesjak (Sweden) has passed away recently.

He was an active member of PhotoNatura (PN) and the Swedish Nature Photographers (N). During my five years as secretary in PN and now as secretary of the IFWP there was not one single time when we needed volunteers for activities that his hand wasn’t upp. He was generous, helpful and sweet, and with his cheerful self and wonderful sense of humor always made things take a more positive turn.

For those who met him know what a big heart he had, always putting people first. For those who had the pleasure of joining forces with him in nature photography know what a fantastic photo enthusiast, photographer and nature lover he was. 

He will be dearly missed and our hearts reach out to his family.

SUMMARY OF THE XXVI AEFONA’S CONGRESS 2018

We have just returned home from this year’s AEFONA congress, and we are very happy to have shared lots of beautiful moments with friends and colleagues for a long weekend.

The XXVI AEFONA congress was held in Valdellòs i Hospitalet de l’Infant (Spain) last weekend and there we enjoyed activities and talks for three days, 6-8 of December.

The first day, Thursday the 6th of December, started - as always - with the General Annual Assembly for our members, and this year it was very special since AEFONA’s board has changed. The board team leaded by Pablo Bou have left after four years of amazing work, and the new board lead by the new president, Miguel Ángel Pedrera, was voted and elected.

After this, the program started with the talk of the association Young Nature Photographers, who came to present the international community of young nature photographers, and they presented the work of one of the young members of the community, Arnau Pou.

Later that morning we enjoyed the talk by Fran Parody, Foxes, a look at their privacy: Silacea project, and after we could listen to José Luis Gómez de Francisco, who presented his book 35 years of photos on the backpack.

The afternoon continued with the talks of the Catalan Society of nature photographers (SCFN) and the Spanish Photography Confederation (CEF).

Later, we enjoyed the talk by Uge Fuertes, with the presentation of his new book Imagining worlds, and after him, we listened to the talk by Javier Puertas, Photographic Nature; followed by the last talk by Oriol Alamany and Eulàlia Vicens, After the trail of the snow leopard.

On Friday the 7th we started early morning with a photographic activity outdoors at sunrise in one of the iconic places in town, the beach of Torn.

Once back at the auditorium, we started the second day watching the audio-visuals by AEFONA members, we talked about the news for this coming year and we got to know our sponsors this year, which are: Arcadina, FotoRuanoPro, Eltima, Olympus, Fujifilm, Akashi Travel, Photopills, PhotoLogistisc, FotoK, Kamera, EGM, Canson, Ajuntament de Vandellòs i Hospitalet de l’Infant.

Later the same morning we continued with the talk by Óscar Díez, Time is what it is, followed by Mario Suárez with his talk on Artistic bird photography.

We finished the morning with the presentation of the award-winner for the Conservationist Photographer of the Year 2018, prize awarded by AEFONA. And the winner for the 2018 edition is Jaime Culebras for his project “Ecuador, the biodiversity in extinction”   

After the lunch break, we enjoyed the talk by Pere Soler, Bird’s eye view, followed by the presentation of Ramiro Díaz’s personal project, Once upon a time there was a mouse, and J.B. Ruiz’s personal projects, Nature video with drone.

The afternoon was closed by the award-winner of the contest Conservationist Photographer of the Year (FCA), Jaime Culebras, who presented us his talks Ecuador, a megadiverse country and Loosing the biodiversity in Ecuador.

We started the last day of the congress with a new outdoor photographic activity at dawn, this time to enjoy the beach of Torn, emblematic landscape of Vandellòs i l’Hospitalet de l’Infant, from another perspective.

Once we all gathered again in the auditorium we listened to the presentations by Juanjo Peñafiel, From the invisible to the visible and by Ilñaki Relanzón, From Malvinas to Galápagos: the wild archipelagos.

The last talk was given by the Portuguese photographer Ricardo Lourenço, who showed us two presentations: the first by the collective to which he belongs with three other photographers, Alentejo Salvaje, and the second his personal work, Realces.

All this without forgetting our fantastic exhibition, which this year took the title Our magic nature, and contributed to this magnificent weekend.

And as always, receiving the newly printed IRIS with the work of our members is always a very emotional part of our congresses.

Thanks to everyone for another year!