We hope all of you have had a fantastic start this New Year!

-CONGRESS. 

As it is usual, our colleague and friend, Francisco Martinez, writes the chronicles of our Congress every year.

You will find all the information of the national photographers invited: Marina Cano, Andrés Miguel Domingues, Salvador Colvée, Nicolás Resusens, Eduardo Blanco, Sergio Marijuan, Iñaki Larrea, Fran Rubia and Félix Fernández Calvillo. And the international photographers: Jorge Silva from Mexico, Ole Jorgen from Norway, Ugo Mellone from Italy-Spain, Sergio Pedrero from Mexico and Jon Andoni Juárez from Berlin-Spain.

As well, you can find lots of information on the activities that were held in Antequera those days.

We hope you enjoy reading these three articles with all the details for our XXIV AEFONA’s congress in Antequera (Málaga) 6-8th December 2016.

http://www.aefona.org/congreso-bajo-telon-1/

http://www.aefona.org/xxiv-congreso-bajatelanii/

http://www.aefona.org/xxiv-congreso-bajatelan-y-iii/

We are ready for the first AEFONA’S members meeting of this year 2017 and it will be in the Gallocanta Lagoon, Teruel, on the weekend of  24-26th February.

For those who don't know, Gallocanta is a lagoon without exit to the sea located about 1000 metres height, between the provinces of Teruel and Zaragoza. It is the largest salted lagoon of the Iberian Peninsula.

In those dates in February, the cranes begin to gather in the area to start their migration towards their territories of breeding.

It is a fantastic opportunity to meet and to enjoy nature with expert photographers from the area such as Carlos Pérez Naval, Pedro Javier Pascual and Uge Fuertes Sanz among others.

See the link below for more information:

http://www.aefona.org/quedada-de-gallocanta/

-IRIS Agenda digital magazine.

Our Iris Agenda has arrived to number 18!

It has been fascinating to see it grow and learn while working on it and showing the variety and quality of the works that our members have shared all these years.

After last number, the Iris Agenda department will be taking some time off to renew, create new ideas and restructure the coordination and gain strength to continue.

Until our Iris Agenda is back again with the edition number 19, we invite you to enjoy the last number here: https://issuu.com/lnhiris/docs/agenda18

-New Book SEASONS OF LIFE.

We are very proud also to present AEFONA’s book Naturaleza Ibérica: cuatro estaciones de vida, a tour on our nature trough the four seasons of the year. Designed by Xavier Hita and corrected and final formatting by Marián Sáenz Diez.

The book has a total of 194 fantastic photographs from 144 photographers members of AEFONA, all in 216 pages of coated 150 grams paper. It includes a foreword from our president, Pablo Bou; an interesting introduction of the naturalist and public speaker Joaquín Araujo, naturalist winner of countless awards and collaborator of Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente; a beautiful and poetic introductory text to the different seasons written by Vicent Pellicer.

It will be ready soon ready on our online store: http://www.aefona.org/latienda/es/

-AFONIB Congress and AEFONA meeting in Ibiza island.

The AFONIB Congress will be held in Ibiza the days 28-30 of April and this year we organise as well with them the first AEFONA’s members meeting in Ibiza.

There will be a lot of activities to enjoy nature and photography, national speakers such as Javier Alonso, Joan Costa, Antonio Moreno, Kiko Arcas, Jordi Serapio and AEFONA’s president, Pablo Bou.

Please follow the link below for inscriptions and more information:

https://www.aefona.org/encuentro-ibiza/

AEFONA is planning a lot more of activities and we will let you know soon!

For any updates in AEFONA’s news go to our webpage http://www.aefona.org

Thank you!

Dear IFWP members, it is our pleasure to announce that our friends from the French club ASCPF are back in our Federation. We are very proud to welcome this association and to thank their involvement in organizing congresses and activities in the past.

We also welcome AFEP Spain. AFEP (Asociación Fotografía en Estado Puro) means Photography in pure state, their works are Photoshop Free. This is a club with 42 members and growing, recintly created in Asturias. Their aim is to promote activities to teach its members and to promote nature and landscape conservation through photography. They have a Facebook group with lots of followers.

Our president has recently visited the Cornwall Wildlife Trust Photo Club. As well as for strengthen friendship the activities allowed to collect some money for the Trust thanks to Dave Thomas, Adrian Langdon, Delia Trathen and David Chapman. In those visits to clubs no payment is done, the activities organized are to help the club activities and to cover expenses of travel and accommodation, no fees. This year the agenda will allow also visits to NFD Denmark, Fotonatura Sweden, FNPA Finland, PNF Finland and all those based in Spain with no cost for the Federation.

  Photo: Peter Glaser

The new board, already officially aproved, has been:

PRESIDENT

Jose B. Ruiz, AEFONA (Spain)

VICE PRESIDENT

Pal Hermansen, NN (Norway)

SECRETARY

Anita Campbell, PN (Sweden)

TREASURER  

Svend Erik West Hansen, NFD (Denmark)

MEMBERS

Karlo Pesjak PNS (Sweden)

Kari Loimu, FNPA (Finland)

Marian Zelina, SAFP (Slovakia)

Filip Van Boven, BVNF (Belgium)

President

Jose B. Ruiz, AEFONA (Spain)

Vice president

Pal Hermansen, NN (Norway)

Secretary

Anita Campbell, PN (Sweden)

Treasurer

Svend Erik West Hansen, NFD (Denmark)

Vocals

Karlo Pesjak PNS (Sweden)

Kari Loimu, FNPA (Finland)

Marian Zelina, SAFP (Slovakia)

Filip Van Boven, BVNF (Belgium)

Dear IFWP members

The new board is now officially approved by a large number of positive votes and we are very gratefull to you all for participating and also for giving us a chance to work for this stage we start together.

We are very excited and plenty of ideas to share knowledge, places, activities, friendship...

Our intention is to make the Federation an useful tool for all, to make it participative, with improvements in the website, consulting our members about those things which are important for our future.

Any individual member interested in cooperating as volunteer will have the chance to get involved in our committees, where ideally many photographers will invest little time in the week.

Our first committees starting in short time will be:

-Social nets: Website and facebook.
-Conservation: This committee has already a coordinator and a vice with first proposals to start working. Individuals from all associations members will be welcome to our list IFWP-Conservation.
-Online teaching: High quality formation online for all our members in a web section specially designed for downloading power points and PDF´s.
-Commented pictures: A team to choose in our next open facebook pictures selected for their quality and deeply commented.
-Sponsors: This committee will effort in finding new ways to make our own projects a reality.

All the information from the IFWP will be sent via e-mail to our delegates, uploaded as news on our website (http://www.ifwp-photo.org) and also shared in our fanpage (https://www.facebook.com/internationalfederationofwildlifephotography/)

This month it is not a photograph but all the work of a photographer that we invite you to discover. Eric Dragesco – http://www.ericdragesco.com/ – has belonged to our member clubs SNPN. He began wildlife photography in 1970, at the age of 16.

I was born on the Peninsula of Crozon (Finistère, France) which is my paradise. Having spent my entire youth, surrounded by the countryside and marine environments, I am now back to my "roots", photographing. I do not seek the rare or exclusive species, but through my images, I try to share intense moments with all. To observe and photograph a squirrel, rabbit, deer or hare, a starling or sandpiper, an insect or a seascape ... gives me complete satisfaction.

VEREIN FÜR TIER-UND NATURFOTOGRAFIE ÖSTERREICH

Six dedicated nature photographers founded the VTNÖ (Association for Animal and Nature Photography Austria) in 1988. Nowadays we count about 100 members throughout Austria. To communicate the beauty and uniqueness of nature to interested people is probably the most important objective of the VTNÖ. We further support projects and photo documentations of NGOs dealing with nature conservation.

The golden princess's secret revealed

Who has never been fascinated by a female Argiope bruennichi, the beautiful and intriguing wasp spider otherwise so common? Who has never wondered why our golden princesses generally decorate their otherwise rather ordinary web with a particular zigzag ?