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NATURE lover Juhani Kyyrö spent all his spare time during a spell in the kingdom as an education consultant taking pictures of the array of feathered friends attracted to the island.
His incredible images appear in the recently launched publication entitled Birds of Dilmun, by Brendan Kavanagh, published by Miracle, and this week’s Gulf Weekly Book of the Week.
Finnish Mr Kyyrö, 61, a former executive director of The Association of International Education Consultants, worked for more than three years in the kingdom as an adviser on the King Hamad’s Schools of the Future project for the Ministry of Education. He said: “I definitely left part of my heart in Bahrain and still would love to live and work there.
“I used practically all my spare time photographing the wildlife and nature of Bahrain.
“For anyone wishing to photograph wildlife I think it is all about patience, practice, practice and more practice and naturally learning and understanding the behaviour of the subject.
“I don’t think there is such a thing as a perfect camera. My equipment is very modest compared to the professionals – I’m still drooling at the long, big telephoto lenses that are so abundant at F1 races. I have just never been able to afford one, let alone justify the purchase of one to my wife!
“As with everything that has gone digital - the usable ‘lifetime’ of equipment tends to be very short – my main camera body was new back in early 2006 – now it is very much obsolete – technically and quality-wise a dinosaur!
“I’m still dreaming that one day I could be a professional nature and wildlife photographer – we all must have our dreams!”
Mr Kyyrö may be humble about his photographic prowess but the book is beautifully illustrated by more than 350 photographs all taken in Bahrain and his work has also been used in nature and travel magazines.
The ‘amateur’ lensman used Nikon equipment, namely camera bodies: D70 and D200, lenses: AF VR-Nikkor 80-400mm 1:4.5-5.6D, AF-S Micro Nikkor 105mm 1:2,8 ED, AF-S Nikkor 17-55mm 1:2.8 G ED, AF Fisheye Nikkor 10.5mm 1:2.8 G ED and AF Nikkor 24-50mm 1:3.3.-4.5.
Flash equipment featured the Metz CT 45 with tele-extender, which he described as the ultimate potato smasher, Nikon SB-800 and Nikon R1C1 Close-up kit with three flashes.
Then there’s the ever-changing digital darkroom, he said, a reasonably high-end PC with terabytes of storage and colour calibration hardware plus the all-important Photoshop, IMatch, PTGui and GeoSetter software, to name just a few.
Mr Kyyrö has shared some images with GulfWeekly that have not appeared in the book and urges readers to visit the project’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/birdsofdilmun) as ‘we will be adding material to it’.
