I suppose you read the book "The World is Flat" a long time ago, but I'm just reading it now. I am a late adopter. Anyhow, I have to believe there is a huge audience for NPN outside Europe and North America, but we rarely seem to hear from them. Poster of images or not, I am very interested to hear the thoughts of the rest of the world.
D. Etep
Posted by Jim Erhardt on November 27, 2007 at 7:16 AM
No doubt nature photography is a universal language that we can all relate to. However, having the ability, time and resources to enjoy nature photography and participate on the Internet is not nearly as universal.
The NPN website gets about 100,000 unique visitors every month from many countries, but primarily from N. America and Europe as you have stated. I think there are numerous reasons for this including language, Internet availability (to the average person) and social/economic conditions.
When you think about it, being able to do what we do here on NPN is really luxury many simply cannot afford.
Posted by David Weber on November 27, 2007 at 7:29 AM
In addition to enjoying fantastic images from here in N.A. and europe, I 've enjoyed those from Austraia as well.
Posted by Rajesh Mohan on November 27, 2007 at 7:48 AM
Very interesting topic. Many of those who have benefited from the 'Flat World' phenomena are increasingly turning into nature photographers. The number of big glasses in Bangalore alone is phenomenal. Most of them are tech savvy so they have their own web-sites and forums where they 'hang out' and post images. Rightly so, as everyone relates easily to their own regions and locations. I have also seen several of them post in NPN.
FYI...
www.indianaturewatch.org is one such site.
for singapore and east asian countries
http://www.naturephotosociety.org.sg/ASP/Main.asp
Yes, it is a flat world as far as commodities and technologies go but we still live in cultural silos.
Or should I say birds of same feather flock together ?
Thanks,
Rajesh
Posted by David Sparks on November 28, 2007 at 5:23 AM
I just returned from a visit to China. While there I had an opportunity to go birding with members of the Kunming Bird Watching Forum at Western Hills. They are really good birders: good at recognizing the birds by their songs and quick to find them. They saw about 25 different species and I saw some subset of that number. One of the birders (Wu Heqi) is one of the editors of a beautiful book about birds in the Yunnan Province. Also, he has banded and done satellite monitoring of the migration paths of the black-necked cranes. He sent me a copy of a manuscript (Satellite tracking of the eastern wintering black-necked cranes Grus nigricollis in Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau) to read and make suggestions about the English grammar. This was a very pleasant and unexpected aspect of my 5 week visit.
I did not have access to a birdbook about the birds of China in English while I was there and was having trouble identifying the birds I was seeing. One of the birders gave me some links to web sites that helped. If you sample these, you will see that the interest in birding and nature photography is there, but to paraphrase Rajesh "nature photographers of the same feather flock together" in their own language.
David Sparks
A Database of the birds of China
http://www.cnbird.org.cn/index.htm
Click on Latest images or Categories
China Bird Gallery
http://www.wwfchina.org/birdgallery/
(I don't know how to navigagte this other than changing page numbers)
Hong Kong Bird-Watching Society
http://www.hkbws.org.hk/frame.htm
(click on Gallery at the top - the Scarlet Minivet is one of the birds I saw with the Kunming group)
Zhe Jiang Wildbird Society
http://www.zjbird.cn/
(click on one of the moving images at the bottom)
BirdwatchChina
http://www.cbw.org.cn/main.php
(click on more at top right to see galleries)
Discussion
4 repliesD. Etep
The NPN website gets about 100,000 unique visitors every month from many countries, but primarily from N. America and Europe as you have stated. I think there are numerous reasons for this including language, Internet availability (to the average person) and social/economic conditions.
When you think about it, being able to do what we do here on NPN is really luxury many simply cannot afford.
FYI...
www.indianaturewatch.org is one such site.
for singapore and east asian countries
http://www.naturephotosociety.org.sg/ASP/Main.asp
Yes, it is a flat world as far as commodities and technologies go but we still live in cultural silos.
Or should I say birds of same feather flock together ?
Thanks,
Rajesh
I did not have access to a birdbook about the birds of China in English while I was there and was having trouble identifying the birds I was seeing. One of the birders gave me some links to web sites that helped. If you sample these, you will see that the interest in birding and nature photography is there, but to paraphrase Rajesh "nature photographers of the same feather flock together" in their own language.
David Sparks
A Database of the birds of China
http://www.cnbird.org.cn/index.htm
Click on Latest images or Categories
China Bird Gallery
http://www.wwfchina.org/birdgallery/
(I don't know how to navigagte this other than changing page numbers)
Hong Kong Bird-Watching Society
http://www.hkbws.org.hk/frame.htm
(click on Gallery at the top - the Scarlet Minivet is one of the birds I saw with the Kunming group)
Zhe Jiang Wildbird Society
http://www.zjbird.cn/
(click on one of the moving images at the bottom)
BirdwatchChina
http://www.cbw.org.cn/main.php
(click on more at top right to see galleries)