While I could have zoomed in on this rhino and created a standard portrait, I thought keeping things wide and showing the rhino in the landscape was far more effective for this scene. Had we been driving fast, we probably would have missed it completely, as most of the time the head was down and the horn wasn’t visible, making it easy to mistake the rhino for a rock (and vice versa).
May there always be rhinos to peacefully graze.
Wishing you an excellent week ahead.
A rhino grazing in the late morning. South Africa, May 2017.
During this month of revisiting old work, I’ve had the opportunity to take many trips down memory lane, remembering amazing moments in nature and the challenging times trying to work out what to do with my camera to make the image that appeared on my LCD match the thought I had in my head.
What this monthly topic has hammered home is that the gear doesn’t matter, its what you are able to do with it. The software used to edit images doesn’t matter, its understanding how to make the tools work for you in the best ways possible. These things get said time and time again, but they really become apparent when you start reviewing a collection of work gathered over time that has been captured and edited with a variety of different resources.
No one looking at my images is going to say “You shot that on this camera body and then you edited it with that software program. There are times when I have been out shooting with more than one camera and once the images have been uploaded to my computer, I don’t know which image was shot with which body, without checking the info panel!
At the end of the day, the only thing that should matter is if the image moves you in some way.
And with that, here are a few images I have reworked this week. I hope you enjoy, and please check back next Sunday to find out what the topic of the month will be for March.
A rhino with her calf seen while doing volunteer work with Wildlife Act in 2014.Not a spectacular picture, but a fun memory for me. I took a day off work and went out shooting for a school project I was working on. It was a fine fall day so I took Spencer with me, and he was overjoyed at having the opportunity to dig in the sand next to the river. October 2013.My first foray into Botswana included viewing elephants in the water from a boat. An amazing experience! April 2013.For my then and now image, I chose this wild dog lounging in the shade, seen while working with Wildlife Act in 2014.Here is the now version of this image. I think I was much better able to highlight the texture of the fur compared to the original edit.
The photo challenge this week was to show something, or someone, sweet. If that isn’t an invitation to share photos of elephants, I don’t know what is. Or maybe that’s just me. So here are a few images featuring some adorable baby elephants seen last year on my trip through Southern Africa.
Enjoy!
This little one was struggling to climb out of the river bed, and got a helpful push from Mom. Hoanib Camp, Namibia. April 2017.Partially hidden behind Mom, this little elephant was very curious about our group. Botswana, May 2017.Another inquisitive youngster seen in the Okavango Delta. This one was busy watching a nearby group of baboons. Botswana, May 2017.A young elephant getting a drink from a broken landscape pipe. This was one of the youngsters that thrilled me by repeatedly visiting me at my vehicle while his Mom stood by. South Africa, May 2017.A young elephant sneaking a quick suckle whilst Mom grazes on devils thorn. Hoanib Camp, Namibia. April 2017.
A pair of impala rams face off during rutting season. This time of year makes the males especially vulnerable to predators, as their minds are occupied with matters other than their own safety.
Before I get into today’s post, I wanted to say sorry for the lack of activity over the past week. I made the plunge to move to a new self-hosted website so I could combine my blog and gallery (something I have wanted to do for over a year now). And while the internet does make everything appear to be instantaneous, moving 4+ years of blog posts, migrating a domain to a new hosting provider and setting everything up just takes time. Especially when you aren’t a web professional! My gallery is very much a work in progress, but the blog is up and running as usual, and fingers crossed my followers have been migrated over properly so someone, besides my Mom, has the chance to read this
I was hoping to get this posted yesterday, but the Happiness Engineers at WordPress just finished with the behind the scenes work to get my followers transferred to the new site. So this post is better late than never.
Given all the behind the scenes work I have been doing, I am really glad I didn’t choose a topic that required me to get out shooting this week.
The photos below don’t have much rhyme or reason, other than they caught my eye when scrolling through my picture folders with the thought that I might be able to make something a bit better out of it now than I could when I shot it.
I hope you enjoy today’s selections, once I get the gallery up and running, I’ll post a note about that and start looking for some feedback on the redesign.
The steely gaze of a vulture perched on a dead tree. I didn’t do much to this; a little cropping, and a bit of work to bring out the texture in the feathers. April, 2013.If you are in South Africa in November, when the leatherback turtles begin nesting, I would highly recommend the experience of going out to try to see them. It is such an epic experience; but not the best for photography, especially in the rain. The shots I captured were more proof that I was there then anything, and I really didn’t try editing them originally. Here I didn’t do much other than try to bring some of the texture back to the sand and correct the strange colour cast caused by red-lamp flashlights plus camera flash. For a sense of scale, this turtle is basically the size of a VW Bug; it weighed approx. 600 kilos.Kalahari the cheetah climbing a hill under a dreary late afternoon sky. I loved the vantage point of the images I shot at this time, but the harsh light made them a challenge to work with. October, 2014.
For the then and now section this week, I chose this image of the Sand River at sunrise captured in 2013 on my first journey to Africa. I actually quite like the original edit that I did, so I tried to interpret it in a bit of a different way, focusing on the warmth and the fog on the updated edit.
Sunrise on the Sand River – original edit.Sunrise on the Sand Rover – updated edit.
I could have gone two ways with a topic of Beloved for the photo challenge of the week. And since I try my best not to post photos of my dog all the time, I went with my most beloved animal of the African bush, the elephant. Now, anyone who has followed my blog for a while knows that I love elephants, so this should come as no surprise. They are my favourite animal to spend time with (besides my dog, of course!).
I selected the images below because they represent all ages and a variety of different habitats that elephants make their homes in. I hope you enjoy.
A herd of desert adapted elephants in the Hoanib River in Namibia. April, 2017.A bachelor herd of elephants in the Boteti River in Botswana, May 2017.Mama, Auntie and a precocious little baby seen in the Khwai concession of the Okavango Delta. May, 2017A couple of youngsters wrestling alongside a waterhole at Phinda in South Africa, May 2017.A moment that I will treasure in my heart forever. Being inspected by a baby elephant whilst on a morning game drive. Londolozi, May 2017.
The vastness of the Namibian landscape is what I was drawn to share for the topic of the week, silence. While being out in nature is rarely completely silent, with the rustle of the wind, the chattering of birds, or the sound of distant water just a few of thing things you might hear, it is the lack of man-made noise that makes it so appealing, and so peaceful.
Below are a few images from my time in Namibia.
A hilltop sunset in the middle of nowhere. The wind was blowing and sandstorms had been whipping through the area, but it was incredibly peaceful.The Skeleton Coast. Vast desert and the Atlantic Ocean as far as the eye could see.I find there is nothing more peaceful and quiet than being outside and watching the stars. I shot this from the deck of my room at Ongava Reserve, but being outside alone, at night, in the bush isn’t the smartest idea, so I only took one quick photo and went back inside to my glass of wine.