I’ve had some fun over the last few weeks playing around with some images in Topaz Studio and creating a bit of photo art. I had been hoping to get out with my camera and capture some of the new birds I have been seeing around, but the weather has definitely not been conducive to that this week. It seems to be a theme lately that I want to do more with my photography than time allows, but these sort of cycles ebb and flow, and there is no sense in getting all worked up about it. I’m just happy that I have something to share this week.
Here are a few images of Mom’s in the bush, all taken during my last trip to South Africa. Looking through my photos brings back such lovely memories, made even better by the fact that I experienced them with my Mom 🙂
I’m working on a guest post for a friend doing an Armchair safari series, and thought I would share the images here as well. I decided that the theme of my post would be sunrise to sunset on safari; showcasing images from dawn till dusk while out in the bush. These are all shot during my last trip to South Africa and were from all of the camps that I stayed at. I would have to plan a lot more in advance while out in the field to have a sunrise to sunset images from a single day (note to self, do that next trip!).
Rather than a highlight reel of amazing sightings, these are just a collection of moments out in the bush.
I hope you enjoy.
6am – Lions. Two of the Torchwood Pride greet each other.7am – Hyena and Impala. A group of impala look on wearily as a hyena approaches down the road.8am – Elephants. A pair of youngsters tussle while the older elephants graze nearby. 9am – Giraffe. A giraffe bull paused in the road allowing me to capture this image while on the way back to camp for breakfast.10am – Waterbuck. A waterbuck heads towards the dam for a drink.11am – Hippos. A group of hippos making their way back to the water to beat the midday heat.12pm – Yellow-billed hornbill. A “flying banana” perched just beyond the deck at camp.1pm – Landscape in infrared. Midday was a great time to wander around camp with my infrared filter and play around with long exposure photos. This was shot from the deck at Lion Sands Tinga Lodge.2pm – Purple Crested Turaco. I tried for ages to capture a good image of this beautiful bird from my balcony, but given they like to be deep in the branches, it really wasn’t meant to be. It was a fun way to spend part of the afternoon though.3pm – Cheetah. We’d only been out on game drive for about 10 minutes when we came across this cheetah, and had the chance to watch her stalking some impala. They spotted her right away so supper wasn’t in her immediate future.4pm – Wild Dog. Spending time with wild dogs always makes my heart happy. We had a good half an hour with them before they took off in all directions, setting out to hunt.5pm – Honey Badgers. I had always wanted to see honey badgers and on my first game drive of the trip I finally had my chance. It only lasted about 30 seconds but it certainly was thrilling, even if all I could get were butt shots!6pm – Leopard. We were heading back to camp for drinks and dinner and came across this leopard heading in to this large puddle to drink. It was a quick stop before the leopard was on its way.
One thing I have really been noticing the last couple of weeks is that I am getting to the end of the day, or the end of the week, long before the end of my to-do list. It’s one of those things that seems to go in waves for me, and I think while I have my coffee tomorrow morning I need to spend a bit of time figuring out how better to spend my time, so I can still fit in the things that bring me joy, like my photography.
While I have had my computer back a week now, late this afternoon was the first time I have had an opportunity to work on any of my photography. As such, I wanted to spend the little bit of time I had editing something that I really enjoyed; hence elephants as my topic for today.
These images were all from the first game drive of my last trip to South Africa. The trip started off with an abundance of elephants, and continued on that way the entire time, much to my delight. What was also really lovely is we ended up at each camp on a vehicle with safari newbies, and seeing their joy, amazement and excitement when seeing all the animals and birds made the experience all that much more enjoyable for me.
Much like yesterday, today also felt like a perfect day to share an elephant image.
This was shot while staying at Lion Sands Tinga Lodge. We couldn’t go on a game drive without seeing elephants, sometimes an immense number of them, which our guide kept commenting on. It made me incredibly happy, since they are my favourite animal to spend time with our on safari.
An elephant calf makes a quick meal stop in the middle of the road.
Today felt like the perfect day to share some elephant pictures 🙂 Basically, if the day ends in Y, I think elephant images are just right!
My editing software had a bit of a meltdown trying to open one of the raw files to edit; I have no idea what was going on, as the images before and after were fine. Thankfully, I have lots of back ups, and after deleting the file and reloading it, everything was okay. Public service message for the day – always make sure you have a backup of your data!
I hope you enjoy, wishing you a fantastic week ahead.
An elephant enjoying a drink from a rather large puddle.Look at the curled trunk 🙂Feeding time for big and little.An elephant drinks while a herd of buffalo graze the banks of the river.A tiny face peeking out from under Mom.
