Category: Lion

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2018-04-09: Monochrome Monday

A trio of cats to start the week.

Wishing you all a fantastic one ahead 🙂

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This leopard was the star of many of my images one evening in the Okavango Delta.  We stayed with him while he lounged in the tree, while another vehicle from the lodge was making its way over so some late arriving guests could spend some time with him as well.  Since I had spent over an hour with him at sunset, this night image under spotlight was captured just an opportunity to play around later with editing.
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As soon as this young cheetah rested her head down, she was invisible in the grass.  With the location she was in, I am still in awe of the tracker that spotted her.
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The king of the savannah heads off to patrol his territory (or find some shade for a nap).  Given the amount of time lions sleep, it was probably the less glamorous sounding second option.

 

If you’d like to see more images like this, head over to my gallery to see some of my favourite.  And remember, you can find beautiful textiles with my images on my Vida site.

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2018-03-25: Multiple Exposure Project

I had a completely different image ready to go, but something about it just wasn’t sitting right with me.  So I started scrolling through my photo catalogue, and came across the series of images I took of a pride of lions that had treed a leopard, seen during my safari in 2015.  That sparked my creativity in a whole new direction.

I wish I would have thought of creating a composite image like this when I was originally editing the series and creating a blog post about it.  I think this image captures the essence of the sighting in a way the individual images were unable to.  If you didn’t catch the story of the lions versus a leopard the first time around, you can fid it here.  There was definitely a lot going on that morning!

I hope you enjoy this last instalment of my multiple exposure project.  Next month, on to something new.

 

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2018-03-12: Monochrome Monday

Happy Monday everyone!  To start the week, I thought I’d share a group of mangy lion cubs, spotted near Ngala Camp last year.  This was an excellent lion sighting; during the time we spent with them, we saw lots of interaction amongst the cubs and between the cubs and their moms and aunties.  The pride males paid the group a brief visit, and we even had the opportunity to watch the little ones suckle and take trips to drink out of a deep puddle.  There are a lot of times that you find lions in the daytime (or anytime really) and they do nothing but lay around like lumps, so it was wonderful to have so much going on during this sighting.

 

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A group of lion cubs, under the watchful eyes of one of the pride females.  Ngala Camp, May 2017.
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2018-03-04: Multiple Exposure Project

This first multiple exposure image of the month is an idea that I jotted down in more than one place over several months, so I am finally glad to have a chance to explore it and create something.

I created this image utilizing photoshop, using some basic layer masks and adjusting the blend mode to suit.  It really is that simple but that are lots of step by step tutorials available if anyone is interested in researching it further.

The lion image that is a basis for the composite was shot in Etosha National Park in Namibia in April 2017.  This young male lion slunk across the road in full stalk position towards a herd of zebra, but as they had spotted him before he even started moving, it really was a wasted effort.  The orientation of the zebra pictures I had from that same time period weren’t quite right for what I was looking to do, so I found one in my catalogue taken in the Okavango Delta in 2015 that worked much better.  The positioning of the group of zebra and tsessebe give the impression that they were watching something in the distance… perhaps even a predator moving through.

 

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2017-07-09: Hoanib Skeleton Coast Camp in Namibia

I am so excited to finally begin sharing some stories and photos from my recent adventure in Southern Africa! It’s taken quite a while to go through my catalogue of images and work out which ones are worthy of further review, but I am finally in a spot where I can begin the fun part of editing.  I have decided to create posts highlighting some of the experiences at each of the areas I spent time in, and since starting at the beginning of the journey makes sense to my brain, that’s what I am going to do.

The first stop we had was at the Hoanib Skeleton Coast Camp, a beautiful and very remote location in north western Namibia. I had anticipated amazing landscapes, and the area delivered that and then some, but I honestly didn’t anticipate the abundance of wildlife that we saw. We were lucky to arrive in Africa after a wet season that had provided much more rain than expected, and even in the desert, there was water to be found and amazing pockets of lush greenery amongst the sand and the rocks.

The camp was absolutely beautiful, and we were thrilled when we were told our guide would be Chris, and then realized that we had met him during our previous trip to Namibia, in Damaraland. During 3 nights at the camp, we had the opportunity to take a day trip to the coast and see the dunes and the seal colony, we spent time with the desert adapted elephants and we saw one of the few desert lions on a giraffe kill (amongst lots of other things!).

I hope you enjoy these first images from my time in Namibia. There will definitely be more of them to share in the future.

Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead.

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A sandstorm blowing through an area near the camp.  The days we were there, we had foggy mornings (that cleared very quickly), heat that built throughout the day, and then windy afternoons which brought up sandstorms.  It made for some surreal and beautiful photo conditions.
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Desert-adapted elephants graze on devil’s thorn; a plant in bountiful supply after the rain the region experienced.
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A steenbok pauses with some rather barren looking desert in the background.  But despite appearances, even in these areas, there is a lot of life to be found.
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On an early morning drive, I spotted this wild cat in the drive river bed.  Given how far we were away, I was rather impressed with my spotting abilities.
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A pair of oryx graze on devil’s thorn alongside the road.
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Due to the heavy rains prior to our arrival, the normal driving route to the coast was closed, and we ended up taking a 20 minute flight to get there instead of driving.  The landscape from the air is absolutely stunning.
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A small part of the seal colony along the atlantic coast.  The smell in the area was pretty overwhelming, so we were all taking photos through the closed windows of the vehicle.
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We stopped for a photo op at the top of a large dune; mist from the ocean can be seen in the distance.  I’m pretty sure my Dad and Chris were discussing something to do with the engine or 4-wheel drive capabilities of the vehicle.
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The desert provided the clear skies and unobstructed views necessary to try a bit of astro photography.  I didn’t return home with many more night sky images, as most of the camps were in lush places without a clear view to the sky.
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Elephants heading out of the riverbed after a drink and a mud bath.
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Morning drama on a game drive.  After spending a half hour or so following lion tracks through the desert, our guide Chris spotted a giraffe acting rather odd, walking in circles around a clump of bushes.  When we drove closer, we could see the drag marks into the bushes, and a lioness feeding on a baby giraffe.  From the tracks surrounding the bushes, the mother giraffe had attempted to charge the lioness several times, but it was too late to be of an help to her baby, which we found out was only a few days old.
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It is easy to feel badly for the mother giraffe in this situation, but the lions in the desert are in rather dire circumstances, and I was thankful even to have the opportunity to see one, let alone one on a kill.  Several desert lions were shot or poisoned by a farmer in the last year, in retaliation for livestock being taken.  Human-wildlife conflict is a complex subject, but it is especially tough to hear about animals, who’s populations have already dwindled substantially, taking a hit like that.
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A lovely sunset from a hilltop sundowner drinks stop.  The wind was gusting incredibly, but I managed to get this shot while holding a glass of wine in one hand, camera in the other, all while being pelted by blowing sand.  A rather fun evening!

 

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