Today I felt inspired to share a few images from my last morning game drive before heading home from safari last May. It was a rather epic morning, featuring elephants, leopards and this pair of lions (basically an entire safari’s worth of sightings in one morning). After listening to lion calls whilst having our morning coffee and rusk stop, we found this pair a short distance away. They would walk together for a short distance along the road, stop and survey the area or lay down for a few minutes, and then carry on.
I hope you enjoy my selections; wishing you a wonderful week ahead.
Pausing and listening before moving on. There were lots of lion calls in the distance; lots of drama in the bush that day.An impressive guy, one of the Matshipiri male lions.A bit of lion flirting.We drove down the road from the lions a short distance so we could get photos of the pair walking towards us along the road. Obviously they didn’t get the memo as to what was anticipated 🙂Our ranger parked alongside a termite mound to give the pair space as they came closer along the road. They stopped to one side and looked as if they were going to mate (pictured here). She suddenly changed her mind, crossed the road and climbed to the top of the termite mound we were parked alongside, and they proceeded to mate there instead. When that happened, the pair was inches from the hood of our vehicle.
I was inspired this week to explore images from Namibia with my painterly effects project for the month. In the brief time I have spent there, I have found it to be a magical place. The light is beautiful and the landscapes are at times surreal. From the air, the vast open spaces seem lifeless, but on the ground, it is a completely different story.
I hope you enjoy my selections for the week.
A group of oryx walking in front of one of the impressive dunes in Sossusvlei.A lone elephant moves through the desert, looking to catch up to her herd that had already reached the river.Sunset over the desert in Hoanib.A group of flamingos in flight over the Skeleton Coast.The land of vast deserts sometimes surprises with lush greenery. This lion was lounging in the cool grass with the rest of his pride nearby.Large groups of seals awaited us when we visited the Skeleton Coast from Hoanib Camp. Inland it was a clear, blue sky day, but on the coast, fog and mist obscured the view.A group of lions, newly evicted from their pride, roaming through Etosha National Park.In Damaraland, you can easily feel like you are the only people for miles around.
Since today is Mother’s Day, I decided to create painterly edits of some of the mama’s from the bush. I’ve selected images that will make my Mom smile; I hope you enjoy them too.
To some, using software to make a photo look as if it were sketched or painted may seem like an abomination. Photographers often go to great lengths (sometimes at great expense) to create sharp and crisp images that show the viewer exactly what the scene looked like. But what about those times when that beautifully crisp, perfectly exposed image doesn’t convey the feeling of the moment? Or, heaven forbid, what if you goof up on the exposure, or mess up the focus a bit, but the moment was great and you still want to do something with the image? These are just some of the reasons for exploring painterly effects with photography. I’ve edited photos in the past for all those reasons and while I don’t post them too often, I do have a gallery of my favourite Artistic Impressions or Photo Art images.
This week, I was inspired by a vintage style travel poster I have had hanging up for around the last 12 years or so. I see it every time I walk towards my sitting room; this week I was struck by the interest in creating a photo series inspired by it, whereas most of the time I just look at it and think “I really want to go to the Serengeti someday”.
A quick snap of the poster that inspired this week’s editing.
I decided to do a series of Big 5 animals; I can imagine these in a vintage travel brochure advertising visiting the “Dark Continent” to see the wild and ferocious Big 5. I edited all of them using the Topaz Simplify filter through the Topaz Studio program.
I’ve had a great time over the past 10 days reviewing all of my video clips from my time in Kenya and putting together some highlights as the last instalment of my wide angles only project. With the exception of the lion cub video clip, which was shot on a Panasonic FX1000, all clips were done on the Gopro, and I edited and built the video using the free Gopro studio software.
If you missed the video from Uganda, you can find that here.
Wishing everyone a fantastic week ahead. It’s time for me to ponder what my topic will be for May.
The photo challenge topic for the week is lines (not the kind you were stuck writing in school if you were misbehaving in class…) 🙂
Here are a few images that I found that I feel have a strong linear element to them. I hope you enjoy.
A game trail through the desert leads up a hill and around a bend. Don’t you find yourself wondering what might be just beyond the line of sight? Namibia, April 2017.Jagged hills zigzagging into the distance in this aerial shot above the Damaraland region of Namibia. April, 2017.Game trails through the desert again, but this time leading us to a lioness heading towards the river for a drink. Hoanib Skeleton Coast Camp, April 2017.A road through the Nxai Pan leading to the Baines Baobabs. The image is deceiving, as the tree trunks are as wide as a vehicle. Botswana, May 2017.I took this image of the sky while on a sundowner drinks stop; I was drawn to the way the setting sun was illuminating the linear clouds. South Africa, May 2017.
