Showcasing the beauty of Mother Nature
I found this image in my file of edited images; somehow I missed posting it. It’s a few years old now, and seeing it brings back such happy memories of a wonderful morning out in the bush.
I hope you enjoy, and wishing you a wonderful week ahead.
I finished off last Sunday’s post with the promise of sharing a few more leopard images this week, and here they are.
I was fortunate enough to spend time with this mother leopard and her cub on a couple of different occasions, in slightly different areas, providing a nice variety of images. All the ones shared today though were taken on the same morning.
I hope you enjoy the selection below.
Wishing everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving today; I hope you have the opportunity to share the day with people that you care about, and can take some time to reflect on all the things to be thankful for.
I said this month was going to be freestyle for my Sunday posts, and as I was going through my catalogue earlier in the week, I was taken by images of this leopard and decided to edit a few to share.
One of the things I love about being in the bush is witnessing some of the drama that unfolds. This sighting was definitely more than met the eye at first glance.
The previous evening, we had very briefly driven to this area, as there was a leopard on an impala kill. It was getting dark though, so we decided to carry on and make this area our first stop the next day. When we headed out on our morning drive from Chitwa Chitwa, other vehicles were already at the sighting, so we had to wait a bit, but when we got there, we found a different leopard on the impala kill. So, sometime during the night, the male leopard that we initially saw left, and this female snuck in to have an easy meal.
Things were made even more exciting by the fact that she had a cub who was also nearby, but you’ll need to check back next week to see some images of the two of them together.
More of this beautiful leopard next week. Until then, wishing you a wonderful week ahead.
This post was originally going to be the big five, but I had images of cheetah and wild dog that I wanted to play around with, so the magnificent seven it is.
One of the reasons I wanted to focus on my photo art this month was to try and learn a bit more about Topaz Studio version 2. I’ve played around with it a bit, and watched some tutorials, but for the workflow I am using, at this stage I will be sticking with version 1. The issue that I was finding is I can’t get files to make a round trip using On1 Photo Raw. I can get the file into Studio 2, and work on it, but the only option for saving is an “Accept” button, which with the workflow I am using, appears to do nothing. I select it, but the file doesn’t get saved, exported or anything else. New software versions are typically a bit buggy, so I’ll give it a few update cycles and then play around with it again and see what happens.
One of the great things about photo editing tutorials is getting the little reminders for things that are outside of the normal workflow. In this case, the reminder was to play around with blending modes when using AI Remix, Impression and textures. For example, the cheetah image below was edited using (amongst other tools) a filter in AI Remix called Neon Rise. But changing the blend mode from normal to luminosity kept the amazing texture that the filter offered, but eliminated the wild and crazy colours for something far more subdued, and suited to the image.
I hope you enjoy the selections below. Wishing you a fantastic week ahead.
You can find some of these images in the Photo Art section of my gallery.
During my last trip, we saw leopard cubs both in the Timbavati and in the Sabi Sands. The cubs I spent time with on this trip were a bit older than the ones I saw during my 2017 trip, but certainly no less amazing to watch. If you missed some of the previous posts, you can see some of the older images here and here (or just search the site for leopards).
During my time in the Timbavati, we found one leopard cub, and while in the Sabi Sands we saw one cub on a few different occasions. These shy, beautiful cats will grow up to be stealthy hunters, but for now, they are totally reliant on their Mom for food and protection. I absolutely believe that leopards only allow you to see them if they want you to, so having an opportunity to view these babies is an absolute thrill.
I was fortunate to see lots of youngsters during my latest travels. While the young elephants are definitely my favourite to watch, especially when they start waving their tiny trunks around trying to act tough, all the young animals in the bush are a delight to see.
Here are just a few of the sightings that I had.
I had some good opportunities during my travels for some animal portraits. Here are the first couple that I have worked through, just in time for monochrome Monday.
Have a great week everyone!
Did you know you can find these images, and other like them, in my gallery? You can see an evolving collection of my favourite images there, and even order a print or two if you choose.