South Africa – Page 29 – Jennifer Sawicky Photography

February 19, 2018February 19, 2018

2018-02-19: Monochrome Monday

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.

February 19, 2018February 20, 2018

2018-02-19: Revisiting Old Work

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.

February 11, 2018

2018-02-11: Revisiting Old Work

Another week, and another trip down memory lane in terms of my photography. I’m really glad I made the decision to work on images already captured for this month, as we got rather buried in the snow the past week, and I haven’t had the time, or the energy, to get out and try and capture anything new.

This week is a mixed bag of images, shot locally and in Africa, in colour and black and white.

20180211_Revisit_JSawicky0 — From 2014, a sunrise image of the Golden Ears from the dikes in Pitt Meadows where I used to walk my dog.

20180211_Revisit_JSawicky1 — Flying over Victoria Falls on the way into Livingstone airport in Zambia. Previously, I wasn’t really able to pull out any decent texture from photos shot through windows. Zambia, April 2013.

20180211_Revisit_JSawicky2 — Victoria Falls from the Zambian side. I was very fortunate to see it with just the right water level; enough so the falls looked incredibly impressive, but not so much that it was completely shrouded in mist. Zambia, April 2013.

For my then and now image, I chose this zebra from my first trip to South Africa. The original black and white conversion was done in Lightroom using a few basic adjustments, not long after I returned from my trip. The updated image was edited recently using a combination of plugins in Photoshop, including MacPhun Tonality and Topaz Detail. I’m sure I could achieve similar results simply using On1 Photo Raw (I’m not using Lightroom any longer for processing), but I like the ease of using Tonality for black and white edits.

Zebra original.jpg — Then – a basic black and white conversion lacking a lot of contrast.

20180211_Revisit_JSawicky0 copy — Now – the zebra stands out much better against the foliage, and there is a lot more detail throughout the image.

Please visit:
www.jennifersawickyphotography.com for wildlife, landscape and nature inspired artwork.

and

https://shopvida.com/collections/jennifer-sawicky for textiles inspired by my photography.

February 1, 2018

2018-02-01: WPC – Beloved

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.

20180201_WPCBeloved_JSawicky0 — A herd of desert adapted elephants in the Hoanib River in Namibia. April, 2017.

20180201_WPCBeloved_JSawicky1 — A bachelor herd of elephants in the Boteti River in Botswana, May 2017.

20180201_WPCBeloved_JSawicky2 — Mama, Auntie and a precocious little baby seen in the Khwai concession of the Okavango Delta. May, 2017

20180201_WPCBeloved_JSawicky3 — A couple of youngsters wrestling alongside a waterhole at Phinda in South Africa, May 2017.

20180201_WPCBeloved_JSawicky4 — 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.

Please visit:
www.jennifersawickyphotography.com for wildlife, landscape and nature inspired artwork.

and

https://shopvida.com/collections/jennifer-sawicky for textiles inspired by my photography.

WPC: Beloved

January 30, 2018

2018-01-30: WPC – Variations on a Theme

You never know what you are going to find when you are out on safari. It gets said time and time again, along with the concept of heading out without expectations of specific things that you want to see. Just being out in the bush is heaven for me, and anything I see is a bonus, so it is pretty easy to stay in that mindset.

While staying at Londolozi, we were on our morning game drive, and our ranger Dave heard about leopard cubs being spotted fairly close to where we were, so we headed off in that direction. We ended up doing a lot of 4 x 4’ing through the bush, and ended up stopping the vehicle at a rather severe downhill angle, to be able to view the cubs at the bottom of a ravine area. Soon enough, they decided that napping next to Mom was boring, and began playing with each other, running around fallen logs, chasing each other and generally acting like rambunctious little kids. The late morning light may have been a bit harsh, but the moment was absolutely epic to experience.

This week’s photo challenge topic, Variations on a Theme, seemed a great opportunity to share a few shots from this wonderful sighting. I hope you enjoy them; editing them has certainly brought back many happy memories for me.

20180130_WPCVariations on a theme_JSawicky0 — Effortlessly moving amongst the tangled roots and branches of a fallen tree.

20180130_WPCVariations on a theme_JSawicky1 — Stalking and ready to pounce!

20180130_WPCVariations on a theme_JSawicky3 — Heading back down to check on Mom.

20180130_WPCVariations on a theme_JSawicky4 — I think that look says “Don’t you dare!”

I posted a few other photos from this sighting, as well as other images from my last visit to Londolozi. You can find that post here if you missed it before.

Please visit:
www.jennifersawickyphotography.com for wildlife, landscape and nature inspired artwork.

and

https://shopvida.com/collections/jennifer-sawicky for textiles inspired by my photography.

WPC: Variations on a Theme

January 22, 2018

2018-01-22: Monochrome Monday

I spent time with this cheetah family on the Phinda Game Reserve in South Africa last year. Mother and daughter are pictured here, the two boys were off to the side trying to catch a quick nap. We found them on a very blustery afternoon, and they were all on edge. For us watching, having them on edge was a bit of a blessing, because instead of just snoozing away the afternoon, they were moving around and on the lookout, allowing for more interesting images.

Please visit:
www.jennifersawickyphotography.com for wildlife, landscape and nature inspired artwork.

and

https://shopvida.com/collections/jennifer-sawicky for textiles inspired by my photography.

January 9, 2018

2018-01-09: WPC – Growth

The first WordPress photo challenge topic of the year is growth. There are lots of directions that this can be taken, but I’ve decided to use it as an opportunity to show off some of the younger generation of animals that I saw on my last safari. The wild is a dangerous place for youngsters, with so many species having mortality rates above 50%. I hope all of these animals have been able to grow strong and healthy.