We’ve had some beautiful weather the last few days, and my road is finally clear of icy and easy to walk, so I’ve been getting the dogs out for nice morning walks. The morning twilight and sunrise have been beautiful, but since I didn’t have my camera with me to capture them, I went through some of the many images I have left to edit, and found a selection that shows some of the beautiful colours I have been enjoying.
2024-01-28: Infrared Landscapes
Now that I have moved my editing back to Lightroom, I’ve rediscovered quite a few images that I had flagged in my quick collection as ones I wanted to edit, from my trip to South Africa in 2019. The first four images are from that trip, and the last three from my recent trip to Zimbabwe in 2022.
While a lot of time has passed since 2019, I didn’t spend much of it on photography during the Covid years, as I was otherwise occupied in graduate school (during my free time from work) and when I did have time for photos, I was exploring using Capture One during that time period.
Coming back to Lightroom feels both familiar and very different at the same time, and I definitely need to spend some time relearning the familiar tools, and learning about all that has been added in the intervening time. I felt a sense of accomplishment working through these images and only completing the edits within Lightroom, not moving on to familiar plugins available in Photoshop.
All of these images were shot as long exposures around midday or early afternoon, using an infrared filter and then converted to black and white. It is something I want to work on more as I really enjoy the look of the shockingly bright foliage and inky skies.
2024-01-14: Jackals
After wild dogs last week, I decided to work on the few jackal photos I had this week. Jackals are fairly common on safari, but on this past trip, the jackal sighting I had were of moms and youngsters, which was very cute to see. These images were taken just before dusk, and we had only a minute or two at the sighting before they were gone.
2024-01-07: Wild Dogs
Like elephants (featured in my previous post), wild dogs are a firm favourite to spend time with on safari. I’ve been so fortunate to see wild dogs on the majority of my trips (East Africa in 2016 being the only time I didn’t see them) – which I know is not the experience of most people. My very first guide cautioned me about getting my hopes up to see wild dogs, mentioning that she had talked to clients who had never seen them despite multiple trips, but I have looked at the desire to see things in the wild as a someday request, not something that will make or break a specific trip (and I did end up seeing wild dogs on that first trip, during a day trip in Chobe Park in Botswana).
I spent a few days in Madikwe during my last trip and saw two different wild dogs packs on a couple of different sightings. A morning sighting where the group was active and on the move, and an evening sighting where the pack was quite chill. All of the photos below are from the evening sighting. If you are interested in seeing the other images of wild dogs posted from this trip, you can find them here and here. And you can use the search bar for wild dog posts and find a variety of posts from over the years. I’ve not looked through those archives, but I am guessing they all mention how lucky I am to see wild dogs so frequently.
2023-12-17: Elephants
I was drawn to elephants today, and wanted to put together a bit of a variety of images, so I have a few in colour and a couple in monochrome to share today. While I have a decent catalogue of elephant images, these are all from my most recent trip to Africa in 2022.
2023-09-24: Madikwe Sunset
I had high hopes of working through a decent number of images this week, while I was off work on a staycation, but I also have a tendency to create a mental to do list that 3 people couldn’t finish, let alone just me. My household projects, yard work and the like all had a lot of effort directed at them, but creative time took a backseat. With winter coming, there will be lots of time to be inside working through images, while getting the autumn yard work done (and a round of golf in) has a pretty limited time frame now that September is almost to a close.
For my image today, it is a lovely sunset taken on my first evening staying in Madikwe last November. It’s hard to believe almost a year has past since that trip.
2023-07-23: Brewing Storms
We’ve been having a lot of thunderstorms recently, but it’s not particularly picturesque or open where I live, so I am not able to get interesting photos of the storms. I did try once driving around to see if I could get a decent vantage point, but didn’t find anything that made me want to take my camera out.
However, I did get some fantastic storms while I was away in November, complete with open vistas to take pictures of the towering clouds approaching filled with rain. Here are a few of those shots.
2023-06-11: Giraffes
I had planned to edit a few images today, but then the day got away from me. This seems to be a familiar occurrence lately, and I am going to need to do a bit better in planning my time to work on photos.
This image caught my eye out of the grouping that I had flagged to work on. These young giraffes were necking in the warm glow of the early morning sun.
2023-04-16: Zebras
It’s a grey and dreary day today, and a black and white image felt like the right thing to work on. This mare and foal were part of a small group of zebras, and just outside the frame was the stallion, working to keep the group together and moving it in a cohesive direction. This was one of several very young zebra foals that I had the pleasure of seeing during my last trip.
2023-04-09: Brown Hyenas
When I was in Namibia in 2017, I thought that would be the time when I would see a brown hyena, as they are a fairly regular animal to spot along the Skeleton Coast. Instead, we saw substantial aftermath of hyenas, in the form of numerous seal pups littering the beach, but didn’t spot the hyenas. Fast forward to my trip in 2022; on the drive from the Madikwe air strip to the lodge, my guide told me there was a brown hyena den on the property that we would would try to get to during my stay. I was quite excited about the prospect of finally seeing one of these animals.
Luck was on our side for a sighting, but not on my side for a great photographic opportunity. Heavy rains had closed many roads, giving us quite a long drive to get to the den site, and the approaching darkness meant we could only stay a short time. We had hoped that an adult would come back to the den while we were there, but it was not to be. We did see a youngster at the mouth of the cave where the den was located, but watching a cave entrance in the approaching dark from significant distance doesn’t provide the best chance at a decent photo.
But, while the photos matter, in that I enjoy taking them, editing them, sharing them and creating with them, they also don’t matter, because enjoying the moment is more important to me than coming back with an image of it. I will share what I do have of my first ever brown hyena sighting, because it was interesting and special for me. I’m hopeful that someday, I’ll get a better look at these creatures.