A Lioness, Zebras and an African Sunset

Welcome to Monday!  I was originally going to do a Daily Photo but decided to post a few images instead.  Why?  Well, we had quite a good weekend out in the field and I don’t really have enough time to write too much right now so posting images will have to do.   Also working on a few other, more detailed, posts so will catch up with the writing then.

This lioness was extremely aware of a big male mating with another member of the pride close by and was very alert.  She sat upright in an open plain which was fantastic as it sorted out the background to the image.  I photographed her with a Nikon 80-200 f/2.8 lens, keeping the aperture as wide as possible in order to make here pop from the background.  A very simple composition with no distracting elements.  Sometimes plain and simple just works.

Then there was the two zebras having a good go at each other.

We sat for almost an hour watching these two guys sparring with quite a few interesting shots as the result.  A couple of things made it interesting.  For one, the overcast conditions made for a very diffused light which was occasionally completely overpowered by the, almost, midday sun.  The two monochromatic mammals were then also moving onto and off of a white dirt road which made for some very strange light bouncing up from the road whenever the sun popped.  It was almost as if the were dancing over a reflector.  This made for quite a tricky exposure.  The answer was to use centre weighted metering, centre the two zebras and hope for the best!

One more thing that made this an ok image rather than a great one is the background.  The obvious focus in this image is the zebra, and on a smaller scale the teeth on the opponents neck, but the background is… well, horrible.  This in one of the major aspects to keep in mind in wildlife photography and unfortunately something that comes into play, in the challenging sense of the word, in Madikwe.  Madikwe produces some truly spectacular wildlife sightings but there is a lot of shrubs and bushes.  This can sometimes make photography quite challenging but not impossible.  I still find it quite amusing that a well respected wildlife photographer once said to me that Madikwe is bad for wildlife photography.  Everybody is obviously in title to their own opinion but I believe that as the photographer it is up to you to make a scene work or not.  Sure, it is a whole lot easier of your subject is standing in an open grass plain with a beautiful sky in the background but you should never get lazy.  Think about your shots and what you want to do with them.  Wildlife photography, by default, is quite challenging so make it work.  Oh, and Madikwe is fantastic for wildlife photography if you are willing to think about your images!!

Was not sure whether to post this image or not.  Perhaps a little too much?  A thunderstorm was moving towards us as we were heading back to the lodge.  The horizon suddenly opened up, allowing the setting sun to blaze through and light up the sky.  It looked as if there was a massive veld fire raging just over the hill.  The actual scene was truly spectacular with very intense colors and a huge tonal range.  I quickly hopped out and shot three hand held shots with my wide angle lens which I then merged into a single file, very similar to what Morkel Erasmus wrote about in his guest post last week.  Creating HDR images with scenes which has a lot of color is a tough one but I reckon, no jokes now, that this is pretty damn close to what we saw.  It was breath taking!

Ok, so that is me not having time to write too much!  Oh yeah, I have also changed the blog slightly in that you can now view the two latest posts right on the front page.  The slider at the top, below the slideshow, can still be used to flick though the latest posts and on the bottom of the page you can view the latest posts per category.  Hope that helps.

See ya tomorrow!

Gerry