This last weekend has been pretty good for wildlife photography.
This does not necessarily mean that the sighings were mind blowing, but there was always something special. Great light, a certain body position or great natural composition. That special ingredient is what we, as wildlife photographers, look for when photographing animals in the wild. I must have more than a thousand close up portraits of lions in the wild. Does this mean I will pass by the opportunity to photograph another one? Hell no. Even though I have some absolutely fantastic lion images, I am still always looking for all those ‘special’ ingredients to fall in place. Light, angle, look.
It is for these shots that I am willing to sit and wait but then there is also the other times where, in a split second, possible images just happen. Luck is after all a major variable in wildlife photography. Apart from all the sit-and-wait shots, I was able to capture quite a few of the ready-or-not shots this weekend. Here are two of my personal favorites which, in my opinion, both work very well as monochrome images.
Early yesterday morning, we sat watching two white rhino crossing the road in front of us. Every now and then they almost walked into an open clearing which was bathed in early morning sunlight but then stopped again. We waited for quite some time but decided that it’s time to move one. As we started up and drove past them the one youngster started walking directly to us. Stop car, grab camera, aim, fire. After waiting for the shot, it turned out that on this occasion luck was gonna determine the shot as I was barely able to shoot of about three frames before the rhino stopped and turned away from us again. Being prepared and having my camera ready to shoot did help!
We sat watching this male lion for well over 30 minutes during which time we shot off a lot of frames. We slowly worked our way around him to get various angles, backgrounds and light. Some pretty decent lion portraits. Yeah more! After a while he got up and started walking towards a nearby waterhole. We started up and quickly made our way around him in order to catch him at the water. We barely came around the corner when we saw him appearing through some thickets. Quite unexpected as he veered off course quite a bit but same drill… stop car, grab camera, aim, fire. This was the first image in a sequence of three that I fired off but this is the only one that worked again, purely because me and my camera were ready.
When you are out in the African bush it definitely helps to be prepared and know how your camera works. Do you have a standby position for your camera so that when you pick it up you know what the settings are and what you are working with? Can you change settings such as shutter speed, aperture, ISO and metering without looking at the camera controls? If you can answer yes to both questions you are on the right track. If not, you might not alway be fast enough to capture those ready-or-not shots!
Until later and remember… always be ready! 
Gerry
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