Phone a Friend

It is amazing how shooting with someone can fuel your enthusiasm, creativity and approach towards wildlife photography.

In today’s world of social networking we share our images all the time.  We re-tweet images we like on Twitter, leave comments on Facebook and browse through literally thousands of online forums and blogs daily on search of great images that we can comment on.  On the flip side we post images on our blogs, Facebook and Twitter hoping for… something.  Recognition, nice comments and general ‘I-think-your-work-is-amazing’ type feedback.  Thats’s all fine and well and it is most definitely a part of the entire digital photography process but when was the last time you went out with another photographer to photograph nature and wildlife?  For yourself?

Going out into the field with someone, shooting the same subjects, sharing your freshly created images on your camera LCD and generally just have a fun and creative afternoon is one of the very best ways to learn and become a better photographer.  Yeah, there is a reason why going on a photographic safaris is such a fantastic way in which to learn, share and have fun!

When you are shooting with someone even the smallest creature or seemingly dull landscape can become the source of hours of inspiration, creative thoughts and something that ignites new ideas.  During the last few days Grant Marcus and I went to the Krugersdorp Game Reserve to do some wildlife photography.  Yeah, that might sound kinda strange as it is only about 30 minutes from Johannesburg, the reserve is quite small and there is not a lot of game.  Spending weeks at a time in the Madikwe Game Reserve you would think that going to a small, non Big 5 reserve, would be disappointing but on the contrary.  We had the most fantastic time photographing general game, birds and landscapes.  During next week I will be doing a post on the Krugersdorp Game Reserve, the photographic opportunities it presents and thoughts on some of the equipment we used and of course a whole lot more images but it was an amazing few days of photography.

For most of the time we were there, when it wasn’t raining, we had cloudy and bright overcast weather which made for absolutely brilliant light for wildlife photography.  We also took along some seriously big lenses to play with.  More on this later but for now here are a few of the images I captured during the last three days.

These little guys were without a doubt the photographic highlight of our trip.  As we were driving along we saw a huge amount of ground squirrels almost next to the road in some kikuyu grass pastures.  We must have spent at least two hours flat on our stomachs not more than three meters from them as we, once the little guys got used to our presence, filled up our memory cards.  I was shooting with a Nikon 200-400mm f/4 which, at the distance, gave me an incredibly shallow depth of field.  I think I fell in love with photography all over as the lens, and the creative possibilities kept me clicking away.  The image above has almost not been processed at all.  Slight curve adjustment but no blurring or anything fancy like that.  The overcast conditions made for beautifully rich colors and I reckon I shot more image of ground squirrels in those two hours then I have in my entire portfolio of wildlife images!

Eland is another antelope that I have seen a lot of but never really had a chance to photograph successfully in the wild.  As we were heading home after our ground squirrel shoot we bumped into a herd of eland as they slowly headed up a hill with the diffused late afternoon light saturating the scene in photographic bliss.  For me the red grass that forms a natural frame around the animal makes this one work and at ISO 1600 not too bad!

Another images from the kikuyu pastures.  Easy recipe – one springbok, soft light, saturated background, cute pose and your all done.

I just had to try a quick monochrome conversion on one of my ground squirrel images.  Spent only a few minutes on this one but will still give some of these the attention they deserve.

This was the last image I snapped on our second day.  I had just finished capturing the eland image above when a flock of Hadeda Ibis flew overhead.  With no real time to change any settings I aimed, tracked them and fired away.  My camera was set on aperture priority and set to f/4 which ended up giving me a fast enough shutter speed with which to freeze the birds’ wingbeat.  Very simple composition but still an interesting image.

At the end of the day it is not about what you shoot but rather how you shoot it and, sometimes, with who.  You will not become a better photographer by always shooting on your own, commenting on online forums or browsing galleries on Facebook or Flickr.  All of those have there place but the only way in which you can become a better photographer, and create better image, is to go out there and take some pictures!!

Tomorrow, being Thursday, would normally be guest post day.  I have however decided to move the guest post to next week as I wanted to focus on a topic that, if you have been following my Twitter feed you will know, a community of  South African wildlife photographers have been trying to get noticed by standing together for one of their own.  Absolutely great to see but sad that it is necassary.  More details on this tomorrow so make sure to join me for ‘Proudly South African‘.

For now, go and phone a friend and make a plan to go and shoot together.  See ya tomorrow!

Gerry