The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park seems amazing!

After reading Villiers Steyn’s guest post yesterday I am even more excited, if that’s possible to my trip to the KTP in January 2011.

Villiers, thanks for a great article and awesome image!  Appreciate your contribution!

If you are keen to learn more about the KTP you can check out the official website here.

As I sat down to write this blog I honestly had no idea what to write about.

No idea.

So I scrolled through a few images from the last week, looking for something to write about, and found this one of a black backed jackal.

There were many other images including lions, elephant and rhino, but decided to go with this one as it made me think of quite a few different things ranging from photography to conservation.  Isn’t that one of the great things about photography?   A single image can make you think about many different things.  Love it!

So in no particular order, here are a ten completely useless thoughts and useless pieces of information, that comes to mind when I look at this image.

1.  The collar on the female jackal has a huge story behind it.  Rob Harrison-White has been working on his Predator Biodiversity Project for many years.  This female therefore forms part of a truly amazing research project which is no doubt going to change the way people think about these amazing animals.

2.  From a wildlife photography point of view, does the collar ruin the image?

3.  I like the image, but it would have been nice if she was running in the other direction in order for the late afternoon light to play on her face a bit more.

4.  This female is currently taking care of brand new youngsters and has been foraging for about 8 hours a day to feed the growing youngsters.

5.  There are currently four jackal dens in Madikwe.

6.   Would you crop the image to try and remove the pieces of vegetation on the sides of the image?  For me it adds to the scene as it places the jackal in her natural environment.

7.  In my mind I kinda expect to see a lot of these animals in the Kgalagadi when I head up there in January.

8.  The black backed jackal must be one of the most misunderstood animals out there.

9.  Black-backed jackal will pair for life and both partners urine scent-mark their territories and defend against intruders.

10.  I really need to try and photograph more of these amazing little animals.

Amazing isn’t it?  One image, many thoughts.  That’s what makes photography great!

What are your first thoughts when you see this image?

Right before I go two more things.

If you have been following the blog for a while you will surely recall Morkel Erasmus.  Morkel is a friend, great photographer and has done two guest posts on Photo-Africa.  His last post was on the KTP and shows why it is a photographers paradise!  You can check out that post here.  Once you have finished reading through that article, make sure to pop in to Morkel’s brand new website.  Awesome collection of images!  You can check out his new site here.

Secondly, every Friday I do a guest post on the Bush Warriors site.  These guest posts generally deal with wildlife photography tips and tricks so if you have a moment you can pop in there as well.

Time to get going.

See ya on the flip side.

Gerry

Like it or not, you will take bad images.

Ok, that might sound a bit harsh but it’s true.  It does not matter whether you take your time to photograph a wildlife subject or whether you fill up card after card on rapid fire, there will always be a few images that you feel is not good enough to show the world.

Come on, admit it.

You have images on your computer that you have no intention of showing anybody.  Out of focus, bad composition, whatever.  You just don’t want to show it to anybody.

It’s ok!  We all, yes all of us, take images that are not up to standard.  The point is this – you need to learn from your sub-standard images.  You need to:

- look at them
- recognize that there is something that you don’t like
- decide why you don’t like it
- decide how to fix what you didn’t like
- learn from it

The last point is the most important.  Learning from you photographic mistake is the only way in which you will become a better photographer.  So, with that being said, here is an example of how one images can teach you many things.

The above sunrise image was shot in the Wolwedans Nature Reserve in Namibia.  Early morning.  Oryx.   Beautiful light.  We were snapping away.  At first glance I quite liked the image but I knew there was something that didn’t feel right.  I took a moment and really looked at it and these are the three lessons I took away from this shot

1.  The subject is placed in the middle of the frame.  This makes the image feel flat as there is no tension or implied movement.  By positioning the Oryx more to the right of the frame there would have been more space for the animal to (potentially) move into creating a more naturally dynamic feeling.

2.  The tree on the right is neither in nor out of the frame.  It’s almost there.  The two choices here would have been to have placed it a little more to the left, showing the entire stem, or to exclude it completely.  I quite like the tree as it forms a frame on the right of the frame and also works quite well with the sunlight coming through the branches.

3.  The horizon is skew.  Even though the Oryx was standing on the slope of a hill the viewer’s eyes will be drawn to the bottom right of the frame.  Placing the subject in the bottom right of the frame might have been one way in which to use this strong leading line alternatively would have been to wait and hope the animal walks to the top of the hill.

There are many ways to learn but one of the best ways is to look at your own work – honestly!  Don’t look for all the good things.  Be realistic and honest with yourself and see what you can learn from your ‘not-my-best’ images.

Another way in which you can learn and be inspired is to look at other photographers images and tomorrow, being guest blogger Thursday, you can do exactly that.  Mark Dumbleton has established himself as on one of the up and coming South African landscape and wildlife photographers to watch.  Join Mark tomorrow as he explores what makes a good landscape photograph.  Great images, great advise, great guest post!  Make sure to pop in tomorrow!

I will see ya on Friday!

Gerry

The nice thing about photography is how it can capture emotions or thoughts.  During the last two weeks I have kinda felt like the image above – busy!  Not a complaint at all as I got quite a lot done in a short amount of time.  Apart from a few days of selfish wildlife photography I did a a number of lifestyle portrait shoots and also met with a few photographers about future plans.  Exciting stuff and the ball is rolling but more on that as things develop.  The image above of a herd or Red Hartebeest is one I shot in the Krugersdorp Game Reserve on a very overcast day last week.  Initially it might seem a bit messy but there is almost a pattern.  There is almost something.  For me that is what works in a monochrome abstract image. When you initially look at the image it makes sense but the more you look at it the more sense it makes.  Make sense?  ;)

They say that life imitates art and I currently find myself feeling a bit like this image.  Busy but at a place where things make sense and the more I look at, read work at it, the more sense it makes.  If you wait long enough the image works.  If I waited long enough when taking this picture I could have gotten a beautiful repetition of all the horns.  I did, but that’s not the point.  The point is that when you combine patience with the ability to see something before it happens you are one step closer to your goal.  Hey, that could be a wildlife photography mantra.  The point is that when you combine patience with the ability to see something before it happens you are one step closer to your image.  I digress as I am more referring to working towards a larger goal.  Seeing the final product, making a success of the process as you head towards realizing your final goal.  Yeah, like the above image.  A nice reward for the willingness to chase a goal.

The goal with the above image was always to try and get the repetition of the horns.  It was there all the time.  I just had to see it, wait for it and take it.  The image I got a few seconds after this one was ‘the one’.  It was the goal I saw from the moment we arrived on the scene.  In photography and in our own goals, whether personal or professional, we never quite now how close we actually are.  The bottom line is not to give up.

I guess you can see where my mind is.  Don’t worry, will be posting all the details as they develop but before this metaphor falls completely flat, or I milk it too much, I am gonna wish you and your family a Happy Easter and say goodbye until next week.  Lots coming up.

Have a great Easter weekend, and stay safe!

Gerry

Firstly a big thanks to Gerry for inviting me to do this blog entry – I’ve kept an eye on the Photo-Africa blog site for ages and it’s wonderful to be part of it now.

When Gerry suggested that I do something on how wildlife photography has changed over the years it was a bit of a surprise that he’d come up with this topic as it’s something I’d been thinking quite a bit about it in the preceding weeks and have now incorporated discussion on this into our photographic workshops.

The biggest change over the years (from an equipment point of view) has been the advent of digital cameras. Thinking back; how we ever managed to get great images using film is almost beyond me now.

The first major issue was the sheer quantity film. It was not uncommon for us to take 100 rolls of ISO 50 Velvia into deepest, darkest Africa for a week-long shoot. Can you imagine arriving at some far flung border post with all this film and a bag full of camera gear (including a 600 f4 and a 300 f2.8)? The customs and immigration people would be thrilled – finally something to really get their teeth into! Pat and I would be there for hours – lying through our teeth! And as good as Velvia was, if you have a look at a scanned transparency you will notice the huge amount of grain that’s visible. Compare that to an image from a Nikon D3 or similar and you’ll see what I mean!

There were 2 other hugely limiting factors (actually, there are probably more but…). The first is the ease at which we change ISO rating – at any time. You can’t do this with film. At best you can push the speed a stop or 2 but the thought of using anything beyond about ISO 200 (for transparency film) was ludicrous. The quality was appalling. Now I think nothing of using ISO 1600 on my D3X and if you are using a Nikon D3 or a Canon 1D Mk IV then you upper limit is over 100 000!  Think about the possibilities that that open up…

The other thing is the number of images you could shoot – 36 and then we had to have a film change. And invariably what happened was you’d get to about image 28 or 30 and the elephant would charge and you’ve got 6 images left! On my camera, with its 2 memory card slots, I can fit about 600 RAW imaged on a “roll of film”.  Of course there was also no correcting minor exposure errors in Lightroom later – what you shot was what you got! And the cost! We’d spend about R50 000-00 a year on film and remember that was in the late ’90’s when R50k was still R50k.

The other big thing that has happened over the years is that the style of photography as changed – substantially. When we worked on our book, The Big Cats of MalaMala, it was all about crystal clear, sharp, well lit (Mostly front lighting with a little fill flash. And no i-TTL by the way), fairly posed images. It was simply about the image and not the beast. By the time we started on our book on Tuli, 4 years later things had changed.  A little creative licence had crept into the images. Some blur perhaps. A smattering of the images would have been shot at twilight (remember that ISO at 200 was about the practical upper limit for the digital cameras that were around at the time) and we were trying to bring out a bit of the “spirit” of the animal.

In the old days, exposure and technical aspects ruled supreme.

Digital cameras allowed a little more experimentation and the message behind the image was becoming more and more important.

Low angles, selective focus and a more “documentary” style is becoming fashionable.

This image was shot with the camera attached to a monopod and held upside down out the side of a vehicle.

And now? Well it’s over to you. What are you trying to say? What’s the message? Almost anything goes. It’s less about technical aspects and very much more about the message coming through. Sure, we still all like to see well exposed, sharp, beautifully composed pix but there is more that is needed. Much more! And what is the “more”?   I don’t know – you tell me…!

Stay well.

Roger de la Harpe

Roger’s Links:

• Website: Africa Imagery
• Blog: Africa Imagery Blog
• Workshops & Safaris: Workshops & Safaris

I have just uploaded a few new images to the Photo-Africa Stock Library.

Lion Cub by Gerry van der Walt

Lazy Pride by Gerry van der Walt

To view more of or purchase any of my images click here.

More soon.

Gerry

Nick van de Wiel has just uploaded new images to the Photo-Africa Stock Library.

Klipspringer Silhouette by Nick van de Wiel

Lion by Nick van de Wiel

To view more of or purcahse any of Nick’s images click here.

More soon.

Gerry

Fabian Haas has just added new images to the Photo-Africa Stock Library.

Experimental Wildlife by Fabian Haas

Now the interesting thing about Fabian’s latest images is that he drew the inspiration for these ‘experimental’ images from Nick Brandt’s work.  If you are not familiar with Nick Brandt you can check out a review I did of his second book by clicking here and you will see that, it is truly spectacular.

This week has been absolutely insanely busy and in between meetings, driving to Johannesburg and piles of papers I did not get around to confirming my guest blogger for tomorrow.  It’s Thursday remember!  So for tomorrow I am going to play the I-have-been-to-busy-to-touch-sides-so-I’ll-just-use-an-old-magazine-articlefrom-a-few-months-ago-as-tomorrow’s-guest-post card.

Nah, seriously.  By tomorrow afternoon life should be a little bit closer to normal so for tomorrow’s guest post, while I wrap up the busy part of the week, I will be posting a magazine article I wrote a few months ago.  In Shooting Africa in Black and White I share thoughts on shooting wildlife in black and white.  It seems we all have, and probably always will, keep on creating black and white wildlife images as can be seen from Fabian’s latest uploads and the guest post that Grant Marcus did a few weeks ago.

The images in tomorrow’s post are all a part of a limited edition print series I created at the beginning of last year.  If you are keen on any of them as a printed canvas there are still a few available!   Anyway, hope you enjoy the post tomorrow and I will see you again on Friday for a wrap up of the week.

Stay safe!

Gerry

Gavin Tonkinson has just added new images to the Photo-Africa Stock Library.

Male Lion Up a Tree (B&W) by Gavin Tonkinson

Big Yawn by Gavin Tonkinson

To view more of or purchase any of Gavin’s images click here.

More soon.

Gerry

Warren David Diack has just added new images to the Photo-Africa Stock Library.

Moth by Warren David Diack

Flower by Warren David Diack

To view more of or purchase any of Warren’s images click here.

More soon.

Gerry

Fabian Haas has just added 3 new images to the Photo-Africa Stock Library.

Giraffe and Ngong Hills by Fabian Haas

Kori Bustard in Nairobi National Park by Fabian Haas

To see more of or purchase Fabian’s images click here.

More soon.

Gerry