Photographerwild

Africa 2019

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I’m often asked “why Africa?” It is difficult to explain beyond what I’ve stated in my previous entries, but the best I can describe it is that it’s the place I feel at most peace within myself and it is very different than the everyday life I lead at home.

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Each adventure is a learning experience and most often, I try to find a particular species to look out for in the hopes of seeing or encountering the animal, and potentially making photographs of those encounters. This adventure had no such “focal point” except that I wanted to do walks this time (walks are not permitted in most of the parks I usually visit), and we found a wonderful place in Zimbabwe that does allow for unguided walks – although my safari buddy is also a former game ranger/field guide so we had great walks – one with a big bull elephant and a couple of others with lions. Mind you, we didn’t get too close and for one of the lion walks - where we had tracked five lions into an area where they would settle down as the heat of the morning began to rise - I didn’t even take my camera as I felt it was too much of a distraction because I needed to be focused on how to navigate the terrain, read the signs and learn and help deduce where each of the 5 lions could be at any given moment for their comfort and our safety.

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Except for a brief lesson on the last trip, I did some game driving, which I’ve not done before, including navigating water holes and other rough terrain, as well as avoiding animals in the road, such as the lion we came upon that was drinking from a puddle, then walked very casually passed us and up the road where he laid down. I’m told I have a pretty good grasp of it, and it was fun to have a new technical challenge in the mix. I’ll admit, I got us off track pretty badly at one point – while there are “roads”, sometimes these are nothing more than tire tracks, which can go off in different directions so you don’t actually know which is the authorized road and which is not! – so my buddy drove us out through some very thick bush, because turning back and retracing where I had gotten us to would have added at least 2 hours to the drive and put us back late to camp, and dinner!

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The photos in this gallery are not drastically different from those of my prior adventures. Photography is secondary, if not lowest, priority for me and now mostly I shoot or try to make an image just for practice or to play with the camera. For example, I took over 2500 images, but selected only a handful for this gallery that tell me a story about those encounters. Like the Bateleur Eagle that is quite the “poser.” The Bateleur is my favorite bird of prey and I had never seen any bird sun itself the way this guy/gal did, so it was extra special that it turned out to be my favorite bird to strike that pose. It was also difficult not to put human thoughts into what that bird was thinking. And to get a shot of him/her launching into flight was such a great bonus!  

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Time in these magical places also makes me wonder what I can do more directly to help with conversation. I learned of an anti-poaching program in South Africa that is looking for groups of 10-20 people in the US to monitor the park’s trail cameras (via web cam) during US day and report activity to the anti-poaching unit via email or text message. This will help the small team reduce further poaching of the park’s wildlife such as rhinos, elephants, and more, which occurs to this day.  If you’re interested, please Contact me.