One of the rewards of working in this industry as a professional for nearly 30 years is having the opportunity to share with others all that I’ve learned and enjoyed about being a photographer. And so here I was, on my way to Africa once more and getting ready to lead a small photographic group on mobile tented safari through Botswana, Southern Africa’s most prestigious wildlife destination.
Although it had been a busy year with plenty of travel abroad—which explains why I wasn’t particularly looking forward to another long plane ride—it’s hard to stay away once you’ve been “bitten” by the safari bug. And as a location to help others improve their wildlife photography skills, this one was pretty hard to beat.
As the plane neared its destination, I once again began to look forward to my adventure and return to Africa. As Ernest Hemingway famously said, “I never knew of a morning in Africa when I woke up and was not happy.” Cheesy as that may sound, the wilds of Africa are definitely one of my “happy places.”
I broke my travels with a couple of days off at Victoria Falls for a chance to witness one of the world’s seven natural wonders—and get over my jet lag, because when you are traveling from Auckland, New Zealand, everywhere is a long-haul flight!
After that, it was onward to Kasane followed by Savute, where our tented safari would begin in the Chobe National Park of Northern Botswana. The park is the country’s most diverse area of wildlife encompassing the Chobe riverfront, Savuti and Linyanti Marsh areas, and the hot and dry hinterland of the Nogatsaa woodland. Known for its prolific population of Kalahari elephants, Chobe is also home to lions, leopards, cheetahs, wild dogs, hyenas, antelopes, hippos, warthogs, kudus, sables, impalas, zebras, wildebeests, giraffes, buffalos, crocodiles, and large numbers of birdlife. Our biggest problem would be deciding which way to point the cameras first!
The accommodation during the safari consists of mobile tents erected and then taken down by our friendly camp crew at each location. A dedicated troop of locals, they are quick to greet us with an icy cold drink whenever we return from safari and provide us with heating hot water in large steel tubs for our tented showers and delicious meals beautifully cooked on site. This was “roughing it” but with style!
Photographing wildlife in Africa is the dream of many photographers, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint. Part of that experience is also learning about the animal species we are viewing, witnessing their struggle for survival in a spectacular yet unforgiving landscape, and appreciating nature’s supremacy of design in creating this magical, never ending circle of life—before mankind came along and messed with it, that is.
A number of incidences spring to mind. Spending time with Africa’s “Painted Wolf” or Wild Dog showed how this highly social species has evolved to become the continent’s most efficient hunters with a nearly 100% successful kill rate. When working together in packs, they can sustain speeds of over 60 kms an hour before bringing down their exhausted prey (often beasts ten times their own size) with ruthless accuracy. Yet, for all their success, they are Africa’s most endangered large carnivore due to loss of habitat. This has resulted to more competition with other predators and a decreased food supply, meaning the dogs have been victims of poaching and are often killed by farmers in order to protect their livestock. They are also at risk from disease passed on by domesticated animals—a subtle reminder of our oftentimes harmful influence on many of nature’s triumphs.
Alongside this were experiences like capturing an overwater shot of a mother leopard and her cautious cubs drinking from a water hole in the early hours of the morning. We had come across their trail well before sunrise and tracked them for a while before realizing that they were heading to this water hole. By circling wide, we were able to get to the opposite side of the waterhole and secure our position before they arrived, and we were rewarded with a stunning view of this intimate scene.
Another big cat that we photographed in Africa was a young male lion leaping over a watery ditch while headed towards the rest of his pride. Having predicted the direction of his journey, we were already positioned for the shot, but I worried that he was getting too close for my 400mm lens! When he eventually leaped across the small stream, he was full frame, and it came down to reaction time and being totally ready to capture the moment. It was, after all, one of the most important rules in any kind of wildlife photography and something I go over with my guests many times: practice, practice, and more practice!
I often get asked why I choose to shoot with the ISO sometimes higher than it needs to be. It comes down to what you hope to shoot and simply being ready for anything. If the subject of my image ends up being a slower moving animal, I will always have time to dial the ISO back. But if there is the remotest chance of something happening at a faster pace, then I’d rather be ready to fire without losing any reaction time. I prefer a sharp image, even with slight noise, more than a cleaner image that has unnecessary movement blur. And with the performance of the modern Nikon cameras, avoiding high ISO is really a thing of the past.
My image of two young elephants play fighting in the river is a case in point. Wildlife photography is unscripted and you never know exactly what you are going to be a spectator to at any given moment. All you can do is be prepared and ready to react.
Another favourite image from that trip – also shot on the Nikkor 400mm – was of a Pied Kingfisher as it darted and dived around the waterways in Africa. We had all been hoping to capture an image of these amazing birds, but they are simply too fast to track and keep in frame. To create this image, we were watching the Kingfisher as it hovered above the waterway, and we tried to estimate its dive trajectory and where it would hit the river. I told my team to pre-focus on the water and use continuous autofocus on the splash when the bird makes its dive, and to fire multiple frames to capture the kingfisher as it rose back up from the surface. As you can see, it was an unsuccessful dive for him but a great photographic result for us! The shutter speed of 1/1250 second was enough to freeze the water droplets from the splash, but the bird’s wings flapped fast enough to still show some movement blur in the water that was coming off the wings, thus adding to the overall feel of the image.
There was so much to see in Africa that we didn’t want the days to end, and so it became habit to take our “sundowners” in the safari vehicles while parked up at the nearest water hole, where we would watch the elephants who often came down to drink and cool off at sunset.
For my favourite sunset image of this group of elephants, I climbed out onto the roof of the safari vehicle to get a better angle of view that placed the elephants cleanly against the golden backdrop of the water. It’s a fitting memory from a very special trip, and yet I’m already dreaming about my next visit and counting down the months until I can return to Botswana once again.
