Africa Calling - Learning from the first trip.

In 2012 I headed back to Africa to visit my parents.  This was also the first time my partner had been to Africa so we decided to really make a trip of it and visit East Africa, spend time in the Masai Mara and Serengeti and then self drive ourselves through some of Southern Africa's national parks.

Naturally I was salivating at all the potential photographic opportunities that were going to come my way!  My mind's eye was filled with visions of the big five posing and my shutter clicking away and masses of superb photos being written to my memory cards.

Well I was not disappointed with the the sights Africa served up, one of the most special being the cheetah hunt we witnessed in the Masai Mara.  I was pretty raw though and looking back now I can recognise some flaws in some pictures that I took on that trip.  In September we are going back again for about a month and with that in mind I would like to share some pictures I believe didn't work out and why I think they didn't work.  I'll follow this up with another post with pictures I believe do work and through the process I can relive the experiences and hopefully improve my skills/eye.  After all this is a learning process right??

Lesson 1:  Subject Placement

Masai Cheetah

Here's a pretty cool animal.  This is the first time I had seen cheetah in the wild and they had just been unsuccessful in a hunt, my heart was racing my mind scrambled with what I had just witnessed.  The result....... a bulls eye.  The cat is dead center of the frame and in terms of composition this is a no no.  If the cat were to be over to the left hand side of the frame it would give the animal space to 'look' into and result in a better image.

The placement of the cheetah is far better in this picture,  over to the left of the frame and with space to look into.  Interestingly this photograph was taken before the hunt and thinking back I was still excited to be seeing cheetah but i was much more calm.  I was thinking about composition and the result speaks for itself.  What do I take away from this?  Try remain calm and always thinking about these guidelines, no matter what is happening on the other side of the lens!


Lesson 2: Look for the action after the stock shot.

Lilac Breasted roller

These have to be the prettiest birds in Africa, the colors are simply intoxicating and scream "hey take a picture of me look at how gorgeous I am!!"  So I did, again managing to bulls eye the subject (doh)!!  I like the picture in that it is sharp and really shows the colors of the bird but aside from that it is pretty boring right?? I mean it is a bird sitting on a branch....... we've all seen that before.  I clearly remember, maybe two minutes after this picture, the bird took off and some of my companions in the safari truck managed to capture some gorgeous shots.  Brilliant wing color and undoubtedly a more interesting picture as the bird was in motion and this lent a real energy to their shots.

Lesson to be taken from this??  Once you have the shot of the bird posing on the branch anticipate action and be ready to capture it, because that's the real money shot!

Lesson 3:  Creatively using settings for more 'artsy' shots

Matopos Leopard

Now this really did come about as a result of the circumstances, however I love the result even though I did not consciously intend this outcome.  This cat was probably 150-200 yards from our vehicle, lying down in the campsite and was really comfortable being illuminated by our vehicles headlights.  I didn't want to move the car closer and potential scare the leopard and ruin a truly magical sighting (there was only one other car in the campsite it was truly a private show that the bush decided to bless us with).

I was at the full 500mm stretch of my Sigma 150-500mm and my ISO was cranked right up to 3200, I had the lens supported between the frame of the car and the door frame and this allowed me to get sharp, although noisy, shots at very slow shutter speeds.  After about 25 min of pure magic the cat moved and as it headed off I took the shot above trying to follow it as it left the lit area. The shutter speed in this particular shot is 1/5 second and this has resulted in the blurred movement of the leopard.   The end result is a picture I really like.

The movement adds real energy to the picture, and the blurry scene but still identifiable subject really helps convey the essence of these elusive creatures.  So by pure chance I think I have managed to make a picture that really conveys the feeling of a leopard as a wraith in the night.

What have this tells me is that I need to think more about using shutter speed as a creative tool to produce dynamic photos. Nail the sharp shots and then have fun and really let those creative juices flow.



I am really looking forward to the forth coming trip, we will be visiting Kruger National Park, I have never been there so it will be exciting to explore a new area while keeping these lessons from my last trip in mind.  Hopefully the lessons learned and observations made will allow me to return with some compelling photographs and treasured memories.

I'll keep you posted so watch this space!

Thanks for stopping by.