What are you shooting ?
What ISO do you have ?
Is your F-stop low or high ?
There’s a lot of noise in my photo…!
Is yours on Aperture priority or Shutter priority ?
These were often the the questions and statements that I would hear as my fellow colleagues would begin their barrage of taking photos of what ever sighting we happened to be in that morning or afternoon. As I would normally try to just appreciate the beauty of the moment I was in without looking through a view finder to document my record of the sighting, I could feel the jealously build up in my stomach as I could already foresee the social media or blog posts that would later be uploaded.
My attempts to capture the moment with my cellphone camera were sufficient, but what my colleagues had to their advantage was their telephoto lenses that enabled them to get that much closer to the subject. Being a layman in the photographic world I put two and two together and proceeded to use what I had at my disposal; my camera phone and a pair of binoculars. With the steady hands of a surgeon to line up the camera’s lens and the lenses of the binoculars through one of the view finders require patience and delicate manoeuvers to create a clear field of view and then locating the animal.
Over the course of several days and determination to create a rival photograph to that of a DSLR camera and many unusable shots and missed opportunities I would like to share with you the few that I have decided that are worthy to be shown.
The Flat Rock male arising from a late afternoon slumber. Leopards will generally yawn several times before they get active in the late afternoon and early evening.
A leopard who took advantage of the death of the 4:4 male in 2016 to grab territory to the west of the Londolozi camps.
Two boisterous young male elephants entertain themselves at a waterhole. Elephants, being highly social animals, will play fight with each other in their younger years in an attempt to assert dominance.
A Swainson’s spurfowl begins the morning chorus with a territorial call. These birds will often call from an elevated position to amplify their call and their presence.
An African barred owlet surveys the surrounding woodland for potential prey. These birds are one of the few owl species that will actively hunt during the day as it eliminates competition from other owl species.
One of the Matshipiri coalition stares out to the distance. These males who were once dominant in the area have now been chased out by a younger coalition, leaving them few places of refuge in the Sabi Sands.
A photo of the moon taken through the Londolozi telescope. Winter is an exciting time for star gazing as the cold nights bring about a celestial ambiance to the evening drives.
A lone elephant bull devouring a buffalo thorn. Even with the hooked and spiked thorns of the Ziziphus macronata, the elephants make light work of consuming entire trees of the buffalo thorn during the drier periods of winter.
Seeking out the right branch to pluck for feeding. Elephants have an extremely dexterous tip to their trunk, enabling it to be as effective as tweezers when picking out the right leaves for foraging.
The Ndzanzeni female grooms herself atop a fallen tree early in the morning. This female has been successfully raising a cub over the last couple of months, although it will still be up to a year before he is properly independent.
This female is a success story all in herself, being born as a single cub to the Dudley Riverbank female in early 2012.
While one could never truly compete with the accomplished photographer with all of their gear, by the simple use of placing your binoculars in front of your cellphone camera, you create a very different perspective for the photographs you can now take. Patience must be exercised as it is a difficult practice to master but the above photos are proof that just a little imagination and improvisation can go a long way in the photographic world.
don’t the matshipiri males still have the Sparta and fourways to rule over