Tag Archives: Wildlife
The Drakensberg Mountains, South Africa
It must be post ‘holiday’ blues. I’m sitting here having returned from a week in South Africa yesterday and well, let’s just say I’m not feeling like I want to stay in the UK much longer!
My trip to the Drakensberg mountains in South Africa was to visit a friend who owns a part share in a house there. He, along with seven of his friends, clubbed together and bought some land. In this case, the “some” was 650acres bordering a national park and just a few km from the UNESCO world heritage site of the Sani Pass that runs up through the mountains to the plateau of Lesotho at the top. Not a bad place on which to build a house, so that’s what they did.
There was quite a group of us there and the majority were into both photography and wildlife, so it made for a great collection of people to talk to. Although not a ‘photographic’ trip in the true sense, I did get a lot of time to take pictures – fortunate really as had I not been able to take so many pictures, I’d have been frustrated the whole time! You see, the Drakensberg are stunning. Truly epic, and well worth a visit whether you want to photograph them or not.
Anyway, back to these post holiday blues. It’s not something I usually suffer with. Not that I’m happy to be home, but maybe I’ve just not felt a connection to somewhere quite as strongly and therefore the pain of leaving is reduced. In this case though, it reminds me of my New Zealand trip – I really didn’t want to come home. And now I am home, I’m trying to work out why!
So why was I so smitten with the Drakensberg mountains? For a start, they’re quite impressive mountains. Despite being flat topped (like table mountain) they still have a grandeur and presence to them. No, they are not created by continental uplift like the alps, instead being the result of a slow rising lava flow running over sedimentary rock to create a cap. But even without the jagged tooth-like peaks, they are so vast you can’t help but wonder at them. Secondly, the wildlife is pretty impressive. Sadly I didn’t get to see any of the super-elusive leopards in the area, nor the worlds largest antelope – the Eland. But the bird life made up for it, with Cape Vulture, Crested Eagle, Secretary birds, Crowned Crane, Drakensberg Rockjumper, Bearder Vulture, Jackal Buzzard and Rock Kestrel among many others. There were a few mammals too – Mountain Reedbuck, Grey Rhebok and the endemic Slogget’s Ice Rat were all seen, and in the case of the last two, at quite close quarters as well.
I think the time of year helped too – sure the southern hemisphere is heading into winter, but 23degrees was more than enough for me, and the rains that were present on some afternoons or evenings made sure the scenery was lush and green.
All in, it was a remarkable trip in which the 1 week I spent there was no were near long enough to do it justice. That just means I’m going to have to go back again….and again and again until I feel I’ve captured it sufficiently well enough to do it justice.
So what are those blues about? Well, currently I’m trying to figure out why I live in England….!
Norfolk
Well after a little break, I’m back to the blog! I’m sitting here wondering whether I release all my pictures from the weekend on you or whether I drip feed them in. Since I’m in an impatient mood today I’ve decided to compromise – I’ll subject you to some now and some later!
For those of you who don’t know, I’ve spent the last four days with a couple of friends having a whale of a time photographing all sorts of things. This was a purely photographic trip, no holiday with photography, no other half to consider – I could spend as long as I wanted shooting what I wanted when I wanted! What this meant was four days of 5:30am alarm calls and being out until the sun was gone…and then a bit longer.
While we had a plan of subjects we were aiming for (Barn Owls being the main one) I actually had more fun with the waders. And just for the practice, I did a couple of landscapes because I was asked about a technique. Contrary to popular belief among my friends, I don’t object to being asked how to do things or why I do things a certain way – I may be out with friends taking pictures, but I still love teaching and passing on knowledge! Just ask my better half – I apparently have a teacher voice I use when I’m trying to get a point across…!
We spent the four days on the Norfolk coast and I found it great to have the chance at some serious photography over an extended period of time. Our list of interesting subjects seen is really pretty good:
Marsh Harrier, Barn Owl, Kestrel, Buzzard, Avocet, Snow Bunting, Turnstone, Dunlin, Redshank, Greenshank, Teal, Ringed Plover and Hare among many others.
Before heading off, I was fortunate enough to lay my hands on a big lens – an EF800mm f/5.6 IS USM – a stellar lens that once you get used to using is capable of spectacular results. The reason I say “get used to using” is that while you may be used to a 400mm or 500mm, the step up makes things that bit different. Everything is bigger in the frame (D’uh!) but the way you handle the lens is different. You need to think about the 6meter minimum focusing distance (I think Turnstone must still be using imperial measurements; I kept telling them to be 6 meters away, they seemed to think I said 6 inches….) and the slower response time you have while swinging a bigger lens around. Switching back to a 500mm having been using the 800mm really felt like I was missing something – namely the frame filling ‘wow!’ that a long lens can provide. If I could, I’d be tempted to have one in the bag but at the price of a good small car, that’s not happening any time soon, and to be honest, I’m of the opinion that a EF400mm f/2.8L II IS USM with the new EF1.4 and EF2x Mark III Extenders is a more versatile solution – again, still the cost of a small car, not to mention not being available to buy yet.
With one of the landscape shots shown here (the huts with the sunset) it’s a combination of two techniques – light painting and HDR (and some ND grad filters too). In truth, the standard light painted image looks pretty good, but I want to experiment with HDR for landscapes so I figured it was a good one to try it out on. Sure it’s a bit different to my normal “minimal editing” approach, but I like to experiment and try new things to see if they’ll be useful for projects in the future. My view of HDR is that it has a place and can produce great images, but it has to be used with care. Images that look obviously HDR’ed are not my cup of tea.
The light-painted bit was done with three flashguns – two controlled by me and one controlled by my VAL (that’s voice activated light-stand) in this case, the VAL was aka Calum. (Thanks Calum!)
If you are interested in learning more about this kind of photography (both wildlife and landscape) and how to get these kinds of images, as well as getting to see subjects like this, drop me a line and let me know. I am looking at organising a photographic training trip to some of these locations where you’ll get time to photograph as well as help in getting great shots, all while seeing some spectacular wildlife. Send me a mail from this link and let me know, or drop a note in the comments.
Anyway, I shan’t bore you with any more drivel, instead here’s some pictures for you to look at instead – hopefully they’re more interesting than me typing!
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