Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
This is a revise of a picture from a previous post, Lion on Serengeti Kopje of October last year. Then, the image was a fairly rough monochrome conversion, and since then I’ve refined it to a more finished standard and is also available as a Giclée fine art print here.
For more on the background of this picture, you can still read about it at original post of last October.
Taken using a Nikon D200 with a 70-200 f2.8 lens at f/5.6, 1/800 and ISO 100
(Clicking on the picture reveals a larger view.)
Saturday, April 10th, 2010
One wildebeest was left behind out of five hundred or so after a crossing on the Mara River in Kenya. The poor guy finally succumbed after a near two hour battle with several Nile crocodiles, during which he almost made the safety of the riverbank twice. Unfortunately it’s not always agreeable and pleasing, nature being nature means that many will suffer too, and every year hundreds of antelope and zebra never make the other side.
The river water levels were low last year, which made it harder for crocodiles to drag their prey down below the surface to drown it. The result of the lower levels meant that the crocodiles had to wear down their prey in other ways.
Afterwards, I’d realised I’d detached myself from any empathy while we were photographing and watching the crossing, at the same time willing the wildebeest on. But he had no chance, there were at least a dozen crocodiles about him (or her) leaving him alone while he rested mid-river, but being set upon again when he tried to make a move to the riverside. That evening, the empathy for the wildebeest set in, and I begun to feel what he must have gone through.
The most lasting memory, one which I could not capture on camera, was of his shaking, of both shock and fear, and which was very much echoed throughout by the look in his eyes.
Taken using a Nikon D300 with a 200-400mm f/4.0 lens at 330mm, f/6.7, 1/1000 and ISO 400.
(Clicking on the picture reveals a larger view.)
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
Late last year I began work on some of my more contemporary pictures with a view to publishing them as a range of fine art prints, and as of today, the first two are now available for sale here.
Pride of Place and Amboseli Crossing are limited to just 175 prints of each for all sizes, there are three sizes, and they range from 400 mm to 800 mm (16 inches to 32 inches) on the long dimension.
These prints are printed via Giclée technique to museum or art gallery standard on high quality fine art paper using the latest light-fast inks. And each print is printed ready for framing with a generous white 50 mm border all around with a light keyline and text underneath.
You can find out more, including edition numbers, pricing and purchase options at this page here. I hope you like them, and I hope to have more of my pictures available in the coming weeks and months.
If you need to know more, or have any kind of request, please don’t hesitate to send me an email.
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Everyone has their favourite photos, and this is a sentimental one of mine.
Nkuringo was an old silverback of the first mountain gorilla group we visited in 2008, the Nkuringo Group at South Bwindi in Uganda. There were sixteen in the group then, but the leadership belonged to another younger silverback called Safari.
Nkuringo was the last of the group we spent time with, of some fifteen minutes, and was stripping the vines of leaves, not much bothered by his visitors. He was very old and seemed to have an injury to his mouth which we later learned had obtained in a fight two years earlier, leaving him slightly paralysed and making it difficult to eat.
If anyone still thinks that gorillas have the persona of a 1933 style King Kong, then they’d soon be persuaded otherwise by this guy.
Sadly, Nkuringo died of natural causes in April 2008 aged forty-nine, just six weeks after our visit.
Taken using a Nikon D300 with a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens at 200mm, f/3.3, 1/125 and ISO 560.
Sunday, January 17th, 2010
Cameras never lie, but a computer can
Maybe I’ve two of three qualities required for a little premature success. I can take above average pictures, am an above average retoucher, but unfortunately I lack an important third quality, which is the appetite for fakery.
I’ve a long shelf of books by wildlife photographers and it’s a collection I’ve often sought inspiration from. But sadly I’ll be putting a couple of those away now, now I’ve seen that of the photographs within, many aren’t photographs at all. They’re manipulated images, or they’re composites — where two or more photographs are combined to create an image that existed only in the maker’s mind in the pretence that they’re photographs.
click to continue reading…
Saturday, January 16th, 2010
“We’ve just one minute remaining” said our guide when I took this photo, the last and one of my favourites of a one hour session. Then, just as I’d taken the picture and become distracted while securing a footing, he came quickly forward, surprising us and nearly knocking me sideways. Stepping shin deep into mud to avoid him, he brushed by, splitting our group of eight on the way through. He didn’t look back. We were ignored, but then he knows that the mountain belongs to him.
This was a previsualised picture, from the water to his pose. Before we’d arrived in Rwanda to visit mountain gorillas, I was already hoping for rain. The rain would bring in some texture to his fur and brighten up the colors as water can do. Sure enough, on nearing the group after a two hour hike, it began to rain lightly. At a minute short of the hour, we found Kigoma some four metres in front, and all I needed was to move a little way to my right, and found myself with the picture I’d envisioned a few weeks earlier. Sometimes, luck pans out well if you look for it.
Kigoma is the second silverback of the Kwitonda Group, in the Parc des Volcans in Rwanda, which we visited in March 2008. Park rules stipulate that the maximum time spent with any one group is one hour per day.
Taken using a Nikon D300 with a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens at 95mm, f/3.3, 1/125 and ISO 1250.
It was protected with an Op-Tec rain sleeve.
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Sunday, January 10th, 2010
Not wanting to miss Richmond Park with the recent snow cover, I arrived in time for the sunrise and made my way to the ponds near the centre to see if I can catch something bigger than this robin, ideally with antlers. There was plenty of ice and snow, but no deer, and by the time I got to the ponds the sun rose and soon enough the blue sky appeared.
I made do with this little red robin for a time, until two big unleashed dogs intervened. Later I found some deer, but I think the best pictures of that morning were of this little guy.
Taken using a Nikon D700 with a 300mm f/4.0 lens
with a 1.4 converter at 420mm, f/6.7, 1/350 and ISO 800.
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010
One morning on the Masai Mara reserve, we encountered a lioness and her three cubs hauling a wildebeest carcass to cover. The kill was fresh, it was out in the open plain and the nearest cover of scrub was a mile distant.
So we watched as she hauled the carcass for some forty-five minutes until it was safe under cover from any other hungry scavengers. She had no help, not even from her cubs, who, just like children, tried everything they could to slow the process. They indulged in tug-o-war, and at one point even jumped on the dead antelope for a free ride.
This picture was taken at about her halfway point, while she paused for a minute to catch her breath.
Taken using a Nikon D300 with a 200-400 lens at 400mm, f/4.8, 1/1000 and ISO 200.
