Crazy Eyes

I wanted to share a quick image from my recent Chobe safari with you. I wonder how many of you have seen this kind of expression from an elephant before?

This young bull was enjoying a good frolic in the water, and came out head swishing and eyes all crazy. Captured from our specialised photographic boat, I was sitting on the floor with my lens resting over the side. In hindsight I should have gone to f8 for more DOF, but I'm happy with the sequence I got.

I was amazed to see how much the Chobe elephants really enjoy goofing off in the river...

Techs:

Nikon D3s

Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II

f5.6 | 1/1600 SS | ISO-1100

Full frame except for slight crop due to rotation (to get water level in front of elephant level)

click on the photo to view at optimal sharpness and resolution

Morkel Erasmus

View of a Leopard

I've minced no bones about leopards being a nemesis species for me. They are elusive to begin with, but it does seem that when I am in the area, they get a special memo to avoid being seen. This was one such an occasion - I was visiting my friend +Marlon du Toit when he was still working at Singita Sabi Sands in the hope of building up my leopard portfolio (seeing that the Sabi Sands is infamous for its leopard sighting and density).

What do you think happened? The first afternoon, upon my arrival - it started bucketing with rain. Rain which didn't stop for about 3 days, intermittently. And we saw no leopards! We had a couple of amazing sightings otherwise...but on my last afternoon as I was bound to leave and rejoin my family that night, we got word of a sighting of the Keshane Male, a magnificent and powerful male leopard that roams in the area. We had to fall into the queue of the paying guests, though, but eventually it was our turn. The entire sighting was spent watching his bum as he moved up the roadways in the bush, marking his territory. Eventually he settled in the grass, and for a fleeting moment (it was literally 10-15 seconds) I could snap some portraits. After this he got up and moved off into a drainage line and we had to leave so I could drive home.

Anyway - this is one of the better photos I took in that brief spurt of eye contact. He has amazing eyes, but the shots where he's looking my way were all marred by blades of grass obscuring one of his eyes. This one has the eye clear, still with some pesky grass in the way. My personal processing ethic is geared more towards natural-looking photos and zero cloning out of parts of the image. One way I do deal with the grass, is through monochrome conversions - converting in such a way as to negate the effect of the grass by way of filtering out some colours.

Here are 2 versions of this photo. Colour, and monochrome. Which do you prefer? And why?
Drop me a comment and let me know!

Techs:
Nikon D3s
Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II
f4.0  |  1/200 SS  |  ISO-2200
Shot handheld from a game viewer

click on the photo to display at proper resolution and sharpness

click on the photo to display at proper resolution and sharpness

Have a great day!

Morkel Erasmus

Lady of the Dunes

It's almost Kalahari time for me and my family again. By now you already know that I love the place. The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park takes a bit of your heart every time you visit - and you return to try and get it back, but you leave even more behind every time. Where else can you see a lion in this setting, right beside your vehicle?

Getting a low angle perspective is critical to increase the impact of your wildlife photos. So much of wildlife photography is done shooting "down" from your position in a vehicle, and in most places getting out isn't really allowed, so being able to position yourself to get this kind of perspective on your subject is first prize!

Techs:

Canon 7D

Canon 100-400mm L IS USM @ 340mm

f5.6  |  1/1000 SS  |  ISO-1600

click on the photo to display properly

To find out more about booking your own trip to the Kgalagadi one day, check out these links:
South African National Parks
Ta Shebube Lodges

Until I write again - keep clicking!

Morkel Erasmus

Excited Elephant

Well, to call this elephant "excited" would be to apply gross euphemism to the situation. This cow was AN-GHU-RYYYY...and we were just standing in the road minding our own business. My wife and I were taking a leisurely afternoon drive close to Punda Maria in the Kruger National Park, when this herd of elephants appeared from the bushes next to the road, and the matriarch gave us a piece of her ear, I mean mind.

Whenever you do find yourself up close and personal with a breeding her of African Elephants - give them space...they are extremely protective of their young ones!

Techs:
Nikon D7000
Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 VR-II @ 110mm
f4.0  |  1/400 SS  |  ISO-800

click on the photo to view it properly

Keep it real!

Morkel Erasmus

 

World Rhino Day 2013

As is customary, I like to do a short post on 22 September, which has been World Rhino Day for the last few years. As this post goes live, I am on my way to the Masai Mara for a Wild Eye Great Migration photographic safari which I am hosting with Marlon du Toit.

Here's a photo of a Black Rhino I photographed in an undisclosed location. This particular youngster was very agitated and charged everything in sight, even the poor Plover flying in front of him.

click on the photo to display at optimal resolution and sharpness

The various rhino species in the world are under immense pressure due to an increase in wealth in Eastern nations like Thailand, Vietnam and China where the horn is used in traditional medicine and ornaments. The horn has absolutely NO medicinal value or properties!

To find out more about the World Rhino Day initiative, check out their website:
www.worldrhinoday.org

More information on rhino conservation and anti-poaching initiatives:
www.stoprhinopoaching.com
www.savetherhino.org

The latest poaching stats in South Africa, from SANParks:

We can only hope and pray that this magnificent species can one day be seen in the wild by our children and their children. If you know people who are consumers of rhino horn, please try and spread awareness of these issues to them. I doubt many of them know HOW the horn is harvested, and that it's useless for their health.

Pastel Lion

This young male lion was photographed from an underground bunker hide in the Etosha National Park, Namibia. I got up at the crack of dawn to see two young males approaching the waterhole. I grabbed my cameras and ran to the bunker. What followed was a beautiful sighting in beautiful light! At this point, a few minutes later, one of the young males walked right up to the opening where I was shooting from. 

I was able to capture this frame using a 140mm focal length, and it's pretty much uncropped. In order to get those lovely colours in the sky on the horizon, I needed to blend back a darker exposure of the same RAW file using luminosity masks. I hope you like it!

Techs:

Nikon D800

Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 VR-II @ 140mm

f4.0 | 1/200 SS | ISO-560

Do click on the photo to view it properly.

Morkel Erasmus

Elephants Love Monochrome

Hi everyone.
Don't you just love seeing a photo of an African Elephant in and old-school black-and-white style? I do. I think elephants kind of prefer being photographed in that medium...

For more of my thoughts on this issue (and some nice images), check out my post on the Wild Eye blog a while ago HERE.

PhotoShare: Close to Calves

If you follow me on social media you would have seen that I was fortunate to spend some time recently at a secluded research waterhole in Etosha National Park, Namibia.

I have a bunch of photos to process, but wanted to share a quick image here from the experience. One of the things I was amazed by (and relished) was spending time in an underground bunker hide right by the edge of a waterhole frequented by hordes of elephants.

This should give you an idea - the image below was photographed at a focal length of 135mm...and is only very slightly cropped for compositional aesthetics, taken with a "full frame" sensor camera.

Nikon D800  |  Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 VR-II @ 135mm  |  f8.0  |  1/800 SS  |  ISO-640

I will try and share some more images as time permits. Be sure to follow along on my Facebook page or Google+ profile as I share images with more regularity there.

Morkel Erasmus

PhotoShare: Mana Dreaming

I can't believe how time has flied. It's now almost a year since I made the epic journey up to Mana Pools in Zimbabwe with Marlon du Toit. 

I am still working through some images captured there last year. Here's one I thought you would enjoy. It was taken at sunset on our first afternoon in the Zambezi riverbed. I was sitting on the river bank photographing some elephants foraging in the sandy riverbed. There are few things that compare to the light of an African hazy sunset combined with dust and an iconic animal. 

Enjoy!

Morkel Erasmus

A dark future??

This blog post has been coming for a while now, since finding out more of the shocking statistics about the increase in Rhino poaching in South Africa and Africa in general of late, and since reading an article by world-famous widllife filmmakers/photographers/conservationists Dereck and Beverly Joubert about how lions, once thought the least endangered predator in Africa, are now facing extinction in the long run.

Recent blog posts by Shem Compion and Gerry van der Walt (click on their names to go and read their posts) have also served as catalysts for my thoughts in this blog post.

For me, the privilege of being able to capture forever moments of natural history in the wild places of Africa really boils down to leaving a legacy...something tangible that might still be able to be enjoyed long after all that we've seen and all that we've come to love in Africa (and other wonderful locations around the world) has passed away and been replaced by garbage dumps and concrete living quarters. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those "tree-huggers" who will chain themselves to whaling ships or despise all technological advancement (although I do think whaling is disgusting and that some technology cripples us more than it enables us to better conserve our planet)...in fact I do drive an SUV (maybe not as big a gas-guzzler as a Hummvee but one that at least gets me where I need to be in Africa, potholes in the roads being more dangerous than the wildlife these days), and I do live in a bustling town of industry and I do in fact work in a field that creates a bit of pollution. But one thing I know...I love Africa. I love her vibe, her cadence, her charisma, her unbridled energy and most of all, her natural beauty.

I find myself longing for days long gone when explorers such as Livingstone and Hemingway stood atop the kopjes of the African plains, and looking out in all directions all they saw was a mass of animal life as far as the eye could see. Large herds of elephants with tusks thrice as long as a man...buffalo herds that made the great wildebeest migration look like a flea circus...clans of wild dog that roamed vast grasslands and outnumbered even large predators like lions. These men could only but capture their fascination with Africa in their writing, and boy do these tales excite...grand sweeping prose that makes you yearn for times gone by with a thick lump in your throat. These days we have the tools to make those memoirs even more vivid...our cameras. The majesty and elegance and beauty of this continent of ours is now in our hands to portray to all who would perhaps stop by our blogs, read our books or stumble upon our images on a calendar or in a magazine, and if I can evoke those same feelings in at least one other person, I would be ecstatic.

The fact that poaching of rhinos (for the supposed medicinal value of their horns) is rising at an alarming rate all over Africa, and more specifically in the national parks and wildlife reserves of South Africa, has sparked these ideas into another direction. What if the only rhino/cheetah/leopard (fill in the blanks) that my children will ever get to see, are the ones that I have had the privilege of taking photos of during my lifetime??? What if I can never take them to the places I've been and show them the things I've seen, save for showing them a large print of a photo that tries in some meager way to capture the essence of the animal/bird?

This rhino bull was captured in stunning morning sidelight, and I deliberately underexposed with a moody black-and-white photo in mind to convey my concern over this species and others. I hope with all my heart to show this one to my own children one day, and then get into the car, drive to a nearby reserve and show them the real thing...

As Gerry rightly put - we need to take action on a grander scale than merely joining a Facebook group or signing up for a newsletter at Conservation organisation. How and what that involvement will be is up to each of us to determine, decide, and put into action. Until I have the funds to invest in conservation efforts and sponsor large-scale projects, I will continue to try and share the images I have the honour of taking with whoever wants to see. And I do hope we all desire very much to SEE...

Morkel Erasmus

The narrow escape with the Lionscape...

So, I am back from a very exciting and fulfilling trip to Dullstroom and the Madikwe Game Reserve. Not only were there loads of mind-blowing photographic opportunities, but I got to spend some quality time with my wife, a few good friends and like-minded photographers like Gerry van der Walt and Kerry de Bruyn.

I thought you might get a good chuckle out of the story I want to share, as well as have even more appreciation for the image it produced upon reading it.

We set out on Tuesday morning at 5AM to drive to a section of the Madikwe Game Reserve called the Madikwe Plains...a vast open stretch of African savannah that is reminiscent of the Serengeti in many ways. We got there well before the sun peeked over the horizon, and there were some wildebeest and springbok visible on the plains, with nice mountain ridges and some clouds that were adopting glorious colour tones from the rising sun.

In a great mood to make the most of this landscape, Gerry and I hopped off the Land Rover with our cameras and tripods and started setting up in front of the Landy in the dirt road, looking to the West to capture the colours of the sunrise on the plains. All of a sudden my darling wife asked: "What's that in the road?"

When I turned my head, a cold shudder ran down my spine and tingled in the tips of my toes...even though the sun hadn't completely risen, the shape that was lying about 20 meters up ahead in the road was unmistakeably that of a full-grown male lion...and he was looking straight at us. We could certainly have broken some kind of record for high-jumping with our attempts to scramble back into the vehicle! All the while the lion was just lying there, minding its own business. It's kind of funny when you look back at it now...

Here is a shot I snapped very quickly after we'd hopped back into the relative safety of the game viewer...

As we drove closer, it turned out to be one of a coalition of 2 brothers who were dominant on these plains, but this one seemed to have bit on the short end of the stick in a scuff with his brother recently. The next moment he broke out roaring right next to us! 

A few moments later his brother answered from across the plains.


It was quite a surreal experience...they kept roaring at each other periodically, and we kept trying different photographic compositions. In the end, one of my favourites from the trip is this last one. I held my camera way down the side of the Land Rover, went ultra-wide with my wide-angle lens, and snapped 3 exposures, of which I used 2 to blend this final image together. One exposure was used for the sky and mountains (underexposed) and one for the lion and plains (zero exposure).


Here is my lion in high dynamic range...(remember to click on the images for higher res viewing)

 I would love to hear what you think about my "experience" and the resulting shots! :)


Thanks for keeping a watchful eye on my meager blog...


I will be changing the overall content of this blog to cover more of my photography than just "HDR" or "blending" since I am in the process of constructing an official homepage and will link this as the official blog to my page.


Keep shooting!!


Morkel Erasmus

There be giants here...

This past December we spent some time in the Kruger National Park - oh wait, it's now called the 'Greater Kruger Transfrontier Park'. The summer sees the bushveld transformed from the dull yellow and brown of winter into a lush green paradise. This also makes spotting the wildlife a little trickier, but it also brings a lot of beautiful migrant birds from the Northern Hemisphere.


We headed north to avoid the hustle and bustle of the southern part of the park. The north is quieter - not just in terms of visitor numbers but the game is also more spread out. But the sightings you DO get are a lot better since most of the time there isn't a traffic jam at any of the sightings.


The north of Kruger is also where most of the larger elephants roam. The vegetation suits them - and if you ask me - the smaller number of tourists also suits them...


We came across this bulky bull north of the Shingwedzi rest camp on a rainy day when we were the only ones driving out.

Applying HDR to this picture helped me pull a lot of detail from the moody rain clouds behind the elephant, as well as from its skin texture. I also quite like this shot as a black and white conversion.

As you travel to the utmost northern part of Kruger, you meet less and less people, and you also wind your way to a magical place called 'Pafuri'. This is a region of lush riverine forests, exotic birdlife and the ruins of ancient civilizations. The Levuvhu river winds through a dense fevertree forest and ends up joining the Limpopo river at a junction called "Crook's Corner". This 'corner' gained its notorious name from the fact that many fugitives from justice came here to escape the arms of the law of South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia). At the time the place was literally a no-man's land and all the fugitives would sit and watch as the law-enforcement from the 3 countries fought over who could arrest them.

Here are some shots I took while driving through the area. You are not allowed to get out of your car so these were all taken from the car window.

I could spend hours in these tranquil forests.


So, the next time you book a trip to Kruger, don't just hang around the nexus of Skukuza and Lower Sabie, even Satara. Head north, and let your soul unwind...


Till next time...take care.


Morkel Erasmus