My 2015 in imperfect hindsight

As is customary for many photographers of all genres during this time of year, I started glancing over my portfolio of work captured during the year in hopes of posting a "best of" collection. I have done so since 2010, and you can see my post from 2014 HERE.

Last year I took a very specific approach, only showing photos taken at a focal length of less than 100mm, to showcase my desire for including the greater environment in my photography (particularly when it comes to wildlife photography).

That being said, 2015 was a different year for me in terms of travel and photography. I had some great experiences out in the field, but not all great sightings resulted in great photography. I also took far fewer photos on the whole compared to the previous years. My total amount of photos "kept" up to this date compare more with the final result from years like 2009, 2010 and 2011 when I was more trigger-happy than I am now, but after extensive culling and weeding out of images I was not pleased with.

I think my collection below will be more reflective of specific memorable moments I enjoyed in nature, as opposed to groundbreaking new approaches to my photography and even a veritable "best of" selection. Nevertheless, I do hope you enjoy it. I want it to be an honest reflection of my year's photography, and an even more honest reflection of the memories built up. 

Every year it just dawns on me more and more that these moments in unspoilt nature are getting rarer and rarer as wild places and natural habitat wanes and falters before the onslaught of the greed of man. I can only hope that my children will still be able to enjoy the places and species I am introducing them to now long after I am gone from this planet and they have to share it with their offspring...

Without further tear-jerking musings, here we go. Photos are posted in chronological order (date taken) and not according to personal favouritism.

As usual, clicking on the photos shows them at best resolution and against a dark background!

1. Painted Dog Silhouette

I seemed to spend a lot of time in the Kruger National Park and surrounding reserves (like the Sabi Sand) this year, indeed much more than in the previous couple of years. One thing that struck me about this moment, captured in January 2015 near Pretoriuskop in the Kruger, was that I've seen very few distinct silhouettes of the African Wild Dog (Painted Dog). The size and stature of the animal and their tendency to keep to the bush and grasslands probably add to this...it's hard to get to a vantage point lower than they are at the best of times. This image was the result of a long period of waiting - as with many of my predator images - for the subjects to become active towards the end of the day.

Nikon D3s  |  Nikkor 500mm f4 VR  |  f4.0  |  1/640 SS  |  ISO-200

2. Starstruck Windmill
We spent a week over Easter with our family in East London (a city on the South African Wild Coast). We made a road trip of it, visiting the sheep farm of my friend Rob Southey in the Karoo desert on the way down. The Karoo is famous for its extreme weather and starry skies, and it didn't disappoint! A hot flask of coffee and good company made getting these shots a real treat...

Nikon D800  |  Nikkor 14-24mm f2.8  |  f2.8  |  30 seconds  |  ISO-6400

3. Nahoon on the Rocks
Our time in East London was primarily spent with family and having fun on the beach, but I did get the opportunity to link up with some old-time online friends for the first time in real life and enjoy a sunset shoot on the rocks at the beautiful Nahoon reef. The light did not peak as I expected it to, but I do have a distinct lack of seascapes in my portfolio and it was fun adding to them nonetheless.

Nikon D800  |  Nikkor 14-24mm f2.8  |  f16  |  2 seconds  |  ISO-50

4. Mare and Foal
The aforementioned road trip ended with a 3-night stay at the Mountain Zebra National Park, a real little gem in the crown of the South African National Parks portfolio. I hadn't been there since 2011, so this was a good opportunity to spend some time soaking in the scenic views and getting re-acquainted with the interesting diversity of wildlife it offers. The park is named after the endangered Cape Mountain Zebra, and has been a huge factor in the recovery of this species from the brink of extinction. Here a mother tenderly nudges her young foal as the sun sets behind the Karoo dust.

Nikon D3s  |  Nikkor 500mm f4 VR  |  f5.6  |  1/1000 SS  |  ISO-720

5. Gaze of Defeat
I posted about this specific moment in detail on my blog earlier in the year (read HERE). It just remained with me, a very poignant gaze and a privileged view on the end of a life well lived in the bush.

Nikon D3s  |  Nikkor 500mm f4 VR  |  f5.0  |  1/500 SS  |  ISO-1100

6. Stalker
I'll let this one simply speak for itself. A moment between Africa's most adaptable and stealthy predator and me...with nothing separating us.

Nikon D3s  |  Nikkor 500mm f4 VR  |  f5.6  |  1/1000 SS  |  ISO-720

7. acroBATics
In June, the Wild Eye team hosted the inaugural Wildlife Photography Seminar at Sabi Sabi in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve. Early one morning we came across an African Harrier Hawk (Gymnogene) acrobatically hunting for prey in the bark of a dead leadwood tree. It was a fascinating sighting, the bird really put on a display hanging upside down from its talons at times to break off pieces of bark. It was quite overcast but some soft light hit the clouds behind the bird for some colour in the sky. Eventually, when reviewing the images later, I realised the intended prey was a colony of bats nesting in the dead tree. In this frame there's one in its beak. Join us again next year for this inspiring event!

Nikon D3s  |  Nikkor 500mm f4 VR  |  f5.6  |  1/1000 SS  |  ISO-3600

8. Painted Pups
One of the definite highlights of my year was being able to witness how the Ngala pack of Painted Dogs (African Wild Dogs) brought their 17 new puppies out of the den for the very first time. My wife and I were spending time with the EWT researcher Grant Beverly who monitors all the movements and dynamics of this species in the greater Kruger area, and perchance we happened to be at the den at the right time to witness the special moment when the pack called the pups out and regurgitated food for them and allowed them to explore and play around for about 45 minutes before nudging them back into the old termite mound they'd chosen as a den site.

Nikon D3s  |  Nikkor 500mm f4 VR  |  f6.3  |  1/640 SS  |  ISO-1600

9. Dust and Mayhem
A photo simply cannot convey the sensory overload and general madness that is a large dusty Mara river crossing. We had quite a couple of insane crossings during the Wild Eye Great Migration photo safari that I hosted in September with my friend Andrew Beck. This particular one started after sunset at a crossing point close to our camp, so slow shutter speeds and high ISO settings were at the order of the day. After a couple of minutes the light was too bad for photography and we could put down the cameras and just soak it all in as the herd kept crossing, a leopard snuck past our vehicle to try and grab a youngster, and the smell of wildebeest adrenaline mixed with dust hung in the air. I will be hosting another trip in August 2016, so make sure you check out the details HERE if you want to experience this bucket-list safari for yourself!

Nikon D3s  |  Nikkor 70-200mm f42.8 VR-II  |  f2.8  |  1/25 SS  |  ISO-4500

10. Graceful Grazing
This scene happened in my mind's eye at least 15 minutes before the shutter tripped. I saw the giraffe ambling along to our right, noticed the iconic scenery with Balanite trees on our left, and instructed our Wild Eye East Africa guide to cut the engine of our Land Cruiser and wait. I told my guests what I thought would happen and what kinds of images I was hoping they could achieve - and it played out exactly like I planned. This is the wide open space of the Mara Triangle, folks!

Nikon D3s  |  Nikkor 70-200mm f42.8 VR-II  |  f7.1  |  1/800 SS  |  ISO-1400

There you have it, my friends.

Thanks so much for reading along. I think I have had more "wow" images in previous years, certainly, but I like that I was really able to distill this selection down to key moments - in the end the moments and memories are what matter, not how creative you got and how much you pushed the photographic envelope. 

Perhaps in 2016 I can do more of the latter. For now, I am getting ready to head back to the Kalahari, one of my favourite self-drive safari destinations. Look out for more images upon my return!

I wish you all the very best for the coming year! May God richly bless you in your coming and going, and in your life's journey with those you love most.

Morkel Erasmus

The Promise of Rain

I've been keeping this photo under wraps for a while...just never felt like it was time to share it - until now. By now, if you've followed my work for some time, you would know that I have this sort of fetish for contextual atmospheric wildlife photos taken with shorter focal lengths. I simply love the scenery of Africa too much to resort to frame-filling portraits in the majority of my image-making.

This photo shows a herd of desert-hardened Oryx, also called Gemsbok, moving across the barren Etosha salt pan as the first summer rains roll in from the distance. Etosha is a hot, harsh and unforgiving land for most of the year. However, towards the end of November a transformation happens - clouds start to form, moisture is tangible in the air, and storms start to build across the endless horizon. Water comes to this land, much needed sustenance, preserving life and keeping this fragile ecosystem in the right balance.

This image is being released into my limited edition monochrome print series. It was taken with the stunning 36 megapixel sensor of the Nikon D800 and will print massively for a beautiful adornment for a home or office wall. Only 30 of these prints will ever be sold, each one signed and numbered, delivered with a certificate of authenticity.

If you would like to own an edition of this print, please send me an email at PRINTS@morkelerasmus.com to discuss your custom sizing, print medium (fine art canvas or Hahnemuhle Fotorag) and obtain a personalised quote. I handle each print personally.

Please do click on the image below to display properly against a dark background...

This photo is the copyright of Morkel Erasmus and unauthorised use is prohibited.

Photo Techs:
Nikon D800
Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 VR-II @ 175mm
Circular Polariser
f8.0  |  1/400 SS  |  ISO-900

I hope you enjoyed viewing this one! Have a blessed day, folks...

Morkel Erasmus

All in the eyes

The eyes have it, they say.
A picture is worth a thousand words, they say.
Whoever they are, they said it.

On our recent short visit to Singita in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve in South Africa, we were fortunate to spend some quality time with an old male leopard called the "Camp Pan Male". He is estimated to be around 16 years old, which is very old for a male leopard (especially considering the amount of other males he's had to run into over the years).

Have a look at this photo.
What does it "speak" to you??
Think about it for a few seconds before reading on.

Nikon D3s  |  Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II  |  f5.0  |  1/500 SS  |  ISO-1100

There's a very compelling story to this image - it was taken at the end of a very emotional sighting of him trying his best to feed on a kill he'd stolen from another leopard. His legs were wobbly, his hips looked cripple, and his teeth were worn down. He couldn't get into the very small tree that the kill was hoisted in. I will make the entire story the subject of a different post, because there's some good video footage that my wife caught of the event that would give you an idea of what went down.

Anyway, here he was lying in the grass after exerting all his energy to grab a bite or two...and as he longingly looked up at the kill he was unable to wrest free from the branch it was snuggled into, he looked forlorn...defeated. I was looking into the eyes of a dying leopard. He knew it. I knew it. 

As of today he is still alive (it's merely a week after we were there), but his condition was pretty poor, and we were probably some of the last people to see this leopard alive...and that makes this image special to me.

Morkel Erasmus

Death Dance

Sometimes you spend hours waiting for a specific photo, anticipating and watching for the decisive moment in sweltering heat...other times you just stumble into the right spot at the right time. 

I wish I could wax lyrical about the planning and preparation that went into capturing this moment, but I can't. It was a combination of right time/place and luck (we all need some luck in this thing called wildlife photography!). During our 2013 +Wild Eye Great Migration photo safari I hosted with +Marlon du Toit, we saw some lions lying in the grass next to the Mara river, and decided to head closer for some portrait photography. As we pulled to a stop, to our amazement a lone wildebeest scrambled up the riverbank (having just done a solo crossing we couldn't see from our vantage point), and the poor thing literally almost tripped over the lions. The largest female of the small pride wasted no time in pouncing on the unfortunate ungulate, and a lengthy struggle ensued during which we were privy to the emotional dance of death between these species that occurs during the Great Migration. 

This particular wildebeest didn't seem to want to give up and kept struggling to escape his attackers, but to no avail. We were very close to the action, and shooting with a 500mm lens forced me to compose a little out-of-the-box, but I liked how it came out!

Nikon D3s  |  Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II  |  f8.0  |  1/1250 SS  |  ISO-1400

I also converted it to monochrome, and I like it better in that medium. What do you think??

Nikon D3s  |  Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II  |  f8.0  |  1/1250 SS  |  ISO-1400

Let me know which you prefer by dropping a comment below.
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a great week...

If you would like to join us in the Mara Triangle this year for an awesome photographic adventure, then check out THIS page.

If you would like to purchase this tone version as a limited edition fine art print for your office or home, mail me: morkel@morkelerasmus.com

Morkel Erasmus

Special Print Series - Atmospheric Elephants

Good afternoon everyone...

I've just released a new special print collection on my website. It's a specific portfolio of black & white photos showcasing elephants under the vast expanse of the African sky. This series can be printed on the finest Hahnemuhle Photo Rag paper or fine art quality canvas, and it will be an exquisite adornment for a home or a corporate office space. I am making each image available as individual prints. 

I will also be running special prices on multiple orders of 2 or 3 prints, 5 prints, 9 prints or the whole series of 13...multiple prints can be designed and sized according to the specific space you intend for them to be hung.

You can see the entire collection HERE.
If you want a moody piece of "Africa" to adorn your walls - let me know!

For detail pricing and enquiries, please contact me on:
morkel@morkelerasmus.com

Have a great week!

Morkel Erasmus

Shake it Off

All is quiet, except for the sound of doves and guinea fowl in the distance.
The sky is bright blue on a winter's morning.
I am sitting in an underground research bunker in +Etosha National Park in Namibia.
He approaches from the southeast, ambling like they usually do. His footfalls are quiet, eerily quiet, like they usually are for these giants.

I see the secretion from his temples and down the inside of his hind legs - he is in musth, an aggravated hormonal state which makes elephant bulls particularly agitated.

The bunker provides protection but you still feel small and powerless when an African Elephant bull gets this close. As he approaches the waterhole he inevitably passes by our bunker.

He sees us, smells us, whatever but he notices us.
An indignant shake of the head, and the dust puffs off him.
A deliberate trip of my shutter.
I have my image.

By the way, I chose the title of this photo long before Taylor Swift had a hit song with that name...

Techs:
Nikon D800
Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 36mm
Kenko PRO Circular Polariser
f11  |  1/200 SS  |  ISO-900

This photo is Copyrighted © Morkel Erasmus.  
click on the photo to view at proper resolution and sharpness

I hope you have a fabulous day!

Morkel Erasmus

Sleepy Eyes

I just love discovering a gem in my archives. Unlike what many people may think, I am not on safari for the better part of the year - I actually have 3-5 opportunities to go to the bush for periods of between 3 and 8 days every year, depending on leave roster at work, my Wild Eye schedule etc. So the majority of photos I put out on my blog and social media channels may actually have been taken some time ago. I'm actually just lazy in deleting excess images, so I have to inevitably go back into my archives to clean up some space. In doing so, I actually come across photos I'd forgotten I'd taken. They may not have grabbed enough of my attention in my initial processing binge after returning from that particular trip, but for whatever reason I didn't delete them initially as there was some sort of moment caught there.

Case in point, this image...


Techs:
Nikon D3s
Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II
f4.0  |  1/500 SS  |  ISO-200

click on the photo to display at best resolution and sharpness

We came across this Verraux's Eagle Owl asleep in a mopani tree along the Mphongolo loop north of Shingwedzi camp in the Kruger National Park. The scene was cluttered and the bird was asleep, but something about the moment spoke to me, and I snapped it.

Fast forward to last week, when I was looking for a "fresh" photo to process for the popular "black and white challenge" that is viral among photographers on Facebook. I scrolled over this one again, and immediately saw the moment that spoke to me initially when tripping the shutter, and knew that it was a good candidate for monochrome...

After some tweaking in Photoshop and Nik Silver Efex I was happy.
The result??

click on the photo to display at best resolution and sharpness

Quite a different feel, mood and effect, right?
It's actually about more than the owl - and that's what I like.
It's not about what it evidently is - it's also about what else it is...
Photography should evoke more than it describes, if it's to be seen as an art-form...
I hope these statements above resonate with you?

Now, go dig up those gems in your own archive!
Until I write again...

Morkel Erasmus

The Handshake

Secret societies have it. 
Mob bosses have it. 
Elephants have it. 
Secret Handshakes...

My time spent in this research bunker at a very remote waterhole in +Etosha National Park will always bring back fond memories of really seeing and experiencing the daily lives of elephants up close and personal. 

Elephants are highly social creatures, and even though many of the bulls frequenting this waterhole arrived and left on their own, they never failed to interact with the other bulls around the waterhole, often spending long periods just standing close to others, making contact and rumbling off their tummies or drinking water. 

These two bulls were greeting each other and gently touching trunks. The giraffes across on the other side of the waterhole caught my eye and I tried to work them into the composition by shooting vertically. I just love the perspective here.

Techs:
Nikon D3s
Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 VR-II @ 200mm
f11  |  1/800 SS  |  ISO-640

click on the photo to view at best resolution and sharpness

I wanted to share this image today as the day of announcing the winners of the BBC Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2014 draws closer. This photo of mine was a finalist in the "Black and White" category, and I had high hopes for it. Alas, it was not included in the final selection of winning images. It was a good year for me as far as the "final round" of the BBC WPY goes as I had 3 single images and a portfolio of 6 images through to the final round (none of which made it to the awarded images, unfortunately). I am looking forward to seeing the actual awarded images and seeing who walks away with the big honours this year after my friend and countryman, the legend Greg du Toit scooped up the grand title last year. I will try again next year, as it's always fun to enter images into this most prestigious competition in nature photography.

Thanks for viewing! What do YOU think of this photo? Let me know in the comments section below.

Morkel Erasmus

Ghostly Duo

A moment of magic in the bush as a Black Rhino cow and her calf approach the nearby waterhole. A storm is brewing and the day is drawing to a close. Every step is weary, and every sound is carefully tuned into with their amazing hearing. We sat very still in our vehicle and watched for more than 30 minutes as they carefully emerged from the thickets, quenched their thirst, nearly charged some impala that were also on their way to have a drink, and slowly disappear into the fading light...

To view the photos at their optimal sharpness and resolution, merely click on one and cycle through them using your left and right keys.



Moments like these are getting harder and harder to experience...
Rhinos in Southern Africa are being decimated at higher and higher rates by the day...
The Black Rhino is the least populous of the species found in Southern Africa...
Please check out the following initiative: www.breakingthebrand.org

I hope you like this image. The monochrome conversion I created really spoke to me in a way the colour version could not do...I always like to show my before and after versions (colour and monochrome) - so here they are.

Techs:
Nikon D800
Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II
f5.6 | 1/500 SS | ISO-3200

Thanks for having a look! Have a great week...

Morkel Erasmus

An Elephantine Moment

Wildlife photography, to me, is about telling the stories of nature and conveying a sense of the wonder of God's creation to my viewers. As a photographer, you need to be able to use all the tools at your disposal to do this. Besides the obvious - your camera and lens and the right settings for the shot you envision - you need to sometimes resort to cropping and post-processing techniques to "bring out" the story in the photo.

This photo of elephants drinking life-giving water was taken from an underground research bunker in Etosha National Park, Namibia. 

I was using a Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 lens, but even after capturing the tender moment of the young calf drinking between his protective mother's legs, I felt that it needed an extra touch. 

I cropped to eliminate distracting elements - in this case the sky, the other elephants (as much as possible) and some of the foreground. Mom wasn't as important to me as the young one, so it wasn't necessary for me to have "all of her" in the frame. Not much I can do about the giraffe you see through her legs in the background, though. I also wanted to convert this to monochrome to avoid the brighter colours drawing your eye from the cute calf who was in the shade.

Techs:
Nikon D3s
Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 VR-II @ 200mm
f8.0  |  1/250 SS  |  ISO-900

Let me know what you think!
Thanks for looking, and have a blessed week my friends.

Morkel Erasmus

WILDpaper - Free Desktop Wallpaper for May 2014

Hey folks! It's that time of the month where I release another desktop wallpaper for you to download for free! I call them WILDpapers, and you can check out last month's download HERE.

This month's image shows a juvenile cheetah from the Kalahari desert. I captured this photo back in June 2010 on a family trip to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, one of the best spots in Southern Africa to view and photograph these speedy felines.

The quote for this WILDpaper is from the historic philosopher Aristotle:

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous."

You can download the HD resolution (1920 pixels wide) wallpaper HERE.

Feel free to share this post with anyone whom you feel would love to download this wallpaper!
Also, take note that you are welcome to contact me for any fine art prints that you desire from my portfolio - you can mail me directly using morkel(at)morkelerasmus.com


Thanks, as always, for your support.

The Chobe River in Monochrome

Seeing that I recently returned from leading a photographic safari to the Chobe river, I thought I would post a link to a blog post I wrote early in 2013 for the Wild Eye blog, showing some of my visions of the Chobe in monochrome after our first visit to the Ichobezi houseboat on the river.

You can read the original post HERE.

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

Striped Lineup

I loved seeing Etosha under massive clouds most of the days during our recent trip. Most people tend to go in winter time and then it's mostly hazy blue sky you see in their images. This place truly is big sky country with an immense sense of space! This lineup of Plains Zebra were walking along the plains en route to the Salvadora waterhole in the Halali region.

I went for a monochrome conversion here, giving it a slight blue tone. Zebras just work so well in a colourless format, and the use of the circular polariser on the lens lends that deep punch to the blue sky which also converts well if you apply a red filter in the conversion process. I used Nik Silver Efex Pro for this quick conversion, though I often play around more with it afterwards in Photoshop to use more dodging and burning.

Techs:
Nikon D3s
Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 VR-II @ 70mm
f5.6  |  1/400 SS  |  ISO-220 

click on the photo to view at proper resolution

I hope to find more time to process some new images over the weekend. Let me know what you think of this one in the meantime.

Morkel Erasmus

Jumpers

I suppose at some point it had to come...the obligatory photo of a wildebeest crossing, stock standard from every person who makes the pilgrimage to see this spectacle. I thought a lot about how to approach these scenes (from the comfort of my office chair) before the trip, but let me tell you - when the moment arrives, you just bore down to base photographic instinct and shoot. There's very little time to really think your composition through, very little time to compensate via settings for a specific mood and feel, and very little time for much more than just looking for an opportunity in this chaos to make an interesting image.

I hope this image is one you find interesting. This particular crossing had some precarious ledges and drops that the wildebeest had to negotiate. My guests and I played around with various shutter speed settings throughout the sighting to ensure good variety and a difference in how the chaos was portrayed. In this one I was using a faster shutter speed. Overcast conditions helped to tame the strong contrast and harsh shadows you normally see in these scenes.

Techs:
Nikon D3s
Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II
f11  |  1/1250 SS  |  ISO-2000

click on the photo to display properly

If you would like to join us in the Mara Triangle with Wild Eye next year, you can add your name to the waiting list for the dates that go live on 1 November 2013.


Cheers!


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: Regally Poised

Hi everyone. Here's another addition to my new African Visions series of wildlife in monochrome and duotone. 


A beautiful young leopard pauses and sits poised like only this graceful cat can. I think I have one of the poorest (read: least amount of photos) leopard portfolios of all the wildlife photographers I know. I just have bad luck with them! Aside from that one epic sighting in Kruger last year of the leopard scaling the tree, my other leopard sightings leave much to be desired. They avoid me in the Kalahari. They avoided me shockingly in Savute last year. And they even avoided me in the Sabi Sands earlier this year. This was taken in 2010 when leopards still liked me, LOL.

Monochrome conversions are very personal and subjective. Contrary to popular belief, merely converting to black-and-white won't "save" a photo. I often shoot with monochrome in mind - trying to look for contrasts and textures to use. Getting a monochrome conversion just right often takes me longer than processing a normal "colour" photo.

Have a great weekend, folks! I hope to meet some of you over the weekend at the Photo & Film Expo in Johannesburg, South Africa. Come and check out the Wild Eye stall (#339).

Techs:
Nikon D3s
Nikkor 200-400mm f4
f4.0 | 1/160 SS | ISO-500

www.morkelerasmus.com

This photo is Copyrighted © Morkel Erasmus Photography.

You may share this image as presented here under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 licence (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

More info:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

PhotoShare: Curious Cub

Here's another addition to my new African Visions mono-and-duotone series of wildlife. This lion cub was photographed in Savute, Botswana.

f4.0  |  1/400 SS  |  ISO-800

Have a great week, folks!

Morkel Erasmus

PhotoShare: Thirsty Elephants

I am busy with a new mono-and-duotone series of African Wildlife and will post some of theme here over the next few weeks.

This is a herd of elephants drinking from a waterhole in the Kruger National Park in South Africa.

Enjoy your day, folks!

Morkel Erasmus