Portrait of a young lion

I dug into my archives for this one - something basic, a simple portrait, enhanced by rim-light from the sun behind the subject.

I spent time with a local lion pride in the Savute region of the Chobe National Park back in 2011 on a commissioned visit to the lodges of Orient Express in Botswana. The pride had been resting in the shade all day, but at the end of the day, as is their nature, they started waking up for the night's activity. This youngster was intrigued by a herd of elephants who'd arrived discreetly behind us and were drinking from a standing pool of water.

Shooting portraits with rim-light from a back-lit source (the sun in this case) is quite challenging, if you are not aiming for a silhouette. You want just the right amount of detail and the rim-lighting to not be too brightly blown out. I would encourage you to practice this technique with your specific camera and lens combination as often as you can, so that you know you can nail the exposure in the field when it matters.

Techs:
Canon 7D
Canon 300mm f2.8 L IS USM
f4.0  |  1/1000 SS  |  ISO-800

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Morkel Erasmus

Golden Jaws

If you have been following my blog and/or social media channels for a while, then you would know that I have just returned from leading a Wild Eye photographic safari to the renowned Chobe river ecosystem between Botswana and Namibia. The photo opportunities my guests and I were blessed with were legion - and I've got so many new and interesting images to share.

Though the Chobe National Park boasts the highest density of elephants in southern Africa, I thought I would kick off the sharing of images from this trip with something different - an image I have been wanting in my portfolio for a LOOONG time. It's not anything new or groundbreaking, but it is a classically African image, and I am glad to have added it to my portfolio after this safari.

As we were approaching a pod of hippopotamus in the last light of the day, the sun just broke through the clouds for a moment, and I instructed our guide and boat driver Patrick to position us so that we can photograph silhouettes of the hippos against the backlight of the sunset. Just as we were nearly in position, the dominant bull of the pod reared up and gave a characteristic display of dominance with his mouth open. It was over in 2 seconds, and I was pointing my lens in that direction but not expecting anything. I quickly focused and fired off 4 frames with the boat still rearing to a stop, of which I liked this one the best. The golden glow and rim-light was achieved by dialing in an exposure compensation of -1.3 on my camera. The mood was enhanced by the light also hitting the thousands of insects flying about along the surface of the river.

I hope you like it! I will be posting a full trip report on the safari on the Wild Eye blog soon, so watch this space.

click on the photo to display at the proper sharpness and resolution

Morkel Erasmus

PhotoShare: Kissed by the Sun

It's been a while since I shared a photo outright on my blog for the sake of just sharing a photo. Here's one I processed last night from a 2012 trip to the Kalahari. The first rays of sunlight were just enveloping this lone giraffe and I loved the mood. What do you think??

The key to a good rim-light photo is proper exposure. If you have time, play around until the histogram looks good and you have good shadow and highlight detail...

Until next time!

Morkel Erasmus

WORKING THE LIGHT

Hello again everyone...

I thought it was time for a new post since we're already a few days into August. My, how this year is just rocketing past!!

Sometimes we find ourselves in that "sweet spot" for photography. You know - the golden morning/evening light from the sun teetering on the brink of the horizon falling over your shoulder and straight onto whatever animal or bird happens to be caught in your viewfinder at that moment. Everything just comes together...like these giraffe I found the other day in the Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa:

More often than not, however, we find ourselves in a situation where it's just not possible to get into that "sweet spot". In many cases it's an insurmountable task to get ourselves in that position due to terrain constraints or the fact that you might not be allowed to go off-road in certain reserves (at least that's the case for most of the places I go on safari to), but at other times there's just not enough T-I-M-E to do so...these "truly" golden minutes only last for a few fleeting moments after all.