With thousands of snappers taking images daily, wildlife photographers wishing to create images that surprise are increasingly challenged. Thankfully, no two safari days are ever quite the same and even with a group of photographers travelling in the same vehicle, it’s amazing how the choice of lens, setting and angle can be so startlingly different. Furthermore, there are some time-tried tips gleaned over many dusty days in the field that may help you keep ahead of the game.
Simplicity
Someone said that true genius is about simplicity and, more often than not, if there’s a disturbing element that’s not adding to the drama of your picture, then crop it out. Less is almost always more. Having said this, being a landscape lover, I find that wide angles are fundamental to show the glory of the African landscape, and the habitat where the subject occurs.
Go out of season
By late October in the bush, plump cumulous clouds bulge above the dry plains and thirsty elephants converge in dusty family groups on waterholes creating a prime time for photography — and all at off season rates. This is also predator season when impala drop their young and antelope are at their most weak and vulnerable. As the rain falls the first shoots appear and flowers blossom, migrant birds arrive aplenty and opportunities for colourful photographs become abundant. In all my years of shooting at this time, I have very.rarely been drenched by storms, been stuck in mud, but very rarely missed a drive.
Go beyond the big five
While we all love capturing the big and hairies in all their splendid forms, don’t spend all day with flat lions (they sleep for most of the day) and focus on the smaller subjects like birds, insects, flowers and reptiles. So often it’s the colourful chameleon or carmine bee-eater that makes it to the centre spread. Sometimes a jackal in golden grass, a bat-eared fox hunting or a pair of fish eagle hunting will win the day.
Sunset skills
We all love a good sunset…but I still recall the words of an editor who told me if I came back with a picture of a sunset I would be fired unless there was a lion killing something in the foreground. Of course, that is pretty rare but it’s a strong message about setting down the G&T at these times, to look behind you and in all directions for interesting opportunities.
Low angles rock.
In order to get eye-level shots of animals, it’s often best to choose the front seat of the vehicle. Although you may miss some shots when animals are in long grass it will leave you well-placed for catching eye-level shots of leopards walking close to vehicles. Take any opportunity to get out of the vehicle that safety and your guide will allow. For me a real highlight of staying in South Luangwa is walking is allowed and it was often possible to create low-angle shots of elephants and giraffe.
Hides to seek
Choose a camp that either works as a hide (Hideaways Camp Kazuma in Chobe is an example) or has a separate hide which is built close to the water. It means you can keep shooting all day long. Hideaways Nantwich in Hwange also has a hide where you can sit and watch elephants and buffalo come to drink through the heat of the day waiting for the action to happen. Not all hides are built for elephants and game, the carmine hide at Tafika in South Luangwa is rebuilt every year to give photographers a chance of tracking the birds flying in and out of their nesting holes, hawking for insects, and racing through the sky like crimson jets. Of course, being in one of the best game parks in Africa, you never know what else may come into view.
Golden Hour
The softest light and most productive time for photography is the hour before and after sunrise and sunset when rays penetrate through the thickest part of the atmosphere casting everything with a golden glow. After sunset, as the light fades, it’s best to crank up the ISO, open your aperture and even underexpose your images a little to make sure you are able to shoot at decent shutter speeds.The golden light eventually turns to the blue hour — and this too is an exciting time for photography. Set up a tripod and you will be amazed at how modern cameras can render detail out of really dark scenes…Even mobile phones have great low light ability.
Rethink light
We often think that it’s best to have the light behind us, but shooting with side or backlighting you can often get more interesting images. Backlighting is truly the holy grail for wildlife and works especially well with hairy animals such as baboons, waterbuck and lions when their fringes really catch the light. I also love taking backlit shots of giraffe silhouetted against the skies.
An eye for design
Photographers think beyond their subject and also consider how rocks, rivers, branches, clouds, horizons, petals, animal tails, shadows, reflections and other elements can enhance their images. Colours, foregrounds and background are important too. You don’t want a tree growing out of a giraffe’s head, for example. Also think about the rule of thirds, which implies not placing a subject or a horizon dead centre in an image, is also about balance. Interior designers often think in threes — photographers too. The lenses we choose, the exposures we select, the choices we make take photography well beyond picture perfect imagery and rules — in fact great images rarely mimic reality. Take Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) or multiple exposures as an example of how people use cameras to create painterly effects.
Know your gear
Photographer Frans Lanting used to practice changing settings in a bag so he was able to work quickly even in the darkest conditions. Modern cameras are really like modern computers and take some learning but the key tools of exposure, shutter speed and ISO are essential elements to understand. Photographers should also know how to override the computer to under or overexpose their images and how to use focus to best effect. I am always armed with two cameras one with a wide angle and another with a zoom of at least 600 mm so I can capture everything from landscapes to birds. Phone cameras are also really powerful too, especially for landscapes, big critters, macro, low light photography and video. The beauty of phone photography is that they have amazing inbuilt processing ability which gives them incredible clarity.
Keep it RAW
Most professional photographers shoot in RAW format and then use Adobe Lightroom (the modern day darkroom) and other photographic processing platforms to “cook” their images by bending light and colour and contrast in a comfortable and authentic way before exporting the image and its settings as a jpeg. There is hardly an image I take that does not require some postproduction including shadows and highlights and brushes to bring out shadows and darken highlights. Lightroom is really a modern-day darkroom. However, I try to keep it real and when crossing the border into AI (adding or removing digital elements) I usually mention this in a caption.
Less is more
As French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal famously wrote, I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time, that does not mean you should shoot less, but rather that you should cull more. On a typical two-week trip, I will shoot upward of 3000 images and have just 50 or so keepers. Be selective about what you show and if you have trouble narrowing down the long list, call a friend or two, and get their input.
Coming from a magazine background my photography on safari will never be just about sunsets, or lions killing things, but about everything that tells the story – including food, people, lodges,interiors, textures, stars and anything that adds to the wish-you-were-here feeling of being on safari. Images conjure up the dust, smells, textures and feelings of your experience.
See you out there.
Author: David Rogers | David Rogers Travel
