We tend to see many Grey Crowned Cranes on my photo safaris, especially in the Ngorongoro Crater. It’s a beautiful bird and the national bird of Uganda. The trick to photographing them is to get the light to the side, to accentuate the texture of the grey feathers, and slightly behind, to backlight their crown.
During a morning game drive on photo safari in Tarangire National Park, we watched a troop of baboons eating and grooming. Baboons can be interesting animals to watch because of their group interactions. This young one grabbed this insect off the ground and scrambled up this tree so he could eat it without being disturbed. He seems to be winking at me right as I snapped the shutter.
With the snow piling up outside and forecasts for about 12″ total, I’m remembering a trip to Belize last spring. After several days in the mountains, we finished our trip on Ambergris Cay which was warm, sunny, and relaxing. This is the view of the end of our place’s dock.
One of my favorite drives in one of my favorite places for a photo safari is along the edge of the Silale Plains in Tarangire National Park. On this day, we had great clouds and I liked the look of these acacia trees placed in the foreground.
Greenport, NY is a great place to wander around for photographs at sunset. Poking your head through the gate at the Greenport Yacht and Shipbuilding Company reveals a huge variety of abstract shapes and colors. I liked this composition with the boat’s hull and the power cord set off by the shadow behind it but I can’t decide whether I prefer the color or black and white version though. Any opinions?
Because I can’t resist a cheesy TGIF photo, here’s a yawning bush hyrax. We were looking for leopards in trees as we drove around the Tarangire River on a recent photo safari. As we looked up into the canopy, there was this little guy staring at us from 6 feet away. He was (obviously) unimpressed by us.
We came across this cheetah mother and cub in the short-grass plains of Ndutu on one of my photo safaris. In this photo, she patiently scanned the horizon for game to feed this and three other cubs and that patience paid off. We watched her hunt from the beginning, when she stalked a herd of gazelle, to the end when she walked out of the dust cloud that her running she had created. She carried one back to her cubs in her mouth and we stayed with them while the sun set and they fed – about another hour or so. One of the most magical moments I’ve had on my many safaris.
We came across this elephant on my photo safari last October in Tarangire National Park. While the elephants in the northern part of the park are more accustomed to safari vehicles, we took a long drive that day to the southern areas near the Gursi Swamp where the elephants are more skittish. This one turned from browsing this tree and I waited for him to flare his ears at me before I snapped the shutter.
I intentionally left the elephant smaller in the frame so that the photograph shows the surrounding environment and I love the look that my infrared camera gives to the trees and sky.
Found this in my files from Barcelona. Photographing La Sagrada Familia is a blast because it has infinite combinations of patterns, lines, and tones. You can spend a few hours just playing with compositions there (and I did!).
Something colorful for a gray day here in New England. I took this photograph of a Lilac-Breasted Roller in Tarangire National Park in Tanzania on my March 2012 safari. He very generously turned his head to the side which gave me the catch-light highlight in his eye which always adds life to a wildlife photograph.
