Day 4 –Chitabe Camp, Okavango Delta

We were out of camp early today, and spent the bulk of the morning photographing the animals and birds that make Africa tick: kingfishers along the water’s edge, herds of impala, warthog, hornbills, bateleur eagles, all 3 categories of vultures (rippers, gulpers and scrappers), zebra, wildebeest, elephants, giraffe and all of the other species that can fill up a day of game drives. I didn’t take any photographs this morning, primarily because I was working on teaching panning techniques to people, and how best to do pan blurs depending on each subject and how fast they are moving. It can take quite a bit of time to work on, for sure, but pixels don’t cost anything except temporary CF card space and battery life. If they don’t work out, just delete and try harder.

We had a challenge with the water today, and odds caught up with us and we got stuck for a while. It wasn’t a big deal, as we just went and took some dead wood, jacked up each tire and placed the wood underneath each tire and went on with our business.

The weather on this safari has been much warmer than anticipated, and most mornings aren’t any colder than 50F. The skies are usually cloudy for most of the day and evening, so the lack of clear skies and a lack of any cold fronts are preventing from the colder days. No complaints from me, for sure.

I spent the middle of the day after lunch teaching Lightroom 3 and Nik Software’s Viveza 2 plugin. I have found that this combination really works well for my own photography, and it is a great combination for wildlife photographers. Perhaps this is good content for a future blog post?

This afternoon we tracked a pair of cheetahs into the mopane forest, and it turned out to be the same adult male and female cheetahs from our first full day in Botswana. We had a difficult time getting clear shots of them, as they always seemed to stop in a location where we would have a tree or termite mound in the way. That’s ok, as it teaches patience and good things will come to those who try harder. As you can see I included a few shots of one of the cheetahs, as the other one was rarely in a good position to photograph.

Note: All images in these daily blog postings are very very rough edits of the things we have seen, and I often omit the photographs that take too much time to process. I don’t take much time off during the day, as I am working with people with their photographic needs. All of my images in these posts will have to be re-processed when I get back home, and they are only included in these blog entries for illustration purposes.

Grant, giving his best sour face

BB, one of our excellent guides at Chitabe

Whoops

Just a little behind-the-scenes of what goes on in between incredible wildlife moments: coffee