Day 14 –Mashatu Main Camp, Botswana
Monday, August 9, 2010 at 06:42AM Today was a bit colder than the past two weeks, and I needed to bundle up a bit to stay warm. It was the first day that the gloves and winter hat came out, and I suspect it was the first time that the temperature flirted with the 30’sF. It felt good, actually, as I have been suffering through the Texas summer heat for the past few months, and the cool morning really makes me forget about 100F days.
We took a different approach to game viewing this morning, in that we relied on sounds that we had heard when we were having our morning coffee. There were a few lion roars in the distance, and we trained on where they were coming from and when we jumped into the rovers we drove in that direction. The approach paid off about an hour or so later, and we found a large male lion and a younger female lion who appeared to be in their mating period. Within 15 minutes their mating ritual began, and I felt like I could hear Barry White singing in the background. J But seriously, mating lions are often a challenge to photograph, primarily because you can never know ahead of time where their two bodies will face, and you never have enough time to reposition a vehicle for a head-on shot. It takes patience and perseverance to nail that kind of shot.
The rest of the morning game drive consisted of photographing running and jumping impala, and we worked with different shutter speeds to try and get either tack sharp photos or blurred photos. Unfortunately all of my favorite jumping shots happened above a vehicle path, and I just cannot reconcile what I wanted to see with the actual results. Oh well. I will try harder next time.
The afternoon game drive was filled with driving along the Majale river bed, which yielded amazing elephants and bee-eaters who were nesting.
Our Mashatu guides and trackers offer some comedy relief
Reader Comments (1)
Just want you to know how much I enjoy your posts and living vicariously through your experiences! As frustrating as it is for you, it is always nice to hear a great photographer like you share your struggles with getting the shot you want in the setting you want. Thanks for keeping it real for the rest of us wanna-bes! Keep 'em coming...