Leopards and other predators of the Kruger

I am putting together a safari for this coming October in the Kruger area of South Africa, and it will be a small and intimate group. I am planning on only operating 2 Land Rovers, and we will split our time between two different camps in the Sabi Sands area, just west of Kruger National Park. The purpose of this safari will be to photograph leopards and lions up close and personal, as well as other general game in the area.

The Sabi Sands is one of the best destinations in Africa for leopard photographs, and I would like to hear from you if you have any measurable interest in such a trip. I have already mentioned this on my Facebook page, and I have enough interest to probably fill up the trip. Please email me at info@andybiggs.com to be placed on a notification list when I have more details.

Photo of the Day - Cao Dai Temple, Vietnam

Cao Dai Temple, Long Hoa, Vietnam. April 2010

Nikon D700, 24-70mm f/2.8, 1/250 @ f/2.8, ISO 1000

Book Recommendation

My copy of the Natural History Museum's Wild Planet: Celebrating Wildlife Photographer of the Year arrived a few days ago, and it contains some absolutely stunning images. The images were pulled from past years of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competitions, and I was fortunate and flattered that my 2008 winning image also made it into the book.

Highly recommended.

The Future of Magazine Publishing

I really do think the iPad is the future of magazine publishing, and take a look at this video from WIRED Magazine to see what I mean. I would love to see all of my current magazine subscriptions in this type of format.

Photo of the Day - Wenwu Temple

Wenwu Temple, Sun-Moon Lake, Taiwan

Nikon D700, 24-70mm f/2.8, 1/640 @ f3.5, ISO 800

Photo of the Day - Cao Dai Temple, Vietnam

Cao Dai Temple, Long Hoa, southern Vietnam

Nikon D700, 24-70mm f/2.8, 1/200 @ f/5.6, ISO 1600

Photo of the Day - Ho Chi Minh City

Family on a Motorcyle (including dog)

Nikon D700, 24-70mm f/2.8, 1/30 @ f/5.6, ISO 100

Cheetah on the Serengeti Plains

Cheetah on the Serengeti Plains

Canon 5D Mark II, 600mm f/4, 1/800 @ f/4, ISO 50

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. March 2010

As many readers of this blog may already know, 1) I don't shoot with Canon gear any longer, and 2) didn't even take a digital camera with me to Tanzania last month. So let me explain the image above. We were out on a morning game drive, and we came across this cheetah mother on the open plains. One of my generous travelers, Ben, quickly loaned me his 600mm lens on a 5D Mark II camera body, as he had a great opportunity to photograph the above female as she was moving her week-old cubs by her mouth. The 600mm was waaaaaaay too much lens for this, as she was passing only a few meters in front of our vehicle. The 'real' shot of this type of behavior was with his 100-400mm lens, and I just took his 600mm lens in the hope that she would get up on a termite mound at some point. Well, she certainly did it for me, and I ripped off a couple of quick shots. I haven't written about this before, but none of my 6x24cm panorama film worked out. It is a long and heartbreaking story for me, but the short story is that there must have been some damage to the helical focusing mechanism during transport to Africa. So at the end of my 3 weeks of safari in Tanzania I only ended up with 1 photograph that I will be able to show. I kind of have to laugh about it, because I know that I am out on safari so often that it doesn't really matter. It would massively upset me if I only go on safari once in a lifetime.

So here you have it: a cheetah on a termite mound, taken with somebody else's camera. I do have a ton of video from the safari, though. Maybe I should learn how to use Final Cut Pro.