Africa » Traverse Earth

Rugged Coast, False Bay 2

Africa, South Africa, Travel 12 Responses »

Mar 192012

I posted an image of the coastline of False Bay last week. This shot is taken just a few steps further down. Walking along the coast was interesting. We’d hopped off the train with an hour to kill before the next one arrived and our group split. Cameron and I took off up the coast towards a vantage point I’d spotted from the tracks. The others went down to the beach. One of the most striking things about walking along here was the huge numbers of mussels hugging the rocks, as well as the piles of shells of the unlucky ones.

Rugged, rocky coast of False Bay, South Africa with cliffs across the water.

The Basket Weavers

Africa, People, Rwanda, Travel 13 Responses »

Mar 172012

Most people visit Gisenyi for the gorillas and a lot of people will trek up the volcano to see them twice. At $500 for a day permit we decided we’d only go once. As I’ve mentioned before, we made the most of it by going to the largest, and hardest to reach, group.

The next day we went on a much easier hike. We departed Gisenyi and walked along a well used path that links villages to the town. On the route we passed numerous little hamlets, crops, and fish farms. Along the way we stopped and traded a child a football for his homemade version – crafted from plastic and twine. Further along, there were grids etched into the baked ground and upon asking about them, we discovered they were used for a hopscotch type game. The children demonstrated this to us and then got a good laugh as we attempted it ourselves.

Our first official stop was in a village to see how the baskets photographed below are made. We’d seen a lot of these baskets across Africa in curio markets. They were all made of thread. These seem more authentic as they are made entirely from dried dyed grass. They work with long grass and bind it together with more grass as they spiral out from the middle. They thread the grass though a needle and push it through the thick bundle. We all gave it a try and concluded it was pretty difficult to push the needle through. I think Shannon was the only person with any luck. After this attempt, and chomping on some delicious sugar cane, we decided to play with our newly purchased homemade football. We had another real football with us, earmarked for the orphanage we visited later and the children in the village looked on inquisitively as we shunned the real football to kick the homemade one around.

I grabbed this photo on the way out. I’ve had a lot of difficulty processing it for some reason. I was combining three exposures from -2 to +2 but the results kept coming out grungy. So, I decided to try processing this image from a single raw with Photomatix. This result came out much cleaner but some of the photo was still under and overexposed. To fix this I layered all of the photos I had in Photoshop and masked in selected areas from the other exposures.

Now Push This Button.

Africa, People, Travel, Zambia 3 Responses »

Mar 162012

Normally I wouldn’t include people posing for a picture in one of my shots. But, as I mentioned in a previous post, taking photos of the kids in this village was great fun! Here you can see my travel companion Chris posing for a picture as Shannon teaches a couple of the kids how to use her camera. The sky was striking and I liked the opportunity to catch a picture of the kids having fun without actually having them pose for me!

This photo is only bracketed from -1 to +1. I had to shoot handheld because if I’d set up the tripod the kids would have flocked long before I was ready to take a shot. I also needed to use a small aperture to get the whole scene in focus. If I’d gone to +2 I never would have been able to get a sharp image.

We’d brought clothes to give as a gift and as thanks for allowing us to visit. We didn’t know that we were going to be visiting this village and had actually packed very light for the safari. It was a shame as Shannon had been carrying a lot of stuff to give away the whole trip (this eventually found a home in a Rwandan orphanage). Everyone managed to pull something out, including Soniko who offered up a brand new world cup rugby jersey. But, Soniko wanted to give this to someone personally and eventually gave it to the older kid in the blue sitting down in the middle of this picture. Being selected for Soniko’s prize possession made his day and he beamed a huge smile as he received the jersey.

The Blue Hour, Lake Kivu Morning

Africa, Rwanda, Travel 13 Responses »

Mar 152012

I’ve started to really enjoying shooting in the blue hour – the hour before sunrise and after sunset. The sky gradually changes from dark blue to light blue, culminating in the sunrise and vice versa in the evening. By the time I came to take this picture getting up before sunrise had become easy. We’d gotten used to waking up at dawn while on our canoe safari and I don’t think anyone ever really adjusted back while we were in Rwanda. On top of that the church up the road began to ring its bells really early.

I hopped out of bed, anticipating a great sunrise on Lake Kivu, but it was completely overcast. Even so, I wandered around the grounds of the Paradis Malahide looking for something to shoot. I walked out onto the bluff that I used a few times to photograph the fishermen on their way out onto the lake. I took this photo early on, just as the sun began to light the scene.

Candid Moment, Gorillas in Rwanda

Africa, Animals, Mountain Gorillas, Rwanda, Travel 1 Response »

Mar 122012

HDR Tutorial!!

For those of who have been waiting on my HDR tutorial I’ve finally gotten installment one online (thank you Brooke for the gentle nudge in the comments). This will take you as far as taking photos for HDR processing . I’ll be working on the processing portion this week. I got on a pretty good roll and am hoping to continue with that momentum. Right now I’m focusing on getting step by step instructions up. I’ll be adding screen captures to make it all a bit clearer and making changes as I get questions.

Candid Moment

I concentrated on catching the gorillas eyes while photographing them. They’re so expressive and remind us how close they are to us. Despite that, I like this photo. It really gives the feeling of looking into their world, watching them go about their daily business which is how we spent most of our time with them.

Lower Zambezi Canoe Safari

Africa, Travel, Zambia 240 Responses »

Mar 102012

One of my travel mates on our recent trip to Africa, Cameron, is in the back of this canoe. In the front is George. We met him in our hostel in Livingstone and he decided to join us on the Lower Zambezi. He had just finished living in a village teaching a sports program at the local school.

Rugged Coast, False Bay

Africa, Cape Town, South Africa, Travel No Responses »

Mar 082012

The train journey to Simon’s Town has to be one of the most memorable in the world. We heard it was a picturesque trip. But for the first half we were doubtful as the train trundled through interesting but far from beautiful suburbs of Cape Town. This portion was kept interesting by the various vendors jumping on and off the train.

Then, all of a sudden we were next to the ocean, the tracks running meters from the breaking waves. The view was incredible. We passed small towns as we weaved around beaches that were dotted with colorful huts and surfers making their way to the water’s edge. Birds of all sorts flew over or rested on the rocks and occasionally a seal or two came into sight.

I decided to hop off on our return journey as the sun was setting. We got off the second last train of the day without a lot of time before the final one was scheduled. I walked up the coast a little ways and shot this picture looking back across the bay at Simon’s Town in the distance.

Zambezi Jewel

Africa, Travel, Zambia, Zimbabwe 1 Response »

Mar 062012

Waking up before sunrise is pretty easy when you’re sleeping in a mesh tent surrounded by the sounds of wild animals through the night. Light moving across the flat landscape was a welcome sign.

“You’ll hear animals through the night. They’re going to sound very close, but sound travels a long way here.”

That was the last thing our guide said to us before the group separated into their respective tents. It had been raining, a hard rain as reported in an earlier post, so our fly sheets were on. They were heavy with an almost rubbery feel. It didn’t take long until people emerged in the darkness, flashlights in hand, to remove the stifling material. The fear of another downpour led to discussions on whether to leave it on, leave them half on or take them completely off. My tent mate and I settled on taking it all the way off, but laying it down carefully so it could be pulled up rapidly if need be.

Following this we turned to the darkness. A quick waft of the flashlight revealed a disturbing number of glinting eyes – presumably hippos. Hippos that were already on land and probably only 50 meters from us – they looked back, not moving. I guess they were content to munch away on the long grass surrounding us. With this revelation we returned to our tents. Now, nothing but a thin mesh separated us from the elements, and the wild animals. To be honest, this is exactly what I was after. Why sleep in the bush if you’re just going to lock yourself away? Also, it was much cooler this way.

Just as I dozed off to sleep I was startled by the trumpeting of an elephant. It sounded like it had to be on the same island as us but I repeated the mantra “they sound closer than they are” and drifted off to sleep. I was woken regularly through the night by every noise you feel like a night in the African bush should provide. I heard hyenas, lions, more elephant trumpets, and hippos grunting. This was always punctuated by an eerie silence that you knew would be broken at any moment.

My tent-mate, however, was fortunate enough to be awake for our closest encounter. Having been on an elephant back safari just days before he was finely tuned to recognize the sound of elephant dung hitting the ground. He woke up to feel the ground moving and quickly recognized the thudding. It didn’t take long for him to conclude that an elephant was crapping right next to our tent. I asked if he’d turned on his light to take a look, but the closeness rendered him incapable of moving.

We awoke to a red sky, having survived the night, and exchanged the stories of sounds I’ve just recanted here. Then we hopped out to check the area. Sure enough, there was fresh dung right next to our tent.

Following this discovery I set about capturing the sun rise. I’ve got a lot of photos of this scene from the night before. I’m not happy with any of them. This morning, I took only one photo of this scene, and I’m thrilled by it. I find that I’m always happiest with photos I’ve had to wait to take. For this one, I identified where I thought that sun would be coming up, framed up the picture and waited. I waited for quite a while and the sky was pretty blue all the way across. I began to wonder if I’d misjudged the location of the sunrise and somehow missed it. Then the glow intensified and I knew it was about to peak over the horizon. 7 exposures later and I was packing up my gear.

Lake Kivu Fishing Boat

Africa, Rwanda, Travel 2 Responses »

Mar 052012

As the sun sets on Lake Kivu the sound of the fisherman making their way out onto the lake, rain or shine, can be heard at the Paradis Malahide Hotel. As you’ve seen in previous posts, here and here, this was a sign that it was time for me to grab my gear and run down the road to the docks.

For some reason this canoe was left behind by the fleet, which can be seen on the horizon. This was lucky for me as I’d gotten to the dock a touch later than planned. This photo allows you to see how these triple hulled canoes are held together.

This is a combination of 7 exposures bracketed from -3 to +3. I’ve started using Photoshop to align the images prior to processing in Photomatix and have been surprised to discover that, even when using my tripod, more often than not they are out of alignment.

The Empty Chair

Africa, Travel, Zambia 30 Responses »

Mar 032012

After the sun sets, beginning your first evening on the banks of the lower Zambezi things get a little eerie. You can see the bugs swirling in the light in front of you, and beyond you peer into the darkness that’s fallen over the still river. As you sit there, the silence is cut by the grunting of nearby hippos and your fellow guests tell you about the lions they saw just down the river.

We were staying in fancy en-suite tents for the night. Ours was right next to a haul-out area that was regularly used by hippos to get to land. The thought of encountering a hippo in the dark on our own was pretty terrifying. We walked everywhere with our flashlights and the one time I went to the tent and back on my own was pretty nerve-racking. It’s funny considering we were comfortable enough to steer our canoes directly at the giant beasts, confident that they’d move out of our way, just a few days later.

I’m not sure what inspired me to take this photo, but I think it’s pretty cool. It was pretty tricky to take as the deck wasn’t very stable too. Every time people move the whole deck shook, ruining that frame.

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